And most of the Bill of Rights is about government vs. citizens, not citizen vs. citizen. When citizens come into conflict — say, my right to play music (or political speeches, or whatever) at 90 dB at 3am — the laws that exist to curtail that are a matter of balancing my rights against another person's. If I were…

Yeah. To be sure I don't think they should be allowed to speak because "the right to free speech is a sacred principle" or some such crap, because there are limits on all rights, and these tools are out to do nothing but cause harm. Most speech might deserve protection on principle, but not theirs.

So, that Portland Trump rally that is only coincidentally following on the heels of a white supremacist killing a couple of people trying to stop him from harassing a couple other people … I wonder if this is the right response:

I gotta ask, were you bitten by a radioactive CaptainAmerica?

As a Hillary supporter who has often been called a puppet of Wall Street — and worse — yes I know it does happen on lesser offenses. But this is a country where racism is on the rise, if anything, and there are a lot of people who genuinely deserve to be called on their crap.

Let's maintain some perspective here: people who are sympathetic to Nazis ARE human garbage. It used to be a point so widely accepted that we never really had to discuss it much. Hell, we had to firebomb Dresden for people to start thinking that maybe we should tone it down.

That, and so many others. There is so much "Community" to love.

There was an episode of "Community" which covered this point perhaps a little more anviliciously (but still well, and appropriately for "Community"). Troy had just turned 21, they went to a bar to celebrate, the "adults" in the group (primarily Jeff and Britta) turned drunk and stupid, and it was Troy who proved…

"Xan and her friends won't view any of these things the same way when they're Kimmy's age; it's silly that it needs to be said at all, but it's normal for college-aged girls to not fully understand feminist theory, or know how to reconcile it with their equally normal desire to look hot and get drunk and have fun…

"which could be an interesting message if it weren’t conflated with this half-baked critique of performative wokeness"

Fred Clark over at the Slacktivist blog talks about this a lot. As he puts it in one post, the "inerrant' "Biblical" view on abortion is newer than the Happy Meal.

Mondasian Cybermen look the way they do because the "Doctor Who" producer told his mom that morning, "by the way, we need some robot costumes for the show tonight".

"If my point is that it's impossible to consistently defend free speech at the same time, defend what is going on on college campuses, how else am I supposed to prove my point, by challenging you to do so, and then pointing out why such arguments are right, wrong or evasive?"

Fine, you didn't go in the direction I expected you to, fair enough. Maybe you should quit trying to Socratic Dialogue me into a trap so you can "gotcha!" me, and just make your point.

KB has figured out how to make pretty damn good turkey sausage! Now KB can eat all the sausage he wants guilt-free and cheap — and when it comes to sausage, I'm all about guilt-free and cheap.

The bad faith goes both ways. From my perspective, YOU are the one who is trying to argue that being a numerical minority, by any standard, means roughly the same thing (i.e., being worthy of defense and support on campuses).

I'm the one who is arguing laws should be written in a fashion that will foster principles we generally agree on, and should be interpreted in a way consistent with principles we generally agree on. The one complication I'm introducing is the one that anyone who has ever tried to live by principles has noticed:…

"primarily a minority group on college campuses"

Sigh. Perhaps we should establish a system of government where we elect officials, including legislators and judges, to write and interpret laws that we collectively feel are in the best interests of us as individuals and as a society, balancing principles in a fashion that lead to the best possible outcomes for as…

Overall we've done a poor job of it; things have been pulling towards "better" over the past couple hundred years, but damn it's like pulling teeth.