When the New York Times advocates suppression of speech

Jazz Shaw:

Delving even deeper into the recent spate of conservative speakers either being cancelled by liberal colleges or winding up being attacked if they show up, a few truths emerge. One of them is that everyone in the media is obligated to play the same game, putting on a stern face, clucking their tongues and saying of course we don’t want these speakers shut out. Yes, everyone believes in free speech to a point – or at least claims to – but many of them then go on to explain why the events just can’t take place. It’s for the safety of the speakers, don’t you know. Or the safety of the students. Or the protesters. Or… somebody. It’s not that we don’t want them to speak, you see, but you have to think about the children.

This tiresome trend may finally be breaking thanks to Ulrich Baer at the New York Times. This brave soul is ready to break cover and come out and say what so many liberal journalists are afraid to utter. No… we don’t want conservative speakers showing up at these schools and we’ve even got a rationalization as to why this is a perfectly acceptable approach. You see, if there’s a class of snowflakes who have been insufficiently represented in the past, then they don’t need to be exposed to contrary thoughts. Besides, the views of the conservatives are available online if anyone wants to read them so there’s no need to come to our school and blather on about it.

Some things are unmentionable and undebatable, but not because they offend the sensibilities of the sheltered young. Some topics, such as claims that some human beings are by definition inferior to others, or illegal or unworthy of legal standing, are not open to debate because such people cannot debate them on the same terms.

The recent student demonstrations at Auburn against Spencer’s visit — as well as protests on other campuses against Charles Murray, Milo Yiannopoulos and others — should be understood as an attempt to ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people, rather than censorship. Liberal free-speech advocates rush to point out that the views of these individuals must be heard first to be rejected. But this is not the case. Universities invite speakers not chiefly to present otherwise unavailable discoveries, but to present to the public views they have presented elsewhere. When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good.

If you read this verbal dancing through a minefield of self-validation for too long your head will be spinning. The essence of it is that certain groups of individuals who are more deserving of protection should not be exposed to contrary opinions because those opinions are inherently false and do nothing to add to the discussion, while causing harm of some sort to the listener. The obvious pitfall in that “logic” is that someone has to make the determination as to which opinions are not open to debate because they are harmful.

Wesley Smith picks up on this obvious logical fallacy at National Review and runs with it.

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