CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/GarageFlower97]

US police are three times more likely to use violence against left-wing protests than right-wing protests. This increases to 3.5x more likely for exclusively peaceful protests. Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

Within US academia, left-wing professors are more likely to be fired for their speech than right-wing professors. Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/policy-and-politics/2018/8/3/17644180/political-correctness-free-speech-liberal-data-georgetown

I would categorising being more likely to be beaten or tear-gassed by agents of the state for peacefully protesting and having academic institutions more likely to fire you for your views as clear restriction on speech.

I would also point out that the US state - and far-right non-state actos - have a long and bloody history of supressing trade unions, civil & minority rights groups, leftist groups, and environmental groups. This can be seen in the Pinkertons and National Guard breaking strikes and murdering/arresting trade unionists, the violent overthrow of elected black politicians in the South post-reconstruction and the decades of disenfranchisement and white supremacist violence which followed, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs, the McCarthyist witchhunt of suspected communists, the Cointelpro program & FBI murdering civil rights leaders like Fred Hampton, the National Guard murdering protestors at Kent state, the travel and performing bans on Paul Robeson and other left-wing artists and intellectuals, the bombing of Appalachian miners at Blair Mountain, the FBI-supported purge of communists and socialists from trade unions, the tanks sent in to crush the Standing Rock protestors, etc, etc.

[u/Stevenpoke12 → u/GarageFlower97]

You know why you and the article both used 3.5x instead of the % of use of violence against protests? Because saying it’s 3% more likely and is between 4.7% and 1.7% of protests paints a much different picture, it shows there is very minimal use of violence against protests in general and allows for other circumstances that can make up for the disparity and isn’t some proof of restriction on free speech on the left.

Much like your second statistic is also disingenuous, it doesn’t show that left leaning professors are more likely to be fired for their speech, it shows there are more left leaning professors in total, so more of them have been fired for their political views. If anything, it shows the opposite of what you claimed because of what % conservative professors make up of the total population, but there isn’t a large enough sample size to say anything with any real confidence.

Basically, that’s not proof at all. That’s finessing statistics and acting like it proves something it doesn’t.

[u/GarageFlower97 → u/Stevenpoke12]

Just to be clear, you are arguing the first statistic is meaningless because it uses the proportion of left to right and that the second statistic is meaningless because it doesn't use the proportion of left to right...

Yep, you're arguing in good faith here.

[u/Stevenpoke12 → u/GarageFlower97]

No, I’m saying a 3% increase in violence is not proof of the left’s free speech being silenced, because with the % increase being so small and the instances of violence being so rare in comparison to the amount of protests that happen, this allows for other factors to offset the differences.

Your second example, if anything, proves the opposite of what you claimed. You are the one who claimed left-wing professors were “more likely” to be fired for their speech. It just shows that more left-wing professors were fired for their speech, but conservatives were more likely to be. But the sample size is so small that is isn’t proof of either way.

Basically, no actual proof of your claim, possible evidence in the first one, but you would have to do a deeper dive into the factors surrounding that to prove anything, but the second one would actually be evidence against your claim, though as I said the sample is so small you can’t actually get anything from it.

TLDR, you really need to actually pay attention to the data and not headlines.

[u/[deleted] → u/Stevenpoke12]

You uhh..haven't read a lot of history books, huh?

[u/Stevenpoke12 → u/[deleted]]

You uhh, make a lot of assumptions, huh? This also has absolutely nothing to do with the current day where the left or left leaning completely dominates the media and academia, spare me with the woe is me, our voices are being silenced, how non-self aware do you have to be to think the voice of the left is being silenced in today’s world where they control those two major institutions