Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his call to ban pro-Palestinian groups from Florida state colleges Sunday, after one of his Republican presidential primary opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy, slammed the demand as “a shameful political ploy.”

“It’s unconstitutional. It’s utter hypocrisy for someone who railed against left-wing cancel culture,” Ramaswamy posted on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday, alleging that it violates students’ right to free speech.

DeSantis held firm Sunday.

“This is not cancel culture. This group, they themselves said, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, that they don’t just stand in solidarity that they are part of this Hamas movement,” DeSantis said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

  • Thief_of_Crows
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    1 year ago

    Hamas is the only group meaningfully defending Palestine from the attempted genocide. Not at all like the KKK. They would only be like the KKK if they were doing it unprovoked. Palestine has a right to defend itself against genocide, and the only way that seems to work in Israel’s eyes is killing Israelis. Peace is not a language that genocidal states understand.

    • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      Hamas is the only group meaningfully defending Palestine from the attempted genocide. Not at all like the KKK. They would only be like the KKK if they were doing it unprovoked. Palestine has a right to defend itself against genocide, and the only way that seems to work in Israel’s eyes is killing Israelis. Peace is not a language that genocidal states understand.

      Hamas directly provoked the current outbreak in violence by murdering over 1,400 Israelis. Mostly civilians, and many of them elderly and children. They took 120 hostages.

      Hamas aren’t freedom fighters - they’re terrorists.

        • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          Who’s says it wasn’t provoked?

          Intentionally murdering civilians is still terrorism. It’s wrong when Israel does it, it’s wrong when Hamas does it.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            The implication from your statement is Hamas provoked the attack through an unprovoked action. It’s implied that you’re justifying Israel’s genocide because Hamas provoked them. However, Hamas was provoked as well. Is their attack justified?

            • jj4211@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Considering he said “It’s wrong when Israel does it”, it doesn’t sound like he is justifying Israel’s genocide.

              If Hamas were attacking IDF facilities, ok, that would seem to be a desperate move that could be seen as provoked. I could perhaps understand that approach.

              Hamas instead striking innocent civilians cannot be condoned.

              Neither can we condone Israel going scorched earth without regard for collateral damage. We should be sick to our stomachs every time an Israeli representative responds to a question about mitigating civilian casualties with “It is simply imperative that Hamas be destroyed” clearly showing they are perfectly fine with Palestinian casualties.

              We can recognize that both sides are culpable for their actions. We can recognize several opportunities for peace that have cropped up, but failed to some key extremist Zionist or Palestinian keeping it from happening.

              So sick and tired of folks that need to see one side or the other as unambiguously justified when ESH.

            • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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              1 year ago

              You’re reading a lot into what I said that isn’t there.

              Israel isn’t justified. Hamas isn’t justified. They’re both murderous bastards and civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, are being killed.

          • Thief_of_Crows
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            1 year ago

            So what should Palestine have done, just rolled over and let them continue slaughtering them?

            • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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              1 year ago

              The real slaughter started after Hamas murdered a thousand civilians.

              How can you justify killing innocents to achieve a political goal?

              • Thief_of_Crows
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                1 year ago

                Oh, do palestinian lives not matter or not count? Or are you really so stupid you believe all Israeli propaganda? Because reality is that the “real slaughter” started decades ago, and has been done entirely by Israel.

              • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                1 year ago

                I don’t know how you can justify it. Ask Israel. They have killed dozens of Palestinians for every Israeli killed prior to this attack. I wonder what we’re up to now…

                • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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                  1 year ago

                  You can’t. Israel don’t have the moral high ground here.

                  The slaughter of one group provides no moral justification for murdering another.

      • Thief_of_Crows
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        1 year ago

        No, Israel provoked that attack by committing 30 years of war crimes on Gaza, and attempting to steal all of their land. What exactly would YOU have done in reaction to an enemy intentionally starving your people for 30 years? I know that compared to how America would have reacted, Hamas is a full on pacifist

        • Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          NOT murder civilians, including children and babies?

          There’s no justification for murdering innocents, no matter who does it.

          • yuriy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            i like to believe they’re still trying to type up a response that justifies killing civilians without actually saying it outright

            • Thief_of_Crows
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              1 year ago

              Nope, killing Israeli civilians is justified. Ideally they kill soldiers, but any Israeli they find is good. Remember, the IDF has compulsory service. So all of them are guilty of the genocide. But a better reason is that, since the US made them overwhelmingly powerful, it would be absurd to expect Gaza to fight back along traditional lines of warfare. Whatever they are capable of doing to hurt the people genociding them is justified.

          • Thief_of_Crows
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            1 year ago

            Israel will not respond to peace. If they don’t kill every Israeli they can, Israel will genocide them. It is downright absurd to suggest Gaza is beholden to any traditional rules of warfare in the face of genocide.