Understanding Freedom of Speech
On Wednesday, David Horowitz gave a talk at the University of Texas [UT] where he was protested and harassed by members of the International Socialist Organization [ISO], a group that, in its own words,"stands in the revolutionary tradition of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky." During the talk Horowitz was continually interrupted by ISO members who waved signs, shouted insults and blew airhorns.
Now, Dana Cloud, an ISO member and associate professor in communications at UT who attended the speech, laments the arrests of six of the protesters: "Horowitz claims to be for free speech, but he is actually on a campaign to discredit and ruin progressive intellectuals," said Cloud. "In the name of free speech, they are basically calling the police on protesters."
Not only does Cloud mischaracterize Horowitz's campaign to bring academic freedom to U.S. campuses, she misses an obvious point: The Founding Fathers made it clear that the just exercise of individual rights impinges on reciprocity. When you disallow someone the right to speak freely by shouting them down, assaulting them or threatening them with physical violence, your acts aren't justified by a right to freedom of speech, since engaging in such tactics denies them the right to exercise their freedom of speech.
I'm surprised that this simple point seems to have eluded Ms. Cloud, whose field of study, communications, must in some way concern itself with "free speech" issues.
25 Comments:
I was thinking the same thing. You didn't need to mention it, but those socialists twits were blowing off a fog horn during the speech as well. I don't want to get crazy on people but I sense an organized movement to disrupt and embarass conservative speakers.
The funny thing about this is how everyone just lumps "socialists" together. The ISO had absolutely NOTHING to do with the air horns. They actually sat peacefully in the back with signs and weren't distrupting anything at all. Horowitz, however, went crazy and began shouting at the police to arrest the ISO members with signs. The police spoke briefly with the ISO members, who refused to lower their signs on the grounds of free speech and the police agreed and refused to arrest them. Horowitz at first refused to continue his speaking until the ISO members were arrested, but upon realizing this was not going to happen, began speaking again.
I'm amazed at the hatred directed at David Horowitz over his push to have universities open themselves up to all points of view. How this true academic freedom can be considered a bad thing escapes me.
Free speech hell.
It used to be legal to settle these disputes in the streets.
Horowitz reminds me of Bernard Goetz, the New York subway vigilante. They both cruised around looking for opportunities to get themselves beaten up.
In a funny way, Horowitz is as big a victimologist as the various whiney minorities he denounces. He is certainly as big a publicity hound. Every time he carves another notch on the bedpost for some campus scuffle, he can rattle the tin for his think tank a little louder.
It's a strange way for a man in his sixties to carry on, but DH is a perennial student activist who just happens to have drifted into the camp of the plutocrats. I reckon if he got all he said he wants, he would immediately begin to start campaigning against it. It's just his nature to be quite contrary.
thoughtrebel:
No one lumped "socialists" together except themselves by not denouncing the disruptors. By siding with the fog horn people ISO placed itself firmly in the anti free speech camp.
What Horowitz is doing is a classic "sting". He makes himself available to be attacked and the far-left can't resist.
They remind me of the way monkeys are caught using a hollowed coconut with a candy inside. The monkey grabs the candy but he finds that if he tries to remove his hand while holding the candy his fist is too big to be pulled out of the coconut. The only way to get his hand out is to drop the candy, but he won't do that so he is trapped.
The left can't let go of disrupting Horowitz so they end up trapped in the anti free speech coconut.
I have a question for Horowitz's critics who have either posted here or are simply reading this topic. What part of the Academic Bill of Rights do you find objectionable, and why? Please quote directly from the text (found at the link below), and add your specific comments as to why the quoted phrase is something to oppose.
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/abor.html
WJ Phillips:
DH drifted into the camp of the plutocrats? That's how you characterize foes of radicalism?
And what is the residue of your Goetz analogy after recognizing that here we are talking about vital issues in the world of ideas? That we are talking about engaging an academic orthodoxy, a parody of itself, begging to be engaged?
This isn't arbitrary contrarianism.
redbeard:
I actually agree with most of it. My trouble comes here: Faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.
Mainly, my beef is with the i-word. One person's "indoctrination" is another person's opinion-giving, mentoring or just being themselves. I can see that being abused fairly readily - "she tried to indoctrinate us!!!!"
If that was excised, I'd support it.
The version that's floating around Ohio's statehouse had something about not taking class time to bring in "controversial" materials that had nothing to do with the class' subject.
Again, "controversial" is mutable, and if students are constantly being gyped out of valuable class time so the prof compose an automatic poem about the Terror of the Cow-Gods, or whatever, that should be something the university looks into on its own - value for money and all that.
J
thoughtrebel said...
"The ISO had absolutely NOTHING to do with the air horns. They actually sat peacefully in the back with signs and weren't distrupting anything at all."
Any person, or group, that brings pre-made signs to a place where someone is to make a speech, is not there to peacefully, and with an open mind, listen to what the speaker has to say.
This effort by the ISO is tantamount to a desire of Saul Alinsky feeding street people baked beans, and taking them to the opera.
"A group that, in its own words,"stands in the revolutionary tradition of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky" never has peace on its mind.
HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK WE ARE! PERSONAL I WOULD SHOVE THE SIGNS UP YOUR !@# SIDE WAYS!
W.J.:
Your second paragraph is quite accurate, but, it might be wise to entertain the idea that Horowitz knows what he's doing before dismissing him with psycho-babble. Underestimating an opponent is not a very smart thing to do. Among other things it allows him to play you that much easier. At that Horowitz is a master.
Bob Meyer:
Good anology.
J. Edward, it would seem we have more common ground than not on this matter.
Those specific points with which you take issue are certainly not cast in stone, and can be more specifically defined in whatever actual policy is created at university or legislative levels.
The biggest problem is that universities are failing to do precisely what you mention in your last paragraph. Instead of giving students value for money, they offer tenure to loopy professors who use class time to compose epics about the Terror of the Cow Gods. Left to its own devices, the university industry will never reform itself, hence the need for an outside push for true academic freedom.
I am in favor of the Academic Bill of Rights but only if it is voluntarily accepted by colleges, not forced upon colleges by the state. Once enacted into law, it wil accomplish the opposite of what is intended. Even if the law only affects public universities now, it will inevitably be extended to private universities if not directly then through control of government funds for tuition and research.
Ideological censorship by modern universities has reached terrible proportions but legislation cannot solve this problem, it can only entrench it further. By law, no university, business or government agency can engage in discrimination based on physical handicap. Have these laws improved things or made them worse? A torrent of discrimination suits has only resulted in enriching a few lawyers, but employment of the handicapped is lower now than before the idiotic Americans With Disabilities Act. No one wants to hire a potential law suit.
Conservatives will never be hired in any numbers by universities because the university system itself was created to eliminate any kind of diversity of thought. People tend to think of the mono-ideological university as some kind of recent development but uniformity of thought was the intent of the designers of the tenure/cloister structure of universities. This structure was developed by religious sects anxious to avoid the spread of heresy. Andrew White and Ezra Cornell were among those who tried to eliminate this practice when they founded Cornell University but secularizing a structure intended to eliminate heresy simply produced a secular orthodoxy that seeks to eliminate conservative heretics. Cornell today is among the worst in terms of intellectual diversity.
Doesn't it seem strange that the structure of modern businesses has changed substantially over the years but the university system is virtually unchanged since the Renaissance? University funding has always come from donations, usually from the state. Among schools whose funding comes primarily from their students the views are far less rigidly leftist. George Mason and Hillsdale colleges are prime examples.
The answer is to stop sending your children to Ivy League propaganda factories and to eliminate state funding. Allow the archaic academic structure of universities to pass into history with other anachronisms like horse drawn carriages and silent movies.
The attempt to de-politicize the universities by legislative fiat, i.e. by political means, is doomed to failure. The FCC's Fairness Doctrine for broadcasters was supposed to further a broad spectrum of views but instead it eliminated all diversity and resulted in the dullest monotonic programming imaginable. Not surprisingly, the programming was almost entirely liberal/leftist. The suspension of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan produced an entire new industry of political commentary by simply leaving men like Rush Limbaugh free to do what they wanted to do - talk about their own views with listeners.
I'm kind of 50/50 on whether it should be state law or not.
I would like to see universities adhere to the principles, but if it gets turned into one-size-fits-all state law I don't know that it would serve as well. Bowling Green isn't Antioch, and OU isn't OSU.
Maybe they could do something whereby state-funded colleges would have to follow the rules, which would leave private colleges free to do what they liked. (I always thought that was the idea, anyway)
I dunno. there is more common ground than uncommon for the principles, I think, but I'm still highly concerned about how these principles would be implemented if they were made into law.
J
I remember my time in the trenches having an in class debate on abortion with a Buddhist philosophy professor and advocate of the existence of something called "non-reality."
After deciding hitting him in the face with a brick would have self-restricting consequences beyond the desired effect of curing his solipsism, I dropped the class.
The philosophy schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach [the following] cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth forth on every side a visible species, (in English) a visible show, apparition, or aspect, or a being seen; the receiving whereof into the eye is seeing. And for the cause of hearing, that the thing heard sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible aspect, or audible being seen; which, entering at the ear, maketh hearing. Nay, for the cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood sendeth forth an intelligible species, that is, an intelligible being seen; which, coming into the understanding, makes us understand. I say not this, as disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of their office in a Commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the way what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of insignificant speech is one. -Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
American universities, despite their problems, are still producing more innovation than culturally exhausted Europe. Like Hobbes, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but institute reform. It is wise neither to let the university system wither on the vine nor to leave it alone to fester into Swamp Thing.
*coughs*
Lay off of Bon Gumbo, pal : P He don't take kindly.
J
Meyer states,
"By law, no university, business or government agency can engage in discrimination based on physical handicap. Have these laws improved things or made them worse? A torrent of discrimination suits has only resulted in enriching a few lawyers, but employment of the handicapped is lower now than before the idiotic Americans With Disabilities Act. No one wants to hire a potential law suit. "
"Flood of Lawsuits" Never Materialized
When the ADA was before Congress, some members predicted a flood of lawsuits that would bankrupt or at least overburden business. One Congressional leader characterized the ADA a "disaster" benefitting only "gold diggers" filing frivolous lawsuits. Attempts continue to weaken the law through amendments.
Studies have shown, however, that businesses have adapted to the ADA much more easily - and inexpensively - than the doomsayers predicted. Some have even made money by making accommodations. Law Professor Peter Blanck of the University of Iowa has studied business compliance with the ADA, including Sears Roebuck and many other large businesses, and found that compliance was often as easy as raising or lowering a desk, installing a ramp, or modifying a dress code. Another survey found that three-quarters of all changes cost less than $100.
Moreover, the predicted flood of lawsuits proved to be imaginary. Almost 90 percent of the cases brought before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are thrown out. And only about 650 lawsuits were filed in the ADA 's first five years - a small number compared to 6 million businesses, 666,000 public and private employers, and 80,000 units of state and local governments that must comply. The American Bar Association recently conducted a survey and learned that, of the cases that actually go to court, 98 percent are decided in favor of the defendants, usually businesses.
WATCH WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT THIS SUBJECT, SONNY, I FORGOT MORE ABOUT THIS MATTER THEN YOU WILL EVER KNOW!--HOPEFULLY!
rightminded:
As usual you try to prove the wrong thing.
Bottom line: The percentage of unemployed handicapped persons is higher now than before the law. That fact is undeniable.
The point that I made was simple: government enforced equality or diversity doesn't succeed in its goals. Force is the wrong instrument. The ADA and the Fairness Doctrine are examples of the failure of government force to achieve desirable goals such as increased employment of the handicapped and a wider range of ideas on the airwaves.
As for you forgetting more than I know, I am sure that that is true. You certainly can't remember what I wrote long enough to attack it properly. You lock onto a point not central to the argument ablut academic freedom and attack that. And worse, you are wrong about that point as well.
From the Cato Institute:
No New Workers. A major goal of the ADA was to facilitate workplace entry by disabled individuals. Yet the data on EEOC complaints suggest that the deaf, the blind, and wheelchair users-- those traditionally thought of as disabled-- have not been filing many employment complaints. Some might argue that the data suggest that the ADA is deterring employers who might otherwise discriminate. Thus, the act is doing its job and that is why fewer complaints are filed. But if that is the case, one might expect increases in employment of the disabled. The record so far indicates that the ADA has done little to help the disabled enter the workforce. According to the National Organization of the Disabled, a private group, only 31 percent of working-aged persons with disabilities were employed as of December 1993, compared to 33 percent in 1986, before the ADA took effect.
It goes on to show that there were absurd lawsuits and the costs, particularly to municipalities, were enormous.
The URL is:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg18n2e.html
Will Rogers once said that it isn't what you don't know that can hurt you, it is what you know that ain't so.
Rightminded, with what you "know", your life is in mortal danger.
Figures Lie, Liars Figure!
Perhaps you should familiarize your ignorant, arrogant patoot with the full scope of the Act, before you let go with your logorrhea.
http://www.dol-union-reports.gov/odep/pubs/adabro/keypro.htm
It is not only about jobs created, you cold-blooded, Godless fool! And frankly your Cato Institute proof source is skeptical at best.
However, even if it did not increase the working ranks of the disabled by one (which I do not believe, and your source does not prove), there are other aspects of the Act that are essential to our society. Especially a society that is becoming more, and more populated with older Americans that tend to be disabled.
Hmmm!
You would think a person, such as yourself, with a mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of major life activities as compared to the average person in the population, would be all for the ADA!
P.S. Remember putz, you specifically said, "A torrent of discrimination suits has only resulted in enriching a few lawyers, but employment of the handicapped is lower now than before the idiotic Americans With Disabilities Act. No one wants to hire a potential law suit."
There has not been a torrent, and the best way to get a law suit, is to not hire, or fire a perfectly qualified person because of their disability.
WHAT IS IT BUGGER, DO THE DISABLED MAKE YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE LIKE TERRI SCHIAVO?
"W" said it best, "even the unwanted have worth," YOU WORTHLESS !@#$% OF ^&*(!
Is this the interview bit before the WWE Smack Down main event?
"YOU WORTHLESS !@#$% OF ^&*(!"
You can't even spell it right. There are two & in ^&&*(!
Bob Meyer said,
"According to the National Organization of the Disabled, a private group, only 31 percent of working-aged persons with disabilities were employed as of December 1993, compared to 33 percent in 1986, before the ADA took effect."
The number of employees between 55 and 65 will increase 40 percent in the next ten years. As the workforce ages, the number of people with disabilities will grow.
That is why I say, figures lie, and liars figure.
Percentages mean nothing to me, it could be that more disabled people found work because of the Act, but the increase in the total number of disabled, negated the percentage, as compared with the starting percentage.
SHOW ME THE ACTUAL NUMBERS!
P.S. Stop your uncalled-for insults! You are upsetting Redbeard!
Nah, I'm not upset at all. I'm just a spectator. Want some popcorn?
Redbeard said...
Nah, I'm not upset at all. I'm just a spectator. Want some popcorn?
Yes, I am sure you make great popcorn!
And I will try harder to watch my temper. Believe me, you made a good point!
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