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education and schooling First Amendment rights ideological culture

The De-Frocking of Jordan Peterson

The Canadian psychologist fighting for the right to opine without having to submit to “social media training” — reeducation — has lost a court battle.

An Ontario court has dismissed Jordan Peterson’s appeal of a decision that had ruled in favor of the autocratic College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO).

A year ago, Dr. Peterson’s livelihood was jeopardized because, on social media, he challenged “consensus” determinations on matters like climate change, sex-change operations on minors, and COVID-19 policies.

That’s when CPO, a regulatory body established by legislation, told Peterson that he must either submit to degrading “training” as the penalty for participating in public discourse or forfeit his right to practice.

With the new ruling, “There are no other legal avenues open to me now,” he says on Twitter. “It’s capitulate to the petty bureaucrats and the addlepated woke mob or lose my professional licence.”

The setback pertains only to “this round,” though. And: “There is nothing you can take from me that I’m unwilling to lose.”

In a recent National Post column, he says that he can either comply with the reeducation and confess his ideological sins or “tell my would-be masters to go directly to the hell they are so rapidly gathering around themselves and everyone else.”

If you read Dr. Peterson’s warnings to fellow Canadians about the precarious state of their liberties and interpret his tone accurately, I think you’ll agree that he’s going with the go-to-hell option.

Peterson has made millions off the fame he garnered by opposing the compelled speech aspect aspect of Canada’s Bill C-16. Thanks to the marketplace of ideas, he has more go-to-hell money than most folks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Thought

Jordan Peterson

The truth is something that burns — it burns off deadwood, and people don’t like having their deadwood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent deadwood.

Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan Experience #958 (May 2017).

Categories
Today

Kristol

On January 22, 1920, American neoconservative pundit and author Irving Kristol was born. He is famous for a number of works, including the essay “‘When virtue loses all her loveliness’ — some reflections on Capitalism and ‘the free society’” (National Affairs, Fall 1970) and the treatise Two Cheers for Capitalism: A Penetrating Assessment Of Free Enterprise And The Corporate System (1978).

Kristol died September 18, 2009.

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by Paul Jacob video

Watch: Keep Taiwan Free

Paul no longer produces his weekly “weekend wrap-up” podcast, This Week in Common Sense. But he still has something to say. This is the video of the talk shared on audio yesterday:

Please go to StopTheChinazis.org for more information.

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Thought

Lucian of Samosata

The good historian, then, must be thus described: he must be fearless, uncorrupted, free, the friend of truth and of liberty; one who, to use the words of the comic poet, calls a fig a fig, and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign, never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating faithfully everything as it happened.

Lucian, “How to Write History.” Thomas Francklin, D.D. (trans.).
Categories
Today

Witness to Hiss

On January 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, with Whittaker Chambers being the main witness in Hiss’s prosecution. Chambers confessed to having been a Soviet spy, and accused Hiss as an accomplice, which Hiss denied to his dying day. Chambers gave a fascinating account of all this in his bestselling 1952 memoir, Witness.

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audio

Listen: Keep Taiwan Free!

Paul’s weekend podcast has been discontinued. But he still has something to say — from the streets of Taipei:

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Thought

Rob Schneider

I am sick and tired of flying all the time with these white pilots landing safely and on time. Boring!

Punchline to comedian Rob Schneider’s bit about United Airlines’ new DEI hiring practices.
Categories
Today

ACLU

On January 20, 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded.

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First Amendment rights regulation

Again Allowed

Retired engineer Wayne Nutt wants to be able to speak freely about engineering problems.

North Carolina, in the form of its Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, disagrees. The Board sought to prohibit his speech unless he obtained a professional license, and it threatened him with sanctions.

As Institute for Justice puts it, the Board ordered Nutt “to stop talking about math in public.”

In response, Nutt sued, with IJ’s help.

Nutt often writes letters or speaks at public meetings to discuss problems with the designs of buildings and other structures. He also testified in court about flooding of a housing development. This is what caught the attention of the Board, which claims that for Nutt to utter such testimony or any public statements enlisting his specialized knowledge is illegal, amounting to practicing engineering without a license.

“I like the freedom to be able to speak up,” Nutt says.

I sympathize with this desire, as did the Founders who gave us the First Amendment to protect freedom of speech. Fortunately, so does Chief Judge Richard Myers of North Carolina’s Eastern District. He has just issued a favorable ruling in the case.

“This is a win for more than just me,” Nutt says. “There are a lot of people in the same situation — people who have expertise that they’ve been blocked from talking about. This decision is an affirmation that the First Amendment protects all of our rights to share what we know.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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