Lack of Reasoning Skills

The food-throwers aren’t capable of using reason to rebut the speakers’ arguments, so they use food instead—like two-year-olds throwing a fit. Next time it’ll be rocks or bullets.

Kathy, Instructor, at 6:08 pm EDT on October 2, 2005

Speech Interrupted (Conservatives and special protection)

Interesting comment above about conservatism being a voluntary choice and therefore by conservative standards not needing special protection.

Speaking as a centrist, I think the conservatives’ point here is not one of demanding special protection, but rather of agreeing with universities that diversity is a worthy goal, and should include diversity of thought so that students can learn critical thinking rather than merely memorize talking points.

Man in the Middle, at 5:05 am EDT on April 9, 2005

Speech Interrupted

These childish ,left-wing antics serve only to convince responsible adult voters that the left is, well...childish. As in petulant, irresponsible, and self-dramatizing. That the Democratic party has managed to get itself associated with such silly, counterproductive forms of protest (don’t bother trying to build a political consensus that actually ATTRACTS voters, for goodness’ sake!) is why it has become increasingly irrelevant.

pollyanna, at 3:38 pm EDT on April 9, 2005

Did they actually prevent those speakers from expressing their thoughts? Uh, no.

Has William Kristol ever listened to those who disagree with him? Have the fora (incl. news/talk shows)in which he has appeared as a panelist, ever really provided adequate balancing viewpoint? No.

Having heard the evidence utterly disproving his own views on Iraq, has Kristol ever modified his stance? Listened w/ greater care to new voices or new information? Engaged in an honest dialogue, conducted w/ integrity in relation to his opponents? Listened to reason?

No.

He has not.

Public figures doing the college lecture circuit presume that aristocracy has its privileges — that free speech is their right, and no one else’s. That free speech is a one-way street. That they have no obligation to listen to their fellow Americans. That free speech entitles them to lie, do great damage to the nation, and send others off to die, sans Declaration of War.

You defend the right to free speech for Kristol, but by scolding your own students, you essentially deprive them of the same free speech rights to speak to and be heard by those same speakers.

“Protecting” these speakers from any real debate, from any real dissent, and from any substantive challenge — from hearing the free speech of those they PRESUME to educate — comes at the cost of the free speech rights of your own students. If there is no right to be heard, then America is meaningless.

So the heavy, overt irony exercised in having William Kristol “educate” those who are both better informed and more principled operates to install powerlessness and docility upon and within the student body.

By defending Kristol’s right to free speech, but eliminating students’ free speech rights in that same forum, you eliminate any and all healthy and meaningful debate and dialog. When public figures have no obligation to listen, or to be confronted with facts, or to be challenged on principle, then there is no accountability, and no America.

What upsets Earlham College is the breach of etiquette. It’s remarkably hypocritical to scold students for Speaking Truth to Power, when Kristol has lied, perhaps treasonously, and his allies at every turn eliminate free speech and the function of open dialog in the public realm.

So they did it with a pie.

So what.

Did they heckle, censor, or jeer? Did they close down the lecture, or beat Kristol in the street? No. You will recall antiwar protestors pre-Iraq invasion were beaten in the streets of DC. (No hubbub re the 1stAmendment then, bub. Kristol didn’t defend their free speech rights, then, nor did Earlham.) Did those same students urge the country rush to war? Did they lie & present fraudulent evidence to the American people? Did they falsely assert a link to Iraq? Or falsely claim it’s the Preznit’s decision to go to war, rather than Congress’s?

No.

Earlham & Co.are upset not by a violation of free speech, but by the unseemly expression of perfectly justified emotion. It’s impolite, unseemly, and creates a scene. But you’ll recall that discomfort is a primary benefit/byproduct of free speech.

Earlham has punished the wrong folks. They’ve failed their students, just as surely as Kristol has betrayed his country. And they’ve done so at the cost of their cherished Quaker virtues & American values.

Let us not ever again pretend that politeness is equivalent to morality. We have clear evidence, now, that rudeness is moral and impishness is ethical. Kristol, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld do not listen to the polite. They do not listen at all.

But America does not elect Kings. Nor tyrants.

And the deans & chancellors at Earlham had best remember that, as they enforce obedience, that the same role was played by the same institutions in Germany of the early- to mid-20th century. Germans were polite, knew their place, but later said:

“I was just doing my job.""I’m a good German.”

Sound familiar?

There is no small stain, on Earlham as an institution, in their reaction to. . . pies.

What about their reaction to bombs?

To lies?To betrayal?

Rich, at 8:04 pm EDT on April 10, 2005

Attacks on Academic Freedom

Observing from abroad, this is the most ominous trend in Academia in a generation.

Check out this article that was rejected by the Chronicle of Higher Education ;-)

Can a “Patriotic” Mob Take Over the Universities? by Baruch Kimmerling, March 29, 2005http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar05/Kimmerling0329.htm

Steve McCarty, Professor at Osaka Jogakuin College, Japan, at 5:06 am EDT on April 11, 2005