On October 17, 1933, Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany for the United States.
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Look, Hitler — No Einstein!
Today’s campus radicals assert that free speech is bad because it “gives voice” to people with hateful, dangerous views.
Does that argument seem at all familiar? It is the old RightThink rationale for censorship.
A recent Spiked “Unsafe Spaces” event at Rutgers (“Identity Politics: the New Racialism”) was interrupted by now-too-famiar shouts and out-of-turn questions and invective. Kmele Foster, one of the panelists, had been explaining how important free speech rights were to the civil rights protesters in the 1960s, and to Martin Luther King in particular.
At “that precise moment,” as Reason’s Matt Welch puts it, the shouts of “Black lives matter!” began. And continued.
But more interesting than this bullying? Some of the more coherent theses articulated by the interrupters. One woman, CampusReform relates,
yelled in response to the panelists that she doesn’t “need statistics,” later complaining that “the system” controls facts.
“It’s the system. It’s the institution,” she said. “Don’t tell me about facts. I don’t need no facts.”
Well, the moment you prove immune to any fact is the exact point in time that you’ve given up on rationality, free inquiry, and maybe even civilization itself.
It’s so 1984-ish.
And it demonstrates the old idea that, when you can no longer reason or allow others to express different opinions . . . or even discuss the factuality of this or that contention, you have only one other option: force.
Become bully.
Or tyrant.
Civilization is the triumph of persuasion over force. Being against free speech is to reverse that.
The acme of barbarism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Yorktown Siege Ends
On October 16, 1781, George Washington captured Yorktown, Virginia, after the Siege of Yorktown.
October 16 is a traditional date to award Nobel Peace Prizes, good (Desmond Tutu, 1984), and bad (Henry Kissinger, 1973). Two Nobel laureates were born on October 16, as well: Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, saw daylight first in 1863; Eugene O’Neill, American playwright and Nobel Laureate for Literature, made his debut in 1888.
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Mary Shelley
All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Victor Frankenstein of Justine Moritz in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Ch. 8
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Corruption, Corruption and More Corruption
If ever it needed proving before, it is proven, now: power is not just politics. It is influence, as well. And Hollywood folks have been very influential. Harvey Weinstein highest among them.
And apparently most corrupt.
Resist the abusers of power and click on over to Townhall. Then come back here for a tiny bit more reading:
- Fox News: Candidate admits US rep’s campaign paid him for leaving race
- Politico: Inside Tim Murphy’s reign of terror
- Daily Caller: Media Fails In Coverage Of Sen. Menendez Corruption Trial
- Daily Mail (UK): It’s a New York thing! SNL creator Lorne Michaels reveals the show gave Harvey Weinstein a pass . . .
- BBC: Clinton on Weinstein: ‘I was shocked and appalled‘
- Philly.com/The Inquirer: By spiking Harvey Weinstein story, NBC made the public question all mainstream media
- Huffington Post: How Top NBC Executives Quashed The Bombshell Harvey Weinstein Story
- Daily Beast: How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé
- Deseret News: 20 notable politicians convicted of crimes since 2000
- New York Times: Montana Republican Greg Gianforte, Charged With Assault, Awaits Fate in Vote
- Wikipedia: List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes
- Wikipedia: List of American state and local politicians convicted of crimes
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The Dreyfus Affair
On October 15, 1894, Alfred Dreyfus (1859 – 1935) was arrested for spying: The Dreyfus Affair began.
Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, has a regular Periscope broadcast worth watching. Here are two recent episodes on YouTube (odd formatting; the Periscope versions take up a more of the screen). The subject is President Trump, and Adams is most interested in interpreting Donald Trump as a master persuader:
https://youtu.be/X5602LoXyhY?t=1m15s
https://youtu.be/2cZqlWuz3YI?t=2m9s
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Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams, essay, written under the pseudonym “Candidus,” in The Boston Gazette (October 14, 1771).
The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.
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William Penn
On October 14, 1644, Willliam Penn was born. An English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania (the English North American colony and future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania), he was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Indians. Penn died in 1718.
No sooner had I upbraided media folks for overreacting to various presidential peccadillos regarding Puerto Rico, when Donald J. Trump, in his running media battle, crossed a line with this week’s most notorious tweet.
He first complained, perhaps correctly, that, “Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean.” But then the chief executive officer of the United States of America tweeted this: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?”
The answer to his question is: never.
The Federal Communications Commission licenses the network affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS across the country — not the networks themselves — to broadcast their television signals using public airwaves. Still, through those affiliates a tyrannical FCC could no doubt damage the networks.
Government licensing of media outlets is anathema to the First Amendment. And the thought of the POTUS actively threatening the ability of NBC or other networks to report the news as they freely decide is . . . well, unthinkable.
I don’t buy the accusations that Trump is undermining freedom of the press by criticizing the press — even arguing by tweet, “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) . . . is the enemy of the American People!” The president is as free to criticize the media as the media is free to criticize the president.
It might be his duty.
But considering the use of official government power to potentially “shut down NBC and other American networks,” as UK’s Independent reported, or just to temper their coverage?
Despotism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
