Off By One

I’ve been keeping an eye on the southern neighbor these days; the election coming up down there will have regrettably far-reaching consequences for not only the US but for us, too. I’ve seen more than a few things that bother me, not least of which is the fact that there is literally not one candidate for any party that strikes me as anything other than an opportunistic, grasping, myopic shell of a human being. I wouldn’t move to the US right now if someone paid me.

Okay, well, maybe if they paid me a lot.

It’s the last epithet that concerns me, though; I expect grasping, and opportunistic is synonymous with ‘career politician’. The persistent failure of vision, however, is scary; they can’t see past their clawing to the top to acknowledge the wounds they’re inflicting on themselves in the process. And Bob forfend that we suggest that the process is flawed, that’s frankly unamerican.

I know, I know, I devote too much thought to this for someone who doesn’t even live within the borders, let alone have a right to vote there, but the US elections are merely a logical endpoint (not the only logical endpoint, mind) of the particular form of representative democracy that is so widely believed to be the one, true way. I know I’m going a bit off-message for myself here, but I blame a combination of my usual bugbear (the unending manipulable and moronic voting public) and a new beast: Corporate finance.

I’m a devoted supporter of freedom of expression, so this is hard for me, but I believe more and more that allowing corporate freedom of expression is suppressing individual freedom of expression too much. I know that there’s a good argument to be made that corporations’ speech is just a collective expression of individual freedom to speak, but I’m no longer convinced that it’s a valid defence. I’m arguing ethics from consequences here, which is not always a safe path to tread. Here, however, the consequences look increasingly dire.

Still, in the end, it’s the people who keep putting this system over themselves.

What’s a libertarian to do?

I’m getting a bit fed up with all of the people who don’t understand the concept of freedom of speech.

Yes, it’s going to be one of those posts.

There’s a couple of interesting incidents out in the wilds (I hesitate to say “hinterlands”, but mainly because I don’t think that way of Austria, and I don’t want to lump them in with the rest of the places at issue) of the world. You may have heard of them. There’s the (by now) infamous incident with the Danish editorial cartoons causing riots and bloodshed… Oh, sorry, no. Just to be clear, that bloodshed? Those riots? The threats? Those are the works of madmen, not cartoonists. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to differentiate the two.

Anyway… Back on track… There’s the cartoons, and then there’s this twit over in Austria, deliberately flouting their laws against Holocaust denial to promulgate bald-faced lies about the occurrence of the Nazi extermination of some large number of Jews.

So… What’s the most common refrain? Well, on one hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech, and then on the other hand we have people who are all for freedom of speech.

What the fuck, you ask?

Well, see, that last group “believe in free speech, but…”

Beware of anyone who prefaces a statement with that line. They probably don’t have your best interests at heart, and they’re a liar, to boot.

Here’s the skinny, and I know that this comes as no news to most of those that read here, but nonetheless: Free Speech means (and, in fact, rests firmly upon and is rendered meaningless without) the right to say things that terrify, disgust, demean, insult, and verbally violate all that you hold dear. The more offensive an utterance is, the more important it is that the speaker be free to say it, without fear of violence or of censorship. That isn’t to say that they should be immune to censure — that’s how mind-blowingly stupid pronouncements like “Auschwitz’s Crematorium Two, the site of half a million deaths, is ‘a mere legend’” should be greeted. Ridicule is another good response. As is simply ignoring the speaker. But silencing your critics is… well, there’s a couple of interesting 20^th century events that might be informative on the subject. I leave that, too, as an exercise for the reader.

In short, freedom of speech is not just freedom to agree with the people who have more guns.

I’m still damned busy, but some things I just can’t help myself from posting.

This is a small site, with no real impact, and no political pretensions — I don’t provide a service to people who want info on the government, although I criticize sometimes. However, the fact that linking to this is cause for subpoenas from my own government… Well, let’s just say that suppression of free speech is abhorrent under all circumstances. Especially when it involves the very people in positions to suppress it.

This USian blogger is pumping out information about the Adscam trials, although I’m not sure what his angle on it is, and as far as I’m concerned is providing a valuable service.

Just remember — if you’re co-national with me, it might soon be illegal for you to read those links.

It’s worth noting, as someone else in the blog community has in response to this, an old saw about the internet: It will treat censorship as network damage and simply route around it. This is a feature, not a bug.

Anyway, the workload is lightening off a bit — I may be reachable for conversation (for the masochists among you) soon, and after next weekend I actually expect to have time to relax!

As seen on “Instapundit”:http://www.instapundit.com/ today, a New York Post editorial on the topic of academic uniformity that I can really see being a problem.

Essentially the gist of it is that there’s an overwhelming bias towards liberalism in the humanities at a few major universities, and (although the article is not clear on the source of the statistics) probably at a majority of them.

There’s a few pretty clear arguments as to how this happens here, as well — ones that might be valid, might not, but they’re convincing to me. The truth of it is that it is hard to get a position in studies of social issues unless you agree with the prevailing opinion. Try to imagine the last person you knew of who was studying race relations in a humanities program who was opposed to affirmative action. While I imagine that there exists an example or two, contrast those with the uniform majority.

One comment that was really telling/galling in the article was a (para)quote from a linguistics professor at Berkeley:

The disparity in hiring, he explains, occurs because conservatives are not as interested as liberals in academic careers. Why does he think liberals are like that? “Unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice.”

With all due respect, and I want it clear (this is for you, Matt) that it’s an arbitrarily small, non-negative quantity, this is bullshit. Self-serving, self-righteous, and self-fulfilling bullshit. All it says is that if you disagree with the left slant of the modern humanities, then by definition you don’t care a whit about the society that you live in. Well, fuck that. I do disagree with the left lean, and I do so because I care about the society I live in, not despite it. I think they’re wrong about what is best for the world.

And that just gets me angry, and I shouldn’t code when angry. Which I need to get back to.

This post brought to you by Chris killing time on blogs while he should be writing a compiler.

I am obliged, upon actually tasting it in a quiet setting, to reverse my long-held distaste for Big Rock Traditional Ale. It is, in fact, quite tasty.

Also, this essay on academia and truth may be of interest to A) anyone who teaches amongst my readership (all of one person, as far as i know) and B) anyone that learns (Many, many more)

In other news, I finished my last exam today. I need 92% on it to get 90% in the course. Here’s hoping! My other grades seem to be in the A- to A range so far, but Pscyh, and Algorithms haven’t made any splash at all yet. We’ll see.

In case you skipped it, seriously: Read this. I’m not kidding.

.. and this is nifty.

A free speech advocacy group in the USA hands out these Jefferson Muzzle awards to organizations and individuals who have failed to grasp the first ammendment protections of free speech over the course of the year. A good read, and a set of good examples to use if discussing free speech and its abuses.

(Not found via Mefi, but certainly discussed there)

I wish i’d seen this site a while ago. Free speech, indeed (via Mefi)

From The Crimson, with selected quotes and commentary from this article:

About two weeks ago, some students at Harvard, members of the Harvard Crew team, led by Michael J. Skey, erected (pun intended, and not original) a 9-foot snow phallus. Hours later, the sculpture was torn down by Amy E. Keel, a self-proclaimed feminist.

Okay, enough backstory.

I read about this one about three days ago. It made me feel nearly ill at the time, but not in the focused way that this article did. What i am going to do is suggest that you read it, and then i’m going to select a few quotes from both the article and the principals of the story and ‘comment’ (read: rant and rave) on them.

“It was offensive because it was pornographic,” said Amy E. Keel ‘04, who said she and her roommate ‘dismantled’ the giant snow penis.

“As a feminist, pornography is degrading to women and creates a violent atmosphere,” she said.

I’ll start with the logical fallacy here. “As a feminist…” etc…

Leading a statement with a self-identifying phrase like that, then following it with a universal pronouncement is failing to follow proper logical connections of ideas. Granted, Ms. Keel may find the idea of pornography degrading, but that is not something that can logically be applied to other people on that basis.

Furthermore, Keel claims that she and her roommate were verbally and physically harassed by a group of roughly 25 men when they attempted to tear down the statue with a cardboard tube at 1:30 a.m. the morning after it was built.

“A few people came out and crowded me with their bodies and one person shoved me away from the penis,” she said. “It was gendered violence, because [their comments] were said in the context of our gender and accompanied by aggressive actions toward us.”

Another logical fallacy: Gendered violence? How about this situation: You have two extremely self-righteous [insert any group here] with only [said group’s visible identifying characteristics] in common. These people are destroying the works of someone else’s art. Given that self-righteousness provokes anger in most people, the more so when it’s directed specifically at the group being so provoked, is it any surprise that they may have responded impolitely, and focused on the [group]’s [common trait]ness?

Here’s a tip, Amy, though i doubt you’d read anything critical of your position. It’s not gendered violence. Anyone of any gender with the attitude you have - the “I’m a victim, so i can tear down things that make me uncomfortable” position that you take - would have been attacked on the same basis. Your attitude is contemptible and demeans the positions of real feminists everywhere.

“The ice sculpture was erected in a public space, one that should be free from menacing reminders of women’s sexual vulnerability,” Rosenfeld wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

She said the snow penis follows a long line of public phallic symbols, including the Washington Monument and missiles.

“Women do not need to be reminded of the power of the symbol of the male genitalia,” Rosenfeld said. “My guess is that they are constantly reminded of it in daily messages.”

Repeat after me: “The penis is not a threat. The penis, like the vagina, is something that differentiates the reproductive roles in a non-threatening manner. Men who are threatening and women who are threatening do so regardless of the nature of their genitalia”

Last quote:

“I have a right to speak out against the joke,” Keel said. “I criticize the motives of putting it up, but since they did, it is within my rights to put it down. It goes both ways.”

Here’s the one that really stokes my anger. Especially on one of the leading intellectual campuses in the US. Funny, i seem to remember something in the articles of governance of the US, something… fundamental. Oh, yes! That’s the thing! “Freedom of speech”, isn’t it? Funny how, in the heat of the moment, ms. Keel decided that her taking offense not only freed her from the burdens of respecting the handiwork of others, but also the obligation to permit views and images that she, herself, does not like to continue to be seen and heard.

With attitudes like that, Ms. Keel is going to find herself a great government job in the [republican/democrat] team stifling citizen dissent. I suspect that she and John Ashcroft would get along famously. (Note: I don’t actually give a damn here, but i’d be willing to bet Ms. Keel does, and probably hates that sanctimonious prick the same way i do, albeit for different reasons.)

The similiarity is more than skin deep.

I just wish these idiots would learn that, just because they take offense at something doesn’t mean that they have the right to silence or destroy it. The world does not owe them a padded, coddled existence free of all offense and unhappiness.