Tag Archives: free speech

The Bias of Journalists and Journalism

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Howard Kurtz, that self-styled bastion of journalistic criticism who writes for Fox News has a piece out about a Trump-hostile media and “some pundits admitting they blew it.”

After producing a litany of…mistakes…made by newspapers and pseudo-journalists as they produced their erroneous analyses and predictions, though, this is all that Kurtz could conclude:

[W]e somehow decided that we knew what was best for them.

Kurtz is missing the point.  His fellow pseudo-journalists didn’t miss their predictions because they misunderstood or blew off mainstream Americans—Americans outside their New York and West Coast bubble—or because they thought they knew what was best for us.  That’s a symptom, not a cause.  His fellow pseudo-journalists misunderstood and blew us off because they’re too biased to see the truth.

And so Kurtz exposes his own bias.

I suggest that the era of the NLMSM is past.  It’s time for ordinary Americans to go elsewhere for our news and other information.  It’s time for us to use our own judgment in evaluating that news and information.

The print and broadcast sources have shown they cannot be trusted; their output has no reliable value.  Their output, at bottom, is no different than the entertainment fluff published by the National Enquirers or the Globes or the Stars of the entertainment industry.  Kurtz and his ilk just take themselves more seriously.

A Protest for Free Speech

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On Wednesday, the Young Conservatives of Texas club at the University of Texas at Austin held an “affirmative action bake sale” offering cookies at different prices based on the race and sex of the buyer.

A cookie cost $1.50 for Asian males, $1 for white males, and 50 cents for African-American and Hispanic males. Cookies for American Indians of both genders were free of charge.

[The affirmative action link is in the original of the above quote; I included it so readers can see Instagram’s complicity at the time of my writing (27 Oct) in censoring this bit of news.]

That pricing is a direct reflection of the nature of UT Austin’s affirmative action programs, which similarly varies accesses to the school based on ethnicity and not merit.

But never mind that.  The school objected to having its racist policies so blatantly illustrated.  Gregory Vincent, the school’s Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement, had this on the matter:

[F]ocusing our attention on the provocative nature of the YCT’s actions ignores a much more important issue: they create an environment of exclusion and disrespect among our students, faculty and staff[.]

Such dialectics are at the core of freely conducted debate, though.  This university’s management plainly does not understand actual freedoms acknowledged in the First Amendment.

Embarrassingly, Vincent went on, and unable to form a coherent argument on the matter, stooped to attacking the protestors and not the protestors’ argument.

He…questioned the club’s motive behind the bake sale.

This is what our State’s tax dollars are buying, and it’s not education.

Free Speech, Again

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A New Jersey high school has come under fire after holding a ceremony honoring law enforcement, military and first responders before a football game Friday night.

And

It featured State Police Pipes and Drums of the Blue and Gold, state and local mounted units, personnel from all of the branches of the military and officers from several local offices. It also honored a Linden police officer who was wounded in a shootout with Ahmad Khan Rahimi, who is accused of planting IEDs in Seaside Park, Elizabeth and New York City[.]

So far, so good, you might think.

“It’s OK to stand up for social justice, inequality, and reform,” [Middletown Deputy Police Chief Stephen] Dollinger told the [Asbury Park Press]. “It’s another thing to not stand up for the national anthem.”

Uh oh.  That’s not allowed.  It’s OK to protest.  It’s not OK to protest the protesters or the protest methods.  No, the Left insists we just shut up about that.  The ACLU, the Central Jersey Chapter of National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and the Greater Long Branch NAACP all objected to such impertinence in a letter to the high school.

According to press reports, however, the event is being used to intimidate and ostracize people who express their views about systemic racism and social just.

Law enforcement officers are sworn to protect the constitution, and it is a disservice to the students and players that an event that should focus on them, their families, and their communities is being used to send a message that people who express concerns about disparities in the criminal justice system are unwelcome, disloyal or unpatriotic.

And

One ACLU organizer, Jasmine Crenshaw, believes the event sent a “frightening message….”

Sure.  It’s frightening—to the Left, anyway—that people not under the Left’s control would speak freely.

Be Quiet

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Your Betters are working.

Elon Musk, who as CEO of Tesla Motors, which is building self-driving cars, has a personal, vested interest in the matter, says we must stop criticizing self-driving cars—they’re going to save lives.  One day.

In the meantime, we’re to keep our critiques—which would actually make the cars better, safer, and more consumer friendly—to ourselves.  He knows what he’s talking about; we don’t.  And we’ll kill people if we don’t shut up with our comments.

If, in writing some article that’s negative, you effectively dissuade people from using autonomous vehicles, you’re killing people[.]

Just be quiet.  Trust me.

She Was Right the First Time

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recall, commented on NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling when our national anthem was played before the start of San Francisco 49ers games, saying that Kaepernick and his ilk have the right to protest but that it’s “dumb and disrespectful.”

Now she’s apologizing for saying that, even though she’s done nothing here that wants an apology.  She’s doing so, too, just a short time after she expressed her contempt for Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump, thereby irrevocably demonstrating her prejudice and the fact that she’d prejudged any case that might come before the Court from a Trump administration.

This is another Supreme Court vacancy waiting to happen, and not too long into the next administration.