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’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
Would anybody, anywhere, claim that it’s wrong to fire people, or rescind job offers, if the people who lost out on those jobs has publicly posted, “I hate [insert plural slang term for Negroes here]”?
Citi fires banker over ‘revolting’ Israel remark: ‘No wonder why Hitler wanted to get rid of all of them’
By Shannon Thaler | Thursday, October 19, 2023 | 4:20 MP EDT Continue reading
If anyone still wonders how the Nazis were able to get millions of good, mostly nominally Christian, Europeans to round up and herd the Jews into railcars, to be shipped off to an unknown but obviously dire fate, just watch this video, and your eyes will be opened. Continue reading
We noted, a year and a half ago, how President Biden and his leftist minions, proposed the creation of a Ministry of Truth ‘Disinformation Governance Board‘ within the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, and had chosen Nina Jankowitz, who for months told us that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, to head it.
On April 25th, she told us how she feels about #FreedomOfSpeech:
I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities . . . which are already shouldering . . . disproportionate amounts of this abuse.
Then came Helen Ubiñas, who has a very visible platform as a regular columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, claiming that Freedom of Speech is dangerous and harmful to people like her: Continue reading
We reported, on Thursday, how someone had distributed white supremacist flyers in Lexington’s Kenwick neighborhood, flyers contained in baggies, using rice to weigh them down enough not to be swept away by the wind. The Lexington Police Department was investigating, with Lt Dan Truex stating that the LPD were “very interested in identifying” “who possibly left those flyers,” yet, at the end of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s report, the Department spokesman was either unable or unwilling to specify just what actual crime had been committed or what charges the distributor of the flyers might face.
Now, thanks to a tweet from my good friend and occasional website pinch hitter, William Teach, I found this from WRAL News:
Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers distributed in at least 5 north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight
Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers appeared in at least five north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight.
Sunday, August 6, 2023 | 11:12 AM EDT | Updated 4:14 PM EDT
Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers appeared in at least five north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight.Anti-Semitic flyers distributed in Raleigh. Photo via WRAL News. Click to enlarge.
Someone really needs to educate the WRAL intern that subtitles are supposed to be significantly different from the main headline! 🙂
The flyers link to a website to an organization called Goyim Defense League, which is currently tracked as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law.
While I have exactly zero support for the so-called Goyim Defense League, telling me that the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center — the name of which WRAL got slightly wrong — classifies an organization as a “hate group” doesn’t impress me in the slightest. The SPLC has similarly trashed Moms 4 Liberty, a group trying to protect children from the far-left transgender agenda, even though the ‘transgender’ lobby are trying to impose control of people’s speech.
One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, discovered a multitude of fliers left on neighbors’ driveways while taking an evening walk in Fairfax Hills. Just three minutes away, another woman reported more hate flyers in her own neighborhood of Hickory Hills. Just a few more minutes away, another neighbor near North Hills reported finding one of the flyers.
North Ridge also woke up to anti-semitic flyers in their driveways. According to neighbors, there’s a notable Jewish population in North Ridge due to its walkable distance to the Orthodox Synagogue on Falls of Neuse Road. The synagogue appears to be very close to all of the neighborhoods targeted.
Unlike the Lexington situation, in which the white supremacist flyers were distributed in the heavily white, as in 89.9% white, Kenwick neighborhood, the Raleigh incident was somewhat close to a Jewish neighborhood. Nevertheless, unless an actual threat was communicated, it should be protected speech.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said a person caught distributing these flyers could be charged with ethnic intimidation if the it contains a threat.
That’s a Class 1 misdemeanor, meaning someone convicted of that crime could face up to 120 days in jail.
Unlike the Lexington flyers, which, from the single image I could find of them, simply directed readers to a website, the Raleigh flyers shown in the WRAL report had a much larger variety of things printed. However, in the admittedly limited views shown, I could see no actual threat. Rather, the flyers made fanciful and stupid claims about Jews, including a reference to the long-debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the creation of Russian anti-Semites around 1902-3, a time in which Tsar Nikolai II was still an absolute monarch. Laughably, the Raleigh flyers date the Protocols as 1897, before they were written. No one with any knowledge of this stuff who isn’t already anti-Semitic is going to swallow this junk.
Anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but the way to fight it is not to restrict the freedom of speech and of the press. If you find anti-Semitic, or in the Lexington case, white supremacist garbage, just pick it up and throw it in the trash.
My good friend William Teach’s website tagline is, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
Free Speech America tweeted, “The Left has turned America into a totalitarian society. This is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment,” as they retweeted another post, showing a “Young man (being) arrested for sharing the Bible on a public sidewalk. Blatant violation of the 1st amendment of The Constitution. Every one of those cops should be fired and sued.”
In something pathetically laughable, when I clicked on Free Speech America’s tweet, to get the tweet url, I got this instead: “This Tweet is from a suspended account. Learn more,” referring to the tweet showing the arrest.
I guess that I screen captured the original just in time!
Then there was this story, a few days old, from the Lexington Herald-Leader:
Lexington neighborhood wakes up to white supremacy flyers; police investigating.
by Taylor Six | Sunday, July 30, 2023 | 1:29 PM EDT
Lexington police are asking the public for help in identifying any individuals responsible for leaving Aryan Freedom Network flyers in one neighborhood.
Image from Kenwick Neighborhood Association. The Herald-Leader did not include this image in its story.
Some residents of the Kenwick neighborhood woke up to find baggies on their sidewalk that had white supremacy propaganda flyers inside with rice.The flyer reads: “You know who else was condemned for ‘hate speech?’ Jesus Christ” The flyer also advertises the “Aryan Freedom Network” and a website.
A post was shared on the Kenwick Neighborhood Association Facebook page asking for anyone to report the baggies to police, and check home security footage to identify possible suspects.
“(R)eport the baggies to the police”? The distribution of flyers is obviously not opposed by the Kenwick Neighborhood Association, as neighborhood member Leeann Murphy had this posted on the neighborhood association’s Facebook page, on August 2nd, after the ‘Aryan Freedom Network’s’ message was delivered:
Hi all – We are looking for someone to deliver upcoming flyers to the 3rd block of Bassett Ave. Our regular person is not available to deliver this time around. Please email me if you are willing to do this important task😀. Thank you in advance. Leeannmurphyky@gmail.com
Back to what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal:
“What we are interested in is who possibly left those flyers — that is what we are very interested in identifying,” said Lt. Dan Truex with the Lexington Police Department.
Really? Why are the police “very interested in identifying” who distributed the baggies?
Truex told members of the neighborhood that extra patrol will be out for all three shifts for the next two weeks to increase police presence.
“Hopefully this helps deter it from happening in the future,” Truex wrote on social media.
So, the Lexington Police Department want to “deter” someone from expressing his opinion? How is that not the government trying to restrict someone’s freedom of speech?
At the conclusion of Taylor Six’s report came what I see as the money line:
Truex was not able to share what charges a suspect could face for the flyers, citing an open investigation.
So, the police were unable to, or at least would not, specify an actual crime that they believe the distributor of the flyer committed. Littering, perhaps? But, if so, then wouldn’t Leeann Murphy’s solicitation for someone to distribute flyers, clearly approved by the Kenwick Neighborhood Association’s Facebook page, also constitute an attempt at littering?
And the Lexington Police Department will have an “extra patrol” in the neighborhood, on all three shifts, for the next 14 days, over littering?
The photo of the flyer that I have included contains no visible threat, though the bottom line is obscured by the rice weighing down the baggie. If there is more on the reverse side of the flyer, such has not been indicated in either Miss Six’s story or anywhere else I could find. An 89.9% ‘white’ neighborhood, it would not seem a likely target for racial threats.
The hand-written copy of the proposed articles of amendment passed by Congress in 1789, cropped to show just the text in the third article that would later be ratified as the First Amendment.
It’s obvious: all of the hullabaloo is over the content of the message delivered, but the content of the message is what is protected by the First Amendment. Protection of the Freedom of Speech isn’t required for pictures of kittens or advertisements for homes for sale; we have a specified Freedom of Speech to protect the objectionable messages, to protect people who say things with which others disagree from being persecuted by the government.
There has been all sorts of leftist angst and hollering and combitching about laws, passed in several states, which ban hormone and surgical ‘treatments’ for minors who believe themselves to have been born the wrong sex. It’s discriminatory, it’s wrong, it will hurt people, and lead to suicides, we are told.
Yet, oddly enough, I never read one thing about this, in a single sentence from Newsweek:
Last week, Michigan banned conversion therapy, the controversial practice trying to “cure” LGBTQ+ people of their sexual orientation and gender identity, for minors in the state.
Research shows that lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) teens are at increased risk of suicide and mental health issues like depression and anxiety. One of the most startling statistics: LGBTQ teens consider suicide and make suicide attempts at about twice the national rate for all adolescents.
So, if the left are arguing that not allowing minors who believe themselves to be the opposite ‘gender’ from the sex they were born to receive ‘gender-affirming’ care increases suicide risk, why would they concomitantly want to ban homosexual minors from treatment for their homosexuality if being homosexual increases their risk of suicide?
The homosexual lobby contend that conversion therapy is both harmful and ineffective, and whether it is ineffective medically, those claims have certainly been effective politically. But the real issue is one of reproduction: since homosexuals cannot naturally reproduce without stepping into heterosexuality, ‘losing’ homosexuals to normal sex is an attack on all of them. They hate being called “groomers”, but what else is it when they try their hardest to keep every kid growing up sexually confused, and to reduce the societal stigma attached to homosexuality, what else can we call it?
And now we have this:
Michigan Pronouns Law Declared an ‘Abomination’ by Former Judge
by Giulia Carbonaro | Monday, July 3, 2023 | 9:00 AM EDT
Michigan’s recent bill making it a felony for people to harass or intimidate someone by misgendering them and using the wrong pronouns has sparked controversy in the state, with former judge and television personality Joe Brown calling the measure an “abomination.”
The new measure, House Bill 4474, is part of a package of legislation that would replace Michigan’s existing Ethnic Intimidation Act and would make it a hate crime to cause someone to “feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened” with words.
It expands the existing law to cover sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or expression, and physical or mental disability. Religion, ethnicity and race were already included in the previous legislation and will still be covered under the new law.
Michigan has recently been pushing reforms and new measures that would expand the protection of LGBTQ+ rights in the state, going against a nationwide trend that has seen other states moving to limit rights for transgender youth.
There’s more at the original.
Apparently the great state of Michigan, in which Governor Gretchen Whitless Whitmer, a Democrat of course, imposed illegal and draconian executive orders to fight the COVID-19 panicdemic, believes that the Freedom of Speech guaranteed to all of us under the Constitution of the United States can, should, and must be regulated to spare the precious feelings of the ‘transgendered.’ I wonder: while I do not live in Michigan, and have never set foot in that state, could I be punished because my website is available there?
Under the bill — which makes it a hate crime for a person to threaten another by deliberately using the wrong pronouns with an intimidating purpose — offenders would be guilty “of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000.”
This is what today’s left do: they elevate ‘group rights’ over those of the individual, to support the goals of the State — at least, as long as they control the State — above the individual rights protected by our Constitution. If the law passes, which has not yet happened, it will take someone actually charged and convicted of this ‘crime’, appealing the conviction through multiple layers of courts, to get it reversed, even though simply referring to Bruce Jenner as Bruce Jenner doesn’t hurt anyone. Such a person could wind up serving a sentence in prison before it could ever be reversed.
If someone wants to refer to Bradley Manning as ‘Chelsea,’ that’s perfectly up to them, and no skin of my nose, even if I see it as both silly and stupid; that’s within their free speech rights. But the lower house of the Michigan state legislature would make it a crime to refer to Mr Manning as Bradley, or as Mr Manning.
Bill Blankschaen and Erick Erickson coined the phrase, “You will be made to care“. An issue about which most sensible people would not care — it’s none of my business if Harry wants to become Sally — is becoming one in which the homosexual/transgender lobby are trying to use the power of the State to force people to go along with their kinks and delusions; that makes it other people’s business.
We have pointed it out previously: the left are smart enough to know that if they can control the language used, they can subtly, and perhaps not-so-subtly, direct your thinking. If you can get acclimated to calling someone like Richard Levine “Rachel,” and referring to him with the feminine pronouns, the job of the left is half-way done. That some of us stubbornly insist on calling the ‘transgendered’ by their birth names — if we can find them; sometimes I cannot — and using the pronouns and honorifics appropriate to their actual sex not only fights back against the left, but angers them so much that at least some of them want to make it illegal shows just how important they believe it to be.
