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sundin13 on 26 March 2019
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EricHiggin said:
sundin13 said:

I mean, you seem to have stated that you think that certain protests should not be allowed because of how disruptive they are. Is that not correct?

But regardless, what this whole conversation comes down to is the following:
-The issues with "equal time" on campuses are not issues with free speech, because a platform is not a right.
-As such, an executive order protecting "free speech" does not address the core issues and is either redundant or overstepping.

There doesn't seem to be much disagreement about either of those points (or at least not that has been expressed thus far).

I stated the campus security tends to be the one's who have to take care of unruly protests, since based on my prior explanation, the speakers themselves very rarely call for that because it would be silencing free speech, regardless of how peaceful it is or typically not. If you think it's ok to talk over someone else to the point that their free speech is significantly hindered, then there is no point in having a right to free speech, and there sure isn't a point to pushing for equality. If that was the case, then people shouldn't care about things like when the Prez wants to ban members of the media, because if all the Prez is going to do is interrupt and talk over the press, then why bother allowing them to speak? Maybe the Prez should ignore the speech of all the media members he doesn't like. Why give them all a platform, an equal one at that?

I pointed out how the silencing of individuals on campuses would push other schools to just forget about allowing those types of speakers on theirs, largely to simply avoid conflict and headaches. Therefore, by continuing to allow students to shut down free speech, it makes the problem worse. By putting repercussions into place for allowing that to happen, the idea is for the schools to enforce peaceful protest that doesn't inhibit free speech, helping to resolve the problem. I'm not sure where the idea comes from that this will solve the problem in it's entirety. How many orders or bills solve an entire problem all at once? Not many.

The right of free speech as guaranteed by the constitution refers to restrictions to the Government's ability to write laws which would hinder speech. It does not refer to people interrupting each other, or otherwise talking over each other. There is no right to not being interrupted, and those interruptions are also speech. You could argue that it is impolite for a private citizen to shout over someone else, but you could not argue that it was unconstitutional.

For those same reasons, speaking about the freedom of the press in the context of the President is not a sound comparison because the President is acting as an agent of the Government, not as a private citizen. And similarly, the freedom of the press does not provide the press with unhindered access to private citizens.

Again, an order protecting free speech on campuses would not address this issue, because free speech is not the same as the provision of a platform, and in order to "protect" someone's free speech in the manner you wish, they would have to combat other speech.