I posted more about this elsewhere in the thread, but I wonder how much of the poll response isn't about wanting to silence opposing views, but about perceptions of the motivations and likely quality of speakers with those views. Maybe it's more about perceived likelihood that the speaker's just going to be a professional IRL troll. I wonder if adding context that reduced the perceived likelihood of that, while leaving those statements intact, would change the results significantly.

I would not be surprised if a blind taste test of sorts were devised to compare the past free speech people long for to the free speech of people pushing intellectualized bigotry, the classics would win every time.

>> "I wonder if adding context that reduced the perceived likelihood of that, while leaving those statements intact, would change the results significantly."

I've taken a lot of research surveys that play with wording and context to test bias. It's interesting to look back at my own answers to see how framing around the questions affects the response.

If you are not interested in listening to a speaker that a group on campus invited, feel free not to attend the event. Nobody is forcing it on you.

The liberal talking points used in the survey (2nd Amendment should be repealed, religious liberty is used to justify discrimination, structural racism exists) are also just repeats of the same argument we've heard a million times over. While I agree that novelty should be an important factor in choosing a campus speaker, it's clear that most respondents to the survey don't; they support unoriginal talking points from one side of the political spectrum and not the other.

L1 is the only one I really have trouble with. L2 and L3 are in desperate need of nuance to be remotely persuasive, but that's the thing: the kids they're asking already get it without that nuance. No nuance can save C1-3.

The poll results actually seem to reflect their familiarity with the positions and the typical weakness of arguments for certain ones. I don't think it says anything about their position on free speech.

> No nuance can save C1-3.

Sure it can, at least for C1. If gender dysphoria isn't a mental disorder, then its treatment doesn't need to be covered by health insurance.

Secret third option: all medical care, including gender affirming, should be collectively funded. That includes gender affirming care for cis people like breast enhancement and Viagra. Problem solved.

Those procedures aren't "gender affirming care" in the sense as is used for treatment of gender dysphoria, though. A man who takes viagra to mitigate erectile dysfunction, or a woman who gets breast implants for either reconstructive or cosmetic reasons, isn't doing so because they want to mimic the appearance of opposite sex. Which is what the euphemism of "gender affirming care" actually means in its original context, as it is applied to trans-identifying people. Let's not pretend that these are the same type of thing.

You talk of being tired of a particular line of argument, in defense of shutting up all arguments for a particular idea. If you're tired of a particular idea, to the point of wanting to shut it out from being argued for (even in novel ways), that's called being anti-free-speech.

Have you, in fact, listened to an argumentative speech on one of those questions, or others you feel this way about? Not even counting whether some new guy could have something new to say, can you honestly be said to have heard the full-length intelligent argument for the position and found the evidence lacking? Or is there nothing being 'moved on' from at all?

>> "You talk of being tired of a particular line of argument, in defense of shutting up all arguments for a particular idea."

No. Try again.

>> "Have you, in fact, listened to an argumentative speech on one of those questions, or others you feel this way about?"

Yes.