| Protest, sure. Block? That's a very dangerous road to go down and I disagree with it. If some controversial talk is happening, and an opponent attempts to get the event shut down, then that represents an attack on the rights of the speaker to speak and the rights of the speaker's audience to listen to the event. I'm particularly interested in the events surrounding Richard Spencer's speech last night at Auburn University. This was a case where, after having set up an event, Spencer had been disinvited by the university due to concerns about "safety." A federal judge found that this was not a legitimate reason to shut down the event and demanded that Auburn dedicate police resources to protecting the speaker and attendees: - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opinion/richard-spencers-... - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/04/1... Regardless of the content of Spencer's speech, this was absolutely the right course of action. It was found that the threats to physical safety were not coming from the white-nationalist side, but from black-bloc anti-fa types protesting and disrupting the event. This is the concept of the "heckler's veto": Group A has a speech/rally at Location X, but Group B disrupts using threats/violence. When Group A attempts to have a speech at Location Y, Group B uses threats of violence to shut down the event because Location Y doesn't want to deal with the possibility of violence. In effect, one group is able to be shut down due to the threats of an opposing group. In such a case, it's important for the health of free speech in general that such precedents are not allowed to continue. Here, a public university was (rightfully, IMHO) compelled to host an event despite threats coming from the event's opponents because to give in would be to legitimize those threatening shut-down tactics to the detriment of everyone's free speech. Now I'm sure the specifics of this case also rested on the fact that Auburn is a public university and thus has more responsibilities to serve as a platform for speech than a private institution would. But it's good to see the delegitimization of street-brawl tactics that the court decision represents. I'm worried about a future in which leftists and rightists physically fighting or threatening to do so becomes the new normal. |
To be clear: any sort of physical violence, threats, or anything like that are not acceptable responses to speech. (I agree with everything you said after the first paragraph).
Nonviolent means of blocking, though — boycotting, (peaceful) protesting, writing letters, making calls — are totally legitimate means to block people from speaking at a certain venue.
Freedom of speech means that the government can't try to prevent you from saying anything. It doesn't grant you a time, place or means to say anything. Richard Spencer will find a place to speak. But it's in our best collective interest to all push him as far away from our own venues as we can.