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Is There A Free Speech Crisis On The Left?

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TaraElla   May 18th, 2020

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Today, I'm going to talk about the part of the recent Micahel Shermer interview on the Rubin Report, where Shermer and Rubin discussed things around free speech. Shermer presented a history of the Left's support for free speech, from the early 20th century, through to the Free Speech movement by 1960s student activists. He illustrated that it was only more recently that the Left began to turn against free speech. I would even argue that it is an extremely recent phenomenon. Back when I was in college, the Left certainly tolerated a lot more of free speech, on issues from Bush-43's Iraq War, to gay marriage, and even rap music and video games. So, yes, I may be a lot younger than Shermer, but even I grew up in a world where the Left were relatively more tolerant of free speech and dissent than the Right. To this day, I still feel weird about some people on the Right championing free speech, while some people on the Left champion so-called 'safe speech'.But is it true that, the Left doesn't support free speech anymore, that it has become what the Right used to be, shutting down dissent and so on? I don't necessarily think so.