Why haven’t we learned our lesson? Maybe because it’s hard to admit this research is risky now, and to take the requisite steps to keep us safe, without also admitting it was always risky. And that perhaps we were misled on purpose.
If you like the passive voice, you will thrill as you read this one.
To this day, there is no strong scientific evidence ruling out a lab leak or proving that the virus arose from human-animal contact in that seafood market. The few papers cited for market origin were written by a small, overlapping group of authors, including those who didn’t tell the public how serious their doubts had been.
Oh, and the answer to the question "why are you still talking about this?" is in the conclusion of the piece:
"We may not know exactly how the Covid pandemic started, but if research activities were involved, that would mean two out of the last four or five pandemics were caused by our own scientific mishaps. Let’s not make a third."
A Labour minister was last night at the centre of an explosive row over claims he rubbished high-level intelligence pointing to Covid's origins in a Chinese laboratory.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a former spy chief submitted a secret dossier to No 10 early in the pandemic reporting that the virus had originated with a leak from a Wuhan facility.
But Lord Vallance, the science minister who was the Government's chief scientific adviser at the time, is accused of ignoring the report, possibly for fear of offending the Chinese or jeopardising research funding.
A classified dossier compiled by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, was passed to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the start of the outbreak in March 2020 which stated: 'It is now beyond reasonable doubt that Covid-19 was engineered in the Wuhan Institute of Virology'.
We will soon be at "why are you still talking about this?"
Eh, a million years ago, we had (reportedly, anyway) two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
A democrat was in office, however, and so we were treated to a bunch of essays about how we shouldn't use "two consecutive quarters of negative growth" as an indicator of a recession. We got new definitions of "recession" and a bunch of people acting like they'd never heard that definition ever before. Like it was brand spankin' new.
Anyway, you say "Jaybird, you say sh*t like this assuming people know what the f*ck you’re talking about, but no one ever does, because the thing you have linked it to when you evidentially end up having to explain is _extremely obviously_ not the same thing at all." and, from where I sit, I think "I was just talking about how two consecutive quarters of negative growth meant that we were in a recession".
And, suddenly, I'm being asked to defend my definition of "recession" and when I say something like "two consecutive quarters of negative growth", they look at me like I'm growing a second head.
Anyway. I digress.
"Deja vu", I'm trying to say. No, not the gentlemans' club.
They're all beneficiaries of the funding. The kids setting up barricades *AND* the ones going to class. Or not going to class. The ones chasing tail. The ones listening to Aqualung on vinyl on Friday night because they don't have dates.
Each and every student is a beneficiary of the funding.
Which means that some of the beneficiaries of the funding are preventing other beneficiaries of the funding from going to class and, theoretically, *NOT* benefitting from the funding.
Now, you may say "well, they're just *SAYING* that they care, they really only care about crushing dissent!"
That may be true, but the whole thing about some students complaining about other students building a barricade opens the door a crack because now the Poindexters can claim that their rights are being violated.
"Rights". Try to get a date instead of using your right so much, amirite?
I think the US government has to care because of funding.
I think that if we were able to just divorce the funding from the university, everybody would be happier. They'd have as much Free Speech as they could handle and we could ask anybody and everybody "why do you care?" about anything that happens on campus.
Slow-rolling punishment for seniors is, effectively, no punishment at all.
Though, I agree, it makes for something that you can argue. "Hey, we're doing something! It just takes a while because we believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light. You believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light, don'tcha?"
By my lights, we're about 10-15 years away from fully socially acceptable anti-Semitism and it's right around there that we'll see MattY explain that the Orange Hitler wasn't that bad, all things considered, and he's not supporting Barron because he thinks that Barron is *GOOD*, just that he's *BETTER* than David Hogg.
Please, Republicans on Twitter, keep insisting that the Trump administration do something it cannot possible do, because there is no real ‘list’ that hasn’t been released.
Yeah. But they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list.
Going to war with their students is possibly the stupidest thing Columbia could possibly do.
There are a bunch of students on campus including students who are thin-skinned enough to think that Columbia is at war with them by taking the side of the building occupiers.
"The kids who just want to be 3 minutes tardy to class and then go back to the dorm to have AI write their assignments." Those kids.
I remind people, the government has no ability to demand a private organization punish people for violating the law. That would be utterly insane, on top of violating freedom of association.
Oh, is that the case? Man, I sure hope that a precedent wasn't set earlier! It might result in absolutely *ZERO* sympathy!
This used to be something that a lot of people here worried about, how public universities would have codes of conduct that stopped this sort of thing, and it was pointed out that public universities are not really ‘the government’, they are organizations that happen to owned by the government but have to have the same sort of rules as any sort of housing and workplaces and education, general rules about harassment and safety and things.
"Guys, why are you insisting on using the same rules we insisted on when we won the argument last time?"
Seems like they *CAN* negotiate with Trump and quite effectively. "Yeah, sure. We wanted to do that last year, actually. And you'll turn the spigot back on? Sweet!"
Didja see how Columbia has announced disciplinary measures for the occupation of Hamilton Hall last year, ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions?
I was talking about Kash's tweet, Dave. And then talking about how everybody responded to it with "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
If you wanted to talk about how Kash's accomplishments ain't all that and are overshadowed by his failures, might I suggest you read my comment again? Maybe?
I really want to emphasize that even if you disagree with me about this, if your reaction to these events is to get mad at Chuck Schumer, you are to a large extent getting played. Lots of people are engaging in cheap position taking in favor of a “no” vote on cloture, but neither House Democrats nor the people voting “no” in the Senate nor the people getting mad on Twitter have an actual strategy for getting what the base wants out of this, which is some kind of act of Congress saying that Trump and Musk need to conduct the government differently.
A shutdown would give Donald Trump the keys to the city, state, and country.
Musk has said he wants a shutdown, and reporting has shown he is already making plans to use the shutdown to expedite his destruction of key government programs and services.
They're being led by Schumer, though. The Republicans have been playing clips of Schumer talking about the shutdown threat all throughout Biden's term.
Additionally, one of the main things that Elon is doing is pointing out that Government is a scam and we don't need 80% of it. A shutdown actively *HELPS* him.
That's kind of the downside of fighting DOGE with weeks of "GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD AND EACH DOLLAR SAVES A MILLION LIVES".
2025-03-13 18:28:26
The whole Epstein thing continues. Kash Patel had a couple of celebratory tweets talking about how the FBI is arresting members of the Tren de Aragua social club and a Director at Customs and Border Protection being arrested for FEMA fraud and the lion's share of the responses were not "good one, nice collar!" but "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
Pam Bondi had a couple of tweets about swearing in a new Assistant Attorney General and praising the K-9 working dogs of law enforcement. The lion's share of the responses were not "good one, nice collar!" but "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
They can't talk about the list. They can't talk about why they can't talk about the list. They can't talk about why they can't talk about why they can't talk about the list.
Eh, my definitions of "good" and "evil" are less common than I'd like (though there is a lot of overlap on pragmatic issues when it comes to my local community).
I'm not sure that discussions of morality will get you to the destination you want to go... not with the Omnicause the way it is.
Sure. I don't see any reason for the Democrats to change anything.
I mean... are you gonna vote for Vance? You a big Vance fan? You gonna turn your back on BIPOC, AAPI, and LatinX solidarity in order to vote for Tax Cuts?
Do intelligence agencies even work with evidence? What do they do other than get fashion models to sleep with scientists and get them to admit stuff on camera?
Oh, you may have misread what the story said. It didn't say "the German scientists concluded that it had an origin in a lab". Here, let me copy and paste what the German news said again:
For five years, the Federal Intelligence Service has assumed that Corona originated in a Chinese laboratory. The BND classifies the laboratory thesis as “likely” and is “80 to 95 percent” sure. Since then, the German government has kept the BND’s findings secret that the virus originated in the biolaboratory in Wuhan. This is reported by NZZ, Zeit and SZ.
For five years, the Federal Intelligence Service has assumed that Corona originated in a Chinese laboratory. The BND classifies the laboratory thesis as "likely" and is "80 to 95 percent" sure. Since then, the German government has kept the BND's findings secret that the virus originated in the biolaboratory in Wuhan. This is reported by NZZ, Zeit and SZ.
This whole "wypipo" being denied rights thing might become a problem if the only people who agree that Jewish folks aren't white are White Supremacists and Jewish folks.
Remember when BIPOC, LatinX, and AAPI became a thing?
You'll note the two groups of people who aren't included in that.
The article is basically cranks with pet theories have an advocate in the WH now.
We’re getting ever closer to saying “maybe we should have done something else” without opening with “what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time”.
He looks at the data and thinks it's weird in general:
I predict that what we’re seeing here is not each individual child’s learning loss multiplied across all children, but a systemic effect where something about the pandemic made schools worse - in a way that would set back even some hypothetical child who stayed in school throughout the pandemic and suffered no learning loss.
We’ll know more when we get the 2026 test results, and see scores for kids who hadn’t even started school during COVID.
We're getting ever closer to saying "maybe we should have done something else" without opening with "what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time".
If Mahmoud Khalil was affiliated with the CUAD, he's going to have a rough time explaining this.
2025-03-10 22:56:22
Speaking of Video Games, it looks like Ubisoft's talks with Tencent have stalled.
The CFRA has downgraded it from "hold" to "sell". Assassin's Creed Shadows releases in a little over a week. If the game underperforms, it will be bad. They've had a good month but a bad 12 months and an atrocious 60 months.
The Subterranean Border Defense Act just passed the house with a single "No" vote.
402-1.
Remember the black kid with brain cancer that the Republicans clapped for during Trump's speech and the Democrats didn't?
The online backlash has, apparently, started to get to some of the Dems on some of the 80-20 issues in the runup to the most important election of our lifetimes.
There is a Mahmoud Khalil in Montreal as well, a student at Concordia.
He says some stuff that might be considered risible during the various protests celebrating justice and goodness and all that and I'm pretty sure that the two Mahmoud Khalils are being conflated.
I find it relevant. It pretty much explains the backlash happening right now.
But if you don't see what's happening as a backlash, then these are just unconnected anecdotes, if not an attempt to change the subject through whataboutery.
Any Alien Who
...
(VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization
The argument is that support for the government in Gaza is support for Hamas.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1997.
Let me... clarify? With a bunch of premises that strike me as being not only true but uncontroversial.
Over the past few years (decades, maybe?) there has been a fairly raucous argument involving, among other things, "Free Speech" in our culture and it bubbles up especially on campuses. Maybe it bubbles up the most there.
Campuses, and the people who graduate from them, have an outsized influence on the culture.
In recent years, the most vocal have... what's the most non-judgmental way to put this... let's say that they got a little over their skis.
Sometimes in defenses of the indefensible while crying "Free Speech!" (for example, the protests against Gibson's Bakery) and, other times, screaming about "hate speech" or similar terms to call for people to be punished for speech. "Freedom of Speech Doesn't Mean Freedom from Consequences" is one of the ways this manifested... but another was the whole distinction made between punching up and punching down. I'm sure you remember those distinctions as well.
From people on the outside, a lot of these distinctions presented pretty identically to "*I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line."
There were a handful of idealistic types who argued stuff like "we should have a culture that allows a broad space for this sort of thing and we should err on the side of giving a lot of leeway" and that sort of thing got responses of "why are you defending scoundrels?"
And this is where the whole "getting over their skis" thing comes into play.
People who were used to being able to say "Freedom of Speech doesn't mean Freedom from Consequences" are going through a rough time while talking about the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
While I agree that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech, it also seems to me that we're well within experiencing the consequences of *I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line" when the person holding the whip changes.
For what it's worth, I think that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech that allows for a lot of leeway when it comes to what people say, even on campus.
I'm pretty sure that the Palestinian Activist made sure that his acts and speech did not provide material support to groups that the federal government has marked as "terrorist".
It's 100% possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. And, heck, even if the guy skirted the edges of anti-Semitism, that's not illegal either.
And it really sucks that we've reached the point where something like this happens and the response is cheers that something is finally being done than a full-throated defense of the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
It'd be nice if our universities had an environment that fostered more of an Enlightenment Culture, don't you think?
Over-defining "support for terrorism" has downsides?
My goodness gracious! You'd think that the people who defended the cadets playing the circle game would be at the front of the line arguing that people should be allowed to speak freely.
Former Radcliffe Institute librarian Jonathan S. Tuttle is no longer employed at Harvard after he was filmed tearing down a poster showing the faces of Israeli hostages during a Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine rally on March 3, a University spokesperson confirmed Sunday.
By Sunday, Tuttle’s name and contact information had been removed from the Schlesinger Library’s official website, where his title was previously listed. Tuttle worked as a cataloguer of published materials at the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library.
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a Sunday statement that the “Harvard employee involved in an incident during a protest last week is no longer affiliated with the University.”
Tuttle did not respond to a request for comment.
The commenter archive features may be temporarily disabled at times.
Oh, jeez. And now Zeynep Tufekci has an article: We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives
If you like the passive voice, you will thrill as you read this one.
Oh, and the answer to the question "why are you still talking about this?" is in the conclusion of the piece:
"We may not know exactly how the Covid pandemic started, but if research activities were involved, that would mean two out of the last four or five pandemics were caused by our own scientific mishaps. Let’s not make a third."
From The Daily Mail: Labour minister 'rubbished' spy chief's secret dossier on Wuhan lab leak theory during pandemic despite Boris demanding probe... to 'avoid offending China'
We will soon be at "why are you still talking about this?"
Eh, a million years ago, we had (reportedly, anyway) two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
A democrat was in office, however, and so we were treated to a bunch of essays about how we shouldn't use "two consecutive quarters of negative growth" as an indicator of a recession. We got new definitions of "recession" and a bunch of people acting like they'd never heard that definition ever before. Like it was brand spankin' new.
Anyway, you say "Jaybird, you say sh*t like this assuming people know what the f*ck you’re talking about, but no one ever does, because the thing you have linked it to when you evidentially end up having to explain is _extremely obviously_ not the same thing at all." and, from where I sit, I think "I was just talking about how two consecutive quarters of negative growth meant that we were in a recession".
And, suddenly, I'm being asked to defend my definition of "recession" and when I say something like "two consecutive quarters of negative growth", they look at me like I'm growing a second head.
Anyway. I digress.
"Deja vu", I'm trying to say. No, not the gentlemans' club.
They're all beneficiaries of the funding. The kids setting up barricades *AND* the ones going to class. Or not going to class. The ones chasing tail. The ones listening to Aqualung on vinyl on Friday night because they don't have dates.
Each and every student is a beneficiary of the funding.
Which means that some of the beneficiaries of the funding are preventing other beneficiaries of the funding from going to class and, theoretically, *NOT* benefitting from the funding.
Now, you may say "well, they're just *SAYING* that they care, they really only care about crushing dissent!"
That may be true, but the whole thing about some students complaining about other students building a barricade opens the door a crack because now the Poindexters can claim that their rights are being violated.
"Rights". Try to get a date instead of using your right so much, amirite?
I think the US government has to care because of funding.
I think that if we were able to just divorce the funding from the university, everybody would be happier. They'd have as much Free Speech as they could handle and we could ask anybody and everybody "why do you care?" about anything that happens on campus.
Rand Paul was a principled Republican vote making the opposition to the cloture bipartisan.
Slow-rolling punishment for seniors is, effectively, no punishment at all.
Though, I agree, it makes for something that you can argue. "Hey, we're doing something! It just takes a while because we believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light. You believe in Freedom of Goodness and Light, don'tcha?"
By my lights, we're about 10-15 years away from fully socially acceptable anti-Semitism and it's right around there that we'll see MattY explain that the Orange Hitler wasn't that bad, all things considered, and he's not supporting Barron because he thinks that Barron is *GOOD*, just that he's *BETTER* than David Hogg.
My theory is that they wanted to do this last year but didn't have organizational cover.
Now they have it.
Yeah. But they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list. They can’t talk about why they can’t talk about why they can’t talk about the list.
Going to war with their students is possibly the stupidest thing Columbia could possibly do.
There are a bunch of students on campus including students who are thin-skinned enough to think that Columbia is at war with them by taking the side of the building occupiers.
"The kids who just want to be 3 minutes tardy to class and then go back to the dorm to have AI write their assignments." Those kids.
Oh, is that the case? Man, I sure hope that a precedent wasn't set earlier! It might result in absolutely *ZERO* sympathy!
"Guys, why are you insisting on using the same rules we insisted on when we won the argument last time?"
Seems like they *CAN* negotiate with Trump and quite effectively. "Yeah, sure. We wanted to do that last year, actually. And you'll turn the spigot back on? Sweet!"
Didja see how Columbia has announced disciplinary measures for the occupation of Hamilton Hall last year, ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions?
I was talking about Kash's tweet, Dave. And then talking about how everybody responded to it with "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
If you wanted to talk about how Kash's accomplishments ain't all that and are overshadowed by his failures, might I suggest you read my comment again? Maybe?
Oh yeah? Well, here's Matty!
Sixteen thoughts on an averted shutdown. The subhed? "A bitter pill that Schumer is correct to swallow"
Point the twelveth:
He has tweeted in his own defense:
They're being led by Schumer, though. The Republicans have been playing clips of Schumer talking about the shutdown threat all throughout Biden's term.
Additionally, one of the main things that Elon is doing is pointing out that Government is a scam and we don't need 80% of it. A shutdown actively *HELPS* him.
That's kind of the downside of fighting DOGE with weeks of "GOVERNMENT SERVICES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD AND EACH DOLLAR SAVES A MILLION LIVES".
The whole Epstein thing continues. Kash Patel had a couple of celebratory tweets talking about how the FBI is arresting members of the Tren de Aragua social club and a Director at Customs and Border Protection being arrested for FEMA fraud and the lion's share of the responses were not "good one, nice collar!" but "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
Pam Bondi had a couple of tweets about swearing in a new Assistant Attorney General and praising the K-9 working dogs of law enforcement. The lion's share of the responses were not "good one, nice collar!" but "WHERE IN THE HELL IS THE LIST".
They can't talk about the list. They can't talk about why they can't talk about the list. They can't talk about why they can't talk about why they can't talk about the list.
Does "obey laws" cover civil statutes?
That chick should be fired *SO* fast.
Eh, my definitions of "good" and "evil" are less common than I'd like (though there is a lot of overlap on pragmatic issues when it comes to my local community).
I'm not sure that discussions of morality will get you to the destination you want to go... not with the Omnicause the way it is.
Sure. I don't see any reason for the Democrats to change anything.
I mean... are you gonna vote for Vance? You a big Vance fan? You gonna turn your back on BIPOC, AAPI, and LatinX solidarity in order to vote for Tax Cuts?
Here's a page where you can donate to Columbia University.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Harris got 66% of the Jewish vote.
Biden got 68% in 2020.
Clinton got 71% in 2016.
Obama got 69% in 2012 and 78% in 2008.
Kerry got 76% in 2004.
Gore got 79% in 2000.
You have to go back to Dukakis in 1988 to get a number lower than Harris got: 64%.
Yossele was the name given to the Golem of Prague.
Do intelligence agencies even work with evidence? What do they do other than get fashion models to sleep with scientists and get them to admit stuff on camera?
That's not even science.
Well, if we could have explored one of those dozens of effective alternatives, that might have been nice.
Oh, you may have misread what the story said. It didn't say "the German scientists concluded that it had an origin in a lab". Here, let me copy and paste what the German news said again:
This is where the "for five years" is the important part of the sentence.
They concluded this back in 2020.
Which tells us we should do what differently next time?
Apparently crack down on racist conspiracy theories twice as hard.
And gets China to tell us the truth how exactly.?
Maybe we should offer more funding?
Speaking of Covid, German Intelligence has concluded that it's most likely from a lab leak rather than from a wet market.
This whole "wypipo" being denied rights thing might become a problem if the only people who agree that Jewish folks aren't white are White Supremacists and Jewish folks.
Remember when BIPOC, LatinX, and AAPI became a thing?
You'll note the two groups of people who aren't included in that.
It's like he read the story!
Gavin Newsom hosted Charlie Kirk on the first episode of his podcast. We're coming up on episode number four and his special guest is... STEVE BANNON!
The article is basically cranks with pet theories have an advocate in the WH now.
We’re getting ever closer to saying “maybe we should have done something else” without opening with “what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time”.
Variety reports: Disney Scales Back ‘Snow White’ Hollywood Premiere Amid Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot Controversies
It ain't just London getting short shrift.
In that vein, Scott Alexander asks: What Happened To NAEP Scores?
He looks at the data and thinks it's weird in general:
The Boston Globe is running a story on the whole "lockdown" thing: ‘The lockdowns were never really effective’: New research shows COVID stay-at-home orders did more harm than good
We're getting ever closer to saying "maybe we should have done something else" without opening with "what we did was perfectly justifiable, given the information we had at the time".
How many people does it take to make a bill have bipartisan support?
Two?
I guess the question is "is he affiliated with CUAD?"
Because, if he's not, no problem.
If he is, the question is whether "those posts are talking about Bangladesh, not Israel/Gaza!" is a good argument.
This guy has a thread about the CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) and what it talked about online.
If Mahmoud Khalil was affiliated with the CUAD, he's going to have a rough time explaining this.
Speaking of Video Games, it looks like Ubisoft's talks with Tencent have stalled.
The CFRA has downgraded it from "hold" to "sell". Assassin's Creed Shadows releases in a little over a week. If the game underperforms, it will be bad. They've had a good month but a bad 12 months and an atrocious 60 months.
The Subterranean Border Defense Act just passed the house with a single "No" vote.
402-1.
Remember the black kid with brain cancer that the Republicans clapped for during Trump's speech and the Democrats didn't?
The online backlash has, apparently, started to get to some of the Dems on some of the 80-20 issues in the runup to the most important election of our lifetimes.
He wasn't quoting me saying that.
He was quoting Chris saying that.
Imagine if Biden even threatened this sort of thing.
If only she had removed "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" instead.
Well, I've already seen one person give a clip of the one guy in response to the question "what did this guy say that was so bad?"
It looks like a Federal Judge has blocked his removal.
So... there's that.
There is a Mahmoud Khalil in Montreal as well, a student at Concordia.
He says some stuff that might be considered risible during the various protests celebrating justice and goodness and all that and I'm pretty sure that the two Mahmoud Khalils are being conflated.
Where did you think "you can engage in free speech, just not *HATE* speech" would end up?
Expressions of support for Palestine have been huge on campus for decades and have managed to withstand attacks for decades.
What changed in the last few handfuls of years? Anything? Is all of this just coming out of nowhere for you?
I find it relevant. It pretty much explains the backlash happening right now.
But if you don't see what's happening as a backlash, then these are just unconnected anecdotes, if not an attempt to change the subject through whataboutery.
Folks online are pointing to TITLE 8 / CHAPTER 12 / SUBCHAPTER II / Part II of the immigration law (do a find on the string "terrorist activities") and quoting this part:
The argument is that support for the government in Gaza is support for Hamas.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1997.
Let me... clarify? With a bunch of premises that strike me as being not only true but uncontroversial.
Over the past few years (decades, maybe?) there has been a fairly raucous argument involving, among other things, "Free Speech" in our culture and it bubbles up especially on campuses. Maybe it bubbles up the most there.
Campuses, and the people who graduate from them, have an outsized influence on the culture.
In recent years, the most vocal have... what's the most non-judgmental way to put this... let's say that they got a little over their skis.
Sometimes in defenses of the indefensible while crying "Free Speech!" (for example, the protests against Gibson's Bakery) and, other times, screaming about "hate speech" or similar terms to call for people to be punished for speech. "Freedom of Speech Doesn't Mean Freedom from Consequences" is one of the ways this manifested... but another was the whole distinction made between punching up and punching down. I'm sure you remember those distinctions as well.
From people on the outside, a lot of these distinctions presented pretty identically to "*I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line."
There were a handful of idealistic types who argued stuff like "we should have a culture that allows a broad space for this sort of thing and we should err on the side of giving a lot of leeway" and that sort of thing got responses of "why are you defending scoundrels?"
And this is where the whole "getting over their skis" thing comes into play.
People who were used to being able to say "Freedom of Speech doesn't mean Freedom from Consequences" are going through a rough time while talking about the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
While I agree that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech, it also seems to me that we're well within experiencing the consequences of *I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line" when the person holding the whip changes.
For what it's worth, I think that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech that allows for a lot of leeway when it comes to what people say, even on campus.
I'm pretty sure that the Palestinian Activist made sure that his acts and speech did not provide material support to groups that the federal government has marked as "terrorist".
It's 100% possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. And, heck, even if the guy skirted the edges of anti-Semitism, that's not illegal either.
And it really sucks that we've reached the point where something like this happens and the response is cheers that something is finally being done than a full-throated defense of the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.
It'd be nice if our universities had an environment that fostered more of an Enlightenment Culture, don't you think?
He was one of the OG Blogfathers way back in the early oughts when he was "Calpundit".
I liked reading him and quoted him a lot. The world is worse off without him.
Over-defining "support for terrorism" has downsides?
My goodness gracious! You'd think that the people who defended the cadets playing the circle game would be at the front of the line arguing that people should be allowed to speak freely.
From The Harvard Crimson: Librarian Who Removed Chabad Poster Is No Longer Employed at Harvard