Politics: A new beginning

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
As for the speech stuff, I asked that it be disregarded as remote in time, unless someone can point up a post-1993 speech code at a major university --- preferably a State U., so we can get past the whole "state action" thing definitively.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...AD0894DB404482 . [suit filed in April v. Shippensburg U.'s speech code.]

http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-27-03.html [August article on the Cato Institute site - buyer beware - discussing continued existance of speech codes, including at U of MD.]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...4350-1825r.htm [Wash Times article on what appears to be the same statement from the feds - refers to the SHippensburg thing and Harvard's codes, adopted in '95]

http://www.speechcodes.org/ [anti-speech-code site with useful map, listing colleges by state or region and detailing the speech codes and/or harrassment codes each has in place. U of IL at Urbana seems to have a particularly eggregious example.]

I'm not sure why the whole "state action" thing came in, really - why is state action required to demonstrate something is a value dear to the political [right][left]?

[notcasesensitive]

Damn bleeding heart liberals...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/scheer/...ush/index.html

[article about why Rush should not be sent up the river]

an excerpt: If convicted and imprisoned, Limbaugh could come back a hardened criminal, most likely having learned only how to get away with convenience-store stickups to support his habit. Although in prison he might also be educated by fellow inmates to drop the OxyContin that he allegedly was hooked on, for heroin, which has a similar high but may be less damaging to the body. We don't know why he didn't turn to pot for relief, but I suspect that prescription-drug abuse is just more acceptable in right-wing circles.

[rufus leeking]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
[I'm not sure why the whole "state action" thing came in, really - why is state action required to demonstrate something is a value dear to the political [right][left]?

Well, I think club bought into the right sometimes wants to limit speech* and claimed the left does too. Atticus said it doesn't except for U speech codes (which are)/(should be) dead. He challenged to find a showing of official censorship. You raise a good point that the fact lots of lefties want there to be censorship is what's really important, regardless whether they can convince an official He snuck in a strawman, but it didn't amtter because we've shown official lefty censorship anyway.

* I don't see that. AG could only point to the flag burning amendment.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Doubtful. Everytime I get her not to hate me, I say something that gets, errr, sets her off again.

Sweetie, saying things that get me off is not a recipe for hatred. Dependence, maybe, but not hatred.

[sgtclub]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in577975.shtml

[former aid claims Powell misrepped war]

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A tribute to a man that most on the left (and here I do mean the left, not just the far left) considered an aimiable dunce.

By Bush I circa 1978, do you mean a Rockefeller Republican?

Yes, I think so. I was going to use that term, but I realized that I really didn't know enough about the Rockefeller in question to be sure it was accurate.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Yes, I think so. I was going to use that term, but I realized that I really didn't know enough about the Rockefeller in question to be sure it was accurate.

How about a Snowe Republican.
Actually I think you make an interesting point regarding the shift of the middle. I have always contended that Clinton was really more of a conservative than Nixon.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by rufus leeking
Well, I think club bought into the right sometimes wants to limit speech* and claimed the left does too. Atticus said it doesn't except for U speech codes (which are)/(should be) dead. He challenged to find a showing of official censorship. You raise a good point that the fact lots of lefties want there to be censorship is what's really important, regardless whether they can convince an official He snuck in a strawman, but it didn't amtter because we've shown official lefty censorship anyway.

* I don't see that. AG could only point to the flag burning amendment.

Now, be fair.

One's membership in a private club that has certain taboo viewpoints is not a matter of free speech. You remain free to speak; you just aren't welcome to speak about Jesus at Hillel. Private universities shouldn't have speech codes as a matter of academic integrity, but that doesn't mean that the Left is "anti-speech" because it permits associational freedoms (also a 1AD value) to trump a phantom right (the right never to be censored, even by a private party in which one claims or seeks membership).

This point is so obvious that I'm surprised DS missed it --- being shunned and ostracized by a private institution is the way those institutions create identity. Private schools are no exception. While I may think it's bad policy for the school, I have no problem with a totally private school telling its students, "The first person to say 'nigger' gets expelled." Otherwise, I would have gone to Bob Roberts and been a shit disturber for four years, and howled about my "right to be heard."

Your dismissal of the FBA is chilling, har har. When the middle right "panders" to yahoos by limiting basic 1AD freedoms, it's okay because it's just pandering? You're deluded. All constitutional infringements are pandering to one set of nearsighted yahoos or another. Speech codes are included. But if it makes you sleep better at night about how the Right is a better custodian of 1AD freedoms, have at it.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I'm not sure why the whole "state action" thing came in, really - why is state action required to demonstrate something is a value dear to the political [right][left]?

Because (see above) otherwise it's a totally circular argument. The freedom of private association is somehow less valid than the freedom of speech? I insult you by asking this question (please forgive), but do I have a "right" to address your dinner parties on all matters of my choosing? Does my support of your right to kick me to the curb mean I value "free speech" less than someone who thinks I should be given a dessert and a cup of coffee?

[rufus leeking]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch [Now be fair.

shit. I'd hoped this would get past you and be buried before you got online out there.

This point is so obvious that I'm surprised DS missed it --- being shunned and ostracized by a private institution is the way those institutions create identity. Private schools are no exception. While I may think it's bad policy for the school, I have no problem with a totally private school telling its students, "The first person to say 'nigger' gets expelled*."

DS=BRC?
we both posted things, at least anedoctal from public schools.

Otherwise, I would have gone to Bob Roberts.....

I am going out on a limb here, and calling bullshit. The whole no premaritial sex would still be there as a deterent.

Your dismissal of the FBA is chilling, har har. When the middle right "panders" to yahoos by limiting basic 1AD freedoms, it's okay because it's just pandering? All constitutional infringements are pandering to one set of nearsighted yahoos or another. Speech codes are included. But if it makes you sleep better at night about how the Right is a better custodian of 1AD freedoms, have at it.

Attempts at FBA embarress the reps., for sure. But you guys were going on like the right actively and sucessfully limits free speech. You (both you and Club) were talking like the right was the demolitionists, not custodian of the 1stA. I'm just saying you ain't got much if all you have is the FBA.
and real infringements aren't pandering so much as acting on a fear, aren't they? "if we don't stop anti-AA cartoons in the school paper then they'll be racially motivated attacks." no one is afraid of flag burners, many are troubled by them.

your point that pandering isn't harmless where it "limits" rights, misses the point we never did get that amendment- its NOT limited. and pandering is part of basic political communication. how is promising to increase taxes for everyone making over 200k anything but pandering? it won't go through, and if it did it would generate so little revenue as to be meaningless given the cost of the increase. yet you had all of your candidates slapping happy on the idea.

You're deluded

again, I can't tell if this is meant as a compliment.

[sgtclub]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rufus leeking
You (both you and Club) were talking like the right was the demolitionists, not custodian of the 1stA. I'm just saying you ain't got much if all you have is the FBA.[Quote]

Cite please? What I did say was that the right is willing to put limits on the 1A for national security purposes. I think the left is too, but the issue is what type of speech raises a national security risk. I believe that the right (rightly so) has a quicker trigger on this.

And it is not just the FMA. What about the cause against porn and strip clubs? Is that not speech? The right has been on a crusade for decades now on that.

And how did I suddenly become a right basher?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Atticus makes an important point, which is that state action is critical if we're talking about first amendment issues. I'll confess I find limitations on free speech by private parties reprehensible, but am generally unwilling to join such institutions (if they'd have me) in order to encourage change. I have enough on my hands with my own reprehensible institution, the Catholic Church, thank you.

I'll go out on a wild limb here and say that on both the right and the left those who put limits on the first amendments generally do so in circumstances that are very rare today in the U.S. The flag-burning amendment is the most recent major example, it was sponsored by the right, and by a very large segment of the right (you have your yahoos, we have ours; we just don't put our on radio and listen to them every day).

But through history there have been a number of important attempts to infringe on first amendment protections. Some are on the left, but more are on the right. The right has to answer for McCarthyism, the Palmer raids, and any number of attempts at silly laws or prosecutions in Vietnam era days. The left has to answer for the original Federal Elections Act (declared unconstitutional in Buckley v. Valeo) and for some silly laws attempting to regulate hate speech. My conclusion from this -- in times of peace when people are satisfied, there are elements of the left who chip away at free speech in an attempt to regulate conduct and limit views the left finds unpalatable; in times of hot or cold war when people are riled up, large elements of the right (the yahoo right, if you wish, but the right none-the-less) not infrequently attempts to strike at the heart of the first amendment.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sgtclub

Originally posted by rufus leeking

And it is not just the FMA. What about the cause against porn and strip clubs? Is that not speech? The right has been on a crusade for decades now on that.

The right doesn't have a monopoly on porn and strip clubs.

But how many of you have gone to those place for the speech?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
The right doesn't have a monopoly on porn and strip clubs.

But how many of you have gone to those place for the speech?

Maybe it's just me, but I find it much easier to really focus on what someone is saying when they are naked.

[Say_hello_for_me]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sgtclub

Originally posted by rufus leeking


And how did I suddenly become a right basher?

You fell in to a burning ring of fire. You fell down down down, and the flames got higher.

Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And climb out of the gutter.

Hello