College was once about preparing boys and girls to become men and women, not least through a process of desensitization to discomfiting ideas. Now it’s just a $240,000 extension of kindergarten.
Brett Stephens. What he said.
From the Volokh Conspiracy, via The Washington Post.
In a then-latest in a long line of speech intolerance in the name of tolerance (is this what they’re teaching in these institutions of “higher” “education” these days?), ex-Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, chose to withdraw from giving the commencement speech at Haverford this spring (just what do these pupils think they’re commencing on receipt of their parchments of achievement?). A loud minority of pupils and putative professors objected to Birgeneau’s use of police to break up an Occupy protest while he was at Berkeley, on the odd theory that it’s somehow inappropriate to enforce laws and regulations on college campuses.
Birgeneau’s replacement speaker wasn’t shy about this PC nonsense, however.
Ex-Princeton President William Bowen had this to say on speech “correctness” during the course of his commencement address at Haverford:
I am disappointed that those who wanted to criticize Birgeneau’s handling of events at Berkeley chose to send him such an intemperate list of “demands,” said Bowen, who led Princeton from 1972 to 1988 and last year received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama. “In my view, they should have encouraged him to come and engage in a genuine discussion, not to come, tail between his legs, to respond to an indictment that a self-chosen jury had reached without hearing counter-arguments.”
And
In keeping with the views of many others in higher education, I regard this outcome [the withdrawal of Birgeneau from the commencement address] as a defeat, pure and simple, for Haverford—no victory for anyone who believes, as I think most of us do, in both openness to many points of view and mutual respect.
What he said.
Either we’re a nation whose citizens are free to speak, and where we are free to choose for ourselves to what speech we will listen, or we’re a nation whose citizens are free to speak and to hear only those messages that have been approved for us by our Betters. There is nothing in between.
Good for the Mayor, say I; he’s on the right track.
Porterville, CA, Mayor Cameron Hamilton said at a recent City Council meeting that, while he opposes bullying, he thinks it is too often used as an excuse. He added that some people need to “grow a pair.”
Naturally, this has caused outrage on the Left.
Councilwoman Virginia Gurrola…told the mayor, “It’s hard to just ‘grow a pair’ when you’re a 10-year-old girl.”
Surely, Gurrola understands that “hard” means “possible.”
And
Melissa McMurrey…told KFSN-TV that she felt attacked by the mayor’s comments. She said bullies often target young gay people.
Of course. I’m a victim. How dare you challenge my victimhood? How dare you suggest that I might actually just stop being a victim?
Personal responsibility isn’t always easy, and sometimes some folks, especially our children, need help. Despite that, though, personal responsibility matters, and it’s not something that can be wished off onto others. Self-defense is a personal obligation, not solely a thing to be used to create a burden on others.
Not even by our children. That’s what parents are for, and that’s what parents need to do a better job of teaching, right from the start—some at teaching their bully child to stop bullying, and others at teaching their bullied child how to counter the bully.
[Cateret, NJ, Mayor Daniel] Reiman said yesterday that although he assured officials from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that the prayer would be nondenominational, the agency declined to allow the prayer.
“They refused to budge on that.”
And, on refusing to allow any prayer at all, Reiman had no choice but to not allow the Federal ceremony to use city facilities.
Ironically, the whole thing came to a head just a day after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Town of Greece v Galloway that it was entirely appropriate that a local government open a ceremony with a prayer.
A spokeswoman for the federal agency, Katie Tichacek Kaplan, told The Associated Press that the agency has a long-standing policy to ensure that naturalization ceremonies are “conducted in a meaningful manner which is welcoming and inclusive and excludes political, commercial and religious statements.”
Never mind that this is a time to welcome our new citizens into our heritage—into their new nation’s heritage—as a Judeo-Christian nation, into our society with its Judeo-Christian underpinnings, into our culture, the benefits of which are what drew these immigrants in the first place and which encouraged them to take the five-year march toward citizenship. That’s the true meaning of the manner of welcome.
It’s not a time to encourage fractionation of our culture by discouraging their assimilation.
Reiman added
The irony is it’s in the Pledge [of Allegiance] and it’s in the oath [of citizenship]. It didn’t really make sense. They acknowledge that prayer is part of many, many services.
Here is the oath of citizenship that newly naturalized immigrants take on achieving citizenship [emphasis added]:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
And here is that nasty Pledge of Allegiance (which too many circles are trying to purge from our schools and public ceremonies, and too many others have simply allowed to lapse) [emphasis added]:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
But the Feds don’t want even a nondenominational prayer uttered at a ceremony celebrating the naturalization of new American citizens.
Hmm….
Two hundred and seventy-six young girls were kidnapped by the terrorist organization* Boko Haram, whose leader is threatening to sell them into slavery, if he hasn’t already.
On the matter of offers from the US, Great Britain, Israel, and a number of others of military help both in dealing with these terrorists and presently in recovering the stolen girls, though, Nigerian pride seems more important than the safety of Nigerian children.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman Doyin Okupe, has said about foreign military aid
Nigeria is a very proud nation. We feel that to subjugate our military under another world power would be to really compromise our integrity.
How is your national integrity, President Jonathan, not already disastrously compromised by your failure to protect even your children and your present inability to recover them?
*Aside: Why is it that so many “news” organizations and “journalists,” all of whom pretend to respectability, keep referring to such gangs as “insurgents” or “radical Islamists?” Why are they so desperate to avoid naming these organized mobs for what they are: terrorists?