Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts

Robby Soave: PC Hysteria Claims Another Professor

Students demand an end to academic freedom.  The movement to purge all offensive speech from American college campuses has claimed another scalp. Andrea Quenette, an assistant communications professor, was chased out of her own classroom—not because she was a bad teacher, but because her students said she wasn’t agreeing with them  ... MORE

Daniel Payne: Say Hello To Twitter’s Tweet Police

No wonder Twitter stock is tanking.  Twitter yesterday announced it is forming a “Trust and Safety Council,” an effort to “ensure that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.” The council features “safety advocates, academics, and researchers,” “grassroots advocacy organizations” and “community groups,” all of them        ... MORE

Is The ACLU Going Soft On The First Amendment?

by Damon Root.    That's the troubling question raised by University of Washington law professor Ronald Collins, who notes that the ACLU just began its annual fundraising campaign and released an accompanying "National ACLU Workplan," which, in the organization's own words, "lays out [the ACLU's] plans for the year ahead [and] always addresses  ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Dangerous Speech - Would The Founders Be Considered Domestic Extremists Today?

The only therapy is the truth.     Not only has free speech become a four-letter word—profane, obscene, uncouth, not to be uttered in so-called public places—but in more and more cases, the government deems free speech to be downright dangerous and in some instances illegal. The U.S. government has become particularly intolerant    ... MORE

The Regrettable Decline Of Higher Learning

by Victor Davis Hanson.   Political correctness has taken a toll. What do campus microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings, speech codes, and censorship have to do with higher learning? American universities want it both ways. They expect unquestioned subsidized support from the public, but also to operate in a way impossible for anyone else.  ... MORE

VIDEO: John Cleese - Political Correctness Killing Comedy

VIDEO: Does Free Speech Offend You?

Hail To The Censor! Hillary's Long War On Free Speech

by Matt Welch.         On December 6, after delivering an address about Israeli-American relations at the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton was asked how she would deal simultaneously with the bloody dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the terrorist menace of ISIS. After spending  ... MORE

John Cleese: Political Correctness Is Killing Comedy

Oversensitivity will be the death of free expression.    Monty Python member John Cleese has become the latest comedy legend to wade into the shark-infested waters that is the debate over political correctness in comedy. In a video for commentary website Big Think, Cleese warns that oversensitivity from political correctness is hurting comedy and   ... MORE

Political Correctness Nightmare: An NAACP Leader Uses F-Word To Apologize For Using T-Word After N-Word Meet

by Olaf Ekberg.      The NAACP’s mission of political correctness and equality careened off the rails this week when a local president complimented a TV reporters breasts during an interview. Don Harris, the president of the Maricopa County Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had just finished an event  ... MORE

Mike Hume: Should Anything Be ‘Beyond A Joke’?

Intolerant conformism is no laughing matter.      Comedy, it seems, is no laughing matter these days, caught up in one controversy after another over the acceptable limits of humor. Last week it was the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that was in the firing line again, accused of racism by everybody from the Queen of Jordan to    ... MORE

Americans Say Colleges Should “Punish” Offensive Speech

by Jeff Scully.  The slave mentality has taken root in the USA. A total of 53 percent of Americans think colleges should punish students that make racially offensive statements. That’s the finding from a recent poll conducted by YouGov for the Huffington Post. Troublingly, the poll, in its five questions, never bothers to define what the form of       ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Free Speech In An Age Of Government Bullies, Corporate Censors And Compliant Citizens

Free speech is not for the faint of heart.     Nor is it for those who are easily offended, readily intimidated or who need everything wrapped in a neat and tidy bow. Free speech is often messy, foul-mouthed, obscene, intolerant, undignified, insensitive, cantankerous, bawdy and volatile. Unfortunately, our appreciation for a robust freedom   ... MORE

Deana Chadwell: To Be, Or Not To Be Offended

NY's transgender nitwittery.   New York City is proposing a $250,000 fine for using the wrong pronoun in reference to a transgendered person. Really?! How would you know which pronoun to use? Why would a he that used to be a she be upset if one slipped up and used the feminine pronoun? Accidents happen, especially where confusion abounds.     ... MORE

Glenn Greenwald: Those Demanding Free Speech Limits To Fight ISIS Pose A Greater Threat To United States Than ISIS

Because the essence of America is freedom.       In 2006 – years before ISIS replaced Al Qaeda as the New and Unprecedentedly Evil Villain – Newt Gingrich gave a speech in New Hampshire in which, as he put it afterward, he “called for a serious debate about the First Amendment and how terrorists are abusing our rights – using them as they once  ... MORE

Micah J Fleck: New York’s “Misgendering” Law Is Wrong

Another slap at free speech.     The Republic just published a very informative report on a new civil rights guideline that could end up with NYC citizens facing hefty fines for what is being called “misgendering.” The idea, as the original news story explains, is that calling a trans person the wrong pronoun or title is now seen as a civil rights violation. ... MORE

Was 2015 A Bad Year For Campus Free Speech?

by Robby Soave.  Are easily-offended students and their allies within the university bureaucracy ushering in a new era of censorship on American college campuses? Even President Obama is worried that excessive political correctness is stifling legitimate debate at universities. Still, it’s hard to say whether the situation on campuses is truly    ... MORE

Tampering Charges Dropped Against Jury Rights Advocate

by Barry Donegan.  Judge acknowledges the First Amendment. District Court Judge Kenneth Plotz dismissed all charges on Wednesday against jury nullification activists Eric Brandt and Mark Iannicelli, who had been charged in July with seven felony counts of jury tampering while handing out Fully Informed Jury Association flyers with general        ... MORE

To End Campus Tantrums, Treat Young People Like Adults

by Maria Thielman.     The idea that a young person is someone to be protected, shielded, and treated delicately at all costs is part of what’s behind universities letting students force their professors out (as Yale just did) because they “hurt our feelings,” and part of why people don’t know how to debate anymore and just engage in shouting matches.   ... MORE