Censorship

Posted on 14 June 2017 by eehines

The Chinese Communist Party’s powerful disciplinary wing is taking aim at the country’s internet censors for not pushing a party-line agenda, saying they were “irresolute” in implementing the policies of President Xi Jinping and “not trying hard enough to ensure political security.”

Read: political purity.

…authorities now want people to become absorbed by politics as defined by the party.

“If you let people get too sucked into entertainment, no one will care about what the leaders are saying. If you don’t do this [crackdown], no one will watch the ‘Network News,'” he said, referring to the staid evening news program of the official state broadcaster, China Central Television.

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A First Amendment Beef

Posted on 8 June 2017 by eehines

This one, I think, is a bad beef. A Columbia University club known as the Knight First Amendment Institute, styling themselves a First Amendment advocate organization, has taken notice of the fact that President Donald Trump has blocked some folks from his personal twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, an account he’s had since well before the campaign and his election. The Director of the Institute, Jameel Jaffer, wrote a letter to “the Trump administration” claiming that the Constitution “requires” those accounts to be unblocked.

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Really!?

Posted on 3 June 2017 by eehines

The CTL-Left Mayor of Portland, OR, is at it now. He wants the Feds and organizers of a couple of Trump rallies to shut down those rallies.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Monday that the “alt-right demonstrations” would only fuel hatred and fear during a time of tragedy.

Never mind that these are pro-Trump rallies that have nothing to do with the NLMSM’s imaginary alt-right.

Never mind that Wheeler clearly wants to impose his concept of free speech: feel free to speak what Wheeler personally approves. And no other word.

Wheeler is claiming

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Heckler’s Veto

Posted on 19 May 2017 by eehines

It’s alive and well in Canada, too. A Canadian named Lorne Grabher had a vanity license plate on his car, one that he’s had for 25 years. The plate had his name, GRABHER. You’d think there’d be no problem here, both on its face and from the fact that there’s been no problem for that quarter century.

But no.

The Toronto Sun, as cited at the link, says that “at least one person complained” about that plate, and that’s all it takes. One special snowflake with more time on her hands than productive work decided she was going to be offended by the plate—she decided it reminded her of then TV star Donald Trump’s remark about where to grab women—and she went crying to the Canadian authorities. Those authorities agreed with her.

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The Gulag

Posted on 10 April 2017 by eehines

…is back and in full force in Russian-occupied Crimea. Russian dissidents—Tatars, this time—are being “diagnosed” as insane and locked away in “psychiatric” hospitals.

Since the annexation of the region three years ago many ethnic Tatar activists who oppose the occupation have been arrested and subjected to abuse and imprisonment in outdated mental institutions, said Robert van Voren, a Dutch human rights activist and political scientist.

“The number of cases has increased considerably over the past few years, in particular against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian activists who oppose Russia’s annexation,” he added.

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The NLMSM’s Hurt Feelings

Posted on 27 February 2017 by eehines

The Trump administration had a press gaggle Friday. A gaggle is a press pool that is a subset of the press who then participate in a press conference, and the members of the pool are responsible for getting the content of the conference to the rest of the press. The Friday gaggle was an expanded one in that, in addition to the pool itself, additional members of the press were explicitly invited to participate—which of course means yet other members, the vast majority of the press, were not explicitly invited to attend.

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Free Speech for Me; You Shut Up

Posted on 21 February 2017 by eehines

University of Chicago pupils (I can’t call them even students in the scale of pupil-student-scholar) are objecting to non-Left speakers being allowed on “their” campus.

The [pupils] objected to the school’s Institute of Politics’ invitation to former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. They claim that allowing him to speak “normalizes bigotry” and provides a platform for fascism.

These precious ones are actively ducking away from a clear opportunity to “denormalize bigotry” by running away from him.

The coalition of students from U of C Resists, Graduate Students United, Students Working Against Prisons, and UChicago Socialists claim that the school’s “commitment to free expression doesn’t require the institution to host him….

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Cowardice? Or Tyranny?

Posted on 4 February 2017 by eehines

Earlier in the week, Breitbart News Editor Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley, but the institution (I can’t call it a school) canceled his appearance two hours before its start because protestors enrolled in the institution protested, violently with fire and smoke bombs.

Security allegedly was present, but the violence and damage occurred anyway. UC Berkeley issued a statement about its decision that said, in part,

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence and unlawful behavior that was on display, and deeply regret that those tactics will now overshadow the efforts to engage in legitimate and lawful protest against the performer’s presence and perspectives[.]

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A Large Misunderstanding

Posted on 2 February 2017 by eehines

A Wall Street Journal article about Breitbart writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos and his impact on college campus views of free speech opened with a widespread misunderstanding.

The tour by Milo Yiannopoulos is sparking reaction from more groups than any recent speaker has on college campuses, heightening tensions between free speech and public safety.

There is no tension between free speech and public safety, though: there is no public safety without free speech. The relationship between free speech and public safety is not only—not even primarily—concerned with people whose feelings get hurt, or people legitimately insulted, and who then act out emotionally and dangerously. The relationship is centered on Government’s ability to control what will be spoken or done and the threat that those abilities represent to public safety.

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The Bias of the Press

Posted on 23 November 2016 by eehines

It’s going to continue, as Howard Kurtz, writing for FoxNews has recognized.

Many in the media, mostly on the liberal side, have come up with a verb that captures their disgust at the man who will be America’s 45th president.

It’s a word that clearly signals that they will remain in opposition, in a state of perpetual outrage, that, in truth, they don’t fully accept the results of the election.

Donald Trump, they say, should not be normalized.

Especially that perpetual outrage part. That’s not normal; that’s pathology. Here’s Slate, as cited by Kurtz, describing the typical NLMSM and its refusal (not inability) to accept Donald Trump as the duly elected next President:

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