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As a person who deals with both gender and sexuality-derived bigotry because of queerness, I understand the impulse here but frankly find all the responses a tad childish. Freedom of speech is defined by the right to not have your exercise of speech punished or repressed BY THE STATE. What lies at the core of this argument is the following scenario: Activists are successfully organizing crowds to reject granting venues for certain speakers. Some of the aggrieved are facing further repercussions for their bad opinions via firing from work. When it is a matter of state compelling the excommunication, expulsion, or job termination of a certain party, that is wrong. That needs to be opposed vigorously precisely because it crosses a very dangerous line between the citizenry and the state. But when this is an engagement in the private sphere, lacking any kind of imposition or endorsement from the state (as is the case here), that's actually just another dimension of the First Amendment being exercised, FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. You as a private individual do not have the right to impose yourself onto other individuals and force their engagement with you. A Klansman does not have the right to say to me "You must grant me a forum and debate by default." Furthermore, look at the power dynamics. All the aggrieved parties in this are rich liberals with a substantial audience and access to powerful forums. Besides her rather repulsive gender politics, JK Rowling is a gazillionaire children's book author who played a predominant role in the whole Jeremy Corbyn/Labour Party "anti-semitism" fracas < https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/jk-rowling-attacks-saint-jeremy-in-biblical-tweet/>. She's a dyed-in-wool neoliberal who was thick as thieves with Gordon Brown. This is a tempest in a teapot. -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart Message: 1 Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2020 13:39:53 -0400 From: Michael Meeropol <mamee...@gmail.com> To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Freedom Means Can Rather Than Should: What the Harper's Open Letter Gets Wrong | Literary Hub Message-ID: <CAG=ZCqvUUFbV57=bqpsq4twvwa-gu8pej8wjbbxjz0mbqbb...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" So the reason this letter is no good is because it was signed by J.K. Rowling and doesn't mention the fight for LGBTQ rights? So Noam Chomsky is guilty by association? All American communists were Stalinist mass murderers by association?? All black men have to answer for a black rapist? All gay people have to answer for a single child molester? (or a mass murderer like Juan Corona) All Jews have to answer for Benjamin Netanyahu? After reading this piece, I re-read the letter very carefully to see where it denied the reality of trans people. Couldn't find it .... Even THE BELL CURVE should be attacked and refuted ---- not burned or taken out of a library --- When Steven J. Gould refuted it, he first READ it!! The writer seems to be asserting that the letter is wrong because it implicitly (or specifically) defends the right of anti-trans bigots to assert that there is no such thing as a truly trans person (ridiculous idea but there are plenty of them) --- but all it really does is caution the rest of us to resist the urge to PUNISH "wrong" speech -- that's what the OTHER SIDE does all the time and we should not give them ammunition .... https://lithub.com/freedom-means-can-rather-than-should-what-the-harpers-open-letter-gets-wrong/ > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
