What gives me pause is the level of incoherent rage on the left. The recent attack on Charles Murray is just one example. I've read most of Professor Murray's books, seen many interviews with him, catch him on podcasts as much as possible and download his talks from YouTube to listen to as I walk or drive. I am, in short, a Charles Murray groupie.
The one thing I can say without fear of contradiction is that there is no academic alive who has greater compassion for the poor, independent of race, creed, sex or orientation. To my taste, he is the gold standard for intellectuals working to improve the lot of the poor. As far as I could tell, the violence he suffered at Middlebury was at the hands of people beyond the reach of reason and argument.
What do you do about such people? Since they are immune to logic and incapable of conversation, do you scream back at them? Do you call them names? Do you create memes and mock them? I don't see that any of these actions will have a desirable outcome and will only serve to increase the overall level of fury in society. Instead, they need to be charged, prosecuted, convicted and jailed.
What they did broke the law. In fact, I recently discovered that conspiracy to deprive a citizen of their right to free speech is itself a crime, meaning that the school professors who encouraged this and the administrators who knowingly allowed it to happen could face charges. And they should. All of them.
This is no longer about debate or discussion, this is about maintaining the rule of law. This is why we have police, court systems and jails. Instead of trying to convince people that Charles Murray isn't a white supremacist or whatever deranged fantasy they've cooked up, these people need to be locked up.
My recommendation is to agitate not for mockery or disputations, but to agitate for law enforcement to do its job. While the Christian side of me wants to stay quiet so as not to contribute to the violence, I don't see that conflicting with upholding standards of behavior codified in our laws. With the people prone to violent protests behind bars, we might be able to move on to rational discourse. Until then, you can forget about it.
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| A Hot Wheels Paddy Wagon. A slightly larger, more functional version needs to be employed with consistency and regularity on American campuses until the children (and faculty) learn to use their words. |
5 comments:
Instead, they need to be charged, prosecuted, convicted and jailed.
Amen, amen and AMEN.
This is why governments have authority; not to enforce the Heckler's Veto, but to enforce the laws.
What I want to know is: Where is the ACLU? They claim to support free speech, and often "speech" that is far out the norm precisely because they say (in a wonderful parallel with the NRA) that by protecting such extreme speech the rest of us are safe. Ok, so here is Academic speech, and by no means speech that is "out there", being denied. Where is the righteous indignation they would show if this were a left leaning speaker?
Ohioan, there is this thing called google that can answer your questions.
https://www.aclu.org/other/hate-speech-campus
ACLU has a stated policy against universities restricting unpopular speech. Took me three seconds to find.
Great, they've got a policy. On their website.
So where are they?
Not "why didn't they say something"-- where are the lawsuits? Where is the public call to action? WHERE ARE THEY?
Answer: same place they were when pro-life groups had their signs banned-- but not when proabortion ones did. Not where they were when bills that required a woman be offered the chance to see the ultrasounds of the kid she's hiring someone to kill-- but where they were when laws requiring women's health centers that don't provide abortions were required to put up abortion signs, or to give referrals, or otherwise support child slaughter.
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