Arrested for Preaching About Homosexuality

This, of course, is a fundraising video, but the reality it talks about (no free speech for people critical of homosexuality) is endemic. The situation in the U.S., with our First Amendment, is better in strict legal terms, but bullying, harassment and intimidation from the gay lobby can achieve the same thing here that arrests can in the U.K.

[Update]

The Huffington Post ran a reasonably unbiased article on this incident, but note the level of vitriol directed against not only the street preacher, but also Christianity in general, in the comments.

Politically Correct Intolerance in Academia

From Naomi Schaefer Riley in the New York Post:

For the second time in three months, the Chronicle of Higher Education has allowed a violation of academic orthodoxy — and professors are calling for the head of another Chronicle contributor.

The higher-ups seem to have decided it’s not worth the trouble and are shutting down two of its blogs entirely next week. If you can’t take the heat, close the kitchen?

Last month, Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars, published a post on the Chronicle’s Innovations blog in which he suggested that Jerry Sandusky’s serial child molestations weren’t the only thing Penn State had tried to cover up in recent years.

Wood pointed at the university’s investigation into the conduct of Prof. Michael Mann, who played a major role in the “Climategate” memos.

The probe, he said, hardly rigorous; it was conducted by a university vice president – who, as others have noted, had clear incentive to go easy, since Mann brought a lot of research money to the university.

In short, Wood argued, “Penn State has a history of treading softly with its star players.”

The comments section lit up with accusations that Wood had libeled Mann. A blogger called “Profmandia” launched an online campaign demanding that the Chronicle retract the post and apologize.

What might lead Profmandia — whose day job is in the physical sciences department at Suffolk Community College — to believe the Chronicle would respond to his demands?

Well, he had history on his side. In May, the Chronicle gave in to demands that I be reprimanded for daring to criticize the dissertations of some graduate students in black studies at Northwestern University.

For the record, I believe there’s ample ground for serious research in the black experience in America – but I questioned the rigor of the politicized dissertation topics highlighted in a Chronicle news article.

An online petition signed by more than 6,000 academics accused me of “personally attacking” the students. After a week, the Chronicle fired me.

Just as I did not engage in ad hominem attacks by looking askance at a list of topics, Wood hasn’t libeled Mann by suggesting that the university’s investigation was a weak one.

But the Chronicle editors are probably fed up with all of this controversy. Yes: In modern academia, too much debate is a problem.

That is, if you doubt that climate change is man-made (as Wood acknowledges he does) or that institutional racism is the cause of most problems in the black community, you are barred from commenting on the academy.

Perhaps the only idea that competes with these two for their sacredness at universities today is the notion that gender is a social construct and its corollary that children of gay parents have the same (if not better) outcomes than children of heterosexual parents.

Mark Regnerus, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, recently challenged this idea with an article in Social Science Research, in which he suggested that children of gay parents tend to have lower levels of economic success and more problems with mental health.

Some scholars have reasonably disagreed with Regnerus’ methodology, but interest groups and the guardians of sociology’s orthodoxy have demanded his head. As a result, UT has launched an investigation into accusations of scientific misconduct.

Though the article was peer-reviewed and published by a respected academic journal, one columnist wrote that Regnerus’ study was “designed so as to be guaranteed to make gay people look bad, through means plainly fraudulent and defamatory.”

Reasonable people may disagree about Regnerus’ conclusions, Wood’s views of climate science or my opinions on black studies, but on these topics, there is no room for discussion in the Ivory Tower.

And the enforcers of this orthodoxy are shameless. A study out next month in Perspectives on Psychological Science finds: “In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents are, the more willing they are to discriminate.”

At least they’re honest.

Academics, essentially, have become the High Priests in a new religion of political correctness. And like all groups who are rigidly attached to an orthodoxy, and have power, they use that power to stiffle dissent.

Shouting Down a Speaker: Left Wing Fascism at the University of New Mexico

You can read an account of the event here.

The interesting thing here is that audience members, clearly sympathetic to the speaker, rushed the demonstrators and forced them out of the hall. Were they justified in doing that?

In this instance, yes.

Either you have the rule of law, or you have the state of nature. Had cops been present to quell the disruption and arrest the disruptors, then audience members would have been obligated to stand by and let the cops do their job. But no cops (apparently) were present.

In a state of nature, people have a right to use force if necessary to protect their rights. It is important that they not use more force than necessary, and in this case all that happened was that the disruptors were pushed or shoved out of the room, and there was a minor scrap over the page of slogans one demonstrator held.

Universities ought to maintain the rule of law. But often they do not, especially when the lawless are on the political left. That’s why we would like to see more cases where the audience uses the force necessary to eject people who have assaulted free speech.

Andrew Breitbart: Message to Libertarians on Campus

No Free Speech in Canada

Intolerance at National Public Radio, and in the NPR Audience

It’s not that surprising that National Public Radio fired Juan Williams. The organization, and it’s listeners, have a long history of bigotry toward Fox News. Actually, they have a history of intolerance toward virtually all those who disagree with them.

Two examples.

From the Huffington Post, March 2009:

NPR has asked Fox News not to identify its news analyst, Juan Williams, with NPR branding when he appears on Fox News because of outrage among its largely liberal listener-base. And Fox News has happily agreed to do so.

NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard wrote Wednesday that in 2008 she received 378 “complaints and frustrations about things Williams said on Fox,” including claims that Williams “dishonors NPR” and is an “embarrassment to NPR” and that “NPR should severe [sic] their relationship with him.”

Recent listener complaints have centered around Williams’ comment that Michelle Obama could be a liability to her husband. . . . [emphasis added]

That’s right. The liberal listeners of NPR were “outraged” that Williams had the temerity to appear on a network that they hate. And say some things they disagreed with.

Of course, on Fox Williams is pretty much the liberal. But he’s not a dogmatic liberal whose opinions are always predictable.

Of course, Williams is not the only NPR person who has come under fire. Also from the Huffington Post:

NPR asked its leading political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News, where she is a paid contributor, Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports.

Gerstein reports that “Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving” about concerns they had over Fox News’ programming and its changes since President Obama had taken office. They asked her to spend 30 days watching the network; she obliged, and “reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming,” Gerstein reports.

The timing of NPR’s request coincided with the White House’s battle against the network.

An NPR spokesperson refused to comment specifically about Liasson, telling Politico, “As part of our ongoing work we have internal conversations about talent appearances all the time that are part of our regular editorial evaluation.” The spokesperson added, “There’s no relationship between the White House’s criticism of Fox and any discussions about Fox that we’re having.”

A Fox News spokesperson said, “With the ratings we have, NPR should be paying us to even be mentioned on our air.”

It’s a reality of contemporary liberalism: liberals simply can’t stand that people are allowed to say things they disagree with.

While not every liberal is intolerant, intolerance is now very much mainstream among liberals. We see it in attempts to shut up people who want to participate in political campaigns, attempts to shut up conservative talk radio, and speech codes on college campuses.

The reasons are various, but the fundamental problem is that liberals are simply much more able than conservatives to isolate themselves from the mainstream. They had college professors who were virtually uniformly liberal or leftist. They enter occupations (like academia or journalism) where pretty much everybody thinks the same way. They segregate themselves in neighborhoods (like Milwaukee’s East Side) where most of their neighbors think the same way. They get their news from the mainstream media, from NPR and from a highly selected bunch of leftist web sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo).

Isolation breeds narrow parochialism, and that breeds intolerance of dissenting opinions.

Modern liberals aren’t the first nor the only people this has happened to, but the combination of intolerance and political power among today’s liberals is particularly dangerous.

Yet Another Liberal Attack on Free Speech

From the Radio Business Report:

Claiming that precious metal peddler Goldline uses conservative broadcast talkers to whip audiences into a frenzy about upcoming financial catastrophe and then sells them gold as a hedge, at inflated prices, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is calling for investigations by the SEC and the FTC. Although several personalities are named, TV/radio talker Glenn Beck is Weiner’s prime target.

Naming names: According to a report released by Weiner, “Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Michael Smerconish, Monica Crowley and Mike Huckabee are all paid spokespeople for Goldline.” Beck was a spokesperson too, but had to relinquish that role to conform to Fox News policy, but Goldline remains a major advertiser on his FNC program. [emphasis added]

According to the report, “On numerous occasions, Glenn Beck has dedicated entire segments of his program to explaining why the U.S. money supply is destined for hyperinflation with Barack Obama as president. He will often promote the purchase of gold as the only safe investment alternative for consumers who want to safeguard their livelihoods. When the show cuts to commercial break, viewers are treated to an advertisement from Goldline.”

Weiner commented, “Goldline rips off consumers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics, and deliberately manipulates public fears of an impending government takeover – this is a trifecta of terrible business practices. It’s unacceptable that this company is preying on public fears to sell its products.”

An odd statement, coming from a politician. Those are the people who make a business of “preying on public fears” to get themselves reelected.

The misleading tactics boil down mainly to two, according to Weiner. First, he says that the gold the company sells is marked up 90% above melt value on average, meaning the value of the gold would almost have to double for the buyer to break even. Further, he says salespersons represent themselves as financial advisors, but they are not licensed as such. Weiner believes that is a misrepresentation.

Beck discussed Weiner’s attack on his Premiere Networks radio show, calling it part of a smear campaign engineered against himself and Goldline by the Obama administration. He wondered if other organizations besides those airing conservative talkers, and running Goldline ads, would also be targeted.

Beck also said that his money is where his mouth is on this one. “If my people that do financial advising — because I’m worth — you don’t listen to me for financial advice and that’s why I’ve said don’t — I buy it not as an investment. I buy it as insurance policy. If my people, my advisors would allow me to buy 50%, I’d have 50% of my savings in gold. But they all say that’s nuts. 10%, no more than 10%, no more than 10%. I think I have 15? 15, maybe 20% of mine in gold. From Goldline. Now, you tell me. If I’m such a scam artist, why would I be scamming myself?”

According to Politico, Goldline also responded. Goldline president and CEO Mark Albarian said, “It feels like it’s politically motivated in that neither the Congressman nor anybody from his office ever contacted executives from the company to really ask the important questions that they need to ask to understand this business.” He claimed that Weiner “doesn’t get” the gold business and suggested that the company’s relationship with Beck was the true motivation for the attack.

Goldline, by the way, has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

We don’t think gold is a particularly good investment. Indeed, we would not buy bullion at the melt value (even if we actually had the money to do so). But it’s not government’s job to second guess what investors want to do. If there were actual fraud -- if the company didn’t deliver the product it promised -- government would have a right to intervene.

But just disagreeing about where investors should put their money is a different matter.

It can’t possibly be an accident that Weiner has picked on a company that advertises on conservative outlets. This is simply another case of liberals in government using their power to try to shut up voices they don’t like.

That’s just not consistent with free republican government. Indeed, as government power increases, free speech necessarily becomes more precarious.

Another Example of How Liberals Don’t Believe in Free Speech