Jeff Jacoby demonstrates how tolerance of conservative ideas stops before it starts:
In Seattle, two teachers are suing the affluent Lakeside prep school for illegal racial discrimination and the creation of a hostile work environment. “Among the plaintiffs' complaints," reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “was Lakeside's invitation to conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza to speak as part of a distinguished lecture series." But D'Souza, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a veteran of the Reagan White House, never gave the lecture: Faculty members opposed to his views howled when he was invited, and the school's headmaster, bowing to the censors, rescinded the invitation.D’Souza undoubtedly saved himself from the usual intellectual rejoinders of the left wing including cream pies, salad dressing, shoes, and more cream pies.
Asked about the campaign against him, D'Souza had said: “I am coming to speak on one day. If they think what I am saying is so awful, they have the rest of the year to refute it." But that isn't enough for the enemies of free speech. They insist not only that speakers with politically incorrect opinions be shunned, but that anyone offering them a platform be punished as well.
22 comments:
D’Souza undoubtedly saved himself from the usual intellectual rejoinders of the left wing including cream pies, salad dressing, shoes, and more cream pies.
Again with the cream pies of death?
The right wing's tactics are much more sporting: sic the Secret Service on them, hold them for a few hours, and then drop the fake charges and let them go.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc100406
"We'll call Social Services."
We've traced your URL and will be by in an hout to pick you up.
Otherwise, your post is bullshit.
Considering that the Secret Service apparently has time to harass people, and also has the spare time to take 10 minutes before determining what constitutes a threat to the V.P. and leaping into action, I genuinely believe they also have the time to write inane message board posts.
Because someone being invited to speak is, of course, completely the same as some guy acting agressive around the vice President.
But if you're liberal, the mere fact that someone with an opposing point of view was invited to speak, even when they were dis-invited post haste, creates a hostile work environment and you should sue?
Just shows what happens when these teachers belong to such as the NEA and other leftists groups i mean dont they know that conservatives support freedom of speech?
Because someone being invited to speak is, of course, completely the same as some guy acting agressive around the vice President.
Yeah, surely that's just what happened. I'm surprised Cheney's heart didn't give out from the atmosphere of fear.
If "some guy was acting aggressive around the Vice President," WHY did the Secret Service allow him to leave, and then decide to arrest him ten minutes later?
Your choice, Synova:
A) The bogus threat was invented as the cover story for harassing a citizen;
B) The Vice President is being protected by slow-moving incompetents.
The end. There's no other way to spin the incident. Either way, our tax dollars pay for this. And the last time I checked, rowdy liberal jerks shouting down speakers aren't on the public's payroll.
I feel silly even explaining this:
There are agents specifically assigned to protect the VP. When they see someone acting suspicious but not directly threatening the VP, they report it and maintain their "protective envelope." They don't leave the person they are responsible for guarding to investigate.
Other agents or police then detain the suspect when they get there.
Oh wait, never mind, it's a massive conspiracy to silence dissent.
Yeah, people like Tim McCarthy (who jumped between Reagan and his would be assign, spread his body and absorbed a bullet meant for the President) are slow and incompetent.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/29/AR2006032902595.html
Olie, you're trying to use fact, reason, sense, logic and so on on a Lefty troll. It's just going to make your head hurt, because they're impervious.
Oh, and do you know Lena?
Lovely, more A>F>Q logic from the right. Because Cheney abused his privilege of protection, therefore the man who took a bullet for Reagan was slow and incompetent, and therefore anyone who gripes about harassment of citizens is a troll. You big brains sure nailed me!
It's gotten so predictable how apologists for their GOP heroes, and their every bad behavior, go right to the "massive conspiracy" shtick. It's so easy to debunk crackpot opinions (even if you have to make up those crackpot opinions first in order to do so). Of course, that tactic's more winnable than arguing the merits, isn't it?.
Thanks for the helpful explanation on Secret Service procedure, Olie. And here I'd assumed that Cheney's entire entourage would gang-tackle the man, while Cheney sat alone in the Food Court.
I'm also glad to learn that saying the word "reprehensible" and walking away constitutes "acting suspiciously." And also that arresting and releasing someone who "threatened" the V.P. with a deadly 5-syllable word isn't at all suspicious, in any way. You can't argue with fact, reason, sense and logic!
Against my better judgment, I'll jump into the fray:
Explain again how the Cheney episode is evidence of stifling of free speech. You know, the original subject of this post? Thanks.
It's not.
It's just a bait and switch. The school incident is clearly a case of liberal weirdness, of people with the (shockingly common) notion that anything, such as opposing opinions, that they don't like and make them feel anxiety are bad and it's quite okay to make it stop. They are still tolerant people who believe in free speech, just not that bad stuff that makes them feel bad.
And no way to explain how the simple invitation to speak and *successful* suppression and dis-invitation of that speaker post-haste, STILL contributes to the creation of a hostile environment.
One wonders if other teachers pointed out the hypocracy of intolerance to someone who's self-image depends on a belief that she, as all good liberals, is a veritable goddess of a tolerant life-style.
But this *can't* be discussed, can't be defended, so we get the argument that someone else, somewhere, was intolerant of dissent. Even if it were actually true it's irrelevant to the other event.
I've got an idea... if conservatives are so anti-free speech, how about citing examples of liberal tolerance of ideas and speech with which they disagree? It would be an example of how we all should be as well as provide a data point to refute the generalization that liberals hate free speech.
It would show liberals as better than conservatives instead of just trying to show that conservatives are as bad as liberals.
Explain again how the Cheney episode is evidence of stifling of free speech.
Citizen voices negative opinion to representative in public setting; is then falsely accused and detained because of the content of his speech. Complicated premise, I know.
If you like, you can go into technicalities about how the man's speech wasn't stifled or suppressed because he remains free to speak as he pleases so long as he's willing to risk the "consequences." Hell, he and Cheney can make this a weekly event, say every Tuesday afternoon?
I shall find it astonishing that conservatives, those proponents of smaller government not interfering in private lives, wouldn't have a problem with this incident. I wasn't aware that we pay taxes in part to provide our leaders with 24-hour protection from discomfort. I hate to pull out the "us/them" rhetorical bit, but imagine this was a Republican telling Clinton to his face in 1998 that his personal morality was "reprehensible," and ending up in a holding cell?
Summing up: Barbra Streisand telling a heckler to shut up is over the line. But Cheney or a surrogate telling his detail to put the cuffs on someone is a situation properly handled.
Thanks for your comments, o astonished one. I now see how accosting the Vice President is exactly the same as conservative speakers banished (e.g. D'Souza), heckled off stage (e.g. Columbia) or pelted with pastry.
Barbra Streisand, too? Wow, there's no end to your parade of straw men. Florida recount mob in three...two...one...
Oh, sorry, I must have been confused by seeing a thread titled "a continuing series," and somehow remembering a completely unrelated crank post about "the limits of free speech," uploaded long, long ago on some wacko's website:
http://vikingpundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/shut-up-babs-explained-peggy-noonan.html
And get it straight. I didn't say what Cheney & Co. did was "exactly the same" as conservative speakers being heckled or cream-pied. I'm saying what Cheney did was worse.
"Worse"?
Oh, OK.
Boy, you leftists truly are a thin reed in the wind. Babs has the stage in Madison Square Garden and she's toppled by a single heckler in the audience.
You have your panties in a twist over some guy detained by the Secret Service. This terrible scandal was covered by the Progressive and yet nobody appreciates the gravity of the situation.
But - heaven forfend! - a conservative try to speak at a college. He/she must be stopped! And if not silenced, then shouted off stage. The exchange of ideas has no place in higher education.
But that guy detained - worse. Much, much worse. Can the Republic survive? We'll see.
Worse?
Yeah! If Barbra Streisand had any balls at all, she would have had her single heckler led away in handcuffs.
Let's do a sociology experiment, you and me. On Monday, I'll throw a pie in your face. On Tuesday, I'll yell and scream at you and not let you respond. On Wednesday, you get to tell me what you think about Monday and Tuesday, but then I'll send an armed man to arrest you in front of your kid. On Thursday, after they let you out, you decide which was your least favorite day of the week.
Can the Republic survive? We'll see.
Which Republic? In my Republic, the power to arrest is used seriously. In fact, according to my 4th-grade American History textbook, opposition to the intimidation of false arrests is one of the reasons the Republic exists at all. Your Republic seems to live in constant fear of cream pies.
And in our shared Republic's Constitution, only one of these dire threats is specifically mentioned. Imprisonment or lemon meringue, I wonder if I can remember which one it is?
You guys' priorities are just incredible. Do you honestly believe that a crap lawsuit filed by two weepy Seattle teachers is more dangerous to our way of life than a Vice President who uses publicly-funded law enforcement like they were his bouncers? Go, red team, go! Rah, rah, rah!
You win.
Your "guy roughed up by Cheney's goons" trumps all.
Post 19:
Your "guy roughed up by Cheney's goons" trumps all.
Post 10:
It's so easy to debunk crackpot opinions (even if you have to make up those crackpot opinions first in order to do so). Of course, that tactic's more winnable than arguing the merits, isn't it?
Gotta love today's conservatives. They always live right up to one's expectations.
Maybe "someone" could explain just what sort of security precautions for the vice president are appropriate and how he/she would endeavor to implement those without interviewing hostile persons who took the trouble to confront the vice president in person in order to find out if it was only speech on that person's mind?
It's easy to say "don't don't" but much harder to explain what *should* be done.
Do you not think that there really are people who would attack the vice president? How would you keep him safe? How would you determine the dangerous upset person from the undangerous upset person?
Give an explanation of what *you* would do, what policy you'd have, that would take into account both the random attack and the well planned and rehearsed attack. Show that you've actually thought about this in some detail and have a realistic understanding of what the threats are.
Otherwise you'll be living up to the expectation we can have of liberals. It's all about any excuse to be outraged with never the need to offer alternatives.
Outrage about listening to phone calls or outrage about (perfectly legal) financial tracking... even my local Dem congressional challenger is singing loud and long that she supports listening to phone calls. So it wasn't the listening anyhow? It was nit-picking?
So is this thing with Cheney nit-picking? It sounds so scary and oppressive and worthy of outrage that someone was *arrested* for saying some unoffensive little thing the VP didn't like, but when push comes to shove the alternative suggested is going to be exactly the same as the security policy as it stands? "But of *course* the secret service should talk to people who act hostile around the V.P. even if they probably are harmless it shouldn't be assumed they are harmless without at least an interview?"
Is that it?
How do you figure out who is dangerous?
And meanwhile "offensive speech" isn't covered under the constitutional right to free speech. I know this because a university professor was quoted saying so.
But that's not important.
Synova,
What a zany response. "How do you figure out who is dangerous?" An important call best left to professionals. But I think we can safely put "fathers of little kids who say one discourteous sentence during their seconds-long interaction with the VP, then walk away" into Category B.
Sending an agent to speak to the man afterwards was appropriate. The rest was clearly not. The delay in the encounter, and the fact that charges were immediately reduced, then dropped, tells us all we need to know about the seriousness of the so-called danger.
Your admiration of free speech is inspiring. Reread your post. One negative sentence spoken within Cheney's red bubble must have been a "hostile" and "offensive" "confrontation," and might well have turned "dangerous." To you, this is a "realistic understanding of what the threats are." This threat assessment is a realism I am unfamiliar with... although it's possible my ability to reason has been damaged by all the cream pie fumes I've inhaled while waiting on line for Michael Savage book signings.
But your replies are very entertaining. As a liberal, they don't "outrage" me in the least. I more than "tolerate" them... I encourage them. If we ever meet, say in a mall someplace, please feel free to call me a name, without risk to your freedom.
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