Header Addition

Readers will of course have noticed that I have added some old-fashioned words to the header of this blog. The "living constitution" exponents very obviously want those words to go away. This blog records the constant attempts to take away the liberties conferred by those words. I think all Americans should know those words by heart. It is perhaps a sad thing but those liberties do constantly need tooth-and-nail defense. And if people know the exact words of the constitutional guarantee of those precious liberties, they may be better able to leap to the defense of those liberties.




Schools: The New Police

We read:

"Administrators at Kirkwood High School suspended five students for what they wrote on the internet, from the privacy of their own home."

Source

And it's happening a lot these days. Even the ACLU thinks the schools have no right to do it but, as always, schools seem to think that they are a law unto themselves.




Biased History for European schools

France and Germany want to give their students an officially "agreed on" version of history:

"A school textbook designed to give pupils in France and Germany a common vision of postwar history is coloured by Gallic anti-Americanism, according to one of the historians who wrote it....

The Franco-German textbook, which is published today, was ordered in 2003 by President Chirac of France and Gerhard Schr"der, then the German Chancellor. They wanted to strengthen ties by eliminating differences in the perception of history. The work will be on the curriculum in both countries in the equivalent of the sixth form from September...

A substantial section of the work is devoted to the EU - a startling success story and a beacon for the rest of the world, according to the five German and five French scholars who worked on the project."

Source

No pretence of objectivity or balance there, it seems. Orwell would understand.




Orwell Must Have Foreseen Muslims

We read:

"A bloc representing the world's Islamic nations is marking World Press Freedom Day Wednesday by calling for urgent action to establish international law or a code of conduct aimed at preventing media from defaming religion.

Source

Sure. You celebrate press freedom by restricting press freedom. I get that! (NOT)




Anti-Abortion Messages Vandalized



We read of recent events at Princeton university:

"In a presumed instance of politically-motivated vandalism, the Princeton Pro-Life flag display in front of Frist Campus Center was destroyed early Thursday morning. The 347 flags on the north lawn were meant to represent the lives of students who might have become members of the University's Class of 2010 had abortion not been legalized".

Source

Coathangers were strewn around in reference to the largely mythical claim that coathangers were used in "backyard" abortions.

Apparently the police are "investigating". But don't hold your breath. And there's more. We read:

"Western Washington University is the latest to see violence and a pro-abortion student has been arrested. The WWU student did $2,700 worth of damages on Tuesday to a pro-life display set up on campus. David Janus Zhang, who is 21, jumped over a fence surrounding the display to destroy it. Dave Doughty, assistant chief of the Western Washington University Police Department, told the Bellingham Herald that Zhang then "went on a rampage" tearing and destroying the elaborate display of posters and billboards."

Source

No word on whether Mr Zhang is out on bail yet.

"Wetbacks"

Susana De Leon, an immigration activist and part-time instructor of Mexican-American studies at the University of Minnesota, on Monday referred to Americans of European origin as "wetbacks". "Wetback" is of course considered an abusive term when applied to illegals and would normally be reported in the media only to condemn it. Perhaps Ms De Leon thinks the term should be more widely used! She appears to have literally gushed hate speech on the occasion but full details of what she said appear to have been hushed up. Once again Michelle Malkin has more.




Aaron's Rantblog under Attack

Aaron's Rantblog has been under heavy attack all day by cyberjihadis, apparently because of a cartoon he posted there. Hits were still being diverted to an Islamic message when I checked just now. Michelle Malkin has some background information. Aaron has been targeted rather a lot lately.




ACLU Wants Military Funerals to be Disrupted

We read:

"The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a Kentucky law aimed at preventing protests from disrupting funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq. Members of a Kansas Baptist church have protested at military funerals, claiming soldiers' deaths are a sign that God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality."

Source

The ACLU seems to think that free speech means freedom to disrupt other people's private lives.




Wrong Thoughts not Allowed in Washington State

The Washington state prisons department decided in its wisdom to email to all its employess a "calendar" whereon was noted which famous person was born on each date. It's the sort of thing that you might expect to list the birthdays of filmstars etc. But this one was different. It listed the birthday of the Japanese Admiral who led the bombing of Pearl Harbour and other characters who might be expected to be wildly popular in America. I am sure that if Satan had a birthday, they would have listed him too.

Why? Just the usual America-hatred that is so common among intellectuals and bureaucrats who depend on the American taxpayer for a living, I guess.

A patriotic war-veteran in the department was mightily unimpressed by this political grandstanding, however, and said so in an emailed reply. And he hit "Reply All" so that all who got the calendar would also get his protest against it. Fair enough? You might think so but the wonderful people in charge of the operation did not see that as fair at all:

We read: "He got a visit from a supervisor who chastised him for improper use of official e-mail"

So our vet called for backup and got it in the form of a rocket to the department: "State Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, wrote DOC director Harold Clarke asking for an explanation". And what was the defence of their actions given by the department? "The purpose of the calendar was to provoke thought, not to celebrate the birthdays of the individuals".

But that is exactly what our vet did. It sure provoked thought in him and he expressed what he thought. But he got chastised for doing exactly what the department claims it wanted him to do! The obvious concusion is that only SOME (America-hating) thoughts are allowed.




Public Employee Christianity Muzzled

Faith helps a lot of people in a lot of ways but, according to the good old 9th. circuit, under no circumstances can any reference be made to it in California social services:

"A county social services department cannot be required to accommodate the belief of an evangelical Christian employee that he must share his faith with clients and others on the job, a federal appeals court ruled Monday....

It was a rebuff to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which had authorized Berry to sue. The federal agency said Berry should be allowed to discuss religion with "receptive" clients and display a Spanish-language Bible and "Happy Birthday Jesus" sign in the cubicle where he counsels them".

Source

But displaying a Koran would have been OK, I am sure. After all, under the First Amendment, government agencies are not allowed to prohibit the free exercise of religion, are they?

That Handy Dandy Race Card Again

What do you do when you have had the builders in to do renovations and you don't want to pay for all the extras you have ordered that were not in the original contract? Easy! You accuse the builders of shoddy work and say that is the reason you do not want to pay up. But what if the builders are super-reputable with no previous complaints against them?

Problem.

But if you are black there is always the race card. You can say the builder was racist! It does not matter that there is not a shred of evidence that the builder is or was racist. Blacks must just be believed when they cry racism. Evidence does not matter.

It all sounds pretty sick, doen't it? Yet it does look like all that is exactly what has just happened in Chicago, where TV personality "Diann Burns and her husband are suing Metzler/Hull Development Corp., asking for $600,000 on claims of fraud and discrimination for work at their home". Details here.




OK to Defame Catholics

We read:

"A Vatican official on Friday called for a boycott of the upcoming The Da Vinci Code film, saying it contained ''slanderous'' offenses against Christianity that would provoke a worldwide revolt had they been directed against Islam or the Holocaust"

Source

For instance, the influential and very pious Catholic organization, Opus Dei, is portrayed as a murderous, power-hungry sect

"Illegal Immigrant" = Racism??

We read:

"Appearing on KLIF Radio's Gregg Knapp show, attorney Domingo Garcia said that using the terms illegal alien or illegal immigrant is a "racial slur". Garcia said that those who use it, in reference to Hispanics, are racist

Source

I guess we could do as the Democrats do and talk about "undocumented workers". But are we not allowed to say WHY they are undocumented?

Update:

A reader writes:

"When I worked with the US Forest Service in San Diego County we were told that over the radio we were to refer to illegals as "Undocumented Travelers"! This is ridiculous!"




A Good Summary from Lou Dobbs

We read:

"We all awoke to headlines in our nation's most important newspapers reminding us that this is "A Day Without Immigrants." Not illegal immigrants, mind you, but immigrants.

USA Today headlined today's demonstrations and boycott "On Immigration's Front Lines." The New York Times headlines its story "With Calls for Boycott by Immigrants, Employers Gird for Unknown." The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times are both calling its coverage "The Immigration Debate.""

Source

No doubt about it! That word "illegal" is now an illegal word. Dobbs also points out the far-Left organizers behind of most of the demonstrations -- again something rarely mentioned.




California prepares for boycott that could be historic or routine

Like Taranto, I do have a laugh at times about some of the daring headlines that newspapers put up. The one above is from The Sacramento Bee. I read the "Bee" every morning to make sure I am up to date with the latest wackiness. This morning's "Bee" also informs me that the latest brainwave of the California legislators is to make hospitals responsible for providing homes for the homeless! If you are homeless, just get yourself admitted to a hospital and you will be right from then on! I kid you not.




Batty Britain

I have not seen any fresh attacks on free speech in Britain for a few days but there sure have been some other crazy goings-on. I have started to put up extra posts on Political Correctness Watch in the last few days just to cope with it all.

A Severe Penalty for Speaking out

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a black lady of Muslim origin living in the Netherlands. She has broken with Islam and very courageously speaks out publicly to condemn the abuses of women perpetrated by Islam. She knows of such abuses from her own experiences. She has of course had a "fatwa" issued against her by the "religion of peace". The Dutch government does rightly provide her with bodyguards to ensure that the fatwa is not acted upon but there is obviously still some risk.

And her neighbours in the apartment block where she lives feel that their lives are put at risk too. They reason that some Islamic fruitcake might bomb the whole building to get at her and that might kill them too. So the neighbours have just got a Dutch court to evict Ayaan Hirsi Ali from her own home -- even though she herself has done nothing wrong!

Perhaps the most interesting part of the case is that the court used European human rights law to justify the eviction. It would seem to show that human rights laws can be twisted to give any result you like. Apparently it was not a violation of the human rights of Ayaan Hirsi Ali for her to get tossed out of her own home! A bit like the way Penn State U used "diversity" guidelines to ban an art exhibition by a Jewish student.

Details here.




Finnish Doublethink

Some strange logic from Finland:

"Finnish police said Friday it had given the preliminary investigation material pertaining to three individuals it suspects of violating the freedom of worship to Mika Illman, a state prosecutor. The three men are members of Suomen Sisu, a nationalistic movement that has posted Jyllands-Posten's controversial Mohammad cartoons on its website."

Source

I cannot even THINK how posting cartoons on a website prevents anyone from worshipping as they wish!





May Day

Today looks like being a big day in the USA for demonstrations in support of illegal immigration. It doesn't raise any issues of free speech that I have come across so far so I am not going to be saying much about it here. I have however just put up a lot about it on Dissecting Leftism.

There will be the usual parades here in Australia by and on behalf of labor unions but I will not be going to any. I will be staying home instead and contemplating such important matters as hat hair.

Britain seems to be in the middle of something of a political crisis at the moment -- all of which has just been summarized in his usual inimitable way by Chris Brand. Chris is even more blunt than I am. If anybody deserves the label "Prince of Political Incorrectness", Chris does.

Another Wrong Color: Not White this Time

An Arizona controversy:

"In a city aspiring to be defined by its good taste, a new Mexican restaurant, the Pink Taco, is opening with a name that some find offensive. Scottsdale Mayor Mary Manross was so put off by the name, a slang term for vagina, that she asked its owner to change it".

Source

The name was intended to be humorous and thus attract young people. Apparently the owners are keeping the name so far.




Christmas Comeback

We read:

"A Colorado school district has voted to restore the name of its two-week December holiday to "Christmas break." The Falcon School District 49 school board voted 3-2 earlier this month to make the switch from "winter break"... "We certainly had testimony on both sides, but the preponderance of testimony and e-mails were 10-to-1 in favor of restoring it to Christmas," board member Dave Stark said."

Source

Marvellous what a bit of democracy does.




Penn State Hoist by their own Petard

The recent censorship of a Jewish art exhibition by the School of Visual Arts at Penn State U was hastily ended when the university president intervened. But they are still in hot water over their dissing of the Hillel organization:

"Hillel sent a letter to university administration this week asking for a formal and public apology, a process to protect underrepresented opinions from silencing, sensitivity training for the School of Visual Arts and an investigation into the actions of the School of Visual Arts the Collegian said."

Source

Neat to see the same demands being made of Penn State that they have so often demanded of others.

The Attack Renewed

Readers who tried to log on here at various times in the last 12 hours or so found the blog "down", due to an attack on the hosting service by Saudi cyberjihadis. Hosting Matters blocked the attack after a while and restored service, but the attack was apparently renewed and took this blog down again. Readers who had bookmarked this site were able to continue reading, however.

In the four years I have had my other blogs up on blogspot, I cannot recall a successful DOS attack on them. Maybe they are too big for it, or something. They do have plenty of service outages, of course, but that always seems to be the result of their own bungling.




Graffiti = Free Speech?

Only in New York:

"Seven young artists sued New York City today over its strict anti-graffiti law, saying it violated their constitutional right to free speech. The group, backed by fashion designer Mark Ecko, argued in federal court that the city went too far by banning people under 21 from possessing spray paint or broad-tipped markers. Gabriel Taussig, a lawyer for New York City, said the law "strikes a proper constitutional balance between the First Amendment rights (to free speech) and the need to control the long-standing plague of graffiti".

Source

I cannot see where it says in the U.S. constitution that free speech must be provided on somebody else's dime.




Southern History Unmentionable Again

From Alabama:

"Officials at The Highlands School apologized Wednesday to parents who were upset when their children sang a Confederate marching song during a fifth-grade history presentation, but at least one said she's still not happy. At least five black students sang, along with their classmates, the lyrics of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" at the conclusion of last Friday's program"

Source

The history teacher who organized the program thought that balance required him to cover both perspectives on the North/South war.




Grade 4 Kids must Sing Violent Song

From Canada, where a school has arranged for a song to be sung by a Grade 4 class at a school assembly:

"A family has pulled its two youngest children from an elementary school over objections to the lyrics of the Vietnam War-era song One Tin Soldier.... They want the song dropped. The school principal is adamant that it will go ahead".

Source

Some of the words of the song: "Go ahead and hate your neighbour/ Go ahead and cheat a friend/ Do it in the name of heaven/ You can justify it in the end/ There won't be any trumpets blowing/ Come the judgment day/ On the bloody morning after/ One tin soldier rides away".

I gather that the school authorities see the song as "antiwar".

We Wuz Attacked!

Apologies to readers who logged on at various times in the last 12 hours or so and found this blog "down". The firm hosting this blog -- Hosting Matters -- hosts a number of big-time conservative blogs such as LGF and Powerline and they came under a DOS (Denial of Service) attack from cyberjihadis in Saudi Arabia. Michelle Malkin has the details. Hosting Matters eventually blocked the attack, however, and restored service -- as you see.

Readers who had bookmarked this site were able to continue reading, however.




"Homosexual" Now a Forbidden Word in Britain

Britain's Lord Chancellor is a senior member of the British government with a still-significant legal role -- including an important role in selecting British judges. But the present incumbent:

"is facing accusations of political correctness after banning the word "homosexual" from official documents in his department. Lord Falconer has ordered for the word to be removed on the grounds that it "may be considered offensive"....

Other disallowed terms include immigrant, Asian, man and wife, mixed race, West Indian and asylum seeker....

A spokesman from Stonewall told PinkNews.co.uk the group has never said the term "homosexual" should never be used"

Source

The Lord Chancellor has avoided the suggested replacement term (`lesbian, gay and bisexual') too. He offers special consideration to "people in those groups which are currently represented in relatively small numbers."

I guess I should apply for a job there. I'll bet there are not many Australians working as British judges -- so are not Australians a "group which is currently represented in relatively small numbers"? Favoritism for Australians! Hooray! It could be fun to wear one of those funny wigs.

It is easy to see why he has avoided the term "gay" however. I also consider myself to be gay. I am certainly not homosexual but I laugh and chuckle a lot. If any government started offering favoritism towards "gay" people, I'll bet there would be a lot of people who are as gay as I am claiming the special deal concerned.

Note that this current stupidity is NOT the work of homosexuals themselves. Stonewall is Britain's major homosexual organization and they have disowned reponsibility for it.

"Homosexual" is of course the neutral scientific term for what it describes -- a term which implies neither derogatory nor laudatory judgments. It is another usage of the common Greek prefix "homo", which means "the same as" or "similar to". There are several compound-words in the Greek original of the New Testament that use the prefix "homo". So "homosexual" simply means "attracted to the same sex". You cannot get more straightforward than that. But I guess that straightforwardness is not in vogue these days. Favoritism, not neutrality, is the order of the day.

And as for the idea that words like "Asian" should not be used.....





Update: "Racist Schoolboy" Case Finally Dropped in Britain

It took a lot of public pressure, but the moronic British legal authorities have finally decided that prosecution of a 10-year-old boy for playground language is not appropriate:

"The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped the case against a 10-year-old boy taken to court over an alleged racist playground dispute.... But today the CPS announced it had dropped the prosecution and said the 10-year-old accepted a formal warning. A spokeswoman for the CPS said: "The chief crown prosecutor for Greater Manchester, John Holt, has decided not to continue a prosecution against a 10-year-old boy for using racist language against a fellow school pupil."

Source

Update: Cross-Uprooting Professor Charged

We read:

"A professor and six students at Northern Kentucky University were charged with uprooting 400 crosses meant to represent fetuses in an anti-abortion display, prosecutors said. Professor Sally Jacobsen and six students face misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and theft"

Source

It's a bit of a pity that the students were charged too. They were just dupes. The court may well see it that way too.




The Religion that you Must not Argue Against

Islam, right? No. Homosexuality. A group of 20 to 30 students at Charles O. Dickerson High School in Trumansburg, New York, seem to have got tired of all the pro-homosexual preaching and "celebrated" the pro-homosexual "National Day of Silence" by wearing t-shirts to school bearing such OUTRAGEOUS slogans as "It's great to be straight". As a result, they were booted out of their school for a day. I wonder what happened to that pesky First Amendment? Though the idea that such "revolutionary" statements as "It's great to be straight" would need First Amendment protection rather boggles the mind. Details here.



And the action is really hotting up in California:

"The national debate over gay rights became a divisive force on Sacramento-area school campuses this week, as religious Christian students wore T-shirts expressing their disapproval of homosexuality as others participated in a Day of Silence to honor gay and lesbian peers.

Thirteen students at Oakmont High School in Roseville were suspended Tuesday when they refused to take off T-shirts that declared: "Homosexuality is sin." The students hired a lawyer who appealed 12 of the suspensions to the district Wednesday.

Other schools in the region have disciplined students in recent weeks for refusing to remove T-shirts condemning homosexuality. Two students at Mira Loma High School said they were sent home Wednesday, and one student was suspended this month at San Juan High School."

Source

The slogan there -- "Homosexuality is a sin" -- would be most clearly protected under the freedom of religion provision of the First Amendment, one would think.

Name of Political Party Banned

The "Argus" newspaper in Brighton, England, has a new twist on political censorhip. It has a readers' forum on which political matters are often discussed but the management obviously loathes the British National Party -- a party that opposes multiculturalism and wants all illegal immigrants sent back whence they came. Rather than ban all mention of the BNP on their site, however, they have set up a curious system where any mention of "BNP" gets automatically transformed into "Teddy Bears' Picnic"! See it here for yourself.




French Feminists Catch Up

Or at least they are trying:

"It's one of the first distinctions visitors to France learn to make: the title 'Mademoiselle' for young unmarried women, and 'Madame' for other women. But now a feminist group is trying to scrap the traditional French equivalent of the English 'Miss' - and is promoting an online petition for it to be outlawed, leaving only 'Madame' for all adult French women".

Source

How awful for them to have to admit that the dreaded Anglo-Saxons are ahead of them!




Bars must Allow "Black" Clothing?

Clothing can be an eloquent form of self-expression, of course

Dress codes are widely used by bars and other places to keep out what they see as people likely to disrupt or lower the tone of their business. There are plenty of such codes in Australia and in 99% of cases it is whites that they exclude. And England, of course, is very heavy about such matters. I was myself once excluded from a bar in London because I was not wearing a jacket.

But in Athens, Georgia, such codes have come under fire as being "racist". Dress of a type commonly worn by undesirables is banned in Georgia bars, as such dress usually is, but because lots of blacks dress in the way concerned, the dress codes are being attacked. Why potential undesirables should be let in just because they are black is not spelled out. Details here.




Penn State Update

Penn State University recently banned an exhibition by a Jewish artist that depicted terrorism against Israel. But Penn State President Graham Spanier has now decided to allow the exhibit. My wicked guess is that word of the censorship reached a few of Penn State's wealthy donors, some of whom may just have been Jewish! What a laugh!

Incidentally, it seems that the Hillel organization was treated like a polecat in the matter too so they are seeking an apology now. They should get it. Antisemitism is stupid at any time but, coming from highly educated people who should know better, it is just disgusting.

Details of the affair here

Criticism of Muslims Attacked Again

At least among the engineering faculty of Michigan State University, there seems to be a professor who does not as yet kowtow to Muslims. When a Muslim student group put on a protest against the famous Mohammed cartoons, Prof. Wichman sent them an email protesting against their protest:

"Wichman, 50, wrote that he was protesting their protest and said he was not offended by cartoons but rather Muslims who commit suicide bombings, behead civilians, attack public buildings, burn Christian churches, kill Catholic priests in Turkey, rape Scandinavian girls and riot in France. Wichman referred to Muslims as "dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems" and the protests as "infantile" in the e-mail. "If you do not like the values of the West . . . you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option."

Source

The Muslim students did of course kick up a big ruckus about the email and demanded that MSU discipline Wichman. MSU refused to do so, however, on the rather surprising grounds that the email was "private".

"Wichman" sounds like an Ashkenazi (Jewish) name to me so that may be why Wichman got off so lightly. When one minority is pitted against another, that does tend to give the commissars of political correctness a headache.





School Still Fighting Religion

We read:

"After seven years, a court case involving a kindergartner's drawing of Jesus for a class assignment in the Baldwinsville school district will go to trial in federal court in Syracuse. The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear the Baldwinsville school district's request to have the case thrown out".

Source

The school censored two attempts by a little kid to draw Jesus but goofed because the kid's father was a lawyer who would not let it go. The school district has been trying everything possible since then to prevent the case from getting a full hearing. It must have cost an horrendous amount of money that should have been spent on education and it is going to cost more yet. The kid's father simply wants the district to adopt a policy that allows religious expression but they are fighting to the death to avoid that.




That Disgusting Color again -- This Time in Britain

We read:

"One of the government's senior race relations advisers has criticised communities in some parts of the country for being "unhealthily all white". Professor Ted Cantle, who wrote the report on the 2001 riots in Bradford and Oldham, suggested people from ethnic minorities in some parts of the Midlands might not feel "safe and secure" living near predominantly white communities."

Source

Sorry for being so crass as to mention it but I thought that it was more likely to be living near black communities that would make people feel not safe and not secure

That Dreadful Color Again

"Queen's University, one of Canada's most academically elite schools, admits it has allowed a "culture of whiteness" to take root that fails to welcome visible minority students and professors."

Source

"Visible minorities" is Canadian for blacks, Eskimos and Asians. The chairwoman (naughty word!) of the university's "equity committee" is Prof. Joy Mighty, who is black and who reports that she herself has encountered no discrimination.




Five Highly Esteemed Texas Teachers Lose their Jobs

And the Principal in charge of the school has now been "reassigned". Why? Because the teachers put on a "roast" (a skit or speech comprised of jocular insults) as part of a school celebration:

"They portrayed students and staff from another campus in our school district as unprofessional, unruly and not motivated to learn," Simmons said. "The teachers in this skit displayed a level of cultural insensitivity that is simply unacceptable."

Source

According to the Education Wonks, the school that was sent up was "another TISD school made up of minorities and low-income students". Nobody is saying exactly what was in the skit. I doubt that the skit would have been put on if it was very offensive but nobody really knows. A wall of silence has descended.




Nazi Rally Permitted in Michigan

But it was the pro-"tolerance" demonstrators who threw the rocks!

"A heavily patrolled rally on the Capitol steps Saturday drew a noisy crowd of 77 Nazis and some 500 supporters and opponents but led to little more than profane name-calling, 16 misdemeanor arrests and several minor injuries, police said. A city-sponsored diversity rally attracted a crowd of 700. Members of the media covering the Nazi rally outnumbered the activists from the National Socialist Movement, a white separatist group based in Minnesota.

Hundreds of riot-gear-clad police surrounded the Nazi group and 3,000 feet of chain-link fence helped separate Nazi sympathizers and protesters. The 77 activists gathered on the Capitol steps, and supporters and opponents were kept in separate fenced-off areas. Police said they learned from mistakes made at a rally staged by the same group in Toledo in October that devolved into rioting and led to more than 100 arrests. In Lansing, several Nazi supporters were injured when they attempted to leave a fenced area and were attacked by the protesters, who outnumbered the approximately 40 Nazi sympathizers by more than 10-to-1.

The Nazis were brought in on three buses with police motorcycle escort. Metal detectors, bomb monitors, police dogs and mounted police helped keep the peace. Police allowed only foot traffic into the area. Police said rocks were thrown at some officers as protesters left the rally site and windows of a police van were broken out....."

Source

To me Nazism is an absurdity but respecting their right to free speech did have the slight benefit on this occasion of showing up the "anti-Nazi" Leftists as practicing just another brand of intolerance and aggression.




"Mirror" (Backup) Sites

ALL blogs have some downtime. Blogs hosted on blogspot are well-known for it but other hosting services have their failures too. As any systems expert will tell you, however, the key to system reliability is redundancy and I have taken that onboard as the way to beat all the service outages that regularly have all us bloggers weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. So what I do is put up extra copies ("mirrors") of my various blogs. As an old computer hand from way back (I wrote my first computer program in 1967), it takes me only a couple of minutes to do, so I do it. It is compiling the blog that takes the time. Putting up another copy of it is no trouble at all.

So if this blog is unavailable when you try to log on, you have an alternative! You can find the posts elsewhere! Bookmark this site and you will always be able to find a second copy of any of my blogs.

Thank You

I am pleased to say that readers have responded well to my request for links to interesting stories. I have used most of the suggestions I received. Those that did not directly concern speech or self-expression I have been putting up on Political Correctness Watch.

So all I can say is: Keep 'em coming!




Wicked Mural

Some students at the University of Kentucky want a mural on their campus erased. The mural has been there since 1934.

"You see, part of the 46-foot expanse depicts a Native American lurking behind a tree, watching a pioneer woman draw water from a stream. And he has a tomahawk in his hand. As described in a Lexington Herald-Leader story, this mural also contains early Central Kentucky scenes in which black workers plant crops, black children watch a white boy fish, and white folks dance while black musicians play.

Source

The mural is being defended as accurate history.





"Fairy" Penguins Incorrect

We read of some more fairy sensitivity -- this time in Australia:

"Theme park bosses have re-named their colony of fairy penguins amid fears they could upset the gay community. Managers at Sea World, on the Gold Coast, are now calling the species "little penguins" in case associations with the word "fairy" offend visitors to the park. "We didn't have any complaints about the name of the penguins, but someone thought they could be seen as offensive so we decided to change it to little penguin instead," a Sea World spokeswoman said."

Source

To their credit, local homosexual community spokespeople said the whole idea of the name-change was ridiculous.

Confederacy not to be Referred to in New York Schools

News excerpt from Ithaca, New York:

"In a letter sent to parents this week, Ithaca High School administrators have banned the display of Confederate flag insignias on any clothing, bags or other items students previously brought to school. "We have found that the display of the flag in such forms has caused and continues to cause feelings of ill will," reads the letter, dated April 3 and signed by Principal Joseph Wilson. "Such feelings in turn have led to disruptions to our operations and educational process." Starting Monday, students who refuse to remove or cover up images of the flag will be disciplined, probably for insubordination, according to Superintendent Judith Pastel."

Source

Previous Supreme Court decisions have upheld the right to display Confederate insignia as being protected free speech -- so this prohibition is being done in the name of "preventing disruption". It seems that some white students have been wearing Confederate belt-buckles etc. to claim a group-identity similar to what is automatically allowed to blacks, Hispanics etc.


Not much Respect for Free Speech in Connecticut

How do you shut down a Christian rally in Connecticut? Easy. Any excuse will do. Just tell the police that Nazis will be present, for instance. You will be believed. And instead of questioning the source or turning up to control any "Nazi" excesses the police will just ban the whole rally. The police are not there to protect free speech. Oh no! They are there to restrict it at the drop of a hat. Think I'm exaggerating? It happened recently in Danbury, Connecticut. See here. (Hat tip to Newsbusters)





Sunday Meditation

Regrettably, I do not get the time to read all comments on all posts on this blog but a recent comment describing my posts as "a steady diet of items dealing with the evil of homosexuality" quite amused me. In fact only 1 out of 10 of the posts prior to this one referred to homosexuality and only a Leftist would see even that one as claiming "evil" in homosexuality. It was just a news excerpt with no comment from me about homosexuality at all.

So how do we explain such spectacular wrongheadedness? If my guess is correct and the author of the comment is himself homosexual, I think it is an instance of something constantly noted on this blog -- oversensitivity among once-persecuted minorities. Oversensitivity among such people is of course to be expected and reflects no discredit on them but, like everything else, it can be carried to absurd extremes. And I think it is often carried to such an extreme that every mention by outsiders of the group concerned is seen as suspect until proven otherwise.

And in the case of homosexuality that is even more than usually absurd. Someone once very aptly said that "homosexuality has been transformed from the love that dare not speak its name into the love that won't shut up". So large numbers of homosexuals never tire of speaking about themselves and preaching for their way of life but others can only talk about them if they make clear that they are praising homosexuality. I myself will certainly not be tongue-tied in that way.

For the record, I have a homosexual sister and the lady in my life has a homosexual son. And I get on perfectly well with both the son and his partner. So I most certainly do not speak from a "homophobic" viewpoint. If I were a Leftist, I guess I would in fact take any accusation that I am homophobic as "hate speech" and prosecute accordingly.

Intolerant and Illegal Destruction of Anti-Abortion Display





The destruction of an authorized anti-abortion display at Northern Kentucky University -- a display consisting of a field of small white crosses -- by students of literature professor Sally Jacobson -- has got a lot of press. I have been following the story on Education Watch rather than here so for the latest disgraceful development in the drama see here. Jacobson has already lost her job over it and it does seem that she is about to face criminal prosecution.




The 9th Circuit Strikes Again

Great how they uphold freedom of speech and freedom of religion:

"A U.S. appeals court has ruled that a San Diego-area high school can ban the wearing of T-shirts with anti-homosexual slogans. In a 2-1 decision, the 9th Circuit panel in San Francisco upheld Poway High School's ban on a shirt worn by student Tyler Harper. On the front, the shirt read: "Be Ashamed, Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned." One the back, it read: "Homosexuality Is Shameful.""

Source

Have these guys ever even READ the constitution?




Depiction of Terrorism Banned

So a Jewish art student at Penn State University arranges to put up an exhibition of his art. The theme of the exhibition is terrorism, terrorism against Israel particularly:

"Three days before his 10-piece exhibit -- Portraits of Terror -- was scheduled to open at the Patterson Building, Stulman (senior-painting and anthropology) received an e-mail message from the School of Visual Arts that said his exhibit on images of terrorism "did not promote cultural diversity" or "opportunities for democratic dialogue" and the display would be cancelled.

The exhibit, Stulman said, which is based mainly on the conflict in Palestinian territories, raises questions concerning the destruction of Jewish religious shrines, anti-Semitic propaganda and cartoons in Palestinian newspapers, the disregard for rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners, and the indoctrination of youth into terrorist acts....

Charles Garoian, professor and director of the School of Visual Arts, said ... the decision to cancel the exhibit came after reviewing Penn State's Policy AD42: Statement on Nondiscrimination and Harassment and Penn State's Zero Tolerance Policy for Hate, he wrote.

Source

So apparently nondiscrimination means you cannot mention discrimination. And it's hate to mention hatred. Just as Orwell foresaw.




"Condoleeza" Update

Peter Ratener, the Bellevue Community College math instructor who wrote of a watermelon-hurling "Condoleeza" (See my post of 14th.) has fronted up and apologized. He is still in big trouble though. He has had to move out of his home.

Since Ratener is Jewish and so should know better, it can only have been a Leftist mentality that would cause him to cast slurs on a black conservative. Black conservatives get that all the time from Leftists ("Uncle Tom" etc.) but this guy miscalculated. Details here

Harry Potter "promotes Wicca"

A parent in Gwinnett, Georgia, is trying to get the popular Harry Potter children's books banned from all Gwinnett County school libraries. Why?

"It's just not fair to promote one religion over another. The Wicca religion is a recognized tax exempt religion. The books promote witchcraft and they expose children at a very early age to the symbols and the paraphernalia of witchcraft and the practices of it like casting spells."

Source

So it's a "separation of church and State" issue, apparently.




"Merchant" = "slaver"?

In Bristol, England, there is a big redevelopment planned for part of the city: "The massive development due to be completed in 2008 is set to transform the centre of Bristol, providing the city with a revamped shopping centre, bars and housing."

They were going to call the new development "Merchant's Quarter" -- for good historical reasons. It was of course the traders -- generally called "merchants" -- of the 18th and 19th century who through their activities caused Bristol to become one of England's great ports. But one of the things they traded in until the British government abolished the trade in 1807 was: slaves.

So the name "merchant" was held to be "insensitive" and has now been dropped. No word yet on what the new name will be. More here




Satirical Language Risky at Yale

Yale has a satirical student magazine called "Rumpus" and, being young, the editors of it were incautious enough to satirize racism. Given that they must all of their lives have heard racism vigorously condemned, it may never have occurred to them that racist language was anything but ridiculous.

They recently published an issue (PDF) that featured prominently on its front page the term "motherf***ers". That drew no criticism, of course. And the many other uses of the f-word and an article ridiculing strictly observant Jews seem to have been OK too.

What got them into hot water was an article headed: "Me love you long time: Yale's case of yellow fever" -- which said that Asian female students were particularly attractive to white male students. Nothing wrong with that, one would think, but the satirical term "yellow fever" in the heading seems to have been a BIG problem.

There was also a second article along similar lines headed: "Miscegenation station: Interracial dating at Yale". "Miscegenation" is of course an old term of condemnation much favoured by white racists but the article in fact was ridiculing such condemnation by saying it has been defeated at Yale -- in that interracial dating is very common at Yale -- though the article did rather write off Asian male students as "nerds", perhaps with some reason.

Apparently the Yale administration refused to condemn the newspaper (on free speech grounds) but there was a big ruckus nonetheless. Somewhere around the time this post goes up there is to be a "day of silence" put on by the Asian Students Association to protest the articles:

"Throughout the day, participants will dress in black, wear black cloth gags and maintain silence in protest of recent articles in Rumpus and the Yale Herald that they say reflect "racial insensitivity toward Asian Americans and other minority groups," according to the group's statement, which participants will hand out as a substitute for speaking."

Source

The student editors have defended what they published here

Help Request

After many years of sterling service, the founder of this blog, Scott, wants to take a backseat from now on. That means that instead of doing around half of the posts here, I will be doing nearly all of them. But, as one person doing the work of two, I need all the help I can get. So I am hoping that readers here will be sending me lots of links to stories that might be of interest to other readers. It would be particularly good if readers would keep an eye on their local media for cases of censorship etc. I personally can only possibly keep up with the major media.

It may seem a bit odd for an Australian living in Australia to be putting up the posts on an American blog mostly concerned with America but regular readers here know me well by now so will realize that it works, no matter how odd it is. In fact, there seems to have been a slight uptick in readership since I started contributing. My posts tend to be a bit more controversial than Scott's at times but that does at least keep the comment threads humming.

I personally would like to record my appreciation of the great work that Scott has done. For a long time I used to avoid reading this blog because I knew that Scott would nearly always be ahead of me with stories that I was thinking of posting about!




Incorrect to Mention Asian Eyes

A German concert organization arranged for a performance of the music of Richard Wagner -- with the conductor being Japanese. Since Wagner was undoubtedly a racist -- like most people of his time -- having a Japanese conductor of his music seemed worthy of note. So the advertising agency produced an advertisement that showed Wagner pulling his eyes up into an Asian shape -- as a basically humorous piece of attention-getting for the unusual combination of composer and conductor.

But Asian organizations in Germany were outraged. References to the obviously different shape of Asian eyes are apparently not allowed. Details here

If the people putting on the concert had been racist, would they have hired a Japanese in the first place?




We Must not Deny that Homosexuals are the New Jews

Some time ago, Andrew Sullivan rather hysterically declared that homosexuals are "the new Jews". I personally think it's a gross insult to Jews to compare the present state of homosexuals with the vast suffering that Jews have undergone but be that as it may. Various homosexual groups however appear to have embraced the idea and are now declaring that they are the new Jews -- implying that the mainstream community is persecuting them, and ignoring the fact that their rights are in fact exceedingly well protected in the USA of 2006.

At Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, however, one student, Joel Sartain wrote a letter to the campus newspaper criticizing the way homosexuals exaggerate their problems and calling on them to tone down what appeared to him to be displays of behaviour (homosexuals kissing in public etc.) that are deliberately designed to offend conservatives and Christians. He offered the advice that if you want acceptance from mainstream people, doing your best to insult and offend them was not a good idea.

So was this reasonable advice discussed, challenged or debated? No way! It evoked a "protest" -- just the sort of exaggerated reaction that Sartain had accused them of. They were protesting that anyone would say such awful things as Sartain did. And the form of the protest demonstrated how bankrupt of reasonable argument the protesters were. Their demonstration consisted of them walking around the campus for two hours with gags on their mouths but holding signs. It was as good an admission that they had nothing reasonable to say as anything I could think of.




Double Standard on Speech About Homosexuality

You are allowed to say how wonderful homosexuality is but don't you DARE criticize it! We read about a recent episode at the Hereford Residential College of the University of Virginia:

"Controversy erupted over the weekend after a Hereford resident posted a sign on the window of his residence hall room reading "Gay? Not Fine By Me!" last week in response to the "Gay? Fine By Me" t-shirt campaign sponsored by the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center".

Source

Dissent is not allowed! There were around 1,000 students displaying pro-homosexual messages without anybody criticizing them but just ONE student displaying a contrary message was a huge offence! His sign was officially condemned as "hurtful to members of the University community." In this case, however, the local homosexual organization was more reasonable than the university. They defended his right to free speech.

NOTE: I make no judgment about the characteristic mood of homosexuals so I do not refer to them as "gay".

Another Naughty Cartoon

We read:

"The editor of an Italian monthly has apologized for any offense to Muslims over a humorous caption for a drawing showing the Prophet Muhammad in hell, Italian news reports said Sunday. The journal Studi Cattolici (Catholic Studies), which offers a variety of opinions on cultural issues, ran the caption and drawing in its March issue. Italian news agencies on Sunday quoted the journal's editor, Cesare Cavalleri, as "apologizing, as a Christian," for any offense".

Source

In the cartoon, famous Italian poet Dante is asking the Roman poet Virgil: "That man divided in two from his head to his feet - isn't that Muhammad?" Virgil replies: "Yes, it is him and he is in two because he has divided society - while the man next to him with his arms down represents Italian politics towards Islam."

I have reproduced the actual cartoon on Dissecting Leftism




Men as Wimps or Vicious Villains, Women as Innocent Victims

The heading on this post is also the title of a paper by Swedish academic Lennart Sjoberg. The paper discusses the derogatory way that men are portrayed in many popular movies. Needless to say, no academic source would publish the paper. So to beat the censorship, I have put the full paper up here.





British Antisemites Arrested

I regard antisemitism as totally misguided but believe that persecuting believers in it only gives it credibility to those who are persecuted. Last Wednesday, two people, Luke O'Farrell and Simon Sheppard, who publish a British antisemitic website, were arrested by Humberside police in Britain because of what they had written. Details here and here. And what was the reaction from the guys who were arrested? It was:

"To attempt to silence a man is to pay him homage, for it is an acknowledgement that his arguments are both impossible to answer and impossible to ignore"

So a fat lot of good arresting them did. It just reinforced their views and gave those views more credibility to others.

Gossip banned in NC

We read:

"A couple of chatty employees have earned a ban on gossiping for all 64 people who work at county-operated liquor stores. Gene Webb, general manager of the Cumberland County Alcoholic Beverage Control system, issued an order that bans gossip and threatens to fire anyone who spreads rumors on the job".

Source

No free speech for gossipers? What to one person might be gossip might to another be important information. Dictating what people may talk about certainly seems pretty totalitarian to me.




You Mustn't Call Whites Black

Apparently to do so must always be derogatory -- even when it isn't. The Chi Omega sorority at Kent State University is in big trouble over a bit of lightheartedness. We read:

"The Kent State University chapter of a national sorority is on probation over some comments that have angered some of the university's black students, NewsChannel5 reported. The controversy surrounds an award given out at the Chi Omega formal last Saturday. A student who was catering the event heard an award given out for the "blackest Chi Omega." Candace Poole said she was shocked to hear applause in the room as a white member accepted the award.

A group of black students met Thursday with sorority members, who said the award was meant as a joke and was the idea of just a few students, including the black date of the recipient. He said his date received the award because she was motherly and nurturing."

Source

To me, the "award" conveys no clear meaning, though I would have probably smiled, assuming it to be self-parody. It is interesting to note that the whole sorority has to undergo racial sensitivity training, rather than the individuals involved. It is providing a notable opportunity for everyone to pile on the presumed oppressor class.

And what happened to black pride? Did I miss something while I was out of the room? Is black pride now "out"? Old dodo that I am, I kinda thought blacks might think that being black could be a good thing. Oh well! I live and learn.




"Hell" and "Damn" as Forbidden Words at a Public Event

We read:

""A school in Reno, Nevada, has attempted to ban a 14-year-old boy from reciting "The More Loving One" by the gay British poet on the grounds that the verse contains "profanity" and "poor language".... The lines in question might appear fairly innocent by the standards of some literature. "Looking up at the stars, I know quite well/That, for all they care, I can go to hell", was one example that the school found unacceptable. "Admirer as I think I am/Of stars that do not give a damn", was another....

Cheryl Garlock, the dean of the academy, said that her policy was to present children only with "pristine" language"

Source

Quite aside from free speech issues, fussing about such trivial words seems to me to be a wasted effort, when there are much more important moral issues -- such as abortion -- to use one's energy on.

Anyway, both "hell" and "damn" are Biblical words! I suppose the prissy Nevada school would also forbid its students from reading out Mark 16:16, for instance.

And what the wonderfully wise Cheryl meant by "pristine" language rather escapes me. The basic meaning of "pristine" is "primitive". Didn't Og and Ugg swear? A strange claim, at best.

The kid did get a court to overturn the ban -- as violating his First Amendment rights.

The Volokhs have a comprehensive post on the legal issues involved -- including the point that the event was not a school event so was outside the jurisdiction of the school in any case.

Tiger Woods in Trouble

We read:

"When asked about his play on the last day at Augusta, Woods replied: "I putted atrociously today. Once I got on the greens, I was a spaz."

Source

"Spaz" is of course derived from the now little-used word "spastic" -- a disorder now generally referred to as "cerebral palsy". So Woods had to apologize for using what is after all a common term. And seeing he was referring to himself it is hard to see that he was insulting anyone. And are we pretending that people with cerebral palsy are NOT clumsy??




Black Hate-Speech?

It sounds like it. Black comedian Dave Chapelle was recently reported as saying:

"The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that's familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?"

Source

You'd never think those were the words of someone whose show had made him so rich that he could walk away from a $50 million deal. It would surely give even a Leftist problems to argue that he had been "discriminated against" or "oppressed". And can you imagine the howls of protest if a white person had said anything like this?




The Predictable Leftist Censorship is Happening in Venezuela

Leftists are so predictable in their hatred of free speech. The far-Leftist Hugo Chavez has not been in charge of Venezuela for long but he is running true to form. Some excerpts from a review of the situation there:

"New, so-called insult laws .... have already blunted some of the harshest criticisms of the government among opinion writers (and) created a pernicious climate of self-censorship among reporters that has begun to affect the quality of coverage and public debate"... The new restrictions have come into force in a context of growing intolerance of dissent by the government... Virtually every prominent public official in Venezuela is now legally entitled to seek redress for any speech or text deemed offensive or disrespectful, whether true or not.... By enshrining the ability to challenge opinion in court with heavy fines for offenders, the law seems aimed at creating a climate inimical to the airing of any critical opinion.

Hector Faundez, a media law expert at the Universidad Central in Caracas, points out that the kinds of attacks that Tony Blair faced daily during his campaign for reelection as British prime minister would be illegal in Venezuela. A televised debate between Chavez and his election opponents seems impossible because television stations would be liable for any offensive statements uttered by the challengers about Chavez. The reverse, however, would not be true."

Source

No Freedom to be Silent?

As Orwell made clear, the logical next step after silencing dissent is to require assent. Being silent soon becomes not enough. You will eventually be required to state your positive agreement with the official line. And in Mao Tse Tung's China it really happened that way.

And it seems to moving in that direction in Britain too. Even if you say nothing out of line, pity help you if you are suspected of deviant thoughts. As Sean Gabb reports, a drama teacher at a local theatre was quietly doing her job and doing it well. There was certainly no claim that she was preaching politics as part of it. But it was discovered that she was in her after-hours life active in the British National Party -- a party that opposes multiculturalism and wants all illegal immigrants sent back whence they came.

So a local newspaper and a local Member of Parliament are campaigning to have her sacked from her job not because of anything she has done or said while at work but because she is a "Fascist". The fact that the original Fascists were socialists does not bother anybody, of course.

So she will undoubtedly lose her job simply because she does not join in Hosannas to the official British "diversity" religion. Sean Gabb's article includes an email address for the newspaper concerned.




'Republicans hate Mexicans'

Once upon a time false and offensive stereotyping like 'Republicans hate Mexicans' would have been passed over as mere political rhetoric along the lines of 'Capitalists hate the workers' but now that any instance of overgeneralization from conservatives gets furiously condemned, conservatives are beginning to hit back and hold Leftists to the same rules. We saw that yesterday in my post about blacks being watermelon eaters.

If blacks do eat a lot of watermelon and fried chicken, I personally see no harm in mentioning it but I guess that shows what a dodo I am. But super-sensitivity all-round seems to be the rule now and conservatives obviously have every right to demand the same sensitivity of Leftists. And given the constant furious abusive generalizations that Leftists hurl at conservatives and Christians, Leftists sure have got a lot of lessons in sensitivity to learn.

So it's good that Leftists are being held to their own rules. I guess many readers will by now have heard of the case where a defender of illegal Hispanic immigrants gave a speech to a Tucson High School assembly in which she repeatedly said 'Republicans hate Mexicans' -- which is an absurd and insulting generalization and certainly an instance of stereotyping. It overlooks for a start that there are a lot of Republican voters of Mexican origin! And disliking illegal immigration is not remotely the same as disliking Mexicans.

But it looks like the Superintendent of Tucson schools (Pfeuffer) is not so far backing down in his support for the anti-Republican speech:

"In a letter to Paton sent Wednesday, Pfeuffer said Huerta was allowed to continue after the comment about Republicans because she's "a national icon and her words offer an historical perspective that is consistently left out of our history books."

Source

Superintendent Pfeuffer obviously needs to be sent off to sensitivity training. How would he feel if he were a Republican?

But the most interesting thing about the whole affair is that accusations of hate speech are now being seen as what they often are -- as hate-speech themselves. Not all accusations of hate speech are themselves hate-speech but some clearly are. And we have an example of it above.

Hate speech is now regarded as such a terrible offence that accusations of it have to be pretty thoroughly substantiated if they are not themselves to be seen as abusive. One would think that that would put a rather large spoke in the wheel of a lot of Leftists! Or, to use another traditional metaphor, Leftists could well be 'hoist with their own petard' (Blown up by their own bomb).





Canadian Christians Finally have a Win against Hate-Speech Law

Quoting the Bible was judged illegal at two levels of the Canadian judicial system but sanity finally won out at the third level.

"The highest court in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan has reversed a 2002 decision that found a man guilty of inciting hatred by placing newspaper ads citing Biblical verses about homosexuality, the LifeSiteNews service reports. In December 2002, the lower court in Saskatchewan had upheld a decision by the province's Human Rights Commission, which had levied fines against the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and Hugh Owens, a local resident who had placed the ads"

Source

But how disgraceful that quoting the Bible was ever judged illegal by any Canadian court in the first place! There is obviously little respect for either religious freedom or freedom of speech in Canada. And if you look at the details of the verdict above, it is still no warrant for complete freedom of religion.

More Leftist Racism

If any conservative portrayed blacks as watermelon-eaters it would be taken as offensive stereotyping. But in a snide way, a college professor (and no prizes for guessing the politics of one of those) has just done just that. And when the college got complaints about it, what did the college do? Nothing. It was only a big publicity campaign that got the college administration to come to life. Details here.

So it is clear what hate speech rule no. 1 is: It's only hate speech if a conservative says it.




Cartoon Controversy Update

I guess a lot of readers will have seen this already but the "South Park" cartoon series has just aired an episode in which obscene references to Jesus Christ and President Bush were made. Why? As a protest about the fact that Comedy Central had denied the series authors permission to depict Mohammed. And Comedy Central DID allow them to broadcast the obscene references to Jesus and the President -- thus making clear that there is a double standard at work. Islam is now the established (privileged) church that the constitution specifically forbids. Details here

EU Correctness

The EU is putting together its own official list of "incorrect" words and what they should be replaced by. Excerpt:

"European governments should shun the phrase "Islamic terrorism" in favour of "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam", say guidelines from EU officials. Backed by diplomats and civil servants from the 25 EU members, the officials are drafting a "non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation" to be submitted to Tony Blair and other leaders in June..... An EU official said: "The basic idea behind it is to avoid the use of improper words that would cause frustration among Muslims and increase the risk of radicalisation"."

Source

We also read:

"Omar Faruk, a Muslim British barrister who has advised the government on community issues, said there was a strong need for a "new sort of political dialogue and terminology". Asked about the phrase "Islamic terrorism", he said: "Those words cannot sit side by side. Islam is actually very much against any form of terrorism ... Islam in itself means peace."

Source

I guess all those Muslims dancing in the streets in Kuwait, the Palestinian teritories and elsewhere at the time of the 9/11 attacks must have been a figment of my imagination.




Flag Update

All the pro-illegal-immigration demonstrations organized by the far Left recently have brought the flag issue back into sharp focus. See a video here that shows how prominently the Mexican flag was displayed. Even the Left now however seems to have realized that all the Mexican flags were a bad move and -- no doubt with gritted teeth -- they have begun to wave the U.S. flag as well. As a result, even the Sacramento Bee had some resonable pictures of the U.S. flag. Excerpt below:

"The Stars and Stripes outnumbered Mexico's El Tricolor in Sacramento Monday as thousands of local demonstrators joined immigration protests nationwide. From tiny plastic flags no bigger than a postcard to giant cloth banners streaming in the breeze, more marchers carried the red, white and blue than Mexico's green, white and red. But many of the protesters proudly displayed both flags. In earlier demonstrations across the country, the widespread waving of the Mexican flag triggered barbed rebukes from commentators who questioned the allegiances of the marchers"

Source

Speaking of flags, The BBC has a fascinating article about the history of the British flag, the Union Jack. It was long customary to refer to the Union "jack" but purists point out that a "jack" is a naval flag (even the USA has a "jack" flag -- 50 white stars on a dark blue background) so the term "Union Flag" has come into some use in recent years -- but I am pleased to see that the BBC has adopted the traditional term. In my view, nothing could be more appropriate for a country so long dependant on its navy that it should use a naval flag for its national flag.

Is Envy Hate Speech?

I sometimes kick myself for not having made obvious connections and I so much like this connection that I want to summarize it very briefly for readers here.

Australian Libertarian Steve Edwards points out that people have condemned racist utterances as "hate speech" because of the harm that racism has done to many people in Nazi Germany and elsewhere. But what about envious utterances? Leftism is nothing if it is not envy and that envy had horrendous consequences in loss of life when enviers gained control of Russia and other countries.

So if race-conscious utterances are hate speech because of the horrendous consequences of racism in history, then envious utterances are hate speech because of the horrendous consequences of envy in history. So on Leftist logic, Leftist utterances should be banned!




Homosexuality: Is the Pendulum about to Swing Back?

It was sometimes said of the great British private schools (which the Brits call "Public schools" -- meaning a place where you go when you do not have a private tutor) that homosexuality there was not so much tolerated as compulsory. American schools have not quite got to that stage but there is no doubt in the world that the Left have used their extensive control over education to promote and propagandize for homosexuality -- all under the guise of getting people to "tolerate" it, of course. And in so doing they have caused great offence and upset to many parents (e.g. here).

Why do Leftists do that? Because they hate ordinary people who are happily getting on with their lives. Revolution is the ultimate Leftist aim but small attacks on society will do if big ones are not feasible.

But people with genuine goodwill towards homosexuals (I am one. One of my sisters is a homosexual) would find no difficulty in arguing for tolerance of homosexuality without at the same time promoting it or forcing it down the throats of our kids. Unfortunately, we may now have got beyond the point where such a moderate approach will take hold.

After putting up with the Leftists for a long time, various Christians are now arguing in court for their undoubted First Amendment right to express their religious beliefs. And, as you will see from Romans chapter 1, there is no doubt that, from a Biblical point of view, homosexuality is "worthy of death". We read:

"Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.

Source

So the vicious Leftist attack on the beliefs and feelings of ordinary people may end up leading to as little good as attacks on other people usually do.




A "Hate Crime" to Play with Dolls?

We read of a terrible thing that happened in New York:

"three white students at Harry B. Ward Technical and Academic Center allegedly tied the hands of a black doll, looped a noose around its neck and used it to taunt two black classmates."

Source

Tasteless, stupid, offensive? Yes. A crime? You be the judge. Way over in California, this wonderfully sensitive and tolerant person says: "The actions committed by the 16-year-old and two 17-year-old boys deserve far more than a mere 15-day jail sentence". Would burning at the stake be enough, one wonders?

Distorting History in California

The usual Democrat propaganda:

"Assembly Republicans were upset last week when Democratic Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas of Los Angeles proposed a resolution stating that "each extension of voting rights has been strongly resisted by conservatives of all partisan perspectives." The word "conservatives" touched a nerve, as some Republicans believed it was included either to force them to agree conservatives were responsible for past racism or to abstain from voting. After a long debate, Assembly Democrats changed the word "conservatives" to "anti-civil rights forces," and the resolution passed on a 75-0 bipartisan vote".

Source

Maybe in California it is easy to forget that the Ku Klux Klan were all Democrats and that more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats did.

And I guess that that great opponent of Nazism, Winston Churchill, must have been a Leftist -- right? Funny that it was the British Conservative party that made him its leader, though.




S*x Doll Update



A couple of months ago I noted the case of a "male" s*x doll available in England that went by the name of "Mustafa Shag". "Mustafa" was meant only as a contraction of "must have a" but some British Muslims were predictably "offended" by an Islamic name being used in that context. I said at the time: "No doubt the firm will bow down before Islamic correctness". Well, they have:

"A Manchester Mosque has persuaded the UK's leading sex shop chain to abandon a product they claimed was an insult to the Prophet Mohammed.... Ann Summers chief executive, Jacqueline Gold said: "Considering the current climate we have decided to change the name. The new name will be revealed at the end of April.... "When there was some publicity about the doll in London we were inundated by e-mails and calls from women wanting to buy it."

Source

I am rather pleased that the firm got good business out of Muslim hypersensitivity anyway.

By the way, my writing s*x above rather than the real spelling is a confession of defeat by censorship. This site could well get blocked or rejected by search engines and by "p*rnography" filters if I did otherwise. Even the word "shag" was modified on the British site I took the quote above from but I think that "shag" as a euphemism for intercourse is purely British slang so I am taking a risk on it.




The Weird World of Children's Books

Illustrators for children's books have a hard time these days. Here are some of the rules they have to abide by:

"(Large) lips on any blacks are completely out, the eyes on any Asian child have to not look Asian at all and the colour for any black child has got to be the softest brown"

Source

Another requirement is that cows have to be drawn without udders! Clearly, children's books are not meant to prepare them for the real world! I would call it mis-education myself.

A Pleasing Flash of Reason at a University of California Campus

I defy anyone to find a more diehard supporter of the State of Israel than I am but I have at the same time repeatedly said (in connection with the Irving jailing etc.) that racist speech -- including antisemitic speech -- should be challenged, not banned. But the last place I expected to find agreement with that thinking was at a branch of the University of California. But it seems to be so. From a UCSC college we read of their response to an antisemitic graffiti incident:

"Such behavior is both morally impermissible in a civilized community, and is at the same time protected by our constitutional right to free speech. The appropriate response in such a situation, and one which Stevenson has vigorously pursued, is one of educating the community and developing increased moral sensitivity to the issues".

Source

Yes. You read that right. The college identifies antisemitic graffiti as coming under the constitutional free speech protections. No prizes for guessing, of course, that the graffiti were put there by Arabs or their Leftist supporters. If neo-Nazis had put the graffiti up, there would have been no talk of constitutional protections. But I am pleased that they came to the right conclusions, even if it was for the wrong reasons.





More on the Flag

I just had to laugh. Every day I read the online version of the "Sacramento Bee" -- to keep up with the news from the political headquarters of America's wackiest State. They always have a picture or two in connection with their stories but not once can I remember a picture of Old Glory proudly dispayed anywhere on their site. But today we got a picture of it. See below. Predictable isn't it?



The picture came from this story

Update

The story was about flooding and had nothing to do with the flag but the tiny minds at the Bee obviously could not resist putting up a picture that showed a semi-destroyed flag.

Abusing Jews is OK (If you are Hispanic, it seems)

So a senior Hasidic (ultra-Orthodox) Jew by the surname of Schick is talking on his cellphone while driving in a Hasidic neighbourhood of NYC and the police pull him over for breaking the law. Then lots of young Hasids get upset at this treatment of an elder and riot. All the Hasids are clearly in the wrong. But what happens next is another matter:

"Schick told reporters that the officer who arrested him said, "This is the way we treat a ni**er," as he was violently tossed into a police van. And City Councilman Simcha Felder said he was stunned to hear Esposito scream, "Get the f- - -ing Jews out of here!" as cops in riot gear clashed with rioters. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has acknowledged that Esposito used "inappropriate language," but not a slur. He said he had "full confidence" in his embattled deputy."

Source

The N-word is not a slur??? I learn something new every day!

And police are very slow to mention the race of an offender if he is black but referring to "f- - -ing Jews" is OK? It seems that when you are Mr Hispanic Deputy Esposito it is. Why else would the police Commissioner himself say that he still had full confidence in his abusive deputy?

Did I mention double standards?

Update

I have received the following email from a regular reader who is a member of the NYPD and who was present at the time of the incident mentioned above:

"First off, Chief Esposito is not Hispanic, but of Italian decent. Also, the man who was first stopped by the police, (Mr. Schick) is in fact, the one who incited the riot by screaming and yelling in the street, attracting a large crowd! On Friday morning (4/7/06) he gave a statement to the NYC media "admitting" that the police "did not" assault him in any way, as he first claimed at the scene! As for the NYC Council member, (who by the way, "was not present" at the time of the incident) who did his best to incite not only the crowd, but the media as well, finally admitted that he did not actually hear the Chief make "any" racial comment, but was told this by "someone" in the crowd! This incident was only the latest in a long series of violent demonstrations in this community..... Also, many people who work for Mr. Schick are now coming forward describing him to the media with words like, "tyrant, slave driver, and non-payer". He has also been accused of making "racially insensitive" remarks to many of the illegal Mexican immigrants that work for him! As the old saying goes, "there are two sides to every story, then there's the truth"."




Prosecuting an 11 Year Old "Racist"

We all know that the schools have gone limp on discipline these days. But kids need discipline on some occasionss. So what to do? The British solution seems to be to take them to court and get the court to discipline them!! So we had recently the case of an 11 year-old boy in Manchester (should that be Personchester?) who called one of his fellow students "Paki, nigger and Bin Laden". I guess it was racist but, more to the point, it was abusive and schools have a reasonable duty to keep abuse between students within some sort of bounds. And no doubt the school did reprimand the boy, which should have ended the matter.

But with the total lack of balance and proportion that is characteristic of poolitical correctness, the school then decided to report the matter to the police and the equally loony police took the matter to court. Fortunately the judge was one of the old school and threw the case out -- though it could possibly be resurrected.

The teachers' union has however now criticized the judge so it seems that British teachers as a whole have totally lost the plot. It's not just a few loonies at fault. Details of the affair here.

And the idea that a police force should be spending its time prosecuting little boys for playground abuse when England is in the grip of soaring rates of murder and gun crime is Kafkaesque. Once again we see the total loss of balance and proportion that political correctness engenders.

Don't Mention the Fairies!

We read:

"A new 30-second Dodge Caliber ad that features a fluttering fairy has been called offensive by an Internet-based group that monitors marketing tactics that could be offensive to gays and lesbians. Commercial Closet gave a negative rating to the Caliber's "Too Tough" TV spot because "it directly finds humor with the term fairy"

Source

Apparently, the commercial also featured some effeminate men and that made it "hate speech" or some such. But what happened to "gay pride"? I thought that depicting effeminate men was supposed to be a GOOD thing these days! So often these days, you can't win.




A Small Victory for Free Speech

We read:

"The Council of Conservative Citizens, which describes itself as "America's largest paleo-conservative organization" and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hate group," has sued four libraries in the St. Louis area, claiming that the libraries' web filters block the organization's web site. (All are apparently not doing so now.) The suit cited Maplewood City Library, University City Public Library, Valley Park Community Library and Festus Public Library. Apparently the libraries were filtering sites designated as "hate" sites for both children and adults. Maplewood City Library director Terrence Donnelly told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the library had revised its policy and unblocked the site."

Source

I think the lesson here is that free speech needs to be fought for. We might have more of it if conservatives resorted to the law as much as the ACLU and other Leftist groups do.

The Frank Ellis Affair

The most hotly debated free speech issue in Britain at the moment is the Frank Ellis affair. Ellis is a senior academic at an English university who recently declared publicly his conclusion that on average blacks have lower IQs than whites. His university has suspended him from teaching as a result -- which violates academic freedom as well as free speech generally.

I appreciate that many readers here may not even wish to think about this issue but for those who do I have just put up here two letters that appeared in today's (7th.) "Times Higher Education Supplement" -- which is Britain's prime means of communicating university news and discussion. It is certainly not "Right wing" in any sense.



Anti-White Bigotry Automatically Believed

Say you are the only white in a large group of employees. You would be pretty silly to start saying derogatory things about blacks, wouldn't you? But what if your non-blackness is disliked by some of the blacks there so they want to get rid of you? Easy. One of the blacks accuses you of hate speech even though you have in fact uttered nothing of the kind. And because the accuser is black and the accused is white, the white is automatically demoted. No proof needed. And what say the blacks concerned really did use hate speech all the time but were never disciplined for it?

Sound fanciful? It certainly sounds obnoxious. And the 8th circuit appeals court has just decided that what I have described is exactly what hapened to Willa Russell. She ended up with $105,000 compensation but there was no word of any adverse consequences suffered by any of the black racists. So expect more of the same.




"Coyotes" Incorrect in Texas

I gather that coyotes are pretty pesky doggies. But smart too. So why not name a sporting team after them? You cannot name a sporting team after Indians or lots of other things these days so what is wrong with naming your team after a wild dog?

Lots apparently. The name was used for a new professional baseball team in Edinburg, Texas -- probably because the team liked the image of being tough and smart -- but the name is apparently said to be insulting to Mexican Americans. I am not sure why. Maybe Mexicans often get called that in Texas or maybe it is only Mexican people-smugglers who are called that.

What I can't figure is why it is insulting anybody to call your team by a particular name. Surely the name is adopted precisely because you think that name sounds good and praiseworthy. Surely it is praise rather than an insult! But I guess that some people are so twisted up that they will take almost anything as an insult.