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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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FIRE's new lawsuit challenging the Trump admin's deportation policies over speech is pretty interesting. The press release is pretty convincing too IMO. It's not the government's job to be deciding what is and isn't "acceptable" speech outside of the obvious dangers like the true threat limitations we already have.

The First Amendment trumps the statutes that the government is abusing to deport people for speech alone

This lawsuit seeks a landmark ruling that the First Amendment forbids the government from deporting lawfully present noncitizens for constitutionally protected speech

FIRE attorney: ‘In a free country, you shouldn’t have to show your papers to voice your opinion’

One thing that also concerns me when it comes to censorship efforts from the government is the chilling effect it places on speech and voiced opinions. People here legally can agree with the Government Approved Viewpoint all they want, but you're screwed if you dissent.

“There’s real fear on campus and it reaches into the newsroom,” said Greta Reich, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily. “I’ve had reporters turn down assignments, request the removal of some of their articles, and even quit the paper because they fear deportation for being associated with speaking on political topics, even in a journalistic capacity. The Daily is losing the voices of a significant portion of our student population.”

This is especially concerning when American politics can shift so much. Government Approved Viewpoints in the Trump admin might not be the same Government Approved Viewpoints from the next president. Criticize Israel today? Bad speech. But maybe the next administration says praising Israel is the bad speech instead. At this point you might as well be saying that you simply don't get to have or voice an opinion of any kind in the country, even if you're a lawful resident who doesn't commit any crimes.

And there are lots of great people who are lawful residents/vistors to the US. Even many celebrities! People like Keanu Reeves, Celine Dion, Ryan Gosling, Hugh Jackman all essentially told to not have any opinion on anything ever in case a future admin decides their opinion was a bad opinion.

Also FIRE so far has also been an interesting insight into what principled beliefs look like. Often on the internet I'll see from both left and right wingers an excuse that it's ok to violate their claimed principles because "the other side did it first" (even though interestingly enough they often can't seem to agree which side did it first, reminds me of something else), but at that point it's hard to say it's a principle if it's abandoned so readily.

Meanwhile FIRE has been pretty consistent in criticizing both the left and right, and even defending their opponents right to speech. It's like the early ACLU protecting the rights of KKK. There are times where I think they overreach on their criticism, I believe that strong free association rights of private individuals and groups are just as fundamental to free speech as the speech itself and restrict more to government actions but even then I still respect that they're consistent.

Libertarians are most of the reason I no longer have principles. When I was younger, libertarian principles sound awesome. And it's easy to believe that the world would be a better place if everyone followed them.

Unfortunately, like most belief systems, they splatter against the real world, and my entire adult life libertarians have proven themselves to be among the many ratchets built into the system which paradoxically keeps the boot on my neck. It's not their fault. They simply don't understand the world they live in.

Part of this is that "Left Inc" as I've heard it coined, has done such an amazing job of laundering it's soft and hard power outside of any "bill of rights" framework. So you'll often see libertarians defending Corporations, Universities or NGOs for trampling your rights (It's a private entity, it can do whatever it wants!), while they condemn the government for doing the same. Or they'll be a feckless speed hump against the expansion of the welfare state, and crucial allies for open borders, ensuring we get the worse of both worlds.

Their idiosyncratic principles about the increasingly illusory distinctions between public and private actors in practice have left me at the mercy of people who hate me, and offered no succor or relief, or even a theoretical path. So I have discarded them as worse than useless, more akin to an infohazard.

Now, generally I support the causes FIRE has taken up. They've been fighting the good fight against Title IX overreach. To virtually no effect what so ever I might add though. They've helped students here and there sue for damages, but I've never seen them make a university cave and change policy. It took Trump winning the election and cleaning house at the DOE for that to happen. And wouldn't you know it, now they don't appreciate how Trump has attempted to extirpate DEI language and practices from Universities. It leaves one wondering if they actually want the Title IX policies fixed, and what methods of actually fixing them would be acceptable to them. Because their lawsuits sure and shit did nothing.

But that's libertarians in a nut shell. Their world view is that you can ask nicely for people to stop hurting you, but you aren't allowed to infringe on their "rights" to make them stop.

They've helped students here and there sue for damages, but I've never seen them make a university cave and change policy.

They shuttered the entire "bias response team" of the University of Michigan just a few years

And just recently won a policy change at George Mason University.

Anyone who has said free speech would be easy to defend would be a liar, but anyone fighting for free speech knew that from the start. You don't win by being perfect everywhere at once, you win by taking it on battle by battle.

So you'll often see libertarians defending Corporations, Universities or NGOs for trampling your rights (It's a private entity, it can do whatever it wants!), while they condemn the government for doing the same. Or they'll be a feckless speed hump against the expansion of the welfare state, and crucial allies for open borders, ensuring we get the worse of both worlds.

That's crazy, the idealogy around limiting government and protecting individual private liberty primarily wants to limit government and protect private entities. At this point it might as well be a generic "they don't agree with me about everything, I like it when they're allies but hate them when they're opposed" complaint.

Your whole comment comes off like you're against principles just because those principles sometimes come into conflict with your desires

I think the complaint is more one of prioritizing the letter of those principles in a short-sighted way, that undermines the reasons they were thought to be desirable principles. Like, if your speech rights can be trampled almost as much as if you lived in the old USSR as long as it's not government directly doing the dirty work, even if government played a large role in creating the conditions that made that possible, and libertarians are mostly standing by and letting it happen, that doesn't sound like a very libertarian world to me.