Whilst I don't support any of ICE's efforts but ... CAIR and this journalist complain about this on the grounds of free speech? Are these people serious?
Has anyone thought about their position for 5 seconds? There is NO islamic country with a right to free speech. Zero. Not even countries like Morocco or Turkey have anything remotely like free speech, and they're the most open Islamic countries imaginable. There are dozens of islamic countries with death penalties for criticism of islam or government (and even Morocco and Turkey have prison sentences for that). CAIR is representing these countries' interests in the US, and they are arguing for free speech protection ... in the US. Not in the over 200 countries where muslims use state violence to control speech. In the US. They are making zero efforts to protect free speech anywhere else.
Obviously no sane person can reasonably consider these people to be either engaging in free speech or protecting free speech, can they?
CAIR is an American organization established to protect the rights of Muslims in America. The people who work at this organization are, presumably, Americans by and large. So why would an American civil rights group divert its limited resources to something squarely outside its scope, especially when such advocacy would require entirely different, non-overlapping expertise in Moroccan/Turkish/whatever law?
They have a funny way of showing it. Almost all those people will be immigrants, either themselves, or they'll at the very least have family living in muslim countries. Family who'll get arrested when they're protesting their governments or religion.
Yet they really care about free speech ... in America. THAT is where the free speech problem is according to them. Am I really the only one having trouble believing that this is a genuine attitude? Oh and they only defend their version of free speech, with limits on "hate speech" (but not Sami Hamdi's kind of hate speech of course), limits on criticism of religion, and limits on criticizing middle eastern governments. You know, THAT kind of free speech. CAIR, in the US, is really arguing for limits on free speech, "against hate speech", against "islamophobia", against criticism of middle eastern governments, you know limits on the very thing free speech was created for (ie. to protect all criticism of religion and governments, especially foreign ones, but all governments, including the US one)
And who do they invite? Sami Hamdi.
Please go read his twitter stream and tell me if you believe people who hire this guy have any problem with hate speech. Oh and maybe it's just one issue, so filter out the Gaza conflict, and ... nope still hate speech, mostly about the UK. Okay, filter out the UK too. He's defending people who went "on a Jew hunt" in the Netherlands ... This guy is not a moderate in any way shape or form.
I'm sure he'll have made 5 new posts by the time this is read and they'll be another 5 posts inciting at the very least more hatred of Israeli. You may hate Trump, but let's be blunt here: this guy is thankfully powerless, but is easily a LOT worse than Trump.
If you take CAIR's attitude at face value, limits on free speech against hate speech, they'd help deport Sami Hamdi. But clearly this kind of hate speech they don't just want to allow, but protect and nurture.
What I mean is, CAIR really make themselves look really bad here. Really, really, really bad.
> if someone is seen promoting Hamas and celebrating what happened on Dec 7th, their visa should be removed.
I, too, love taking someones papers and removing them from the country over their speech. I cheer on the army of government agents scanning social media for wrongthink so that we can rid the country of anti-Israel sentiment.
Subversion or otherwise working against the national interest of a country you are in as a non-citizen is generally a bad idea. Even with a rather generous freedom of speech in the culture.
Saying you hate $NATION and that you want it destroyed is definitely saying you don't want to be there and it's probably a good idea not to have you there.
No one is arguing about the practicality of speaking out under this regime or that it'd be unwise to do so in other countries as a guest.
What is being argued is that the government doing this goes against our values as Americans. It's interesting to observe the same side (right-wingers, libertarians) hold water for these actions while they were painting social media bans as censorship and a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Maybe you didn't do that, but your comment certainly reads like a "well, technically their visa can be revoked" argument which is true, but misses the spirit of the First Amendment.
EDIT: there might be legal issues too depending on the reason for revocation but I'm not a legal expert. Most things in our constitution apply to people and not just citizens so someone visiting the US also has free speech rights.
If someone came into my home, told me they hate me, my way of life, want me dead and starts setting fires in my living room, I'm going to kick them out. It's different if their name is on the lease.
It also depends on the severity of what someone is doing... there's a difference between speech and action. Saying you disagree with the administration, vs taking hostages and seizing part of a school are different things. Saying you would like to see amnesty for those who entered illegally is different than defrauding the govt, flaunting it on social media and trying to ram a car into a federal agent.
Commiting acts of violence, making threats, committing fraud, and ramming federal agents are already against the law and not protected speech. Saying that you think October 7th was good is certainly distasteful but not any of those things mentioned above.
> If someone came into my home, told me they hate me, my way of life, want me dead and starts setting fires in my living room
This analogy doesn't hold up because it's your house, of course you have the right to keep whatever company you like. Same for social media companies. You're not the government.
The government IS the people, IE it's citizens... immigrants are guests in the nation in the analogy, illegal immigrants broke in through the window in the middle of the night.
It's called an analogy. As a citizen, this nation IS my home.
Strictly speaking, there's nothing in that constitution that says "the president shall not cancel someone's building permit after he's started building" or "the president shall not cancel someone's travel permit after he's started travelling" or anything like that.
"The president shall not cancel anyone's health insurance while they're in an ambulance on the way to hospital". The constitution does not say that either. It doesn't go into that level of detail.
It doesn't even say that when the government issues a permit (a building permit, visa to travel, a driving license, whatever) then the president can't revoke it on a whim.
I think most people would want government to be trustworthy, reliable etc., though. If you get a license to operate a business or permission to return home from a conference, you should be able to rely on having that.
it's important to remember that having a right does not mean having the right to use that right wrong. you have to use your rights right, or the government will step in and right the wrong of you wrongly exercising rights with its right to wrong you. this way our rights are preserved equally: i have the right to say what I want, and you have that very same right (the right to say what i want). It's only fair. Hell, it's only right.
when did the state of free speech rights in majority muslim nations come up? this seems to be an entirely different debate that you'd like to have, but the rest of us are talking about the erosion of free speech in america by an openly authoritarian government that has been clear that incorrect opinions will be punished and correct opinions will be rewarded. this is about an american organization in america having their speech suppressed by america.
I most align with libertarian ideals. However, I lived in China full time for 10 years and traveled to many different countries too. I can’t think of even one place I’ve visited where it would have been risk-free to openly criticize the current government leadership or their laws and culture, while I was a guest there.
That's one of the things that (previously, or hypothetically, take your pick) makes America great.
That's why this shift is so frustrating and disappointing to so many Americans. It would be like if the Vatican became protestant, or the UK suddenly stopped drinking tea.
Would you go into someone's home, tell them you hate them, want them dead and start setting fires in their living room then be surprised when they kick you out?
If I moved in with roommates and they immediately held a vote deciding that it's actually my job to do all the chores and that if I don't they're going to throw me out and actually I don't even deserve to be there so I better watch it, in the time between that happening and me securing a new residence, I'd probably tell them to eat shit and that their behavior is insane.
If another resident is constantly talking shit about all the rest and saying he thinks they should be shot and go fuck themselves and their moms should die etc etc etc but they immediately call the police on me for telling them to fuck off, saying they felt "threatened" and "unsafe" just because I was the most recent one to move in, I'd also probably say "What the fuck?" about the double standard.
I think the problem here is that it's not black and white like that, it's a bunch of not great shades of gray.
It's like having a bunch of frat bros getting rowdy at a party while the host's wife is having a mental breakdown and waving a gun around. Like the frat bro's aren't great and probably wouldn't be getting that rowdy but are they really what's ruining the vibe?
We have freedom of speech in the U.S., it's mostly that simple to start with. That said, if you are not a citizen, then speaking out against the government of your host country is generally a bad idea regardless of where you are. Coming into the US on a VISA comes with certain restrictions and understandings. Even as a permanent resident, your privileges i.e. access can be revoked.
This isn't to say you can't or shouldn't speak out against anything only that when you participate in political activism, especially when accompanying those decrying a hatred or wishing destruction of the nation you are in, there can and often will be negative repercussions.
On the global scale, the U.S. is one of the less restrictive nations on this issue. Many countries will absolutely block you at the border, imprison you for years then deport you.
As to CAIR, there are a lot of groups in the US that I think are antithetical to a free society as a whole. If it were up to me, the communist groups, antifa, neo-nazi orgs, CAIR and several other groups wouldn't exist in the US in the first place. As it stands, we have freedom of speech and that protects speech you don't like... speech you agree with doesn't need protecting. I'm not a free speech absolutist, but far more in favor of the open discussion than not, the light of day is the best disinfectant. This does not include violent acts, terrorism, or the advocation thereof.
> That said, if you are not a citizen, then speaking out against the government of your host country is generally a bad idea regardless of where you are.
Has anyone thought about their position for 5 seconds? There is NO islamic country with a right to free speech. Zero. Not even countries like Morocco or Turkey have anything remotely like free speech, and they're the most open Islamic countries imaginable. There are dozens of islamic countries with death penalties for criticism of islam or government (and even Morocco and Turkey have prison sentences for that). CAIR is representing these countries' interests in the US, and they are arguing for free speech protection ... in the US. Not in the over 200 countries where muslims use state violence to control speech. In the US. They are making zero efforts to protect free speech anywhere else.
Obviously no sane person can reasonably consider these people to be either engaging in free speech or protecting free speech, can they?