Category Archives: rights

Maybe

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Maybe it’s a start. Regarding the terrorist attack on the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo in Paris that was carried out by Islamic terrorists, President Barack Obama issued this statement:

I strongly condemn the horrific shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris that has reportedly killed 12 people. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this terrorist attack and the people of France at this difficult time. France is America’s oldest ally, and has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorists who threaten our shared security and the world. Time and again, the French people have stood up for the universal values that generations of our people have defended. France, and the great city of Paris where this outrageous attack took place, offer the world a timeless example that will endure well beyond the hateful vision of these killers. We are in touch with French officials and I have directed my Administration to provide any assistance needed to help bring these terrorists to justice.

Missing from this, though, is any reference to the terrorists as being Muslims or any oblique reference to that by noting that among the things those Islamic terrorists shouted during their rampage, was “We’ve avenged the honor of the prophet!” and the usual Islamic terrorist shout of “Allahu Akbar!”

Still, also missing from the statement is Obama’s usual moral equivalence temporizing by suggesting that Charlie Hebdo shouldn’t have provoked the Muslims in the first place.

Hey, it’s a new year. Maybe Obama is…changing. Condemn me for an optimist.

Separately,CharlieHebdo

Student Free Speech

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Sohrab Ahmari had an op-ed in a recent Wall Street Journal describing the travails of a Brandeis University (of their cowardice and Ayaan Hirsi Ali infamy) student because he committed the horrible crime of speaking his piece regarding Israel and a fellow…student’s…attitude to that country.

RTWT; it’s an excellent piece in its own right.

My takeaway, and Ahmari’s, is that, in order for a student to protect his own free speech rights—much less to recover any school to its duty of fostering open inquiry and debate, no matter where that debate might lead or how uncomfortable the outcome might be for students, faculty, or administration—it’s necessary to engage a lawyer and pursue the matter in open court (or in the Brandeis student’s case, convince the school that that’s where the rest of the free speech discussion will occur).

That’s expensive, and not all students will be able to afford that. A few things about this, though.

One is that the cost of generating publicity can range from cheap to free. Continue speaking out, writing letters to editors—to newspapers outside the school, also—talking to reporters and to any radio and TV station talk show who’ll listen: keep the injustice in the eye of the school’s public. The school—Brandeis, for instance—may well threaten to expel such a misbehaving student? OK. Is such a school worth the student’s time and money—especially a high-priced private school like Brandeis? Is the student really going to get a decent education at such an arbitrarily restrictive school?

Another is to demonstrate the absurdity of the “free” speech and hurt feelings rules. Conservative students should invoke the same rules, loudly, vociferously, and determinedly every time they come under fire for the things they say.

The last is go ahead and do the lawyer and lawsuit bit. There are organizations like FIRE that often are in a position to help, and there are occasional lawyers will to take on such cases at a discount or even pro bono. Even if forced to pay full freight, though, where possible, bring the suit, and bring it hard.

The Brandeis student’s case didn’t come to fruition because the student whose feewings had got hurted dropped his university beef when he realized he’d have to defend his feelings in open court. That helped the victim student, but it helped only him.

In general, I don’t think it’s useful to settle with such schools. If those administrators had any integrity, the (threat of) lawsuits to protect free speech wouldn’t be necessary in the first place, and so such administrators cannot be trusted to honor any settlements that their mouths might speak or their pens sign. Bring the suits. Don’t give quarter; those administrators aren’t offering any. Burn such dishonesty to the ground, and scatter the ashes.

Voter Suppression

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Critics of voter ID laws always cry, “Voter suppression!” and they especially cry, “Black voter suppression!”

Here are some actual facts from North Carolina’s 2014 mid-term elections—an especially stern test since voter turnout typically is lower than in Presidential elections:

  • the percentage of age-eligible, non-Hispanic black residents who turned out to vote in North Carolina rose to 41.1% in November 2014 from 38.5% in November 2010
  • [t]he percentage of black registrants voting increased to 42.2% from 40.3% in the same period
  • the black share of votes cast increased to 21.4% from 20.1%
  • [t]he absolute number of black voters increased 16%, to 628,004 from 539,646

And in another state, according to Census Bureau surveys

  • turnout among blacks of voting age in Tennessee in 2012 remained stable within the margin of error
  • [turnout] was around 4% higher than white turnout
  • [t]urnout among Hispanic voters rose.

With suppression like this, who needs get out the vote programs?

Perjury?

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This is the oath that witnesses before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requires of its witnesses, when those witnesses are sworn (and if one witness is required to be sworn, they all must be) (scroll to Rule 9, para (g)). It’s not the same oath for all committees, but it’s typical.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

I mention this because it turns out

Then-Deputy Commissioner Steven Miller wrote in an email in June 2012, about a month before a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing….

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should do [the hearing] and affirmatively use it to put a stake in politics and c4 [regarding IRS targeting of conservative organizations applying for 501(c)(4) status].”

Miller also was never directly asked about the targeting. That removes the legal aspect of perjury: Miller would seem not to have perjured himself.

But morally? Yew betcha.

The PRC’s Territorial Aggrandizement

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This is an example of the People’s Republic of China’s practice of Rule by Law, rather than Rule of Law.

Among other moves and countermoves involving the PRC’s attempts to seize and annex the South China Sea, here at the expense of the Republic of the Philippines, the latter haled the former into arbitration under the UN’s Law of the Sea Convention. The proximate case was the PRC’s military aggression against the RP over Scarborough Shoal, a collection of islands and rich fishing waters well within the RP’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

After first denying the legitimacy of arbitration at all, now the PRC is arguing that the arbitration panel has no jurisdiction in the matter because the dispute involves the PRC’s “territorial sovereignty over several maritime features in the South China Sea, which is beyond the scope of the Convention.”

Sure. The PRC has claimed the Sea, therefore the Sea is the PRC’s. By law. Because the Law of the Sea Convention doesn’t interfere with sovereign territory.