Tag Archives: free speech

Good for Her

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Danish Immigration, Integration and Housing Minister Inger Stojberg has posted on her Facebook page a repeat of an image widely posted several years ago by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten.  What occasioned her post is the timidity of the Skovgaard Museum in Viborg, Denmark.

The museum is running an exhibition about blasphemy since the Reformation, but it has chosen to omit a classic example of blasphemy: images of Islam’s prophet Muhammed.  As Stojberg noted, it’s the museum’s right to do this under Danish free speech law, but it’s excessively timid of the museum, and it’s the right of other Dames—including Stojberg—to decry the museum for its decision.

The image is this; the icons are present because this rendition is the wallpaper of her iPad.

The image also can be seen on her Facebook page here.

The Left’s Favored Antifa

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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page editors closed their Monday opinion piece with this remark:

The mainstream left ought to denounce it [Antifa’s censorious criminality] as much as the right should reject white supremacists.

The right does denounce white supremacists—and all bigots, not only white supremacists. We get called out by the dishonest Left and its NLMSM for not denouncing only the white supremacists.

Did I say “dishonest Left and its NLMSM?” That the Left chooses to embrace its hate groups and bigots rather than denounce them demonstrates the accuracy of the characterization.

That the Progressive-Democratic Party leadership, including in particular Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA) (and the rest of the California contingent, come to that) is studiously silent on these attacks—including Sunday’s Antifa attack, which Berkeley’s police chief permitted—shows clearly where the Party stands on free speech and on freedom generally.

Update: Wednesday–three days after Antifa’s assault–House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi got around to issuing a statement that’s being masqueraded as a condemnation of Antifa:

The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.

Notice that: it’s not a condemnation of Antifa, it’s a condemnation of those “calling themselves Antifa.”  Yet the KKK, neo-Nazis, Nazi-wannabes, the NLMSM’s made-up “alt-right” are all Conservatives in her eyes, those of her cronies, and the NLMSM.

Still, her…statement…is more than others of the Progressive-Democratic Party are willing to do.  I’ve seen no statement, however weasel-worded, from House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD), from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), from Senators Diane Feinstein (D, CA), Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), or Dick Durbin (D, IL), or anyone else from the Left.

The Left and the Left’s Police

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And the misrepresentation of the NLMSM.

A hundred members of Left-wing hate groups, including Antifa—hooded, no less, and armed with clubs—”broke through” police lines in Berkeley Sunday to attack the leader of a Conservative group, Patriot Prayer, which the NLMSM claims is “right-wing” rather than Conservative, and a separate group of four.

Notice that.  The Left’s hate groups are hooded and carrying weapons; their targets are unarmed with faces bare, not looking for trouble and unafraid of being identified.

There’s more:

The protesters who wore hoods to conceal their identities chased Patriot Prayer group leader Joey Gibson from Sunday’s rally in a Berkeley park. As Gibson backed away with his hands in the air, the protesters pepper sprayed him.
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Separately, the anarchist group beat, kicked and punched four other people at the rally.

How did these thugs “break through” the police lines?  They didn’t.  The police deliberately let them through.

Berkeley Police Chief Andrew Greenwood says police made a strategic decision to let a group of more than 100 black-clad anarchists enter the park Sunday once it became clear there would not be dueling protests between right and left.

He said “the potential use of force became very problematic” because thousands of mostly peaceful left-wing protesters were already inside the park.

Greenwood said he decided to let the black-clad protesters demonstrate in the park because there was “no need for a confrontation over a grass patch.”

Of course, Greenwood knew there would be violence; that’s what  hooded Antifa, et al., were there for.  The confrontation over a grass patch that Greenwood wanted to avoid was between his police and the Left’s hate groups.

Equal protection under law only applies to the Left.  Other Americans don’t deserve it.

Was I Right to Pull the Plug on a Nazi Website?

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That’s the title of a tortured op-ed in a recent Wall Street Journal by Matthew Prince, Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.  Recall that he and his Cloudflare helped kick a group of neo-Nazis off the internet last week, including the Daily Stormer Web site.  He bragged at the time about having done that, and as despicable as neo-Nazi and Nazi wannabe thugs are, that’s an easy brag.

In this op-ed, though, Prince is claiming to be having second thoughts.

However.

As an opponent of free speech, Mr Prince, of course you were right to censor any speech you personally would consider repugnant.  As a biased opponent of free speech, moreover, you’re entirely correct to leave your favored-of-the-Left hate groups—Antifa and BLM, for instance—untouched by your censorship.

But this—this is impressively shabby.

[T]he First Amendment doesn’t compel private companies to let anyone broadcast on their platforms.

No, more than merely shabby.  This is utterly, cynically disingenuous. It’s true in the narrowest, most legalist sense that the First Amendment only limits government’s ability to censor speech. But the principle underlying that Amendment, the individual liberty to speak freely in accordance with one’s own conscience rather than in comportment with a Know Better’s diktat is universal. It’s one of our unalienable Rights…among [which] are…Liberty….

Of course, as the son of a journalist [growing up] with discussions around the dinner table on the importance of freedom of speech, you know this full well.

Your Orwellian missive, with its artificial, bodice-ripping anguish, is at best mendacious.

Way to Go, Google

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Recall the now ex-employee who wrote a lengthy and thought-out memo for internal distribution via one of what Google is pleased to call its open communication channels. A summary of the ex-employee’s case is in the Sunday Wall Street Journal; my comments on the situation, based on that summary, are below.

…critics saying the company squelched free speech by firing a male employee who wrote a divisive memo denouncing its diversity push, while others said his views showed that the company’s diversity policies were needed.

Both the critics and “others” are right: the incident clearly demonstrates need for open debate and discussion, not the need to suppress discussion and debate by firing the one who raised the question.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said…to suggest “colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”

Commenters here, in the WSJ comment thread, and elsewhere can offer data on either side of that claim. Pichai’s decision to provide none is beyond arrogant; it’s dishonest.  As is Danielle Brown’s decision to speak solely ex Cathedra ab umbilico in her responding memo, similarly without the first minim of actual data.  We’re just supposed to accept the bald statements of these august personages.

Indeed, here’s a Google spokesman responding to a WSJ request for comment/elaboration:

He violated our Code of Conduct, period.

Not gonna discuss it. Sit down, and shut up.

As an aside, there is this much in the WSJ piece [emphasis added]:

…[the ex-employee] wrote that biological differences explain some of the gap between male and female tech workers….

Indeed. The more mendacious NLMSM is carefully omitting that qualifier.

The memo can be seen on Gizmodo here, along with Google’s vapid response.

What a way to go, indeed.