tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post3424596256599361481..comments2023-12-05T07:50:19.855-05:00Comments on No Oil for Pacifists: "She Said" Tops "He Said"@nooil4pacifistshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-26417458251009131202011-05-27T13:58:22.625-04:002011-05-27T13:58:22.625-04:00It is a quandry, as Carl reasons.
The roots of th...It is a quandry, as Carl reasons.<br /><br />The roots of the problem are twofold: government interference and the elitism of academia.<br /><br />As I complained above, no valid reason to make a federal case of frat boys behaving badly. Maybe it's time for a remake of "Animal House" but have Eric Holder as the heavy. Unfortunately, he probably doesn't have a comedic bone in his body. In fact, the whole Department of Education should be disestablished.<br /><br />Another prime effort of conservatives has to be breaking the gatekeeping power of liberal academics. The MSM is fading from market competition and we need competition with those colleges and universities captured and controlled by liberals and leftists. Choosing BYU or Notre Dame over Oberlin or Reed or Yale is one way to attack that gatekeeping.<br /><br />Note that perhaps my posts are colored by the fact that I've an 18 year old daughter as a freshman in a public college in Arizona. Call me an over-protective father but if some gang of young men chanted those lines in earshot of my daughters, I'd kick some booty.Whitehallnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-80952504018122194442011-05-27T07:33:38.764-04:002011-05-27T07:33:38.764-04:00I dislike choosing between Whitehall's and OBH...I dislike choosing between Whitehall's and OBH's visions. The libertarian in me prefers Whitehall's approach: Colleges competing in moral policies. But the conservative in me recognizes the truth of OBH's passionate view--that there are few colleges in practice that care to emphasize conservative values, and so it might be better to prohibit colleges from pushing either value. <br /><br />The choice is complicated by several factors.<br /><br />First, conduct is not at issue. Notre Dame can enforce a "one foot on the floor at all time" standard when visiting co-ed dorm rooms, because that is conduct, not speech. So, in the sense of conduct, there already <i>is</i> a choice, and Notre Dame and BYU (as Whitehall suggests), among others, properly distinguish themselves in the marketplace of colleges.<br /><br />Second, "state schools" (like FSU) are different from private colleges (like Yale). The First Amendment fully applies to the former, and would seem to prevent content-based restrictions on speech. Yet, as OBH suggests, as a practical matter, schools (and <a href="http://nooilforpacifists.blogspot.com/2008/05/qotd_07.html" rel="nofollow">current culture</a>) celebrate <i>The Vagina Monologues</i> while targeting disfavored speech according to the unwritten but widely shared principles of political correctness.<br /><br />Third, it's almost impossible for a "private" school to remain above Federal government pressure-of-the era. That's because nearly all schools take government grants, student loans, or -- at very least -- tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) (thought I'm not endorsing racially discriminatory conduct (not speech) at issue in <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=461&page=574" rel="nofollow">the <i>Bob Jones</i> case</a>). So as a practical matter, bureaucrats in the "ed biz" at the Department of Education hold the legal hammer over campus speech. And when the decide (as the recently did, as explained above) both to conflate sexual assault and sexual harassment and to lower the burden of proof for each, neither state schools nor private colleges can resist.<br /><br />In view of the foregoing, while I would prefer Whitehall's libertarian, market-oriented approach of "a college for every man and every man for a college," I'm afraid OBH may be right that it's impossible as a practical matter. Which is why I was mooting an approach that prevents enforcement of any particular moral approach to speech to one that invariably results in political correctness trumping all. Or, as I said -- reluctantly -- "I prefer inaction to bias."@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-83820956218110630622011-05-26T20:34:49.701-04:002011-05-26T20:34:49.701-04:00I frankly hope the frat chapter calls on FIRE to h...I frankly hope the frat chapter calls on <a href="http://thefire.org/" rel="nofollow">FIRE</a> to help them.OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-15102319694166978162011-05-26T20:28:00.331-04:002011-05-26T20:28:00.331-04:00...contrinued from above...
My mom used to smack...<i>...contrinued from above...</i><br /><br /> My mom used to smack me with a wooden spoon. It hurt like you wouldn't<br />believe.<br /> ... That's what we need more of -- my mom whipping kids with a wooden spoon.<br />There is no such thing as a fine line between discipline and abuse -- there is<br />a big, fat line, and every kid knows it. Sure, that spoon hurt, but was it<br />abuse? Hell no, it was a lesson, and it worked.<br /> In no way does telling kids what to think open their minds.<br /> ... Kids have to sort things out on their own. It has worked that way for<br />centuries. But now we have established a culture of blame, and we teach kids no<br />matter what they do, it is not their fault -- someone else is responsible.<br /> There is now a generation of immature, self-involved brats with short<br />attention spans and no sense of discipline.<br /> And one day, they'll be in charge."<br /><b> - Nathaniel Hensley -</b>OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-32424306699479391092011-05-26T20:27:14.786-04:002011-05-26T20:27:14.786-04:00"Graphic illustration of what the hell is wro..."Graphic illustration of what the hell is wrong with this society: a college<br />male yells at a group of college females, calling them 'water buffaloes.' They<br />tell on him, he gets put on probation, he is threatened with suspension and he<br />is forced to take a 'sensitivity training course.'<br /> Sensitivity; I hate that word.<br /> Sensetivity is no longer an admirable quality. It is something forced upon<br />everyone. Laws are being altered to force people to become 'more sensitive,'<br />and those who are not have to fake it to avoid arrest by the New Age Police.<br /> This is the outcome of a generation of sissies, and I tell you, it makes me<br />sick.<br /> All kids until now had a set of rules. If somebody called you a name you<br />didn't take a shine to, you grabbed hima nd beat the tar out of him.<br /> These were simple rules. It was a model of frontier justice, and every kid<br />understood it. [As Bo Diddley said, 'You don't let your mouth write no check<br />your tail can't cash.']<br /> And it worked.<br /> Sure, there were kids who ran and told, but they always got their tail kicked<br />sooner or later...<br /> But somewhere along the line, these bonehead hippies decided to instill new<br />values in their kids; 'ALWAYS run to the teacher and squeal, NEVER stay and<br />fight.'<br /> So instead of learning to stand up and fight, learning to say when, kids<br />learned to be finks and crybabies.<br /> Of course not every single parent taught this to every sinlge kid, but it was<br />a pervasive philosophy that slowly crept across popular conciousness. Teachers<br />taught it in school. Babysitters reinforced it, and slowly it became the<br />generally accepted path for childhood."<br /> And now, the end result is more lawsuits than ever. There's lawsuits over<br />name calling and emotional damage because some wimp gets their feelings hurt.<br /> So when someone calls someone a name, they get reprimanded for not being<br />sensitive. But he does not need to be. Everyone needs to quit complaining and<br />toughen up a little.<br /> Those women from the original example should have grabbed that guy and beaten<br />the bejesus out of him. If you can't handle name-calling without running to<br />school officials, you clearly missed out on part of the maturing process.<br /> If someone is telling 'nigger' jokes, he should get his butt kicked. It would<br />teach him decorum, as well as letting everyone know what kind of person he is.<br />But instead children are taught to tell 'nigger' jokes in private. That way<br />they can be racist while everyone thinks they are sensitive.<br /> ... Fortunately, I was raised in a throwback community, cut off from<br />fancy-shmancy eduactional improvements. If some kid took my basketball, I hit<br />him and took my ball back. If he didn't cry, we'd play together and end up<br />friends.<br /> If I called a girl stupid, she'd round up a bunch of her homegirls and make me<br />look bad in front of my friends. Then I would learn that she was not to be<br />trifled with.<br /> What parents today don't realize is that kids are incredibly resilient and<br />perceptive. By raising a generation of kids where parents are afraid to hit<br />them because it constitutes abuse, we have a generation of teens who think they<br />are above punishment.<br /><i>....continued next missive...</i>OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-90181938810419685582011-05-26T20:25:14.671-04:002011-05-26T20:25:14.671-04:00> But your basic point is correct - what Yale d...> But your basic point is correct - what Yale did is not about maintaining high standards of conduct but about punishing male students and shifting power to feminists.<br /><br />Your "but..." is the issue here, sir. While I concur with your overall point, that independent universities should be able to set standards, this isn't about that, it's about political correctness.<br /><br />If it were 45 years ago, and these frat boys were marching through chanting "Hey, ho, Vietnam has got to go", and the university came down on them like this, would you be suggesting the same thing was appropriate? <br /><br />How about if they were complaining about civil rights for Negroes -- the granting or refusing of same...?<br /><br />Or how about 2 years earlier, if they were complaining about the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman%27s_Agreement" rel="nofollow">Gentleman's Agreement</a>"?<br /><br />The problem here is defining "moral decorum" and such when dealing with free speech. Is pro-racism "moral decorum"? Is "pro-homosexuality"? Is "anti-homosexuality"?<br /><br />"Oh, well, we're clearly talking about just blatantly offensive speech..."<br /><br />Ah, so, a production of "The Vagina Monologues" could be banned or the Yale student production group punished for it? <br /><br />No? <br /><br />What if it were a lesser known, locally-written play which contained clear insults of Christ and Christians for simply believing that homosexuality is wrong? <br /><br />Now reverse that, what if it were a locally-written play by a rather overly fundamentalist Christian which clearly discussed homosexuality as, as the Bible puts it, "an abomination"?<br /><br />"Private performances" .... ?<br /><br />Ah, so a promotional group looking to drum up interest in the play in question (pick any of the three above) that quoted lines from the play, carried placards and banners with the same, and so forth... what then?<br /><br />I believe you feel, and I fully concur, that the Yale frat in question is being particularly boorish and rude. <br /><br />There are other forms of social pressure which can quite effectively be brought against them and which are far more applicable to the order and nature of the problem in question.<br /><br />Censorship -- and that IS what this is -- is not appropriate.<br /><br /><i>"The only social order in which freedom of speech is secure is <br />the one in which it is secure for everyone... and, as those who<br />call for censorship in the name of the oppressed ought to recognize,<br />it is never the oppressed who determine the <b>bounds</b> of the censorship.<br />Their power is limited to legitimizing the <b>idea</b> of censorship."</i><br /> - Aryeh Neier -OBloodyHellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09992539380115488567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-12312951089340021372011-05-26T18:22:12.566-04:002011-05-26T18:22:12.566-04:00I'll certainly agree that the Obama Administra...I'll certainly agree that the Obama Administration had no business making a "federal case" out of this, literally.<br /><br />Yet I would allow private educational institutions to establish and implement their own standards of behavior and speech for their students. Both Yale and Brigham Young should have that freedom. If they codify their standards in such a way that impact REAL freedom of speech, expression, and thought, I can reject them. On the other hand, if they demand gentlemanly and lady-like behavior, I can endorse that standard too.<br /><br />That way, I can CHOOSE not to attend Yale!<br /><br />But your basic point is correct - what Yale did is not about maintaining high standards of conduct but about punishing male students and shifting power to feminists.Whitehallnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-72021364681892522512011-05-26T13:35:33.232-04:002011-05-26T13:35:33.232-04:00Whitehall: I have some sympathy, but:
1) Conduc...Whitehall: I have some sympathy, but:<br /><br />1) Conduct and speech are different; one can prohibit the former without running afoul of the First Amendment. Admittedly, the distinction can be <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=391&invol=367" rel="nofollow">difficult</a> to <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=403&invol=15" rel="nofollow">make</a>, but -- for example -- public drunkenness, which was not at issue at Yale, can be outlawed. Similarly, despite the confusion of Yale and the Education Department, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/04/sexual-harassment-and-the-loneliness-of-the-civil-libertarian-feminist/236887/" rel="nofollow">sexual assault isn't the same as sexual harassment</a>. <br /><br />2) Today's universities only are outraged over one type of expression, that with a message with which they disagree. As an example, <a href="http://yaleherald.com/news/fighting-for-his-rights-street-preacher-sues-the-city/" rel="nofollow">the City of New Haven tried to suppress anti-homosexual sermons at Yale</a>, yet <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576341343051176086.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" rel="nofollow">Florida State University's going nuts about a $1.5 million donation from the Koch brothers</a>. Yet, the First Amendment prohibits governments from discriminating against speech based on its content. <i>Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley</i>, <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=408&page=92#98" rel="nofollow">408 U.S. 82, 98-99 (1972)</a>. While there is an open question whether the decisions of a non-state school such as Yale constitute "state action" (and I would argue not), there is no question but that the First Amendment applies to Department of Education decisions, and its recent letter lowering the burden of proof in Title IX complaints might be subject to challenge.<br /><br />3) In light of the foregoing, while in an ideal world, our great universities would share in the responsibility for spreading good moral values, in practice, they reward liberal speech and punish in accordance with political correctness. I prefer inaction to bias.@nooil4pacifistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688417615117569825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6427940.post-69624854613649248082011-05-26T12:22:33.843-04:002011-05-26T12:22:33.843-04:00Do this thought experiment.
If the same words and...Do this thought experiment.<br /><br />If the same words and displays of boorish behavior by students had occurred at Brigham Young University, would they have been allowed to hand out the same punishments?<br /><br />I would hope that universities think it their responsibility to build character of our young people and these displays were of poor character.<br /><br />However, I agree that feminists are driving this based on a motivation driven by their own political sexism.<br /><br />I'd feel better if universities punished drunken sluttish co-eds too but I don't see that happening.Whitehallnoreply@blogger.com