Left-Wing Hate Speech Toward Mitchell Langbert's Blog I

I have previously discussed the decline in campus civility in light of increasing left-wing hate, intolerance, calls for censorship and repeal of the First Amendment.  The bizarre combination of millennials' often-violent protest against others and their often-self-pitying anxiety about their own feelings has been discussed by Lukianoff and Haidt in their recent book Coddling of the American Mind.   

Many millennials lack writing, mathematical, and linear thinking skills. Most lack civics and history education. Few have read the classics of the liberal tradition--Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, Smith, Mill.   As a result, a majority is unfamiliar with the origins of the First Amendment, the history of speech codes in early modernity, or of the use of speech codes by Joseph McCarthy and Alexander Mitchell Palmer. As well, they often lack an understanding of how the US government works and what the Constitution says.  The same may be said of American journalists, who are increasingly a dumbed-down, irrelevant brood. 

Two radical Brooklyn College student-journalists, Jasmine Peralta and Danielle Kogan, recently wrote a piece in one of the campus news outlets in which they present a fellow student's opinions about my remarks but do not present my response. Peralta and Kogan quote a fellow radical student, whom they identify merely as Club Coordinator of the Puerto Rican Alliance Rivera, at length. 

Rivera says:  

I feel that any professor who makes anyone else feel threatened is a threat to me because I, as a student leader have to represent the members of my organization and of the organizations that I stand by in solidarity.

Rivera doesn't consider that his calls for censorship may make those who disagree feel threatened.  The young radical goes on to express the curious opinion--prevalent among campus diversity officers, campus administrators, and the fake-news media--that since the college campus is all inclusive, views with which the hate-filled campus lynch mob disagrees should be excluded. 

Rivera continues:

It’s supposed to be a campus that’s all-inclusive. It’s one of the most diverse campuses in the nation….for a professor to make statements about those types of students that alludes to sexual assault implies that all men are rapist and make sexual assault victims feel totally unsafe here on the Brooklyn College campus is unacceptable. 

 As I have previously blogged, the concept of hate speech is vacuous. Indeed, the left frequently engages in hate speech, and Jasmine Peralta, Danielle Kogan, and Club Coordinator of the Puerto Rican Alliance Rivera are not exceptions. Rivera is filled with hate. He or she wishes to exclude anyone who disagrees with his or her definition of hate speech, and he or she will pull no punches in expressing this opinion.  Peralta and Kogan agree, and they will not hesitate to write one-sided articles to prove it.

Peralta, Kogan, and Rivera apparently have not read the Constitution, the case law that has evolved concerning the First Amendment on campus, or any of the works of liberalism that led to the Lockean consensus that has, until the millennial generation and the concomitant dumbing down of American journalism, been America's common ground.  Indeed, they seem to be aware that law concerning the Constitution evolves through a stare decisis process, or that there are courts that adjudicate questions of this kind.  

Yamiche Alcindor Evidences Need to End 501 (c) (3) Exemption for PBS

Watching the president's press conference on Fox News yesterday, I saw Yamiche Alcindor's insipid question. Alcindor asked whether, because President Trump has said that he is a nationalist, he is a white nationalist.

This is not a question that reflects basic knowledge necessary to be a competent journalist. Hence, the question arises whether PBS is functioning as a legitimate, nonpartisan news organization entitled to tax exemption.  No other major network enjoys a tax exemption.  The presumption is that PBS performs at a higher level than other networks, but the low quality of Alcindor's performance evidences a lower-level, partisan performance.

The term "nationalist" is broad, but its application  to President Trump suggests trade and international relations issues.  Advocates of tariffs in trade and of unilateralism in international relations are traditionally called economic or international relations nationalists. In the 1930s Senator Robert Taft, Herbert Hoover,  and other Republicans were nationalists in opposition to internationalists like Wendell Willkie, and President Trump continues in  this tradition.  This is basic history, basic economics, and basic current events--knowledge that is necessary to competent journalism.

Unfortunately, like many reporters in television news, Ms. Alcindor lacks knowledge necessary to competent journalism.  This raises the question as to why PBS would employ someone who lacks  minimal skills and who instead of functioning as a journalist raises shrill, bigoted questions in a press conference.

PBS is a not-for-profit corporation that claims to be nonpartisan, but it is clearly partisan. It is time to reconsider longstanding subsidization of Democratic Party publicists in the media and in higher education who masquerade as professors and journalists, fraudulently securing tax subsidization through Section 501(c)(3).  Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code is inapplicable to ideological or partisan organizations, and claims that Ms. Alcindor is a journalist or that PBS is nonideological and nonpartisan are disingenuous.

Trevor Loudon's Enemy Within

I heard Trevor Loudon speak in Albany earlier this week, and I'm watching his excellent video, The Enemies Within, about the internal workings of the Democratic Party.  I recommend it.

Freedom House Measure of US Academic Freedom Is Flawed

During the Cold War, activists associated with Wendell Willkie founded Freedom House to advocate for global intervention  in support of freedom.  One of its early chairmen was Harry Gideonse, the conservative president of Brooklyn College.  Freedom House ranks political and social freedom in countries around the world. The US is not at the the top of the list, but it is among the free countries, with a score of 86 out of 100.

Unsurprisingly, Freedom House is critical of Donald Trump.  Freedom House advocates a globalist or interventionist philosophy, while Trump represents a nationalist philosophy.

Globalism is fine up to the point at which it causes expansion of the state apparatus.  That is, the optimal balance between globalism and internationalism can be found in one of two ways, which are the same:

(1) the point at which the balance between globalism and nationalism minimizes the scope, tyranny, and intervention of the state and
(2) the point at which the balance between globalism and nationalism maximizes economic and political performance.

The question of whether there is a difference if the maximand is total freedom internationally or total freedom domestically is complex. It is possible that some international interventions  reduce freedom at home but increase it internationally. Hence, Trump's presidency is likely to expand freedom at home, yet it may not reduce it overseas, contrary to Freedom House's claims.

For instance, US globalist involvement in World War I led to the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs and other war protesters.  World War I led directly to totalitarianism around the world. Globalism and freedom are not always--and maybe not often--equivalent.

Despite its name, Freedom House supports globalist institutions that reduce freedom.  One example is American universities, which are hostile to political freedom for conservatives but claim to have academic freedom. Academic freedom is a myth, a code for a socialist-, globalist-only faculty and suppression of freedom for all who disagree with socialism and globalism.  American universities are a globalist force that  reduces freedom.

In its country rankings, Freedom House claims that the US has an optimal degree of academic freedom.*  This is nonsensical.  American universities are one-party institutions, as Dan Klein and I show in a paper on social science departments, and as I show with respect to liberal arts colleges. Organizations that refuse to employ one-half of the population because of political intolerance are not free.

Moreover, intolerant, Democratic Party-only practices riddle the US government-subsidized technology and media industries.  Calling one-party, government-subsidized organizations that increasingly dominate the US economy and culture characteristic of a free country may be globalist but does not support freedom.  Freedom House sees no problem in social media's exclusion of conservatives because government-supported organizations like Facebook and Quora are globalist.

For half of the US population, there is no academic freedom, there is no freedom of employment,  and there is no press freedom.  Academics who run afoul of the prejudices of the Democratic Party are likely to be attacked and their removal demanded by Democratic Party bigots. 

Freedom House's globalist prejudices trump its belief in freedom.

*This is what the report says about academic freedom in the US:

Is there academic freedom, and is the educational system free from extensive political indoctrination? 4 / 4

The academic sphere has long featured a high level of intellectual freedom. While it remains quite robust by global standards, this liberty has come under some pressure in recent years. University students at a number of campuses have obstructed guest speakers whose views they find objectionable by shouting them down or holding strident protests. In the most highly publicized cases, students and nonstudent activists have physically prevented presentations by controversial speakers, especially those known for their views on race, gender, immigration, and other sensitive issues. University faculty have also reported instances of harassment—including on social media—related to curriculum content, textbooks, or statements that some students strongly disagreed with. As a consequence, some professors have allegedly engaged in self-censorship.