Tag Archives: free speech

Progressive-Democrats and Free Speech

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The DoJ and several States are moving to protect free speech on college campuses, with three States moving to pass legislation explicitly for the purpose, and ten others with legislation already pending.

Liberals and their Progressive-Democrats object.

Many Democrats say the Constitution already protects free speech, and that states have no need to micromanage how colleges handle student demonstrations and speakers.

This is just cynical, though.  Or, 8th-grade Civics wasn’t a safe space for them, and they were triggered into not listening.  These Progressive-Democrats are ignoring the fact that the mere existence of our Constitution is no protection at all; it must be actively enforced.

And:

Many also object to the penalties some measures are calling for, such as fining or firing—in the case of professors and other college employees—those who are deemed to have deprived the free speech rights of a person or group.

No, we can’t hold Liberal professors or others favored by Progressive-Democrats accountable—those folks are special.

Distraction

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Top Democrats are calling on Facebook and Twitter to investigate and release information behind potential Russian-linked accounts pushing for the release of a sealed congressional memo allegedly containing details on US government surveillance abuses.

It couldn’t possibly be that there really is a broad public hue and cry to that information released.  Us uninformed voters, denizens of fly-over country, couldn’t possibly know enough to demand the release on our own.

No, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) and Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), the two “top Democrats” in the quote, are desperate to have a distraction.  Us uninformed might find out too much.

It’s rich coming from a Senator who released to the public, unethically, a Senate Judiciary Committee report concerning Fusion GPS and then blamed her unethical behavior on having taken cold medicines and so she wasn’t thinking clearly.  Feinstein and I are of an age, and I’ve taken cold medicines, too.  They’ve never addled my brain.

It’s also a bit much coming from a Congressman who’s not the least bit curious about the Steele dossier; he just wants that matter dropped.

Free Speech Turkey-Style

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Enes Kanter, a Center for the New York Knicks, has expressed his opinion of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a Turkish prosecutor has indicted him in absentia for this heinous crime and wants Kantor jailed for four years.  Among other things, Kantor has said that Erdogan is the “Hitler of our century,” in the aftermath of the Turkish government’s revocation of his passport and its having forced his father, still in Turkey, to disown him—and then was thrown into jail, anyway.  All because Kanter supports the equally Erdogan-hated Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Here’s Kanter:

People don’t understand. They’re saying your family is still back in Turkey — why are you doing all of this? Why are you talking? I’m just trying to be the voice of all of these innocent people, man.  Because all of these innocent people are just going through really tough times. Journalists, innocent people in jail getting tortured and killed and kidnapped. And it’s pretty messed up. And (the government) hates it. They hate when I talk to you guys in front of all of these cameras, these microphones. They hate it. That’s why they’re saying, “Oh, we’re going to take his dad away, we’re going to put him in prison.”

In response to the indictment and jail threat, here’s Kanter again:

That’s it? Only four years?  All the trash I’ve been talking?

And

I have said less than that honorless (man) deserves. Add another 4 years for me, master.

Here’s to Enes Kanter.

Oh, and I say that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an idiot and a tin despot.

PRC Censorship

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…is reaching into other nations to deprecate their free speech.

Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at Australia’s Charles Sturt University has written a book, Silent Invasion, that details the breadth of influence the People’s Republic of China has achieved within Australia.  His publisher, Allen & Unwin, has decided to “delay” release of the book because the PRC is threatening “defamation action” against the publisher.

What defamation, exactly (and how does a private citizen defame a foreign government, anyway)?  Hamilton says his book is

“very factual, very deeply researched,”…the “first comprehensive national study of Beijing’s program of exerting influence on another nation.”

He said he had documented the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on Australian political parties, universities and cultural organizations, as well as on Chinese living in Australia.

Apparently, on private enterprises, as well.

As Hamilton put it, Allen & Unwin’s decision to acquiesce to the PRC’s threats is

a watershed moment in Australia, when Beijing can suppress free speech.

Hamilton has said he’ll get another publisher, and it would seem he has another instance of PRC “influence” within Australia to describe.  Along the way, I have to wonder why, in future, any author would want to do business with so unreliable a publisher.

Cornell Professors

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…apparently support racism and racist stereotyping.

Recall that George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel University, routinely says it’s whiteness, white victimization, all things white that are at fault for mass shootings and violence generally. For instance, this in an interview with Democracy Now!

Whiteness is never seen as a cause, in and of itself, of these kinds of massacres despite the fact that whiteness is a structure of privilege and it’s a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened, you know, lashes out.

What makes white men so prone to this kind of behavior?

And his tweet a year ago, All I want for Christmas is white genocide.

Cornell University’s professoriate demurred from Drexel’s decision to discipline Ciccariello-Maher ever so lightly (he’s on paid vacation leave) for his inflammatory and racist remarks (over Twitter proximately), wherein he blamed white victimization (and, of course, “Trumpism”) for the Las Vegas mass murder.

Seventy professors signed a letter on Wednesday protesting the university’s decision to take disciplinary action against George Ciccariello-Maher, saying it infringes upon academic freedoms, reported The Cornell Daily Sun.

Of course they do.  It’s entirely appropriate for college professors to “stereotype” groups of Americans of whom they disapprove.

Never minding that their favored groups of Americans became favored through precisely that “stereotyping.”

And Cornell, the school, is silent about it.

Hmm….