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….

This is a preview of Free Speech for Me; You Shut Up. Read the full post (247 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)

A Hidden Thought from the Republic of China

Posted on 15 February 2017 by eehines

Buried at the bottom of a Japan Times piece on the history of the Island of Taiwan that purports to recount the politics since 1947 of the island and then of the nation on the island was this bit:

On May 20, 2016, Tsai Ing-wen, the chair of the Democratic Progressive Party, was inaugurated as president of Taiwan. During her inauguration speech she said that the “goal of transitional justice is to pursue true social reconciliation, so that all Taiwanese can take to heart the mistakes of that era.”

This is a preview of A Hidden Thought from the Republic of China. Read the full post (328 words, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

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.

This is a preview of A Large Misunderstanding. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

Failure of Hate Laws

Posted on 11 January 2017 by eehines

The failure stems from an inability to define hate, but mostly it fails from the irrelevance of hate as anything other than a motivator for committing a crime. Motive, though, belongs solely in the jury box during the punishment phase given a conviction of a crime; it should not be foreordained by a Government’s attempt to define the hate or by Government’s more evident attempts to discriminate among groups of Americans and single some out for favorable treatment at the expense of other groups of Americans.

This is a preview of Failure of Hate Laws. Read the full post (457 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Snowflake as Murderer

Posted on 11 January 2017 by eehines

Dylann Roof has been convicted of the murders of nine good men and women, people he butchered in his rampage through a Baptist church.

Now he’s crying over the…unfairness…of the penalty phase of his trial. At the risk of repeating things known to those of you following along at home, Roof is defending himself during this phase, and he’s chosen to offer neither witnesses nor mitigating evidence during this phase.

This is a preview of Snowflake as Murderer. Read the full post (281 words, estimated 1:07 mins reading time)

Gerrymandering, Politics, and Race

Posted on 8 December 2016 by eehines

The (eight Justice) Supreme Court is going to take up the question of gerrymandering and Congressional districts in Virginia and North Carolina. In fact, the case the Court is hearing is narrower than that:

drawing legislative districts based on race.

Never mind that the Democrats’ Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates race-based districting: the VRA

generally prohibits reducing minority-voting power through redistricting[]

which, of course, explicitly requires race-based districting in order to “protect” that “power.”

This is a preview of Gerrymandering, Politics, and Race. Read the full post (223 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

There’s Speculation and There’s Speculation

Posted on 30 November 2016 by eehines

Kansas has a law that requires voters to prove they’re citizens—and so eligible to vote—before they’re allowed actually to vote. A Federal trial judge issued an injunction barring enforcement of the law, and the 10^th Circuit Appeals Court upheld the injunction.

After Kansas had shown that in a single county,

eleven noncitizens successfully registered to vote; and after it went into effect another fourteen were prevented from registering. These 25 cases are just the tip of the iceberg in Sedgwick County[,]

Judge Jerome Holmes, for the 10^th Circuit, wrote

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Freedom’s Just Another Word

Posted on 10 November 2016 by eehines

…as far as the PRC is concerned.

The good citizens of Hong Kong had elections for their representatives in the city-state’s Legislative Council, and two folks who participated in protests two years ago against PRC intrusion into Hong Kong government affairs were elected.

Never mind the voice of the people. They have none wherever the PRC can reach.

The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress said people elected to the city’s legislature cannot retake their oaths of office if their first attempt was invalidated for being insincere, not solemn, or deliberately misread.

This is a preview of Freedom’s Just Another Word. Read the full post (228 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

A Measure of Justice

Posted on 10 November 2016 by eehines

Recall Rolling Stone‘s article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely that accused a fraternity at the University of Virginia and the university at large of fostering a climate of rape. The article went on explicitly to accuse the fraternity’s members of participating in the gang rape of a particular woman—a woman whose rape never occurred—and it smeared (now ex-; she’s still employed by UVA, but in a different and lesser capacity) Dean of Students Nicole Eramo as being indifferent to the purported victim’s plight.

This is a preview of A Measure of Justice. Read the full post (468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Mao-ist China Returns?

Posted on 9 November 2016 by eehines

People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping has been consolidating his power and centralizing control of the PRC in his hands for a while.

Now he’s seizing more direct control of the nation’s economy. Xi has removed Lou Jiwei, the PRC Minister of Finance from office. Lou was “reform-minded” (read: more open and freely operating domestic markets with a more rational tax régime), but that conflicted with Xi’s demand for more government control over those same domestic markets. Xi has reassigned Lou to run the nation’s pension fund. The fund is in a disastrous condition; this is simply a move to set Lou up for failure and removal from government altogether.

This is a preview of Mao-ist China Returns?. Read the full post (252 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

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