Free Speach as a Right

For John, BLUF:  I joined the ACLU some 30 years ago, to help ensure my Civil Rights, especially the Right to Free Speech.  Today, not so much, and my membership has lapsed.  They went "Woke".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Move over ACLU, FIRE is the New Champion of Free Speech

Here is the sub-headline:

The expansion of the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education marks the end of an era, when free speech issues were the sole province of American liberalism

From Taibbi Substack, by Reporter Matt Taibbi, 6 June 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

After years of planning, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, better known as FIRE, announced a major expansion Monday, moving “beyond college campuses to protect free speech — for all Americans.”

FIRE was the brainchild of University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate, who co-authored the 1999 book, The Shadow University:  The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.  To the modern reader the book reads like a collection of eccentric cases of students and teachers caught up in speech code issues, most (but not all) being conservative.

To take just one of countless nut-bar examples, Kors and Silverglate told the story of a professor in San Bernardino reprimanded for violating sexual harassment policies because, among other things, “he assigns provocative essays such as Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal,” as the court case later put it.  This was apparently the “cannibalism” portion of the accusation that he delved into such subjects as “obscenity, cannibalism, and consensual sex with children.”

The book triggered such an overwhelming number of responses from other faculty members and students that the pair decided to set up an organization to defend people who found themselves in tricky speech controversies on campuses.  They soon found they had plenty of work and, by 2022, enough of a mandate to expand beyond colleges and universities into America at large.  According to FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff, as quoted in a Politico story, the group has already raised over $28 million toward a $75 million “litigation, opinion research and public education campaign aimed at boosting and solidifying support for free-speech values.”

I am very disappointed in the ACLU and in those Liberals who have abandoned the principles of Liberty.  We are talking about People who have abandoned Liberal Principles for Frankfurt School Progressiveism, intellectuals who fled the rising tide of Fascism, only to implant their own version n the United States.

The Right to Free Speach doesn't mean you can stop me from saying it, but you can point out my comment was wrong, boorish, prejudiced or silly.  It also means you don't have to listen, even if we are married.

Stiffling Free Speech will destroy higher education and slow scientific progress, to our ultimate detrimnt.  It is what gave us the Dark Ages and what ended the Golden Age of Islam (from the 8th century to the 14th century).

Regards  —  Cliff