QandO

Wellesley College has decided that “free speech” that infringes on another’s “liberty” (as they choose to define it) is inappropriate and should not be allowed on campus.  To be precise, six guardians of truth, justice and the Wellesley Way (i.e. the faculty members of the Commission on Race, Ethnicity and Equity, aka CREE) at Wellesley use this as their standard ( taken from the statement they issued ): However, as historian W. Jelani Cobb notes, “The freedom to offend the powerful is not equivalent to the freedom to bully the relatively disempowered. The enlightenment principles that undergird free speech also prescribed that the natural limits of one’s liberty lie at the precise point at which it begins to impose upon the liberty of another.” A couple of points.  The “enlightenment principles” that “undergird free speech” certainly did not, in any way, recognize a “right not to be offended”.  Being offended is as subjective and arbitrary as one can...

I ask this because of an op/ed penned by a British woman named Katie Hopkins in the UK’s Daily Mail.  It is clear she’s finally had it with the multicultural nonsense that flows so easily from the liberal side of the political spectrum, promising a utopia of tolerance while delivering a toxic culture of death, destruction and oppression to their midst.   And even as that becomes obvious, the liberals piously admonish anyone who speaks out against the buzz words of “multiculturalism”, “diversity” and “tolerance”.  You see, she has realized that those three concepts, as defined by liberals, are killing them.  And the recent attack at Britain’s Parliament, well, it was just one too many incidents, such that Ms. Hopkins is done playing the deadly game.  Survival has a tendency to strip utopian foolishness from the equation of life and show it for what it is.  And my bet is more and more Brits are coming around  the view Ms. Hopkins has now expressed....

The fight against the Gorsuch SCOTUS nomination begins with the usual mischaracterization of his legal positions by opponents.  In this case the attack is made by Eric Posner through  Philip Hamburger and a convenient straw man: As the Senate prepares to question Judge Neil Gorsuch for possible appointment to the Supreme Court, my former colleague Eric Posner asks: “Is Gorsuch a Hamburgerian?” Posner thereby attempts to set up Gorsuch by associating him with . . . not really me, nor my scholarship, but a boogeyman of Posner’s imagination. The charge?  Gorsuch is an “anti-elitist” (that’s bad? – ed.).  Regardless, Hamburger makes mince meat (ok, I couldn’t resist) of the Posner argument, such that it is: There is nothing “anti-elite” in explaining the U.S. Constitution’s representative form of government and its guarantees of rights. Nor is there anything anti-elite in studying the role of class in the development of administrative power. My scholarship (p...

Gavin Newsom, former mayor of San Francisco, is running for Governor of California.  And of course, as a believer in big government as well as “government as a solution”, Newsom feels compelled to make benefit promises with other people’s money.  In this case, he’s proposing that California put its  own single-payer health care system  in place since that old meanie Trump seems to be intent on dismantling the sparklingly successful ObamaCare.  </sarc> No, seriously, this guy wants to pile even more debt on a state that can’t afford the debt it has now. As Stephen Green points out  over at Insty’s place : A similar plan was rejected in November by Colorado voters by a four-to-one margin. Something about doubling state taxes and spending in the first year didn’t seem to sit well with voters. And as reported  last week , California’s top marginal income tax is already the highest in the nation — at 13.3% it’s nearly one-third higher than se...

Of course, grabbing the headlines are the clueless tantrums we see reported almost daily among the various colleges and universities in this country.  It doesn’t take long to realize that they’re not being educated, but instead “activated”.  And the ideology that thrives in identity politics is the driving force behind that activation. Unfortunately those who are activated tend to try to find a place in society where they can use what their indoctrination has taught them.  One of those places is within the area of public education.  How does the ideology of identity politics effect and infect public education.  A prime example of that infection can be found in the deep blue state of New York.  As we’re finding out, literacy as a prerequisite to teaching is no longer a priority.   Skin color, however, is: A New York literacy test designed to weed out unqualified teachers, called the Academic Literacy Skills Test, is to be done away with...

Have certain Democratic governors and mayors found their “inner George Wallace”.   Seems it might be so: Our liberal governors and mayors are in the tradition of their Democratic predecessors in Arkansas and Alabama. They have interposed themselves between the federal government and their sanctuary states and cities, ordering their police to refuse to allow federal agents do fulfill a federal mandate to remove illegal aliens, especially felons, from the country. If statues could smile, those being removed from public places would be grinning from marble ear to marble ear at the resurrection of their legal theory. Ike was famous for his grin, Jack for his cool. But both understood a challenge to federal authority when they saw it, and didn’t hesitate to use the threat of force to face down challenges to that authority. Your move, Donald. Yeah, I’m not so sure a “threat of force” is what is called for here, but the power of the purse strings, especially in these times of defic...

One of my pet peeves is when I hear someone say, about a “benefit” of some sort, “but the government pays for it”.  No, the government doesn’t.  Some poor schlub from which the government has extracted tax money has paid for it.  And that goes for everything.  No matter what it is, someone pays for it.  That extends to government intrusion in the market place in which it arbitrarily sets prices.  For instance, it sets a minimum wage.  Someone is going to pay for that increase in the minimum wage. In some states  that person is the customer: The federal government hasn’t raised the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour since 2009, putting pressure on cities and states to boost wages locally to keep up with rising living costs. The effective minimum wage has increased in 27 states and Washington, D.C., since January 2014. Many restaurant owners say they have added surcharges because jacking up menu prices can turn off customers who are  sensiti...

I guess everyone has heard about the violence at Middlebury College.  It wouldn’t be especially noteworthy if it were isolated or unique.  But it isn’t.  It seems to be a part of a growing and more violent trend on college campuses. It first burst onto the headlines at Berkeley around February 2nd when violent protesters rioted, burned and destroyed property  in order to block  a Milo Yiannopoulos speech.  Some who had come to hear Yiannopoulos were beaten.  The claim, by the rioters, was they were “anti-fascists” out to shout down and shut down the racist Yiannopoulos. Fast forward approximately one month and  the scene in Middlebury College in Vermont . Students and professors at Middlebury College were ashamed and embarrassed after an explosive protest Thursday night that has forced the school to reconsider what it means to embrace free speech. The normally peaceful campus of Middlebury College, with its mountain backdrop and ...