Tag Archives: #FreedomOfSpeech

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Well, of course he doesn’t! Will Bunch doesn't like people in authority being held accountable for what they said

I will admit it: despite paying too much for my subscription to The Philadelphia Inquirer, I only infrequently read hard-left columnist Will Bunch’s stuff, but Christine Flowers pointed it out to me this morning. The distinguished Mr Bunch, whose Inky bio states that he “the national columnist — with some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government,” waxed wroth that University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill will shortly be Penn’s former President:

Liz Magill’s ouster at Penn will help the worst people take down free speech, higher ed

Critics celebrating the scalping of Penn’s president won’t stop there. Free speech, and college itself, are in grave danger.

by Will Bunch | Sunday, December 10, 2023 | 11:44 AM EST

A band of raiders never stops at just one scalp. Just minutes after the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill pulled the plug on her stormy 17-month tenure, under intense pressure for her handling of antisemitism questions on Capitol Hill, her chief inquisitor — GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York — was back on the battlefield calling for more.

“One down. Two to go,” a clearly ebullient Stefanik posted on X/Twitter, urging on her dream of an academic Saturday Night Massacre that would also take down the two college leaders who testified last week along with Magill — MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay of Harvard, which, in a controversy with more ironies than a Jane Austen novel, happens to be Stefanik’s alma mater.

I’m old enough to remember, back in the days of quill pens and parchment print-on-paper only newspapers how columnists were limited to roughly 750 words, but Mr Bunch’s rant was 1,663 words long, so prepare for it if you click on the embedded link!

But what Stefanik promised on Saturday night, and what her allies are cheering on, goes well beyond a few high-profile resignations. She promised the current crisis — over what constitutes antisemitism on college campuses, and how administrators like Magill have been handling it — will lead to more congressional hearings on “all facets of their institutions’ negligent perpetration of antisemitism including administrative, faculty, and overall leadership and governance.”

This one’s pretty long, so I’ve moved the bulk of the article below the fold. Continue reading →

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Liz Magill is not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down

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 →

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Are you ready to surrender your rights for the “common good”?

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 →

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Your #FreedomOfSpeech doesn’t include requiring other people to pay for it

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 →

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Fired because they were just plain stupid

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 →

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Today’s American left really, really hate our individual rights! Or at least they do when those rights are exercised by conservatives!

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 UbiĂąas, 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 →

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Anti-Semitism is a serious problem, but restricting the Freedom of Speech and of the Press is not the way to fight it

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

Anti-Semitic flyers distributed in Raleigh. Photo via WRAL News. Click to enlarge.

Hundreds of anti-semitic flyers appeared in at least five north Raleigh neighborhoods overnight.

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.

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Are the Lexington Police trying to stifle someone’s #FreedomOfSpeech? If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

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.