We have previously reported how University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has completely fouled up the school’s response to the antiSemitism on campus, costing the Ivy League university the good will of its many deep-pocket alumni donors.
Well, she may have just fired herself! From The Philadelphia Inquirer: Continue reading
I’m old enough to remember the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, a product of mostly leftist students on campus.
With the participation of thousands of students, the Free Speech Movement was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s. Students insisted that the university administration lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students’ right to free speech and academic freedom. The Free Speech Movement was influenced by the New Left, and was also related to the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement. To this day, the Movement’s legacy continues to shape American political dialogue both on college campuses and in broader society, influencing some political views and values of college students and the general public.
I’m not a leftist by any means, but I completely support the freedom of speech, and all of the rights enshrined in our great Constitution. Sadly, so many of today’s left do not support freedom of speech, at least not when they believe they have the power to restrain it.
Irish senator under fire for advocating bill to restrict free speech
One critic calls Ireland’s anti-hate law ‘draconian,’ adding it will have ‘severe implications’
By Brianna Herlihy, Fox News | First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023 | 4:00 AM EST
A speech delivered in June by an Irish lawmaker who said the work of legislatures is about “restricting freedoms” in the name of the “common good” has gone viral, with criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.
Senator Pauline O’Reilly of the Green Party, in defense of Ireland’s proposed Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill 2022, spoke at the Houses of the Oireachtas in June, saying, “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.
Well, of course she’s a member of the Green Party, of the hard left.
“You will see throughout our constitution, yes, you have rights, but they are restricted for the common good. If your views on other people’s identities go to make their lives unsafe, insecure and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, then I believe that it is our job as legislators to restrict those freedoms for the common good.”
If a right is “restricted for the common good,” is it a right at all?
Senator O’Reilly’s speech is embedded below the fold, since videos take up a lot of bandwidth on the front page. Continue reading
It is a famous aphorism that freedom of speech does not protect yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, but as is frequently the case with aphorisms, the ‘general truth’ contained therein is often not completely accurate. The First Amendment states that Congress — and now extended to cover state and local governments — shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. In the case of yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater, a violation of the First Amendment occurs not in punishing the consequences of such an action, if that action is untrue and results in injuries due to a panic, but would be a law or regulation which prohibited people from going into theaters because they might yell, “Fire!”
We have already seen such a violation, in which the Biden Administration pressured various social media companies to “remove content it considers misleading, including about the COVID-19 pandemic.” And there was the famous but failed attempt by the Administration to create its own Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board in the Department of Fatherland Security, something that Taylor Lorenz, the Washington Post reporter who gained her greatest fame with the doxing of Chaya Raichik, a Brooklyn-based real estate saleswoman and creator of the Twitter site that the left hate, Libs of TikTok sorely lamented.
But within hours of news of her appointment, (Nina) Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating. The board itself and DHS received criticism for both its somewhat ominous name and scant details of specific mission (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it “could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what it isn’t”), but Jankowicz was on the receiving end of the harshest attacks, with her role mischaracterized as she became a primary target on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of her work continue to go viral.
Well, it’s another year, the Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board idea has died a well-mocked and well-deserved death, but now there are some defenses of people not being restricted in their speech but paying the consequences for it. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
A truce in the Israel-Palestine tweet wars
Dozens of public figures have been dismissed from their jobs because of their social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war. It’s a scorched-earth battle, and it makes real conversation impossible.
by Jonathan Zimmerman, Columnist | Thursday, November 30, 2023 | 7:00 AM EST
Your tweet was antisemitic. You’re fired!
Your tweet was anti-Palestinian, and Islamophobic, as well. You’re fired, too!
Welcome to the digital war we’ve been waging in the United States, while a real one rages in Gaza. Dozens of physicians, entertainers, and journalists have been dismissed because of their posts about the conflict. It’s a scorched-earth battle for the age of social media. And it makes real conversation impossible.
The only solution is to let everyone tweet what they wish, whether you agree with them or not.
I have been fully supportive of people tweeting exactly what they wish, and do not want the anti-Semitic tweets censored, not because I support what they are saying, but because I very much want the anti-Semites to tell us exactly who they are, so that we can avoid them, and avoid doing business with them. I completely support the things we have previously reported about deep-pocket university donors closing their checkbooks due to anti-Semitism on campus, and creating ‘do not hire’ lists of the haters of Jews. Dr Zimmerman, who write the column cited above, was similarly displeased that the deep-pockets donors were using their money to fight anti-Semitism.
But, and fair warning here, I am going to use a word which will offend many, no one, and I include Dr Zimmerman in this, would be even remotely surprised or opposed if a company fired an employee who said that he hated niggers.[1]In posting this article on the American Free News Network, I did censor the word, not because I thought it wrong, but because I did not want to cause problems for that site.
Why did I use the dreaded “n” word? Because it points out the extreme end, the end to which even Dr Zimmerman would almost certainly not go to defend someone’s job if he said the wrong thing. Me? I’m retired, so I can’t be fired for using the word! 🙂
Corporations have exactly one purpose, and that’s to earn money for their shareholders, and if they believe that allowing employees to say things which can cost them money, or, as has frequently been the case, call into question the professional commitment of lawyers and physicians to fully support or treat patients and clients who are members of the demographic group they’ve slammed.
Dr Zimmerman then discussed a couple of cases in which he raised questions as to whether people should have been fired for tweets some found offensive, then stating:
Did NYU fire (Benjamin) Neel to create “the appearance of even-handedness” with (Zaki) Masoud, as the suit alleges? I don’t know. But here’s what I do know: There’s no way to justify firing one of these guys unless you also dismiss the other one. And if we keep calling for their heads, we will lose our minds.
How many more people will be fired for tweets about Israel/Palestine? And how do you know you won’t be next on the list if someone is offended by your own post?
Like I said, I’m retired, so I know that I won’t be fired! But corporations, companies, organizations, and schools depend on customers, patients, clients, and consumers to have faith in the people with whom they deal, and if an employee uses his freedom of speech in a manner which could cause prospective customers, et al, to lose faith in their employees and in the company in general, that employee has become a liability, not an asset.
My copy of Mein Kampf. I don’t own it because I support it, but because it is an historically significant book.
Dr Zimmerman is a university professor, and university professors have a natural interest in the free expression of ideas. Unfortunately, the immature hot heads on so many of our college campuses, including the University of Pennsylvania, do not seem to have much interest in the free expression of ideas when those ideas run contrary to what many in the student body believe. Penn itself earned some notoriety by telling “strongly advising” the actually female members of the school’s women’s swim team not to speak out to the press about Will Thomas and tried to instill fear in the women that if they did, their employment prospects would be diminished.
The columnist is right about the free exchange of ideas, but only in an abstract sense. Would he, or really anyone — other than some of today’s Palestinian-supporting university students, that is! — give intellectual credence to a calm and rational discussion of the ideas expressed in Mein Kampf?[2]There are doubtlessly some people who would claim that my ownership alone of Mein Kampf means that I’m some sort of Nazi sympathizer. Well, I’m Catholic, but I also own a Quran; some … Continue reading
Dr Zimmerman’s original column title, which I saw by putting my cursor on the tab in which the article appeared, was “We need a truce in the Israel-Palestine tweet wars.” But let’s tell the truth here: we’re not going to get that truce, and we really shouldn’t have it. Anti-Semitism festered in Europe for 1,800 years after the Romans expelled the Jews from the Levant, and the Shoah was only the most extreme example of it, unprecedented in size and scope and viciousness, but not in kind. Just as the victorious Allies did what they could to “de-Nazify” Germany after the war, we need to marginalize today’s anti-Semites as much as possible.
References
| ↑1 | In posting this article on the American Free News Network, I did censor the word, not because I thought it wrong, but because I did not want to cause problems for that site. |
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| ↑2 | There are doubtlessly some people who would claim that my ownership alone of Mein Kampf means that I’m some sort of Nazi sympathizer. Well, I’m Catholic, but I also own a Quran; some books can be used for research, without implying anything about the owner. |
No, that’s not a typographical error in the headline: The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias. We have previously written about the journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, often enough that this is the fifth article with that title. The newspaper reported:
Haverford College holds vigil for Palestinian student shot in Vermont
Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team.
by Max Marin and Ximena Conde | Tuesday, November 28, 2023 | 7:21 PM EST
Jason J Eaton, mugshot by Burlington Police Department and is a pubic record.
Haverford College held a vigil on Tuesday in support of a Palestinian student who was shot in what authorities are investigating as a potential hate crime in Vermont on Saturday.About 200 Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall around 4:30 p.m. to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team, who was one of three victims of Saturday’s shooting.
Abdalhamid remains hospitalized in Burlington along with his two friends, Hisham Awartani and Tahseen Ahmed. The three college students, all 20, were visiting Burlington for the holiday weekend when a man opened fire on them without warning.
Note the publication date of the newspaper’s article: Tuesday, November 28th, at 7:21 PM EST. The reporters let readers know that this is being investigated to see if it was a hate crime, referencing an article published the previous day at 8:58 AM, and updated at 6:56 PM, in which it was reported:
Given the unprovoked nature of the attack and soaring tension around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Murad said it was understandable to suspect hate-based motivations at play in the case, but urged the public to withhold speculation as the investigation continues among local, state, and federal authorities. “We still do not know as much as we want to know.”
Returning to the originally cited article in the Inquirer:
Haverford’s vigil was structured in the Quaker tradition where students held long moments of silence broken only when someone was motivated to speak. One Palestinian student broke down in tears as she addressed the room. As two friends flanked her for support, she said there was no doubt in her mind the shooting was a hate crime.
“Palestinians’ suffering has to be recognized,” she said. “We’re humans.”
Authorities said the men were walking to a relative’s house in Burlington after a family gathering when Jason J. Eaton stepped up onto a nearby porch and, without a word, fired four shots from a Ruger .380 pistol, injuring all three.
While the motive remains unclear, authorities noted the victims were speaking in a mixture of English and Arabic, and two of them were wearing keffiyehs. The U.S. Department of Justice is assisting with an investigation into whether the unprovoked attack was a hate crime. Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday and pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder on Monday.
OK, fine. But there is absolutely nothing in the Inky’s reporting to tell you that the suspect, Jason Eaton, was off his rocker, suffering from depression, coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, and mostly a political whacko:
According to NBC, Eaton appears to have a YouTube account that has playlists with videos that include “Expose Fauci,” long COVID, economics, and how to use brain crystals for “psychic powers.” An Instagram account that appears to belong to him also shows him on a farm and cooking.Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, Suspect in Shooting of Palestin-ian Students ‘Strug-gled With Depression’
In an X account that appeared to belong to Eaton, he describes himself as a “radical citizen…patrolling demockracy and crapitalism for oathcreepers.” A 2022 archived version of that same account, which contains the same photo, has a more subdued bio that describes him as a Vermont dad and part-time farmer. The archived X account also provides a link to a Substack, with the “wandering ramblings of a reformed broker on the ADHD/ASD spectrum.” The Substack only has one post, which is an essay on how restaurants can retain dishwashers.
I guess that part wouldn’t fit Teh Narrative, but actual journalists, rather than journolists, would have included it. It should be noted that the published reports about Mr Eaton and his mental health issues are dated on the morning of the 27th, and updated at 7:07 PM the same day, fully a day prior to the Inky’s story.
The mugshot of Mr Eaton? The newspaper doesn’t usually publish them, despite mugshots being easily available from the Philadelphia Police Department, but when it comes to a blue-eyed, blond-haired white guy? While the photo credit notes that it came from the Burlington Police Department, I found it in this article in the Inquirer.
Did the Inquirer actually lie to its readers? Nope, there’s nothing that I spotted which was demonstrably untrue. But the newspaper omitted a lot of facts, enough to be called lies of omission by some, facts which would change the impression that the article was intended to give.
We are being told by the people the credentialed media use as spokesthings, like Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the now-censured congresscritter from Detroit and a ‘Palestinian-American,’ if such an oxymoron can actually exist, that all the Palestinians want is their freedom. They don’t hate Israelis specifically, or Jews more generally, but just want their freedom. Mrs Tlaib even tried to claim that the mantra, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” as not being anti-Israeli at all, but no one actually believed her.
However, there’s an obvious question: do the (purported) leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement in the West actually represent the crowds behind them. The tweet I retweeted from @StopAntisemitism is just one of hundreds they’ve posted, documenting people living in the United States and Canada showing us exactly who they are. The Stop Antisemitism site is doing great work in exposing and identifying those people, and letting their colleges or employers know just who they are, and many have found their way to the unemployment line. If you think that’s a bad thing, just imagine how employers would react if one of their employees was caught on video calling for the death of [insert virtually forbidden slang for Negroes here].
Of course, even those stupid enough perhaps to want to say that kind of thing about blacks are generally not stupid enough to say it on tape, which means that they are at least not as stupid as the anti-Semites! Continue reading
It’s an old, old saw: the freedom of speech does not protect you if you yell, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Simply put, the freedom of speech does not protect anyone from the consequences of their speech.
The Biden Administration certainly agreed with that, hating the idea that the riff-raff could challenge the Accepted Wisdom — which means: the government’s position — on the COVID-19 vaccines:
Two months after President Biden took office, his top digital adviser emailed officials at Facebook urging them to do more to limit the spread of “vaccine hesitancy” on the social media platform.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials held “weekly sync” meetings with Facebook, once emailing the company 16 “misinformation” posts. And in the summer of 2021, the surgeon general’s top aide repeatedly urged Google, Facebook and Twitter to do more to combat disinformation. Continue reading
We have been told what a devout Catholic President Biden is, and how former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was a good, believing Catholic. President Trump, on the other hand, showed us how fake a Christian he is, because he almost never attended religious services. Clearly, for the left, being a faithful Christian of some denomination or other was a pretty good thing. Or at least it was until someone who is actually a Christian becomes Speaker of the House! Continue reading
The Nation is a 158-year-old ‘progressive’ left-wing political magazine, in which Maurice Isserman just told us why he has, after many, many years, resigned from the Democratic Socialists of America. The thing is, after several recent years, he should not have been surprised. Continue reading
I understand that Philadelphians are disappointed that the Phillies choked lost a World Series berth with their Game 7 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, especially after the Phils won the first two games at Citizens Bank Park. Lose a seven-game series when you have a 2-0 lead?
With 6,245,051 people according to the 2020 census, Philadelphia and its surrounding metropolitan area is the seventh largest in the United States. With a population of 1,603,797, the city of Philadelphia itself is the sixth largest in the United States. So why, then, does The Philadelphia Inquirer, our nation’s third oldest continuously-published newspaper, rank only 17th in circulation? The winner of twenty Pulitzer Prizes, and the newspaper of record for the entire Philadelphia area — the Wilmington, Delaware, News Journal is a Gannett-owned joke — have exactly zero stories on the World Series, which is going on right now, the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks tied at one game apiece!
The screen capture to the right was taken at 10:06 AM EDT this morning, and shows 17 stories in the sports section. Yeah, I get it: covering the Philadelphia Eagles and the 76ers and even the Flyers is important to the newspaper, but this is ridiculous. Scroll further down in the online sports section — my subscription is digital only — and I found separate sections for the Eagles, 76ers, Flyers, individual sports columnists, sports betting, women’s sports, college football, and even soccer, as though anyone cares about soccer, but not a single story on the World Series!
It’s not as though the newspaper does not publish stories from outside of its newsroom production: there were at least two stories from the Associated Press on national news showing on the website main page. The Inky could have included something about the series.
I subscribe to the newspaper, because now that I’ve moved out of the Keystone State, it’s my best source of information on the news there, and because I prefer to read the news rather than watch or listen to the news. My unlimited digital subscription costs $5.49 per week, which, times 52 weeks a year, equals $285.48 a year, yet the newspaper doesn’t even cover the World Series?
Christine Flowers once mocked me for paying for the Inky. She might have been right.
