Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
\nThe movement to ban hate speech, especially on campus, reminds us that the political pendulum swings both ways.<\/span><\/p>\n
At the time of the Revolutionary War, Britain’s laws were so strict that the Founders put Freedom of Speech first on the list of protected activities in our new country. Then the pendulum swung so far that pornography became protected speech. Now it’s swinging back again.<\/span><\/p>\n
What would help is a more coherent explanation of WHY the more restrictive speech codes are required. \u00a0I’d like to hear a college president say:<\/span><\/p>\n
“In Victorian times, women were considered too delicate for harsh and unseemly conversation. Speech was curtailed, lest it bring on spells of fainting and nervous agitation in women of tender sensibilities. For a time, American women were thought to be made of sterner stuff and regulations on speech were loosened to the point that nude dancing and cross burning were protected by “freedom of expression” but now, on college campuses everywhere, we see that American women are more like their Victorian ancestors than previously thought: unable to suffer the savagery of seeing the word “Trump” written in chalk; incapable of hearing English teachers read the title of Dick Gregory’s famous novel, “Nigger;” in desperate need of strong men in positions of authority to protect their fragile emotional state by punishing anyone who says anything that offends anyone. \u00a0I call on faculty and students here at Cocoon U. to cloister women, to keep their mental virtue untested, to pamper their feelings so they never have to grow to be strong, independent women who are fully equal to men.”<\/span><\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It’d help if public education did a better job – or any job at all – of explaining what “rights” are.<\/p>\n
In turn, it would help if our public education system knew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The movement to ban hate speech, especially on campus, reminds us that the political pendulum swings both ways. At the time of the Revolutionary War, Britain’s laws were so strict that the Founders put Freedom of Speech first on the list of protected activities in our new country. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-speech-rationing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59388"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59404,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59388\/revisions\/59404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}