Must not put up posters urging people how to vote?
"Proposition 8" forbad homosexual "marriage". If you are allowed to argue for only one side in a democratic election, there's not much democracy about it and certainly no free speech. But that's what happened at Stanford. But Leftists often tear down GOP posters before Federal elections so I don't suppose we should be surprised. I myself have had conservative stickers torn off my car.
"When a group of students put up “Yes on Prop. 8” flyers in my dorm this past year, there was soon a debate about them on the chat list and they vanished after a day or two. The “Yes on Prop. 8” campaigners’ speech was cut short–perhaps a violation of their speech rights–but students who found the flyers hateful, especially gay students who felt that they amounted to an attack on their identity, were also spared having to suffer such speech while brushing their teeth in the bathroom or walking down the halls of their home....
The arguments on both sides are powerful, perhaps some explanation for why the debate continues and reasonable people disagree. But when judged in the context of a university setting, the European arguments for restriction outweigh the American arguments against. Students are in their formative years. They are more easily intimidated and vilifications of them based on characteristics unrelated to their ideas can cause tremendous anguish and impede their ability to engage and develop. They too need to learn to develop a thick skin and be ready for the real world, where a government will not always come to the rescue....
Source
The author above does not seem to be able to make up her mind. She says students need to develop a thicker skin but also says that the poor darlings are too fragile to be exposed to speech which might help develop that.
15 comments:
Just more typical sophistry from the left on why speech they don't like can be restricted.
By the time my children got to college age, they knew who they were, what they believed, and how little the opinion of the world should affect either.
If we use "thin skins" as a justification for controlling speech, why should it stop at the college level? Doesn't the 30 year old or 40 year old "thin skinned" person deserve the same sort of protection against the travails of opinions they don't like?
You're right Stan, which is why hate-speech laws were invented, to protect those 30 and 40 year olds. Of course, if they're not members of one of the "special" groups, they have no protections. There's nothing in the First Amendment that says speech must be "pleasant, comforting, or delicate", so as not to upset the timid. Speech is either free, or it's not.
If those College students are so easily intimidated into voting certain ways by posters, that sounds like a good reason that the voting age should be raised up to a level where they are emotionally able to deal with the complex issues of voting!
Mobius
Hello Good Gentles All!
Hello Mobius!
Your comment about the voting age is interesting.
When the republic was founded the average life expectancy was about 45 but the voting age was 21.
I have often felt that this was because casting a vote is so important that it should be done only by those who have lived a good long while and have some understanding of the world.
There are those who are advocating that 16 year olds should vote. I was quite sharp at 16 but as I look back on it there is absolutely no way I could have have made truly informed and reasoned votes at that age.
I interact with a great many young people and I have yet to meet any 16 year old who should be voting and no more than 10-15% of the 18 year olds I have met should be voting (at that age I would not have been one of them.)
The older I get the more I appreciate why the founding fathers kept the voting age at 21. A man has to have lived and been a functioning part of society before he should be trusted with its direction.
These are just my thoughts but I stand by them.
Pax,
InFides
"There are those who are advocating that 16 year olds should vote."
---That's insane, if it was up to me, I would raise the voting age to 25. Let the kids have a job, pay a rent or a mortgage, pay taxes, see what it's like living in the real world and then allow the little bastards to vote.
As for the removal of Pro-Prop-8 posters, I'm not surprised. The same happens with pro-gun and pro-war posters. Lib colleges don't embrace "ideological diversity." The only thing you can do is put up more posters and raise more ruckus than the enemy.
Generally speaking, one look at the average American voter proves that stupidity, and the inability to actually think, is not limited to the young.
If the right to drive a car, etc. requires a test, then to vote should also require some proof of relevant knowledge (regardless of age). Ditto for parenting children!
"If the right to drive a car, etc. requires a test, then to vote should also require some proof of relevant knowledge (regardless of age)."
More government, less freedom. I always knew you guys were closet liberals.
Actually, the Founding Fathers restricted the right to vote to landowners. That's probably a better demonstration of responsibility than a test which could be skewed as easily as voting districts.
I think there should be a sliding scale. You get between .1 and 1 vote depending on how you answer 10 questions relevant to the vote being made. Questions could deal with the particular law being voted on or the stances of the people they are voting for. Had we done this in the last election, no doubt half of the voters for Obama would have counted for only .1 vote and his total vote would have been closer to 25mil. Of course thats just the popular vote..
Anon 4:25
A test to vote, something like a Literacy test perhaps?
And if we could find a “Angel”, a person without any biases to judge it, I would be in favor of it too. But all we have are people, and people have biases and those biases would affect the test is graded.
Mobius
"Generally speaking, one look at the average American voter proves that stupidity, and the inability to actually think, is not limited to the young."
---Everyone knows that without the young McCain would be president.
Anon 4;25, you would have voters read the laws they're voting on? Even the members of congress who write those laws don't read or understand them. For the most part, people rely on the media to tell them what's going on, which is how we ended up with this current government.
One idea I came across in a link from an article by a teacher describing what it's like to teach in a heavily black school suggested that citizen status be renewed every 5 years or so, depending on whether the individual has made net contributions to the society or not. That would be one way that the U.S. could return to being the country for the productive and industrious. Those who make money, pay taxes, invest, etc. would have citizenship renewed. Those who just sponge off of welfare, don't work, and contribute nothing become resident aliens without the vote.
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