Freedom to Post, so to Speak
Oh, those student groups, they're at it again. First they welcome with open arms "Israeli Apartheid Week", then they decline to permit another event to enter their precincts in the hallowed halls they feel confident to control in the country's ivory towers. The U.S. columnist/political commentator Ann Coulter is scheduled to appear at Marion Hall, University of Ottawa, to speak on political correctness, media bias and freedom of speech on Tuesday.
Ann Coulter is quite a controversial figure, a self-promoter, a preening, opiniated, shrill-voiced agitator of some considerable note, perhaps equivalent in reputation to other right-wing speakers in the United States; Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin do come to mind. For the fastidious minds and values of most moderate people what she represents comes out on the dark side of public life.
But, of course, universities celebrate all those freedoms and she is free to spout her vision of politics, the media and of course, freely engage in freedom of speech.
Canada's very own conservative political activist Ezra Levant, is also scheduled to speak at the same event; he will, in fact, introduce Ms. Coulter. Does the respected (and volatile) Mr. Levant feel this association, however slight, will burnish his reputation? Well, why not; it is the topics, not the individuals who associate themselves with those topics that lead the show and deserve our attention.
Somehow, regardless, some individuals do tend to get in the way of orderly review.
"The federation does not support Ann Coulter speaking on our campus", student present Seamus Wolfe proclaimed. "We're trying to work with the administration to see if we can ask her to do her speaking event somewhere else." And while the administration may not see things their way, the federation does control which posters are placed within the University Centre building.
One recalls the slanderously disgusting posters set up to advertise IAW, portraying Israel and the IDF as vicious, murdering beasts, attacking defenceless, trusting, adorable Palestinian children. Posters with photographs of a beautiful young blonde woman full of herself and her pulchritudinous lock on right-wing conservatism seem blandly innocent in comparison.
Values are peculiar, perverse and idiosyncratic, to be sure.
But given the university's Student Federation's adoring helpfulness in blackening Israel's name and supporting a biased version of Middle East history, one might think they would do a little research, to discover that perhaps Ms. Coulter's thoughts don't completely run afoul of their own. The Student Federation and those groups supporting IAW enjoy their assaults on Jewish sensitivities; they should make themselves aware of Ms. Coulter's thoughts there, too:
There is such delicious irony in activist, left-wing students deploring the speech of someone like Ms. Coulter. She takes such huge pleasure in being provocative, tingling with joy at the surprised responses to her political vision. They on the other hand, take huge pleasure in being deliberately obtuse, disinterested in moderate discourse, intent on spreading calumny, casting blame and hate where their 'instincts' tell them it belongs.
"There is an interesting line between what is free speech and what is hate speech. As difficult as it is to navigate that boundary, Ann Coulter has a history of hate speech and we wouldn't invite somebody who spreads hate to come to our campus", bridled Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe makes himself deliberately unaware that there are those on campus who would, and did invite that somebody to speak on their campus.
For doesn't the campus speak to and for and from all ideologies, in the search for meaning and understanding? She obviously has a message that some elements on campus find useful. And one of them, economics student Nicholas Fleet avowed his feeling that it is an "affront" that the student federation is energetically denying him the opportunity to place posters at the University Centre.
"People like Ann Coulter will come and go, but freedoms such as expression need to be tested and should be respected by student unions", said Mr. Fleet. Noting, as he agreed that he would respect the dictate of the federation by abstaining from distributing the posters, that the very federation that took steps to halt the distribution of the posters printed them.
"They took our money for printing the posters, but in the end they said we couldn't put up the posters", he complained. This outspoken and to many, embarrassingly right-wing columnist's visit was sponsored by the International Free Press Society-Canada and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.
Interesting how Mr. Wolfe overlooks the deliberate intent and maligning of an entire people and their state as racist, violently thuggish malefactors through the support of "Israeli Apartheid Week" as an extremely virulent form of spreading hate. It's the particular ox that's being gored that makes one a social crime, the other an acceptable protest. Her political bias is faulty and hateful, but not his.
It might make a nice little project during Reading Week - perhaps an annual event - to circulate the publications written by Ms. Coulter, to ensure that the student federation knows whereof they speak when they denounce and refuse to have any part in this woman's presence and talk. For their convenience: Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America (January 2009);If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (October, 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004); Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).
Best sellers all. And imagine; she has been judged one of the U.S.'s 100 most influential young
thinkers. Just like them, if from the other pew.
Ann Coulter is quite a controversial figure, a self-promoter, a preening, opiniated, shrill-voiced agitator of some considerable note, perhaps equivalent in reputation to other right-wing speakers in the United States; Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin do come to mind. For the fastidious minds and values of most moderate people what she represents comes out on the dark side of public life.
But, of course, universities celebrate all those freedoms and she is free to spout her vision of politics, the media and of course, freely engage in freedom of speech.
Canada's very own conservative political activist Ezra Levant, is also scheduled to speak at the same event; he will, in fact, introduce Ms. Coulter. Does the respected (and volatile) Mr. Levant feel this association, however slight, will burnish his reputation? Well, why not; it is the topics, not the individuals who associate themselves with those topics that lead the show and deserve our attention.
Somehow, regardless, some individuals do tend to get in the way of orderly review.
"The federation does not support Ann Coulter speaking on our campus", student present Seamus Wolfe proclaimed. "We're trying to work with the administration to see if we can ask her to do her speaking event somewhere else." And while the administration may not see things their way, the federation does control which posters are placed within the University Centre building.
One recalls the slanderously disgusting posters set up to advertise IAW, portraying Israel and the IDF as vicious, murdering beasts, attacking defenceless, trusting, adorable Palestinian children. Posters with photographs of a beautiful young blonde woman full of herself and her pulchritudinous lock on right-wing conservatism seem blandly innocent in comparison.
Values are peculiar, perverse and idiosyncratic, to be sure.
But given the university's Student Federation's adoring helpfulness in blackening Israel's name and supporting a biased version of Middle East history, one might think they would do a little research, to discover that perhaps Ms. Coulter's thoughts don't completely run afoul of their own. The Student Federation and those groups supporting IAW enjoy their assaults on Jewish sensitivities; they should make themselves aware of Ms. Coulter's thoughts there, too:
In which case, they should be welcoming her to the podium, and making common cause with her. Of course, that's a trifle facetious; Ms. Coulter has little use for anything that appeals to the fanatical left-wing conscience, so they're quite on track, attempting to delete her from their intellectual, justice-seeking space of higher learning.Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.Coulter made the remarkable statements during an often heated appearance to promote her new book on advertising guru Donny Deutsch's CNBC show "The Big Idea."In response to a question from Deutsch asking Coulter if "it would be better if we were all Christian," the controversial columnist responded: "Yes.""We should all be Christian?" Deutsch repeated."Yes," Coulter responded, asking Deutsch, who is Jewish, if he would like to "come to church with me."Deutsch, pressing Coulter further, asked, "We should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians?" She responded: "Yeah."Coulter deflected Deutsch's assertion that her comments were anti-Semitic, matter-of-factly telling the show's obviously upset host, "That is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews."
There is such delicious irony in activist, left-wing students deploring the speech of someone like Ms. Coulter. She takes such huge pleasure in being provocative, tingling with joy at the surprised responses to her political vision. They on the other hand, take huge pleasure in being deliberately obtuse, disinterested in moderate discourse, intent on spreading calumny, casting blame and hate where their 'instincts' tell them it belongs.
"There is an interesting line between what is free speech and what is hate speech. As difficult as it is to navigate that boundary, Ann Coulter has a history of hate speech and we wouldn't invite somebody who spreads hate to come to our campus", bridled Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Wolfe makes himself deliberately unaware that there are those on campus who would, and did invite that somebody to speak on their campus.
For doesn't the campus speak to and for and from all ideologies, in the search for meaning and understanding? She obviously has a message that some elements on campus find useful. And one of them, economics student Nicholas Fleet avowed his feeling that it is an "affront" that the student federation is energetically denying him the opportunity to place posters at the University Centre.
"People like Ann Coulter will come and go, but freedoms such as expression need to be tested and should be respected by student unions", said Mr. Fleet. Noting, as he agreed that he would respect the dictate of the federation by abstaining from distributing the posters, that the very federation that took steps to halt the distribution of the posters printed them.
"They took our money for printing the posters, but in the end they said we couldn't put up the posters", he complained. This outspoken and to many, embarrassingly right-wing columnist's visit was sponsored by the International Free Press Society-Canada and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.
Interesting how Mr. Wolfe overlooks the deliberate intent and maligning of an entire people and their state as racist, violently thuggish malefactors through the support of "Israeli Apartheid Week" as an extremely virulent form of spreading hate. It's the particular ox that's being gored that makes one a social crime, the other an acceptable protest. Her political bias is faulty and hateful, but not his.
It might make a nice little project during Reading Week - perhaps an annual event - to circulate the publications written by Ms. Coulter, to ensure that the student federation knows whereof they speak when they denounce and refuse to have any part in this woman's presence and talk. For their convenience: Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America (January 2009);If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (October, 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004); Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).
Best sellers all. And imagine; she has been judged one of the U.S.'s 100 most influential young
thinkers. Just like them, if from the other pew.
Labels: Human Relations, Justice, Racism, Realities
posted by Pieface | 5:46 PM
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