It's an imitation of violence that puts the participants in the role of the aggressor. Sure, they're not going to actually arrest or deport anyone, but this is about as innocent as a mock lynching.
The legality of it has nothing to do with whether or not it's moral and good, and politics is all about deciding what's right or wrong. This event wouldn't be effective if nobody thought there was anything wrong with it. Yes. To the fullest extent. Nobody in this thread is debating whether or not they have a legal right to promote violent border control. We just think they're assholes. They, you, or anyone else shouldn't be surprised or indignant when we call them assholes. The corollary to speech is response. So when they promote violent solutions, it shouldn't be surprising or even objectionable that they receive threats of a response in kind. I never made a literal equivalency between those two, and it's disingenuous to suggest that I did.That's quite a stretch. Last I checked deportation is legal and authorized, and there's nothing wrong with staging reenactments to try and encourage increased enforcement of immigration laws.
You can put it in terms of violence and aggressor, but only to the extent that all law enforcement is violence.
That doesn't mean that members of our society can't advocate for increased enforcement or additional laws.
Just because immigration is a racially-charged issue doesn't mean that advocating for deportation = advocating lynching.
Why do you think legality has any moral weight at all? I'm not obliged to support their right to expression. In fact, as they are essentially my enemy, I'm obliged to oppose them and their propaganda efforts at every turn. It is only the government that must protect their freedom of expression. If the policy they promote is outrageous, I will be outraged at them. They aren't absolved of responsibility for the things they say simply because they have a legal right to say them. I'm not "framing their event in terms of 'violence' and 'aggressor'," that's objectively what it is. As for the University's official reaction to their protest, it's really irrelevant. Ultimately the event was only canceled out of fear of physical confrontation with counterprotestors, which I'm totally fine with. Yeah, that's definitely better. I'd also addI agree with you, but I do think legality has an affect on how innocent the event is, and how we should choose to react to it. In my mind, there's a huge difference between advocating for increased law enforcement and advocating for increased violence of an illegal sort.
I know, but neither is anyone (bar a couple posts) going out of their way to support the students' right to expression of their opinion.
I see a lot of misplaced outrage in this post, and in the media attention being given these students. If you are against deportation, go be outraged at that, organize protests and events to raise awareness. I find it downright silly to be outraged at these students and to frame their event in terms of "violence" and "aggressor" when they're simply describing something legal and common.
does this equation work any better? innocence(advocating deportation) ≈ innocence(advocating lynching)
innocence(advocating deportation) ≈ innocence(advocating lynching) ≈ innocence(advocating rape)