Ok; just a couple of days ago you make the argument - or at least link to someone who does - that the way to fight `bad' speech is good speech. It's still on the main page -- both in the Prop8/Momon stuff and w/rt Siddiqui's Star column.
So now Queen's does exactly this -- hires people to call people on their bullshit, and maybe even make them feel uncomfortable if they say something stupid. Not rules-based enforcement, but exactly fighting speech with speech. But now it's `restricting freedom'.
Do you have *any* actual *principles* on this issue other than ``The right and bigots should be able to say whatever they want, but the lefties shouldn't?''
"We are trained to interrupt behaviour in a non-blameful and non-judgmental manner,"
Of course I'm in favour of free speech - even to the point of allowing these facilitators. Of course I will also exercise my freedom of speech to tell him/her to sod off.
What's the over/under that these "facilitators" get their asses kicked within 2 weeks?
Posted at 2008-11-19 08:06:38 [PermaLink]``What's the over/under that these "facilitators" get their asses kicked within 2 weeks?''
Ah, there we go; the more genuine universal authoritarian approach to free speech - violence against speech you don't like.
I got accosted at the U of T for calling a brightly coloured, flowery, silly piece of art "gay". For the record I'm pretty sure that I wasn't using the 50's connotation, but that reply would have been a cop out.
I simply explained that they had every right to dictate my language in their presence as long as I was allowed to tell them how to behave when they were in my presence. With every new rambling explanation of their position, I "took offense" to something they said and asked them to restate their claim in acceptable terms. I even asked them to stop nervously shifting from foot to foot as I felt that they were "mocking my vertigo".
They lasted about a minute, then I went back to my original art critique with a loud "Well, that was gay" and heard nothing more about it.
As long as nobody gives them extraordinary powers of enforcement, I think that this will cause relentless amusement for frat boys and other miscreants.
Geeze, Jonathan, lighten up. I'm just tryin' to get a bet down, I'm not raising the bloody banner of fascist oppression, man...
What, you don't think busy-body buttinskis will get punched? Where did you go to school?
And how about 10 bucks?
John B's right. IF we have free speech, the "facilitators" are free to object to it -- and then we are free to tell the facilitators where to go, and what to do when they get there.
Posted at 2008-11-19 08:38:51 [PermaLink]``I got accosted at the U of T for calling a brightly coloured, flowery, silly piece of art "gay".''
Oh, no! *Accosted*? They grabbed you? Or threatened you with jail? Threatened your job, or your livelihood?
No? They just told you that you were kind of being a jerk and moved on?
I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this when I was a kid. When exactly, between the 70s and now, did the right wing turn into such a bunch of delicate crybabies?
"I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this when I was a kid. When exactly, between the 70s and now, did the right wing turn into such a bunch of delicate crybabies?"
You are an ass.You support Stalinesque efforts at behavioural modification, than blanch when people vehemently oppose it..
You have alternately accused the right of being bullies or crybabies in just a few posts.Which is it?
Since when has it been deemed the left's business to interfere in anyone's private conversation?
The other posters are right, these young cadres would do well to learn the proper technique of surround and bully as practiced by Pol Pot's followers.What's next? Shaming caps and beatings with rods?
I'm not sure of the reaction of some students today, however if the language police or the pc crowd had attempted this in my day they would have received a groin injury.
Having said that, I know some young people who are attending university near here, and I suspect we will be hearing more about this, and boots in the groin
The sticking point here is, what authority do they have? If they're just being obnoxious pc idiots, than best of luck...but wear a cup.
If, on the other hand, this is an Admin effort to stifle 'free speech', than "To the barricades!"
I mean, come on, telling people they're being jerks is a time honoured pastime; telling them that they're at risk of being expelled is a whole
'nother matter. Hall monitors indeed. (Who'd want the job, fercrissake?)
Jonathon; the reason the "right wing" gets upset is because they/we understand EXACTLY where this is headed. You obviously aren't clear on the concept. Remember this item?
[External Link]
Please don't come back with "That's over there; this is here" or some similar defense. The motivation is EXACTLY the same.
Jonathan perfectly illustrates how clueless leftwing people are about free speech.
See Jonathan, when we say combat bad speech with good speech, it means letting people argue about things between themselves, not under the coercion of a third party Commissar like these "facilitators". Free speech is exactly this...free from interference and free of politically-correct dogmas and ideas. Do we draw a line somewhere? Of course, I think most agree that incitement to commit acts of hatred cross the line. But it should be allowed to say whatever we feel about gay lifestyle, Muslim extremism, abortion or any other topic without fearing that the person we are speaking to actually is the undercover thought gestapo.
Simple enough, no?
Wow, Johnathan. You sure do have a different perspective.
The whole point of my post was to illustrate just how ineffective this type of intrusion is. Also to point out that people already do this for free.
I'm not against the idea, I'm all for the casual employment of university students. I just think that they'll end up being (verbally) abused because, barring hiring the football team, they're going to very short on authority and their job description is essentially "go out and beg to be abused".
As Dan points out, if they did have any authority there would actually be a problem, but they don't so it's funny.
My primary concern with this is that these people are HIRED to do this. They are also being taught exactly what topics/thoughts/words are considered forbidden. These facilitators are not people expressing their own opinions or consciences, these are enforcers of the opinions of the whatever committee the University employs to decide what thoughts are correct. At this point it's no longer free speech, these are the thoughts of the state (ok, University committee). Even if the facilitator agrees 100% with what words are forbidden, the line between them acting as private citizens and as an arm of the University is removed.
If they are given no powers other than a pass to be an ass, then how long before they start asking for power to make people listen to them, or some way to punish the offenders?
Or will these facilitators already have powers (ie they are resident assistants or some such thing) and can then abuse their existing powers and look for trumped up charges with which to punish people. Much like the traffic cop that follows you around town waiting for you to go 1 km over the limit and then pounce on you.
Jonathan, apples are not oranges. In the case of proposition 8 one was dealing with legislation. In the case of the monitoring of private conversations, one is dealing with curtailment of the right to express one's opinion privately. It's the public domain versus the private domain.
Posted at 2008-11-19 13:56:42 [PermaLink]this is only the first step, the next step is to have "facilitators", in Tim Hortons, Wal Mart, the street etc; I'm sure that would make Jack Layton and his little minions happy
Posted at 2008-11-19 15:19:22 [PermaLink]Hey, perhaps we could come up with a nicely designed brown shirt collection for our 'facilitators'. Not too campy, of course, no sharp S's in the collars. OK, maybe two. [F*ck! To think tax-payer dollars goes to these re-, er, bastards.]
I promise you, if the new Thought Police were selling Religion or Honour or Personal Responsibility, the funding would evaporate in a day.
Dara had the right approach: Get in their face with their own hypocrisy and make it embarrassing. [I can't believe I just said that.] In the mean time, letters to the School demanding the decommissioning of the Thought Police - regardless of what they're selling - would be in order.
Whatever happened to the concept of a University being a forum for ideas, a centre of debate, a freewheeling scrum of dissenting opinions?
Don't they (the Chancellor and his minions) realize they're condemning the institution to a slow but sure demise? That last bit was rhetoric...
"The Kingston university has hired student facilitators to step in when they overhear homophobic slurs, remarks bashing women or racially tinged insults, along with an array of other language that could be deemed offensive."
I wonder if Christian-bashing makes the "deemed offensive" list?
Not likely.
If the F-word is deemed offensive, the Hall Monitors are going to be very very busy...:)
Posted at 2008-11-19 22:43:39 [PermaLink]"... university has hired student facilitators ..." Another argument for private medical care.
Cheers
As a Queen's alum I have been getting increasingly concerned with the decisions made by the administration in the last few years. The one good thing about this is it is causing some of friends to stop their (not insignificant) donations to the school and write letters to the admin explaining why they will not be donating for the next few years. Hopefully, more people start calling the admin out on their stupid and futile actions.
Posted at 2008-11-20 03:52:50 [PermaLink]Expect to see a sudden increase in explicit graffiti in the washrooms and corridors of Queen's. After all, they can't "consequence" you if they have no clue who you are. . .
Posted at 2008-11-20 07:07:15 [PermaLink]As an alum, I told the Queen's fundraiser years ago that due to stuff like this I would never ever give t Queen's. She was quite polite and they have never asked me again.
Posted at 2008-11-20 07:34:41 [PermaLink]And this move against the word 'homo' by an instution called 'Queens'?
It's just retarded!
I was in Kingston during the summer of '75 when the university's gay community were getting organised.
They had yet to come up with a name.
Someone suggested "Queens Queens" and we all laughed.
How times have changed
Everyone is so friggin' anal these days.
And what about the ole Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire classic "The Gay Divorcee"?
Can ya still show it on campus
When does a private conversation become public?
[External Link]
[last para.]
Dawg, check-in with your dawgcatcher, my latest/greatest comment is awaiting deletion.
Posted at 2008-11-21 06:26:15 [PermaLink]I think the entire thing is a bit silly. The word gay has evolved from originally meaning 'happy' to now mean something like 'stupid' or 'lame' when something 'is gay'
At some point in the middle it referred to 'homosexual' which isn't it's origin or current meaning (most people's current meaning)
You cannot fight the adoption of words, that's a hopeless battle at best.
If gay now mean 'lame' and fag now 'person doing something lame' then people should get over the old meaning instead of wasting money trying to fight nothing.
That an organization would *hire* people to decide what is or isn't publicly acceptable to say is beyond presumptuous. Have we as a society in the past not decided as a group what is or isn't acceptable to say in polite conversation? Are there not already words we don't use? Seems to me society already has a mechanism for deciding what we are and aren't allowed to say.