Showing posts with label free speech. Show all posts

Blue Law Blues: CA Video Game Ban Struck Down

The most predictable Supreme Court decision of this term may have been the Court's ruling that, no, a state - even California! - can't ban the sale and rental of "violent" video games to minors AKA The Children. The only real surprise was that the dissent united Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Has that ever happened before?

States cannot ban the sale or rental of ultraviolent video games to children, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting such limits as a violation of young people's First Amendment rights and leaving it up to parents and the multibillion-dollar gaming industry to decide what kids can buy.
The high court, on a 7-2 vote, threw out California's 2005 law covering games sold or rented to those under 18, calling it an unconstitutional violation of free-speech rights. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia, said, "Even where the protection of children is the object, the constitutional limits on governmental action apply."
Scalia, who pointed out the violence in a number of children's fairy tales, said that while states have legitimate power to protect children from harm, "that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."
Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision, with Breyer saying it makes no sense to legally block children's access to pornography yet allow them to buy or rent brutally violent video games.

You have to wonder how it is that CA managed to pass a video-game ban of any sort. The legislature was made up of liberals and progressives who try to cultivate a hip, edgy rep in order to better Rock The Vote. The governor who signed the law made his fortune selling violent entertainment to teenagers. And one of CA's few productive industries is the entertainment industry. Of course, Hollywood has found itself competing with videogames, which have been outgrossing movies for quite some time now, so maybe there was some Tinsel Town support for this sort of thing.

Mostly, though, there's the spectacle of state lawmakers going through the trouble to ban videogames when they had to know their ban would be struck down as unconstitutional. It's almost as if the point was to make a splash and garner a few headlines in 2005 without worrying about what happens in 2011.

Red Face(d)book

Kids today. Here's what Mark Zuckerberg had to say when asked how Facebook's plans to expand into China would affect the company's open communication platform:

"I don't want Facebook to be an American company," he said. "I don't want it to be this company that just spreads American values all across the world. ...For example, we have this notion of free speech that we really love and support at Facebook, and that's one of the main things that we're trying to push with openness. But different countries have their different standards around that. ...My view on this is that you want to be really culturally sensitive and understand the way that people actually think."

Nice to know that this is the sort of deep thinking that billionaire Obama supporters are coming up with. Free speech, you see, is this quaint "notion" (like American Exceptionalism, probably) that shouldn't have any effect on Facebook's business, even though it's the most important factor in its success. If people at Facebook sit around wondering why they've had so much trouble building trust, they may want to reconsider their blithe attitudes about basic values like privacy and free speech.

Only Discharge can clear this up:

Petty: White House "Bans" The Chronicle for Publishing News Story

Why in the world would the White House go through the trouble of getting angry at the SF Chronicle for broadcasting a video of those goofy, middle aged lefty women who sang a song about Bradley Manning at one of Obama's fundraisers? Guess mainstream media people always have to be on their best behavior around The One.

The White House threatened Thursday to exclude the San Francisco Chronicle from pooled coverage of its events in the Bay Area after the paper posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser for President Obama last week, Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee said.White House guidelines governing press coverage of such events are too restrictive, Bushee said, and the newspaper was within its rights to film the protest and post the video.
The White House press office would not speak on the record about the issue.
Chronicle senior political reporter Carla Marinucci was invited by the White House to cover the Obama fundraiser on April 21 on the condition that she send her written report to the White House to distribute to other reporters who did not attend. Such "pool reports" are routinely used for press coverage at White House events that are not open to the entire press corps.
About 200 donors paying $5,000 to $38,500 each attended the event at the St. Regis Hotel in the city, a day after Obama visited Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley touting the proliferation of "new media" breaking the confines of traditional journalism.
At the St. Regis event, a group of protesters who paid collectively $76,000 to attend interrupted Obama with a song complaining about the administration's treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier who allegedly leaked U.S. classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
As part of a "print-only pool," Marinucci was limited by White House guidelines to provide a print-only report, but Marinucci also took a video of the protest, which she posted in her written story on the online edition of The Chronicle at SFGate.com and on its politics blog after she sent her written pool report.

The "problem," if you can call it that, was that Chron reporter Carla Marinucci was the pool reporter for the fund raiser. Marinucci is a print reporter, and yet she pulled out a small video recorder and started taping the proceedings. Incredible, I know. According to the White House, this violated the Guild's rules. If you read the linked article you can read a lot of tedious rationalizing about how the lines between print and video journalists has been blurred in the era of New Media, as if a million amateur bloggers haven't been writing stories and posting videos for years. If George Bush had done this... well, you know.

Flame On: Burning Korans In CA

As a follow up to my recent post on Pastor Jones being jailed for planning a protest at a mosque, I heard from Free Will blog friend Stogie, who said that he had burned a Koran last September 11th and posted the video on YouTube.

Free Will has some of the more bad-ass readers on the internet.

Free Speech For The Dumb: Pastor Jones In The Crosshairs

Pastor Terry Jones - he's the Koran burning guy in Florida - is back in the news. He was in Detroit the other day, planning to lead a protest at a Dearborn mosque. Instead, he found himself being put on trial. Apparently, there is some local rule in Wayne County requiring persons suspected of planning a breach of the peace to post a sort of security bond for the inevitable police presence. Don't know how long they've had this rule, but I can't believe it's constitutional.

Jones refused to pay the bond (good for him) so he was put on trial (!) with the jury (!!) tasked with determining whether or not Jones' proposed protest would lead to violence (!!!), violence not from Jones, of course, but from folks in the heavily Muslim Dearborn area. Well, if that's the question, then of course the answer is "yes. Pastor Jones' protest will lead to violence." I could have sworn I learned something about the "heckler's veto" back in law school, and that it was presented to us as a Bad Thing.

Controversial Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones was ordered taken to the Wayne County Jail after refusing to post a $1 peace bond. However, someone posted the bond on his behalf not long after he was taken into custody.
The development came after a jury found a proposed protest by Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp outside the Islamic Center of America, the largest mosque in the United States, was likely to breach the peace and incite violence.
The jury began debating the case at around 3:30 p.m. Thursday. The main issue of the one day trial was whether or not Jones's main purpose was to say or do something that would incite violence. They came back with their verdict shortly after 6:30 p.m.
Based on the decision Jones was required to submit a peace bond. The judge set the bond at $1. He also ordered that neither Jones nor his associate could enter the property of the Islamic Center of America or the area surrounding it for 3 years..

After being found "guilty," the judge ordered Jones and his buddy Sapp to pay a nominal $1 bond (at least someone recognized the absurdity of this), but Jones stood on principle and refused. Jones and Sapp were then hauled off to jail (!!!!) although someone has since paid the bond. You ever get the feeling that places like Dearborn and Detroit might not be American any more?

Jones is not my idea of a worthy free speech martyr, but this is truly bizarre and oppressive. Fred Phelps can travel the country yelling "God Hates F*gs" at Marine funerals and everybody stands around acting like nothing can be done. Meanwhile, Pastor Jones merely plans a protest at a mosque and it's treated as a crime. (you'll also recall how his earlier plans to burn a Koran on 9/11/10 caused everybody from President Obama on down to demand that he not do so). What about when some whiny gay rights activists do another kiss-in during a Mass?

Whether we know it, or not, our free speech rights are already being curtailed, and it's not being done by the government.

UPDATE: Blog Prof, who lives in Michigan, says that the "peace bond" rule is specific only to Dearborn, and not Wayne County. If true, that doesn't say much about how local Muslims are assimilating and learning American values.

UPDATE 2: via Patterico, here's the ACLU's amicus brief in support of Jones. The planned protest involved two people, presumably Jones and Sapp. As the Acies note, the peace bond rule, whether Dearborn's or Wayne County's, is unconstitutional - almost ridiculously so. Not only is it prior restraint of speech, not only does it force someone to pay to exercise his free speech rights, but it gives prosecutors discretion to decide who should be forced to defend their intended speech ahead of time. And, the violence here was not going to be incited by Jones, but by unknown members of the Religion of Peace. Where do they go to pay their peace bond?

The Silent Coup: How Do Wisconsin Protesters Have Permission To Occupy The State Capitol Building?

Ann Althouse asks a question that's been bugging me: how is that leftist protesters in Madison have been able to occupy the State Capitol Building, covering the Rotunda with signs, and even sleeping there? If this were happening in, say the Republic of Georgia or The Ukraine (and actually, it did happen there), people would wonder if the government was about to fall. So what the hell is going on?

In the current Wisconsin situation, the protesters are being allowed to do many, many things that ordinarily no one does. It's hard to imagine how the state could operate in the future if other groups were given equal treatment and permitted to stay overnight for days on end, to post thousands of signs all over the historic marble walls and pillars, to prop and post signs on the monuments, to bang drums and use a bullhorn in the rotunda to give speeches and lead chants all day long for days on end. Tell me then, what will happen when the next protester comes along and the next and the next? Hasn't the state opened the Capitol as a free speech forum in which viewpoint discrimination will be forbidden under the First Amendment?

Even asking the question, I know the answer: during the early days of the protests, the teachers and their allies entered the Rotunda en masse and simply haven't left. Gov. Walker, and the Capitol Police (or whoever it is has jurisdiction over the building) have quietly concluded that forcibly removing them would not be worth the hysterics and bad publicity that would entail. And, that's fine. The point of the last two weeks is to reform the way public employee unions organize themselves and negotiate with the state, not to pound on hippies. Still, why is it that left-wing goons can benefit from this sort of restraint while others would be evicted post haste?

Althouse looks at the question from a free speech perspective: what is to stop other groups from occupying the Capitol now that the unions have set the precedent? I think the more important question is political: doesn't the state have a sort of privacy right that would protect it from invasions of this sort? Althouse has cited the fact that the Rotunda had previously been a solemn, contemplative place befitting its dignity as Wisconsin's legislature, and the occupiers have ruined that. But, the state's dignity seems more a matter of tradition than of law. It hasn't previously occurred to anyone to invade the Capitol. Having debased the state in this manner, I can promise you that it will be hard to recover, not because everyone will want to occupy the Rotunda, but because the occupiers will either not want to leave, or will consider it their special right to return at their whim.

It seems hardwired into us, whether by history or education, to view the occupation of government buildings as somehow romantic, while the defense of such buildings by the state as somehow autocratic. One thinks of Boris Yeltsin, the man on the tank, sending in tanks of his own when recalcitrant leftists refused to recognize that the old order was well and truly gone (hmmmm). But, the state - even one as earnest and progressive as Wisconsin - has a claim on defending its dignity from invaders, even earnest progressive ones.

Red State Avatars: Dispatches From the Culture Wars

The good guys won a couple battles in the Culture War today. First, little Cody Alicea - he's the kid whose principal told him to take his American flag off his bike because it was causing racial tension - was escorted to school by hundreds of flag waving bikers:

Really, that's pretty inspirational stuff. Middle school's hard enough without having your principal take the side of race-baiting thugs in the lunchroom. I hope (but doubt) he learned something today.

Second, the Westboro "church" (they're the "God Hates F*gs" people) found trouble at its latest funeral. Someone slashed the tires on their mini-van and when they went looking for a mechanic to help them, no one in town would lift a finger. Aw.

First, let’s start with the serious stuff first. Earlier this month, Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey died for his country in Afghanistan. Freedom Remembered tells us that “[h]e died at age 26 at Zarghun Shahr, Mohammed Agha district, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal.” May God bless and keep you, Sgt. McCluskey.
So his funeral was apparently last Saturyday, and the Westboro Baptist @$$holes went to protest this soldier’s funeral. They apparently think that if you serve with a gay person you get their gay cooties and therefore go to hell. But when they went back to their minivan, they discovered that someone had slashed two of their tires

Everyone's talking about the slashed tires with Patterico barging into his co-blogger's post to sniff and say "I do not approve of criminal acts in response to speech acts, no matter how heinous the speech act in question." I'll get back to this in a second.

What's more remarkable is what the Westboro folks were faced with when they tried to "protest" another Marine's funeral in Maryland.

This morning in La Plata, Md., the hate group's parade of absurdity received quite a response: More than a thousand counter-demonstrators showed up early, established themselves on the rights-of-way around the church, and prevented the "God Hates Fags" crowd from getting anywhere near the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Terry Honeycutt.

A few minutes ago, I called Holly Smith, one of the organizers of the counter-demonstration. I was surprised to hear no shouting or noise in the background. "American flags as far as the eye can see," she told me. And the Westboro crowd? "They are up at a gas station probably a mile up the road, because they couldn't get any closer," she said. "We're in the shoulder for probably ten deep for at least 300 yards."

Now, that belongs in a movie. And, while those folks and the Cody Alicea's bikers may or may not be Tea Partiers, they are definitely acting in the same spirit: standing up to the forces that are tearing the country down, whether through politically correct rules that always seem to protect the sensibilities of the unpatriotic and unassimilated or media-savvy activists trolling for "civil rights violations." Is there any doubt that, were Cody to burn his flag that the principal would not have stood in the way? Is there any doubt that many on the Left love that the Westboro people are probably paving the way for a free speech right to protest at Marine funerals?

And I really have to question Patterico's high falutin' claim that he "doesn't approve" of criminal acts in response to speech. First off, how much of a crime is slashing a couple tires, especially when you compare it to the crimes that the Westboro people commit? 10, 20 years ago they would have been fighting off multiple complaints for disturbing the peace, inciting violence, and trespassing. But now? Everyone, even prosecutors like Patterico, stands around shrugging their shoulders saying there's nothing they can do. (Hey, they got permits! Permits, I tell you!) Well, I don't remember the day when it was decided that justice and the American Constitution demand that Fred Phelps be able to show up uninvited at military funerals and yell "God Hates F*gs!" I think a lot of people don't remember that happening. But, happen it did. And I think a lot of people don't like that (1) it happened and (2) the government and law enforcement are making a big show of not being able to do anything about it.

Not only that, I think a lot of people look at the Phelps clan and see a modern version of Madeline Murray O'Hare. You know: someone who makes a lot of noise about the Constitution and freedom, but is really just another leftist/fellow traveler (you know Phelps is a Democrat and a disbarred civil rights lawyer, don't you?) trying to tear down America a little piece at a time. The bizarre nasties on the Left end up on the news, always wearing the cloak of "idealist" or "free speech warrior," while real warriors like Sgt. McCulskey are ignored, and seventh graders need a motorcade escort just to ride a bike with a flag on it. If all Fred Phelps has to deal with are a couple slashed tires, he'll be getting off easy.

The Untold Stories: the Real Fred Phelps

Lots of commentary on the Fred Phelps "God Hates F*gs"/funeral protest case before the US Supreme Court. One of Jonah Goldberg's readers tells us a few things about Phelps that you almost never hear:

Fred Phelps is not, by almost any standard definition, a pastor.
He’s a disbarred lawyer who attended a couple of Bible colleges from which he did not graduate, went on to law school, ended up in that field and then disbarred, for cause, then realized that in Kansas it wasn’t that hard to get congregational status for an operation with a building and some family members on Sunday mornings. His financial program is routed through Westboro Baptist, which is not affiliated with any religious body, Baptist or otherwise. Likewise, Fred has no standing, ordination, or recognition from anyone as a minister, other than from the couple dozen, almost all direct relations, who worship with him when he’s in town on Sundays.

Phelps is also a Democrat (admittedly of the Old South variety), who supported Al Gore's 1988 presidential run. Again, something you almost never hear in media stories about this "pastor" and his "extreme views" on homosexuality.

Isn't it amazing how sleazeballs like this always manage to capture the attention of the media and the courts? And isn't it also amazing how the liberal commentariat and political elite managed to prevail upon a similarly obscure "pastor" to refrain from burning a Koran, while simultaneously expressing its helplessness at being able to stop Phelps from picketing Marine funerals (and indeed lecturing us pompously about how the First Amendment absolutely protects his right to do so)? But, if the Court upholds his "right" to show up at military funerals, what's to stop anti-war protesters from doing the same? (something they would never have the balls to do outside of a Supreme Court writ brought about by the most extreme set of facts possible). Again, isn't it amazing how these things just seem to fall together?*

There once was a time when society and its public spheres - the courts, the media, the elected officers of the state - would have regarded someone like Phelps as what he is: an a**hole, and treated him accordingly. That time is obviously long past.

*other amazing ascents to political notoriety: Cindy Sheehan's "absolute moral authority," Joe Wilson's trip to Niger, Meg Whitman's maid, Levi Johnson, etc. You get the idea.

Back on the Block: A News Round-Up

Boy, take a couple days off from blogging and suddenly Special Forces generals, and their staff, are giving expletive-laden interviews to Rolling Stone as if they were Billy Joel's road crew! If you rely solely on Free Will for your news updates, I apologize. Herewith, a quick round-up of the last couple days' worth of blog-worthy material that I couldn't tackle:

1.) So...you might have heard that Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal let some Rolling Stone reporter follow him and his staff around, listening to them curse out their civilian bosses. Gosh, usually in the movies - and during Republican Administrations - that's what the hero does! I guess, McChrystal didn't get the message, tho' you'd think he would. He apparently is a political liberal who voted for Obama and can't even countenance the dread Fox News. If McChrystal really is a liberal, what did he think was going to happen when Obama took office? The Democrat Party's been the anti-war party for decades, and is filled with deep thinkers like Joe Biden who think nothing of dividing countries into three parts and declaring that US war efforts are "lost."

BTW 1: supposedly the dissension between the military and civilians in Afghanistan was an "open secret" in DC. By open secret, we mean: all of the big league DC-based journalists knew all about it, but didn't want to write about it for fear of making The One look bad. (hmmmm....sounds familiar). That Rolling Stone got a scoop of this quality should be a wake-up call for the rest of the MSM.

BTW 2: I don't care either way whether McChrystal should have been fired, but I do know this. We haven't seen Obama looking this serious and engaged in a while. Regardless of what you think of McChrystal's choice of embeds, the views expressed in the article were a sign of an incipient breakdown in military-civilian (at least Democratic civilian...) relations. I hope this snaps Obama out of his Afghan funk.

2.) We're so used to seeing progressive initiatives get approved by the courts, and watching conservative ones declared unconstitutional for failing to comport with the Living Constitution, that it was a pleasant surprise to see a federal judge lift the ban on deepwater oil drilling. People can bitch all they want about the judge being a (hiss!) Reagan appointee who owns (hisssss!) stock in oil companies. That doesn't make the ruling any less correct.

3.) There was a crazy rumor going around that Obama was planning to grant a blanket amnesty to every illegal alien in the US. I'm sure he would do it if he thought he could get away with it, but the backlash would overwhelm him.

4.) Four Christians passing out leaflets outside a fairgrounds in Dearborn, MI were arrested for disturbing the peace...for passing out Bibles to Muslims. No offence, but, if Muslims need a police state so they can feel more righteous about their religion, that doesn't make me think theirs is the One True Faith.

5.) You know what was the last thing Tipper said to Al before they sent out that "We're getting divorced" email? Apres Moi, Le Deluge. How else to explain the sudden interest in a four year old sexual assault complaint from a middle aged (ew!) massage therapist? Apparently, The Oregonian had the story in hand a couple years ago, but nobly stayed their hand. I'll bet Kobe Bryant and the Duke Lacrosse team wish they had received the same courtesy.

6.) SF Mayor Gavin Newsom is getting behind a local initiative that would go a long way towards reducing the Croesus-like pay scale of the City's transit workers. Watch out for Newsom. Everyone thinks he's a standard-issue SF progressive, but he has a real knack for finding liberal Sacred Cows to run against. Sure, he's a liberal goof, but he's liberal goof who isn't quite as doctrinaire as people might like to think.

7.) The gold standard for lousy TV talk shows have long been The Chevy Chase Show and the

The Magic Hour, but CNN may be preparing to broadcast a new king of crap. I give you...The Elliot Spitzer/Kathleen Parker Hour! No, this is not a joke. It's hard to know what's worse: that CNN's journalistic standards now include a blow-hard lefty who abused his prosecutorial discretion as NY AG, was an ineffective governor of NY (and directly precipitating that state's current crisis state), and resigned his office after getting caught with a call girl, complete with the "anguished-wife" press conference...or that Kathleen Parker is considered "conservative." Note to media types - just because someone was born in the south and isn't a liberal does not mean she is a conservative.

8.) And, congratulations to Nikki Haley who looks like she will be the next governor of South Carolina, a state that is in desperate need of a political house cleaning, if not a long hot bath. I think when people like Mitch Daniels and (ahem) me call for a truce in the culture wars on the GOP side, this is what they are talking about.

Haley's clearly not a RINO squish, but the campaign against her was the sort of social conservative button pushing effort that gives uptight Bible thumpers a bad name. It had everything: adultery, racism, plus they questioned her religion. None of it was true, and even if it was, who gives a good goddam? Too many Republicans, especially in the South, have gotten too used to an electoral formula that involved putting on a prissy face, denouncing your opponents as sinners...and then soaking up earmark money and campaign donations from their real supporters. We've had one too many GOP politicos talk a big game about family values and then (heh heh) fall on their sword. I don't literally believe that Haley (or Sarah Palin) can do a better job because they are women, but they certainly can't do any worse than the men who've been in charge for the last 15 years.

Free Market in Chains

The always charming Chi-Coms are demanding that PC makers provide them with software that prevents computers from accessing "dangerous" websites. The excuse is the ever-popular "pornography," but reality is dangerous (to the regime) political ideas: China Squeezes PC Makers (subscription required)

China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet.
The government, which has told global PC makers of the requirement but has yet to announce it to the public, says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from "harmful" content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China's security ministry and military

When the article says "PC makers," they don't mean goofy little no-name Chinese brands. dell and HP are being asked to do this. The best part of this charming initiative is its name: the "Green Dam Youth Escort." Use of the word "green" shows how hip and with it the Chinese are. They promise a "green, healthy, and harmonious Internet environment" that prevents "harmful information on the Internet from influencing and poisoning young people." Thanks Al Gore!

Teabagging Me With A Spoon

The tea parties have ended without incident - the dark cloud of fascism did NOT descend on America - but the pros in the media and the Left protest brigades are still trying to figure out how they can ridicule the whole thing. Many have focused on the fact that "teabagging" is a gay euphemism for, uh, I'll let your imagination paint a picture. This analysis, which was in the SF Chronicle, is typical: Finally, Rush defines "tea bagging"...sort of

First we can all stop snickering about the whole "teabagging" thing. As in: Why do supporters INSIST on using that word? Don't they know what it means -- in the non-Lipton sense? Perhaps after Keith Olbermann's none-too-subtle mockery of the phrase this week ("If things get too testy, things might just blow up in Fox's face") Rush Limbaugh decided to clue in his peeps about what teabagging, ahem, really means.
But I can't say that on the air, Rush said Wednesday, before the mass national teabagathon. This is a family program. Finally, he said, "think of steeping" tea bags.
Or don't.

OK, so this guy won't be taking George Will's place in the ranks of pnditry. Still, I am confused as to why "teabagging" is supposed to be so unintentionally funny. For one thing, I have never heard the tea parties referred to as a verb. People have talked about tea, tea bags, tea parties. I haven't heard a word (outside of the wiseguy hipster set) about "teabagging." Anyway, if a concept would lose all credibility because of a pre-existing gay euphemism, our intellectual and political life would be much the poorer. I have lived in SF long enough to know that the gays have euphemisms the rest of us can only dream of. Here is just a partial list (it helps to say each one with the hint of a leer):

Picture framing

Reading a book

Running out of printer ink

Israel Lobbying

Cutting and pasting

Bush v Gore

Freeing Mumia

Buying Sasha & Malia a dog

Spiderholing

Captured By Somali Pirates

Visiting grandma

Listening to Beethoven

Staying at the Bellagio

The Back-Alley Abortion

Laundry balling

Disagreeing with Obama

Dinner at Rush Limbaugh's House

Adopting a Malawi orphan

Watching John Stewart

Appeasing the Taliban

Winning American Idol

Meeting the Parents

Singaporing

Smart Power

Exercising our rights to free speech and association

There's more, a lot more. But you get the drift

Free Speech for the Blind

I didn't realize that Tom Tancredo was still capable of drawing a crowd of chanting "protesters," but that's just what he did at UNC the other day. Now the apologies are flying: UNC leaders apologize for speech fiasco:

On Wednesday, UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp and UNC System President Erskine Bowles both telephoned former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado to apologize after student protesters shouted Tancredo down as he tried to give a speech. Students smashed a window a few feet from where he stood and blocked his face with a banner that said, "No One Is Illegal."

Tancredo is known as one of the nation's most strident voices against immigration, both legal and illegal. But on Tuesday he never got to make his argument against in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. The broken glass, and the subsequent use of pepper spray by police, shut down the event while Tancredo was merely describing recent legislation aimed at providing such benefits.

Bowles might want to have a chat with the junior league Ward Churchills who were undoubtedly lurking in the background of this "protest." The tired ritual of progressive students shutting down speech they don't like has been a feature on campuses for 40 years. So has the tired ritual of defending our country's immigration laws, which are also 40 years old, and which give every indication of having lost credibility with the citizenry.

Rather than simply apologize to Tom Tancredo, it would be nice if - just once - we could have an honest debate about immigration. All we have had for the last 5 years are marches and protests by professional activists who label each other "racists" on the one hand and "criminals" on the other with healthy doses of self-serving pomposity from all sides. No one rioting on behalf of immigrants seems willing to discuss the practical issues of current immigration policy:

* that a single country - Mexico - is dominating recent immigration for no better reason than its shares our southern border
* that illegal immigrants are often an exploited class whose low wages also have the effect of lowering the wages of low-income American workers;
* that illegal immigrants are drawing on America's generous welfare system and public services, for which Americans are paying increasing taxes with the trade-off of decreased services
* that H1-B visas often shut Americans out of high wage tech jobs for the sake of temporary workers who may or may not stay in the United States.
* that there is a significant incidence of identity theft, especially of social security numbers, which enables illegal immigration
* that the chaotic nighttime border crossings along the southern border are dangerous for the illegals, and make a mockery of our sovereignty.
* that the proposed "guest worker" program would facilitate the importation of temporary workers, rather than the hiring of Americans.

Economic competition, citizenship, national sovereignty. These are not issues that lend themselves to easy debate, especially in today's charged atmosphere where the Race Card is invoked to shut down debate when things get uncomfortable. Indeed, these are not issues that are discussed openly. Often, Americans - especially dopey college kids - don't want to recognize how lucky they are to have been born here, and that their comfortable lives are more the result of chance, rather than their innate abilities. American citizenship is a valuable thing, and we are the only nation that must defend its value from dilution by excessive inflows of people just as hard working as we are, but who were unlucky in their place of birth. But, as long as you can't have the debate, you will not have immigration reform because it will lack any credibility with American citizens who have every right - as citizens - to decide who we want living here.

Your Diversity is Ruining My Tolerance!

The next time someone tries to tell you how ostentatiously progressive people are much more fabulously tolerant than the rest of us, ask them how they explain this: Students disciplined for praying can sue

Two students who were threatened with suspension at the College of Alameda after one of them prayed with an ailing teacher in a faculty office can sue the community college district for allegedly violating their freedom of speech, a federal judge has ruled.

The students, Kandy Kyriacou and Ojoma Omaga, said college officials at first told them they were being suspended for "disruptive behavior," then held disciplinary hearings and sent them letters warning that they would be punished if they prayed in a teacher's office again.

Disciplinary hearings over this? It's hard to imagine how anybody praying could be "disruptive." Were they speaking in tongues? Handling snakes? Speaking approvingly of Sarah Palin?

The case dates from the fall of 2007, when Kyriacou and Omaga were studying fashion design and merchandising at the two-year college and took breaks from class to pray with each other and other students on a balcony, according to their suit.
Kyriacou prayed with the teacher, Sharon Bell, at an office Bell shared with other teachers, on two occasions in November and December 2007. The second time, a day when Bell was feeling ill, another teacher entered the office and told Kyriacou, "You can't be doing that in here," and the student stopped praying and left, the suit said.

Run! It's the American Taliban! Right here in Alameda!

The above is, of course, a perfect example of how quickly state agents can become actively involved in the suppression of free speech and free expression. It's also an example of how little respect there is for people's values and their privacy. The teacher is simply described as "sick," but I'll bet she didn't just have the sniffles. She had something that two of her students felt demanded a moment of prayer. That is an act of compassion and communion, not the vanguard of the New American Theocracy. The fact that some busybody felt entitled to barge in and announce that they "couldn't do that here" shows how little she respected their privacy. Sure, they were on public property, but does that give state agents the right to monitor exactly what people are doing in every part of the building? I hope not, but it looks like many would disagree.

They're Dancing on the Berlin Wall... In Moldova

Impoverished Moldovan youths, using Facebook and Twitter as organizing tools, have rioted against the stultifying reign of their elders who can't let go of the impoverished certainties of the Communist era: Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter:

A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest againstMoldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.
The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.

I suspect the only change will be an emergency ban on social networking sites.

Private Sector Oppression

This is what a real "shredding of the Constitution" looks like, only (whoops!) there's no Constitution to begin with: Seeking Justice, Chinese Land in Secret Jails

They are often tucked away in the rough-and-tumble sections of the city’s south side, hidden beneath dingy hotels and guarded by men in dark coats. Known as “black houses,” they are unofficial jails for the pesky hordes of petitioners who flock to the capital seeking justice.

This month, Wang Shixiang, a 48-year-old businessman from Heilongjong Province, came to Beijing to agitate for the prosecution of corrupt policemen. Instead, he was seized and confined to a dank room underneath the Juyuan Hotel with 40 other abducted petitioners.

But, in an example of the adage that there are markets in everything, the private sector is doing it's part to do the government's work in a much more efficient and cost effective manner:

In China’s authoritarian state, senior officials tally petitions to get a rough sense of social order around the country. A successfully filed petition — however illusory the prospect of justice — is considered a black mark on the bureaucratic record of the local officials accused of wrongdoing.
So the game, sometimes deadly, is to prevent a filing. The cat-and-mouse contest has created a sizable underground economy that enriches the interceptors, the police and those who run the city’s ad hoc detention centers.
Human rights activists and petitioners say plainclothes security officers and hired thugs grab the aggrieved off the streets and hide them in a growing constellation of unmarked detention centers. There, the activists say, the aggrieved will be insulted, roughed up and then escorted back to their home provinces. Some are held for weeks and months without charge, activists say, and in a few cases, the beatings are fatal.

Free Speech or Globalization...Choose One

Sometimes, Google must wonder if the market in China is worth the effort. China has announced that Google is a "vulgar" website that has failed to curb the pornography (Googleporn?) that can be found via a Google search. As is usual for an autocrat regime, China's accusations are made without evidence, and are made with threats of punishment and shut down.

Google, of course, is not a "website." It is a search engine that searches other sites. When China complains about "vulgarity" on Google, it is really complaining about vulgarity on the Internet. And I hate to be the one that breaks this to all you hipsters and free traders out there, but China's definition of vulgarity would only appeal to someone to the right of James Dobson.

Google must think they can work through this, but this is no ordinary corporate disagreement. Google is being challenged by the full weight of the Chinese government. I'm sure the kool kids at Google can be counted on to defend their free speech rights from the imagined oppression of GW Bush, but I have to wonder about their fortitude in the face of a truly oppressive and overweening government.

China, like any nation with ambition, has long term goals. One of those is economic, political, and cultural dominance over the West, especially the U.S. What happens when China becomes so big that it can dictate, not just what its citizens see on the Internet, but also what we see?

7thriv