Maybe the Berkeley
riots and fires of 2017 – called “leftists destroying their own
communities”, even though only a small area was burned - were in
response to people who are known to routinely dox people, demanding
the right to surreptitiously out vulnerable people to mobs of angry
xenophobia-trendies.
Milo Yiannopoulos's
speech was blockaded by anti-Alt-Right and anti-fascist protesters
because Yiannopoulos had become infamous for speaking ill of
transgender people, undocumented immigrants, and others. In late 2016 in Milwaukee, Yiannopoulos publicly named a transgender
individual, and publicly mocked that person for filing a Title IX
complaint about discriminatory bathroom access rules at the
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. According to The Independent
(UK), protesters at Berkeley argued that Yiannopoulos had
threatened to out undocumented immigrants.
Yiannopoulos denied
those claims. But whether that accusation is true or not, outing
transgender people or undocumented immigrants, and spreading personal
information about them, does potentially threaten their safety,
especially if done in a mocking way. This behavior not only hints
that such people should be targeted; it creates every element
of a realistic, credible, and possibly even imminent risk of
violence, by giving potential attackers virtually all of the
information they will need to successfully target the vulnerable
person who has been outed.
I am not totally
convinced of ideas like "fighting words", "suicide by
cop", nor even necessarily "hate speech". But I do
firmly believe that only speech which does not advocate harm against
others should be protected.
And telling a crowd
of people the location and previous name of a transgender person, or
telling a crowd of students that an undocumented immigrant attends
their school and giving out their name and address, would look like
deliberate attempts to provoke and incite people to commit acts of
violence to me.
While Yiannopoulos,
Richard Spencer, and others in the Alt-Right have not exactly done
that, they have helped to
create an environment in which speech that incites violence is being
increasingly accepted, and arguably even normalized, and thought of
as part of our freedom of speech, and thus deserving of protection by
the authorities.
All
of this demonstrates the purposes of the 4th
and 9th
Amendments to the Constitution perfectly; that we are supposed to
remain secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects; that our rights do not come from a piece of paper; that we have the right to live without constantly having to show our papers to the authorities; and that we ought not have the obligation to reveal things about our
identity which could endanger us. Especially when we are just trying
to use the restroom.
Post-Script:
Please click the link below to watch Milo Yiannopoulos dox a transgender student in late 2016 in Milwaukee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CulQgP8JZKs&feature=youtu.be
Click this link to read about reactions:
http://www.thecut.com/2016/12/milo-yiannopoulos-harassed-a-trans-student-at-uw-milwaukee.html
Click this link to watch the full video (the relevant part of the video begins at the 49:52 mark):
http://youtu.be/-t1ufzttyUM
Post-Script:
Please click the link below to watch Milo Yiannopoulos dox a transgender student in late 2016 in Milwaukee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CulQgP8JZKs&feature=youtu.be
Click this link to read about reactions:
http://www.thecut.com/2016/12/milo-yiannopoulos-harassed-a-trans-student-at-uw-milwaukee.html
Click this link to watch the full video (the relevant part of the video begins at the 49:52 mark):
http://youtu.be/-t1ufzttyUM
Originally Written on August 24th, 2018
Edited, and Post-Script Added, on February 15th, 2019
