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In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders Defends Ann Coulter [View all]JCanete
(5,272 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 24, 2017, 03:07 PM - Edit history (2)
as in explicitly inciting violence, then it is up to interpretation. If that interpretation is spun as "you just don't like what we're saying so you're calling it hate speech," that undermines us. It does not help us when we cede this kind of ground on democratic principles when such a thing is so easily spun as us being intolerant and controlling what free speech is free speech.
You are right though, when someone, who really in Coulter's case has nothing of intellectual value to say(but that's my own value judgement) is given a forum, and on a campus that people pay tuition to, what is the recourse? You are right, that "free" speech is not equally made available. I think if there's that much fervor, and that many people willing to get out there, the alternative would be to have an alternative forum, bigger and louder and to let Coulter speak to her room of fifty or so.