Ouchi Gari (To Tomoe Nage)

nice

Just Quit Trying To Enforce Immigration Law, M'kay?

This is the first thing that's ever made me have even a glimmer of sympathy for the idea of a border-spanning wall...

Jalek Felton Suspended From UNC

Not just from the team...from the university.
   Well, that's the season right there...though it was in a tailspin already.
   I hope it's nothing too bad, but I don't see how it can't be.
   Kid's got ridiculous talent. But there were suspicions that he had an attitude problem.
   Man. I know we won it all last year. And that was huge and great. But, aside from that (which, again, was big) it's seemed like almost nothing but bad luck since '09.
   (For the record...I do not believe in the curse of Harrison Barnes.
   Nope.
   I absolutely do not.)

Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning: "The End of Academe: Free Speech and the Silencing of Dissent"

link

   In July of 2015, The Chronicle published our essay suggesting that some of the manifestations of a new moral culture emerging at colleges in this country were incompatible with the traditional academic mission. Since then, it has become clear that this is so. In the last few years, activist students and faculty, sometimes with the support of administrators, have increasingly attacked the ideals of free speech.
   The new activist culture calls for colleges to confront the small, perhaps unintended slights known as microaggressions, to provide trigger warnings for course material that might offend or upset, and to become safe spaces where ideas go unchallenged. It is characterized by extreme moral sensitivity, and in this way is similar to honor cultures of the past where men were highly sensitive to insults and responded to perceived slurs against their character with duels and other forms of violence.
   The new culture is less concerned with slights against individual character than with anything perceived as furthering the oppression of victim groups. In either case, though, extreme moral sensitivity presents a problem in an academic environment. As we warned, "Honest inquiry and communication are bound to offend someone," so if colleges are to be places of inquiry and communication, "they must have a climate where people are less — not more — prone to outrage than elsewhere."

Douthat: When Immigration Stalls

Dammit, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been worrying about for a couple of years now.
Add to it that the progressive left intelligentsia is now pushing an anti-assimilation position as a matter of principle...and, well, I worry that we're playing with fire. Anti-assimilationism is just a consequence of certain versions of multiculturalism--so nothing about that should surprise anyone. Multiculturalism was pushed onto society in the early '90's without anything much resembling a justification, and now its more extreme consequences are being similarly pushed. This is, of course, the M.O. of the PC left. Asking permission at every "stage" of sex was a joke, a straw that helped break the camel's back, in the '90's. It became a quasi-law at all public universities in the 'teens...
   As Douthat notes...it could be fine. But if it isn't fine, it could be a disaster. And I have no idea how to calculate the odds of those two possibilities. Seriously, this is nothing to screw around with. We'll always want immigration. But it seems like assimilation rates (to whatever extent such a thing is measurable) provide an objective way to determine when it's happening too fast / we've got too much of it.

Drum: Time To Put The Brakes On Jobs / Worry About Inflation?

No.
Seems right to me, FWIW.

Trump Rejects Feminism Because He's "For Everyone"

Whelp, something else I agree with Trump about.
   He'll get shredded for it, but most Americans--including most American women--both (a) favor equality of the sexes and (b) reject feminism. So it's hardly a weird position. The left in general and feminism in particular tend(s) to react to such facts by making up stories about "false consciousness" and so forth...but the fact is that the irrationalist, extremist fringe of feminism is extremely prominent. Consequently, feminism is no longer merely the position that favors equality of the sexes. (Leftist feminists themselves tacitly agree when they assert, e.g., that feminism is necessarily "intersectional.") There are simply too many extremely vocal anti-liberal feminists for feminism to be a liberal, egalitarian movement anymore. And that's especially true given that there's virtually no criticism of the radical fringe by other feminists. At some point you have to admit that the "fringe" is no longer the fringe, but has become the movement.
   I do understand people who refuse to give up the term to the radicals. But that's not the way I go on the dispute.

One Noah Berlatsky Writes The Worst Thing You'll Ever Read About Freedom Of Speech

Wow this is terrible.

Cathy Young: How Campus Politics Hijacked American Politics

link:

   The defense of free speech has always been a bedrock bipartisan principle. So it’s unusual to hear a veteran liberal politician excuse campus outrage squads that shout down dissent. But that’s exactly what former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean did in a recent appearance — and his embrace of the campus left reveals a lot about the nation’s current cultural moment.
   On a panel at Kenyon College last month, Dean brought up a notorious incident at Yale two years before. In 2015, lecturer and residence hall co-supervisor Erika Christakis had set off protests with an e-mail defending students’ freedom to wear Halloween costumes — such as ones based on the Chinese-inspired cartoon character Mulan — that some may find culturally insensitive. A viral video showed protesters mobbing and berating her husband, professor Nicholas Christakis. The couple later resigned their leadership posts, and Erika Christakis stopped teaching.
   Dean’s take on this was that there are “consequences to free speech.” He caricatured Erika Christakis’s thoughtful, sensitive letter as an ugly screed mocking “snowflake” students and defending racist costumes. He also described the protesters as well-behaved, despite their screaming and bullying. That an academic became a target of red-hot rage for challenging progressive dogma on cultural appropriation did not seem to bother him in the least.
   Dean is hardly alone in pooh-poohing worries about the illiberal academic left. With Republicans in control of the government and Donald Trump in the White House, many say that it’s crazy, maybe downright perverse, to worry about college students as a threat to liberal society. But not every form of power involves government authority. And what happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus.

MO Senate Candidate: Feminists Have "Snake-Filled Heads," Should Get In The Kitchen And Make Him A Sandwich

Oh Missouri...you so crazy.
I'm no fan of contemporary feminism, obvs...but this dude...wow.
He's right about the "gender-bending word-games"...but even a crazy clock is right % times a day.

CA Dem Pushes for $1000 Fine, 6 Months In Jail For Waiters Who Give Diners Unrequested Drinking Straws

Hey whatever happened to all that big talk about California seceding?
I'm not saying it's a good idea...but I'm not not saying it.
Who'da thought that the OD would turn out less crazy than California?
Now if only the Commonwealth would get its head screwed on straight about weed...

The Post Now Says That Trump "Moved" To Remove Mueller

Hmm...well...this sounds rather different than "ordered him fired"...:

Despite internal objections, Trump decided to assert that Mueller had unacceptable conflicts of interest and moved to remove him from his position, according to the people familiar with the discussions. [My emphasis]

I'm not saying that's good, FTFR.

P.S. Suck it, DJ.

Trump "Ordered" Mueller Fired (?)...What's The Chain Of Command?

Depending on the nature of the chain of command...which I know nothing of...if Trump was going to fire Muller, wouldn't he just fire him? I mean, if you serve at my pleasure, directly, what would it mean to say that I "ordered" you fired? Don't I either fire you or not fire you? Myself? Directly?
   Again, not saying the tale isn't true...just saying I don't trust the media about Trump anymore, and that this sounds a little fishy to me.
   I've long said that if he tries to fire Mueller, the shit should hit the fan...but I wasn't sure what I meant, and now I'm even less sure. Partly because I'm not sure what I meant by tries to fire. Obviously the former should hit the latter if he does fire him...or if he diligently does his best to do so but, say, Mueller is saved by some kind of technicality. But if it's just more Trump bullshittery--throwing a tantrum and yelling about firing him or whatever...well, that's a whole different kind of problem, IMO.

Is Trump Fit For Office?

Maybe.
   I'm happy to hear that there's a case for yes. I personally suspect that the case for yes is probably stronger than people like me think. I'm certainly more inclined to think yes now than I was a year ago. I also still have my doubts.

Did Trump Order Mueller Fired (And Then Back Off)?

Maybe.

As I've said before, if he seriously tries to fire Mueller, the fewmets will hit the windmill.

So Apparently It's Just "Migrants" Now

link
'Illegal aliens' --> 'illegal immigrants' --> 'undocumented immigrants' --> 'unauthorized immigrants' --> 'migrants'
   The PC war against accurate terminology proceedeth apace. I suppose we're not supposed to acknowledge the relevant illegality in any way--nor are we even supposed to acknowledge which direction they're headed. Y'know...they're going in or out...legally or illegally...whatever.
   As for pouring out the water: it's not going to save anyone's life. It's just making it easier for people to get in illegally. Which is, of course, the point...

Ursula K. Le Guin Dead At 88

link
Sad news.
The Earthsea Trilogy is second only to LotR, IMO, in that genre. I really love those books.

Mississippi Bill Requires Posting, Reciting Of Ten Commandments In Schools

Presumably nobody thinks this has a snowball's chance of passing.
The Supremes would come down on this like the very fist of God.

Carolina 69 - Hokies 80

They just plain whupped us.
Carolina couldn't hit, Tech couldn't miss, and that's all she wrote.

Good thing Critical Spirits couldn't get tickets, I reckon...

Drum: "Whose Fault Is The Shutdown?"

tl;dr: The GOP

Seems about right to me.

Carolina 80 - Tech 66

Tech's zone gave us fits to start off, but the Heels finished strong.
Next up: Other Tech.

Roe And A Right To Privacy

I consistently and semi-intentionally turn my attention away from what a crap decision Roe v. Wade was. This is getting easier as it becomes more automatic, more habitual.The last thing I need is reminders, dammit.

"As Women March A Year After Trump's Election, His Approval With Some Men Grows"

link

   Author Michael Arceneaux is a frequent Trump critic who often writes about gender. He told the Fix that these numbers aren't that surprising.
   "I regret that men collectively choose to be so embarrassing, but given how ingrained misogyny is in our society, I guess I cannot be totally surprised that a sexist, chauvinistic loudmouth manages to maintain high approval rating amongst men. Despite all signs to the contrary, Trump projects strength because men are trained to believe the sort of bravado and machismo Trump often projects is a sign of strength and leadership. It is, as he would put it, sad!"

   We need a portmanteau word that's a combination of 'enemy' and 'ally'...like 'frenemy'...but not so lame...

"What Celebrity Big Brother Can Teach Us About Gender Politics"

link

   Do people not understand that a fair number of people are drama queens / attention whores? Not to mention people who seek interpersonal power in any way they can find it? Does anyone really believe that such motives aren't driving any of the people representing themselves as "transgendered"? PC dogma invariably makes me wonder whether people on the left have ever met any humans. (Especially humans on the left...)

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Are Non-Elite Universities About To Face A Student Shortage?

Maybe

CHE: What's So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?

Surprisingly balanced.
Peterson has some really good things to say, but I certainly disagree with him about a lot of stuff, too. It's a creepy, creepy, terrifying, gut-wrenching sign of the times that he's basically the only recognizable academician standing up and speaking the truth about this insanity--saying that sex-changes are currently impossible...and that you damn sure can't effect one by changing clothes.
   I fear he's wavering on the pronoun argument--and I don't think he quite understands that terrain as well as he might, anyway. He leans too heavily on arguments against pronoun laws, and he's begun to waver on more fundamental points: men don't become women by saying so, and 'he', 'she', etc. are pronouns linked to sex, not gender. So it is insane to insist that we are under some obligation to refer to e.g. Caitlyn Jenner with feminine pronouns. (Yes, feminine is a gender--but that's a linguistic category. Feminine pronouns refer to female creatures.) If you want to call Jenner 'she', you can do so...it's a free country. Nobody's denying that it's permissible to misuse English and say inaccurate things that presuppose falsehoods--if you want to do that, nobody's trying to stop you. You can say that Jenner is a toaster if you like. The point is: those of us who don't want to play along with the fantasy can't be compelled to do so. And we aren't doing anything wrong by refusing to pretend that night is day. Now...you're being dumb if you do play along...but that's your right. Worse, though, you're propping up a disastrous political ideology and the insane philosophy it presupposes. You're like someone who helps to prop up Scientology because you don't want to be rude to people who are feigning disability as a way of manipulating people to say and do things they want them to say and do. Which is your right, legally speaking...but it's wrong. There are certain circumstances under which it might be best, all things considered, not to make an issue of such things...but that's a whole other discussion.

George Will: There's Nothing More Depressing Than A Cheerful Liberal

FWIW

"Oxytocin-Enforced Norm-Compliance Reduces Xenophobic Outgroup Rejection"

Well nothing at all creepy about this...

Hillary Could Still Become President!!!

Yeah, no.

"What I Learned In The Peace Corps In Africa: Trump Is Right"

Does anyone know whether this is true?

Count Dankula: Nazi Pug Trial Update

Count Dankula tells us how his trial on charges of pug Nazification is going:

Original pug Nazification video, in case you've, somehow, not seen it:

The Count is obviously a dangerous, dangerous man. Were he left free to operate in civil society we could be looking not just at Nazi pugs, but, possibly, Nazi Labradors, Nazi goldfish...even, perhaps, Nazi goats. And why think it would stop there? We might find ourselves facing Maoist kittens, Stalinist pot-bellied pigs...it's a truly appalling prospect.

Decent Side-Kick Drill Tutorial

IMO the side-kick is radically underrated when it comes to actual fights. MMA has been great for advancing our chop socky knowledge, but it's still just a sport. And, like any sport, it's not the same as an actual fight. One of the unrealistic things about it is: nobody wears shoes. My view is that, if you're using the sole of your shoe as a striking surface, even if it gets blocked, it's likely to do damage--even fight-ending damage.
   But some of my high opinion of side-kicks is undoubtedly idiosyncratic: it's a type of kick that comes fairly naturally to me (whereas round kicks are not my forte). And you kinda gotta go with what you're good at. So I throw a lot of side-kicks, back side-kicks, and spinning side-kicks. I'll occasionally throw Thai kicks or front kicks to mix it up and keep people honest (in sparring, I mean)...but a good fast side-kick is a good weapon.
   Anyway, this is really basic, but not bad.
   tl;dr: side-kicks FTW

Donald Trump Is The President Of The United States

Sometimes, it just hits me.

This truly is the darkest timeline.

Gerson: Trump's A Racist

link
Some of these arguments are bad.
But this is not the kind of issue you want to have to make close calls on.

Carolina 87 - Clemson 79

Long live the curse!

Did The President Of The United States Pay Hush Money To A Pr0n Star To Cover Up A Sexual Encounter?

[sigh]
link





I hate everything so much

Chelsea Manning To Run For U.S. Senate In Maryland

[incredulous stare]

Whelp, dude's got balls, I'll give him that.
   See, most people who betrayed their country and then got a completely undeserved commutation...they'd disappear from sight and spend the rest of their born(e?) days avoiding the public eye.
   Not Manning, though!
   I trust this is not something we really have to worry about...is it? Because, honestly, I'm not sure how much more abject political absurdity I can take right now.
   Maybe the 2020 election will be Trump/Cheney versus an Oprah Winfrey / Bill Nye the Science Guy ticket, with Manning in the Senate and...oh, hell, maybe the Newtron Bomb will head back to the House to physically burn down the capitol and salt the ****er ****ing earth.

Is A Course That Indoctrinates Students Into The Cult Of Social Justice A Good Intro Philosophy Course?

facepalm
Jesus Christ, can you imagine someone thinking that that was somehow an even vaguely reasonable intro to philosophy course?
The Daily Nous is PC as all hell--but the vast majority of the votes and a fair number of the comments are sane.

Why Is Anyone Surprised About The Lame Accusations Against Aziz Ansari?

Here's the deal: current feminist / progressive/PC / Title IX-type / "Yes-means-yes" / affirmative consent orthodoxy is pretty clear: it entails that Ansari is a rapist. Which in no way seems to be true, of course. But he moved in a direction his date didn't want to go, and he was insufficiently responsive to her expressions of less-than-enthusiasm. Pretty much an open-and-shut case on the theory at hand. He'd be kicked out of a whole lot of universities.

   Why is anyone surprised by anything about any of this? "Affirmative consent" orthodoxy entails that, if Smith and Jones are having sex, and Smith doesn't like what Jones is doing, Smith has no obligation whatsoever to say so, nor to give any indication. The burden is entirely on Jones. Smith is not obligated to say 'no,' not obligated to express displeasure in any way...not even obligated to refrain from giving misleading feedback. If Jones fails to secure enthusiastic "affirmative consent" at every point, then Jones is a rapist. Smith could even intentionally refrain from expressing a lack of consent for the very purpose of making Jones a rapist. Jones would, on this theory, become a rapist. If we take seriously what the Ministry of Sex has decreed about these matters, this is all pretty damn clear.

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MLK: I Have A Dream

The one and only:

Why Do Most Women Prefer Male Bosses?

I don't know why I thought this might be an honest, objective discussion of the phenomenon. I guess Lucy can yank the football at the last minute a very large number of times before I learn my lesson.
   The answer given is: it's not the phenomenon that requires explanation...it's the feeling. Because, you see, you are always to "believe women"...unless they think things that feminism says they shouldn't think. Then their experience is not to be so much explained as explained away.
   And the explanation of the feeling that they'd rather have male bosses is, very roughly: because patriarchy. I mean, we don't have actual bosses in my world. But we have Chairs and administrators and shit. My favorite Chair ever was a woman. (No offense to my current Chair...) And I've had extensive dealings with both good and bad administrators--a fair number really good, and a fair number really bad. (And sometimes the same person was in both categories.) I'd have a hard time generalizing about sex in this matter. I don't see any correlation. Even administrators are often individual people with personalities and stuff. My currently-most irrational and autocratic administrator is a woman. But in the past it was a man. And a man before that. So.
   But, anyway, it's women themselves who clued me into the cattiness and backstabbery of some women--basically the "mean girls" phenomenon. My hypothesis is that men are the biggest shits in relatively unconstrained environments. In contexts when you might just get physically attacked, it's men you have to be worried about. (And you see how it's not sexist to recognize that?) In relatively more constrained environments, that problem is mostly nonexistent. In such environments, things like backstabbing and hostile-coalition-forming become more salient threats. Also, there's significant evidence that stereotypes of this general kind are pretty accurate--more accurate than most psychological studies. Which shouldn't be much of a surprise, since stereotypes are the conclusions of untold numbers of observations by people who have an actual stake in knowing the facts. (Though, of course, there could still be social explanations.)
   At any rate, I'm not so concerned about the specifics here as I am about the general leftish inconsistency about such stuff, and the tendency to explain away unwelcome conclusions. I'm in no way suggesting that the right doesn't do likewise. That'd be absurd. But the general template really ought to be met with derision: believe all women...except when you don't like what they think...then explain away the collective wisdom of humankind by gesturing at some social science studies that you like better.
   And, for the love of God, don't forget one of the most important points of the rational, liberal feminism of yore: we're only talking about generalizations in such cases. We're in no way saying anything specific about each specific individual.

Margaret Atwood: "Am I A Bad Feminist?"

Props to Atwood.
   In certain abstract terms, this is all easy: sexual harassment is bad. Due process is good. And that's about all there is to it.
   But the devil's in the details, I guess.
   And the practical details are obscured by the contemporary feminist tendency to pretend that even the most minor infelicities are tantamount to sexual harassment, and that sexual harassment is tantamount to rape. Then, of course, there's the left's tendency just to make shit up.
   Anyway, advocating for due process for Galloway doesn't mean that you don't want him to suffer the consequences if he's guilty. The other side points out that only Galloway's right (or whatever it is in an institutional context) to due process is being publicly defended. However, it's only his due process rights that we know to have been violated. Perhaps it'd be better not to emphasize Galloway's right (or whatever it is), and better to emphasize that due process is an impersonal obligation of the institution: it's the best procedure for arriving at a rational conclusion. Applying that thought to this case: arguing for due process is not the same thing as advocating for Galloway.

You Should Be Reading: Donovan Paisley

link:

Progressive champion of women. My compassion for the oppressed is limitless. Spent 5 years at a liberal arts college and received an A+ in my sociology class.

Feminists Ditching "Pussyhats" Because They Now Think They're Racist and "Transphobic"

facepalm

Shitholegate

I don't want to get involved in this ridiculousness.
However:
   Objectively speaking, there are plenty of shithole countries.
   If you want to criticize Trump on this, the point to make is that the president shouldn't be saying things like "shithole" during official meetings. And he shouldn't be calling countries shitholes no matter how true it might be. It's not what we used to call "presidential." That was a quaint old concept we used to have back in the day before Gallagher became president. No wait...not Gallagher. The other one. What's-his-name. Howard Stern? No...you know the guy I'm talking about.
   Many on the left, of course--deploying its standard mishmash of nihilism, relativism, subjectivism, and skepticism--are basically denying that there are any shithole countries. Which is idiotic. In fact, isn't the left usually arguing that it's inhumane to send illegals back to their countries precisely because they're shitholes?
Read more »

Anti-Trumpism and Bullshit at (Semi-)Philosophy Conferences

Here's the kind of conference announcement that shows up on the PHILOS-L list all the time these days:

Call for Papers and Abstracts | Resistance: Psychoanalysis and Critical Theories
Apr. 20th - 21st, 2018 | Villanova University, Villanova, PA
...
Sigmund Freud started to explore the social and political potential of his psychoanalytical theory in Totem and Taboo (1913), Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), and Civilization and Its Discontents(1930). The Early Frankfurt school further took up this political valence and combined historical materialism with analyses of the psychodynamic of familial, romantic, and erotic relations under centuries-long patriarchal conditioning. For some time, freudo-marxism was the implicit method of critical or radical political theorists. In more recent years, however, psychoanalysis has met with criticism for presupposing a variety of patriarchal and colonial norms and prejudices and for emphasizing individual, psychic interiority. This conference brings psychoanalysis and the variety of possible critical theories together in order to critically examine these presuppositions in psychoanalytic theories, as well as to call for a critical engagement with the current politics and society using psychoanalytic theories. We invite papers that engage with psychoanalysis critically and/or engage with the critical potentials in psychoanalytic theories. ...Topics may include but are not limited to:· Psychoanalysis and queer theory· Trans studies and psychoanalysis· Frankfurt school and psychoanalysis· Psychoanalysis and contemporary critical theory· Critical race theory· Feminism and psychoanalysis· Decolonial or postcolonial theory· Political affect and psychoanalysis· Metapsychology and Method

Not making this up. My emphasis.   I'm not going to waste any time on this, other than to say, of two of the selections bolded above: (a) so...those are the criticisms of Freudianism they're most concerned about? That it's pseudoscientific claptrap doesn't make the list? (And, of course: individuality is one of the things the left really hates...) And (b) hey, can anybody think of a way to make the current political situation worse? No? Well...here's an idea: how about we stick in some psychoanalysis? Then maybe some Scientology or something.

"Feminists Challenge Ability Of "Transgender" Leader Of Quebec Women's Group To Speak For Women

Actual quote from the article:

In the United States and the United Kingdom, tensions occasionally flare between trans activists and a fringe of radical feminists who insist on regarding transgender women as men.

Wow...how odd that anyone would "insist" on "regarding" men as men. So odd.

Also this:

“There are parts of our society that are anti-immigration. There are parts that are racist and Islamophobic. These will be reflected in the feminist movement. The movement is no different from the society in which it lives.”

So, you see, if you believe that you can't turn a man into a woman with some plastic surgery and a dress, you are the equivalent of someone who is anti-immigrant, racist, and/or Islamo"phobic." Failure to hold a patently false position on a purely descriptive question makes you a bigot. Get it?

   Feminism lost its mind long ago. But now it's lost its mind in a whole new way. I mean...contemporary feminism really does not like men. I would have thought that sexism would have immunized it from this particular brand of crazy. Honestly, I would never have thought that they'd let men force themselves into / take over the movement. I wonder how long before the feminist civil war breaks out over this?

Jesse Singal: Social Media Is Making Us Dumber

Here's exhibit A.

F-23: The Superplane We Never Built

link

Kirsten Gillibrand And The Need For Schoolhouse Rock 2.0

sheesh

Jesse Singal: The Creators Of The Implicit Association Test Should Get Their Stories Straight

Singal's right

But my assessment is more compact: the IAT is pseudoscience.

Tortured Google Employee Finally Admits There Are More Than Two Genders, 2+2=5

link

Pew: America's Voter Registration System Is Inaccurate, Costly and Inefficient

link

The Character Assassination of James Damore

The most important fact of the case isn't that Google is a cult. Nor is it that Damore got the science right. It's that he got the science approximately right. If he were making up loony things about race and sex differences, it wouldn't (would it?) be crazy to fire him. But he wasn't. He was simply stating things that are reasonable to think given what a well-informed layperson would (and should) have read about the relevant science. Even if he gets/got some things wrong (and, of course, even if the current science is wrong), what he wrote was reasonable.
   One lesson: there are certain (seeming) truths that we are not currently allowed to acknowledge. It got Larry Summers fired. It got James Damore fired. Uttering such well-justified-and-fairly-likely-to-be-true propositions gets thousands of people vilified every day in the U.S. Many more simply pretend not to know what they know they know.
   If you're keeping quiet about all this, you're aiding and abetting the totalitarians. You should stop doing that.

Straight Dudes Are Now Obligated To Have Sex With Other Dudes If The Other Dudes Dress LIke Women. ?

Dude.
You're a dude.
Dressing like a woman does not make you a non-dude.
Genuwine has no obligation to have sex with you.
C'mon, fer the luvva god...ya got a penis...how hard is this to understand?

[I can't believe that these ridiculous, sophistical tactics seem to be working so well. First, ignore the difference between sex and gender that feminism has spent the last thirty years (rightly!!!) insisting on...thus blurring the difference between changing gender (which is fairly easy) and changing sex (which is, currently, impossible...and which will remain impossible for some time). Simply insist that feminine men are women and masculine women are men. Then insist that others must casually affirm this via socially-(and sometimes legally...)enforced misuse of words (e.g. 'woman,' 'man,' pronouns). When people object, insist that it's merely words, that refusal to play along is psychological violence,  and that truth doesn't matter (ergo it would be unreasonable to refuse). Then clearly demonstrate that it's not merely about words by demanding that we must let them use the wrong restrooms and locker rooms... And ultimately: that straight dudes have sex with other dudes pretending not to be dudes...else they're bigots.
   Look, what pisses me off so much about this is that so many people are knuckling under to this nonsense...and themselves becoming part of the social shaming task force that badgers others into paying lip service to such patent nonsense. I mean, look, the dude who's after Genuwine is right in a sense: if you think/say he's a woman, and you're a straight dude, but you rule out having sex with him in general rather than on any specific grounds...then that does seem to be basically a kind of prejudice akin to ruling out sex with a woman of another race in general. For the time being, heterosexuality is still grudgingly tolerated by our progressive cultural overlords... But that's not a defense if you affirm that "transwomen" are women. Because they're women. According to those of you who've drunk the Kool-Aid, anyway. Of course, compulsory bisexuality will be on the table in the next ten years or so... (Except for lesbians, naturally...but both straight and gay dudes are already frowned upon for their sexual preferences by the PC left.)
   I mean, look: I'm somebody who has long acknowledged that enforcing gender norms is weird and probably indefensible, and that both heterosexuality and homosexuality are kinda weird. I'm in no way blind to the obvious weirdness of these aspects of our humanity and society. But this "trans" nonsense is ridiculous and incoherent, and exactly the wrong way to address the issues.]

Carolina 96 - BC 66

Props to BC for good effort; but it wasn't their night.
Luke with a career-high 32 points, and some highlight-reel dunks and passes. Welcome stuff after the last two games.
Go Tar Heels.

Is This The Dumbest Thing Ever Written On PC and Free Expression???: Matthew A. Sears: "Why SJWs are the True Defender of Free Speech"

Honestly...this may be the most laughably idiotic thing I've ever read...on any topic.
   And you know what? I'm not only going to say that I'm not going to waste my time shredding it...I'm actually going to do it. Er...not do it. You know what I mean. Honestly, it's just to stupid to waste any time on.
   Especially since Cheryl Misak's new book on Peirce, Ramsey and Wittgenstein came in the mail...

Trump Named "Top Global Press Oppressor" By Journalism Group

[eyeroll]

Does A Hypersonic SR-72 Bomber Now Exist?

Maybe

Alone In The Past: Surviving 240 Days In 10th-Century Conditions

I found this pretty interesting.

David Brooks: The Decline Of Anti-Trumpism

I have a high opinion of this, as it confirms my prejudices:

   ...the anti-Trump movement, of which I’m a proud member, seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information. More anti-Trumpers seem to be telling themselves a “Madness of King George” narrative: Trump is a semiliterate madman surrounded by sycophants who are morally, intellectually and psychologically inferior to people like us.
   I’d like to think it’s possible to be fervently anti-Trump while also not reducing everything to a fairy tale.
...
   In every war, nations come to resemble their enemies, so I suppose it’s normal that the anti-Trump movement would come to resemble the pro-Trump movement. But it’s not good. I’ve noticed a lot of young people look at the monotonous daily hysteria of we anti-Trumpers and they find it silly.
   This isn’t just a struggle over a president. It’s a struggle over what rules we’re going to play by after Trump. Are we all going to descend permanently into the Trump standard of acceptable behavior?

   I've long been motivated by the thought that one of the real challenges for liberalism (may it rest in peace) is (was) to be opposed to conservatism without becoming ****ing insane. Now that I'm all grown up, I realize that conservatism faces a perfectly analogous challenge. And insanity on one side breeds insanity on the other.

   Jesus, Trump is awful. But he's not a fusion of Charles Manson and Hitler. Pretending that he is is nuts; but if you don't care about being nuts, maybe you will care that one consequence of being nuts in this way is: people like me feel a difficult-to-resist psychological pressure that drives us to make Trump out to be less bad than he actually is. I'm in no way proud of that--it's ginormously irrational. But let's be realistic about human psychology: it's hardly a rare reaction.

   On the other hand, Brooks's point is largely: people who actually meet Trump realize he's not as bad as people who haven't met him think he is. So...I'm not sure that assertion gives those of us who haven't met him much reason to think what those who have met him allegedly think. Given good reason to believe the assertion it would. But I doubt the truth of the assertion. I hope it's true, of course. And I think it might be--in fact, it was reading a bunch of alleged personal anecdotes about meeting Trump that made it possible for me to talk myself down off the ledge soon after his election. But OTOH, there's also reason to believe that some smart people who work closely with Trump think he's just as bad as he seems. So I don't know what.

   Another point: the mere possibility that the president of the United States might be as bad as Trump seems--the mere fact that we can't rule it out--that's very, very bad. If we have to honestly wonder whether the POTUS is sitting around wondering whether to nuke North Korea...that is plenty bad.

   What would help people like me is: if there were less overtly made-up, obviously TDS-driven, anti-Trump crackpottery popping up all the time. OTOH, what would probably help the other side is: less down-playing Trump's awfulness. So that's something for me to keep in mind.

Mueller Wants To Interview Trump

Not something that a totally innocent stable genius should worry much about, I'd think.

President Oprah?

Somebody promise to just shoot me if this happens.
And I don't want to hear any objections that she's less-bad than Trump. If that's where we're setting the bar, also promise to just shoot me.
If you can believe it: this is me at-least-largely agreeing with The Intercept via Instapundit.
Saints preserve us.

"How Do You Disprove A Fallacy?": How To Win The Rhetorical War Over Trump's Mental Acuity

Yup.
I mean, gosh, where did these questions about Trump's narcissism, derangement, ignorance and general just-not-really-the-very-sharpest-tool-in-the-shed-ness come from anyway? How can such charges just be fabricated entirely out of thin air,without a single bit of evidence to back them up? It's a mystery.
   The real question is: how do you disprove a set of mutually-supporting, repeatedly-confirmed propositions that seem pretty much beyond question to anyone who's paying any attention at all and knows even a little bit about human beings?
   Now that ain't easy.

The New Criterion: Free Speech And The Academy

I haven't read these yet (just Roger Kimball's intro), but I'll go ahead and link to 'em.

Damore Sues Google For Discriminating Against White Men

Godspeed, my dude.
   I was able to basically avert my eyes from this bullshit / turn the other cheek for a couple of decades...but you have to draw the line somewhere. Racism/sexism against white males is now not merely blatant, it's become a kind of crusade. Some people and organizations are not merely open about it, they're proud of it. If they're not even going to pretend anymore, why should we? I mean, it's obvious to anyone who's not willfully fooling themselves.
   It's too bad that there's no real hope of Damore getting enough moneny to genuinely hurt Google--I mean, what kind of money would they even notice? I have no idea.

Tillerson and Mattis Trying to Stop Trump and McMaster From Striking North Korea?

link

Joe Bob Briggs on Gay Wedding Cake

"If you’re having a gay wedding, and your cake has been baked by a man who thinks gay marriage is an abomination against God, do not eat the cake."

Criticizing Feminism Is "Privilege-Preserving Epistemic Pushback"

The PC left does love self-sealers:

Classrooms are unlevel knowing fields, contested terrains where knowledge and ignorance are produced and circulate with equal vigor, and where members of dominant groups are accustomed to having an epistemic home-terrain advantage. My project focuses on one form of resistance that regularly surfaces in discussions with social-justice content. Privilege-preserving epistemic pushback is a variety of willful ignorance that many members of dominant groups engage in when asked to consider both the lived and structural injustices that members of marginalized groups experience daily. I argue that this dominant form of resistance is neither an expression of skepticism nor a critical-thinking practice. I suggest that standard philosophical engagements with these expressions of resistance are incapable of tracking the harms of privilege-preserving epistemic pushback. I recommend treating this pushback as a “shadow text,” that is, as a text that runs alongside the readings in ways that offer no epistemic friction. I offer this as one critical philosophical practice for making students mindful of the ways they contribute to the circulation of ignorance and epistemic violence during the course of their discussions.
[my emphases]

This is the handiest way to poison the well against criticism since "false consciousness."

"Colorblindness" Is Totally Racist

Stupid clickbait...though that describes everything in Huff'n'Puff...so I guess the loony lefty clickbait market is booming. And people are actually pushing these stupid clickbait ideas as if they were serious ones. So...clickbait...but potentially consequential clickbait...

PCU: Civility in the Classroom Promotes "White Racial Power"

[facepalm]

Carolina 49 - UVA 61

Good game, 'Hoos.
That was just a whuppin'.
Another whuppin', that is.
   Carolina had more turnovers (19) than made field goals (16), if you can believe that.
Losses on the road to UVA and FSU (the latter by one point) wouldn't, by themselves, be all that much cause for alarm. But together with the massacre at the hands of MSU, and the (convincing) loss to Wofford...in the Dean Dome...well...things aren't looking great for our heroes, ah tell you hwhut. 
   Now Seventh Woods is on the DL, and Felton isn't a reliable backup for Berry yet. Everybody knows about Luke Maye now...and so he's not nearly the threat he used to be. And I guess it's time to admit that Theo, God love 'im, is never going to learn how to shoot. And Berry can't do everything every time.
   Oh well...Go Tar Heels, beat BC!

Cato / Emily Ekins: The State Of Free Speech And Tolerance In America

There is a lot of bad news in this.

TDS Watch: Hey, Remember How The Trump Wrestling GIF Was A Threat Against CNN Reporters?

There needs to be a simple term for this new fallacy. something like bogus ad baculum...but not so lame. In its extreme version (the Sarkeesian variation), the "threats" are entirely fabricated. But in the currently-more-popular version, the "threat" is spun out of some actual, minor, vaguely adversarial incident--as when mere verbal disagreement with the PC left is characterized as constituting violence.
   I hate bullies. Like, really hate. Like, am-perfectly-happy-to-punch-them-in-the-head hate. So guys like Trumpo disgust me. But seriously...if I have to choose between (i) bullies and (ii) effete, simpering weenuses who are pusillanimous as a matter of principle...well, damn...I might just have to flip a coin. It's slave morality, I tell ya.

Jesse Singal: "Stop Telling Students Free Speech Is Traumatizing Them"

This is right on target--though Singal should have expressed even more skepticism about the one study he cites.
   I say read it all; but here are some extended highlights.

Such claims of harm — often summed up as “speech is violence” — aren’t typically invoked in response to actual Nazis, or anything like that. Rather, they are used to argue against allowing speakers like Murray and Yiannopoulos — who, for better or worse, do fit in the conservative mainstream — or even significantly more moderate oneslike Emily Yoffe, who has expressed skepticism about certain claims pertaining to the prevalence of sexual assault on campus. In one instance students successfully canceled a showing of American Sniperby arguing the film’s ostensible Islamophobia would make “students feel unsafe and unwelcome” — though the screening was later uncanceled.

...
I posted about this when it was published, but I'll just say again: here's a general principle you absolutely have to keep in mind: as soon as progressives accept some view, "confirmation" of that view starts rolling in from the social and social-ish "sciences":

So it’s weird, in light of all this, to see the claim that free speech on campus leads to serious psychological harm being taken seriously in the New York Times, and weirder still to see it argued in a manner draped in pseudoscience. Yet that’s what happened. In a Sunday Review column headlined “When Is Speech Violence?” Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, explains that “scientifically speaking,” the idea that physical violence is more harmful than emotional violence is an oversimplification. “Words can have a powerful effect on your nervous system. Certain types of adversity, even those involving no physical contact, can make you sick, alter your brain — even kill neurons — and shorten your life.” Chronic stress can also shrink your telomeres, she writes — “little packets of genetic material that sit on the ends of your chromosomes” — bringing you closer to death.

...

This is a weak and confused argument. Setting aside the fact that no one will ever be able to agree on what’s “abusive” versus what’s “merely offensive,” the articles Barrett links to are mostly about chronic stress — the stress elicited by, for example, spending one’s childhood in an impoverished environment of serious neglect and violence. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood with a poor single mother who has to work so much she doesn’t have time to nurture you is not the same as being a college student at a campus where Yiannopoulos is coming to speak, and where you are free to ignore him or to protest his presence there. One situation involves a level of chronic stress that is inflicted on you against your will and which really could harm you in the long run; the other doesn’t. Nowhere does Barrett fully explain how the presence on campus of a speaker like Yiannopoulos for a couple of hours is going to lead to students being afflicted with the sort of serious, chronic stress correlated with health difficulties. It’s simply disingenuous to compare the two types of situations — in a way, it’s an insult both to people who do deal with chronic stress and to student activists.

...

It’s also worth pointing out that this sort of scaremongering — Milo is coming and he is shrinking your telomeres! — could become a self-fulfilling prophecy for some students. There’s an intriguing area of behavioral science known as mind-set research, and one of its tenets is that the relationship between stress and humans’ response to it is partially mediated by how people expect stress to affect them.

"Our Revolution"

I did not know about this organization.

FIRE's Guide To Free Speech On Campus

link

Drum: Trump, Collusion, Obstruction, and Underdetermination

This is what I've been thinking for months, but I've never gotten around to typing it:

This whole subject remains maddeningly hard to make sense of. The problem is that Trump’s behavior is consistent with two diametrically opposite conclusions. Needless to say, it’s consistent with the possibility that Trump colluded with Russia in some way and is desperate to cover it up. But it’s also consistent with the possibility that Trump is entirely innocent. A person with Trump’s volcanic temper and bottomless feelings of grievance would probably react exactly the way he has if he had done nothing wrong.

   And that's, in large part, why I think that obstruction is more likely than collusion: so far we seem to have little evidence that makes it rational to believe the collusion hypothesis over the pissed off hypothesis. However, the obstruction hypothesis is just about equally strong in either case. And, of course, we know that Trump is given to petulant, irrational anger. It also seems to me to be rather silly to think that Trump is so foolish / imprudent as to do something like colluding with the Rooskies. Even if you think he'd have no moral qualms about it, I can't believe he's dumb enough to risk it. If you think he's survived and more-or-less flourished as a quasi-billionaire real estate tycoon by being that imprudent / bad at evaluating risk...well...you're probably wrong is what.
   (Also, of course, we have extremely good reason to believe that he fired Comey in order to derail the investigation. All that stuff provides an independent line of evidence supporting the obstruction hypothesis...but none of it favors collusion over pissed off.)
   In the end, my guess is that the following is one of the most likely scenarios: Trump didn't collude; La Resistance + MSM ( + the "deep state"? Is that a real thing?) push the idea/hope/tactic so hard that investigations threaten. This + Trump's trumpiness --> Trump gets pissed and afraid --> Trump fires Comey etc. = Obstruction --> impeachment or electoral loss or primary challenge or some other bad for Trump / good for the left outcome. Lesson: a sufficiently shrill and monomaniacal anti-democratic minority can bring down a president it doesn't like. Well...a loony one who can't control his anger, anyway.
   On a snarkier note, from the NYT story:

Some experts said the case [for obstruction] would be stronger if there was evidence that the president had told witnesses to lie under oath.

   Wow. Thanks, experts...

Obstruction Watch: Trump Tried To Stop Sessions From Recusing Himself From Russia Investigation

Nobody this side of MSNBC still thinks that there was collusion, do they? If you do, you probably want to start talking yourself down.

Obstruction is the serious question for the few of us non-delusional types still running around.

For the record, it's not that I want the president of the United States to have tried to obstruct justice...it's that I don't see any other plausible way to interpret the Comey firing. But my layperson's opinion is almost worthless. It's a legal question. My attitude remains: trust the system; wait and see. 

David Cole: The Left-Wing Cannibal Holocaust

One of the few reads of the last year that has brought me true happiness.

George F. Will: America Needs A Balanced-Budget Amendment

I'm strongly inclined to agree with Will about this:

Because reverence for the Constitution is imperiled by tinkering with it, and because the supply of ideas for improving Madison’s document always exceeds society’s supply of Madisonian wisdom, the document should be amended rarely and reluctantly. Today, however, a balanced-budget amendment is required to counter two developments: the abandonment of the original understanding of the Constitution and the death of the political morality that expressed that understanding.

I'm also inclined to think this is at least right-ish, though my grasp of the actual history is hazy, at best:

For approximately 140 years, the government was restrained by the Constitution’s enumeration of its powers, which supposedly were “few and defined” (Madison, Federalist 45). Before Congress acted, it considered what James Q. Wilson called the “legitimacy barrier”: Did the Constitution empower the government to do this or that? As late as the 1950s, Congress at least feigned fealty to constitutional limits: When it wanted to build the interstate highway system and subsidize college students, it referred, if perfunctorily, to the enumerated responsibility for defense in naming the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956) and the National Defense Education Act (1958). Wilson thought the legitimacy barrier’s collapse was complete in 1965 when Congress intruded into the quintessentially state and local responsibility with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Anyway: I'm way more open to the idea of a balanced-budget amendment than I've ever been before. It's the GOP that's the main offender, too. (IMO the stimulus doesn't count.) I wonder whether the 'Pubs would even still be willing to pass a balanced-budget amendment? I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to the "starve the beast" strategy, since I'm skeptical of halting the expansion of government by other means. But I'd rather not generate crushing debt in the process, if possible.

ABC News: Lawsuit: Carolina and Duke Agree Not To Hire Each Other's Doctors

link
After close attention to the UNC AFAM / athletics scandal, I now assume that basically everything I read in the news is hilariously wrong in at least some important ways, especially if there's a juicy whiff of scandal (and, ergo, clicks).
Also, I don't exactly understand what's going on in that story anyway. But there it is, FWIW.

Carolina 80 - FSU 81

Daggummit

Young Male Migrants Fuel Rise Of Crime In Germany

So...for several years we've been hearing that this is absolutely not true, and that if you suggest that it is true you're a racist.

[Oops! Almost forgot this bit!:

“It is true that since 2015 there has been a rise in violent crime that the authors attribute to the arrival of refugees,” said Verena Herb, a spokeswoman for the Families Ministry that commissioned the study. “But they also make very clear that refugees aren’t generally more criminal than for example Germans.”

But:

The study, led by prominent criminologist Christian Pfeiffer and published by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, says most of the refugees came to Germany from Muslim countries that are “characterized by male dominance” and an acceptance of a “macho culture” that can justify violence.

 Uh...riiiight... See, they're not more violent...but here's the explanation of why they're more violent...

   First: years of denial that immigrants are responsible for the wave of violent crime. Then, when that obvious lie can't be sustained anymore, here's the first fallback position: they are responsible...but not because they're more violent, you see! It's...something...else...

   For the love of God, can't we just be honest about this stuff?]

You'll Probably Believe Fake Science If It Comes With A Brain Image

This surprises me not at all.

Peirce: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed For Man"

It took me years and many readings to come to appreciate what a great piece of philosophy this is.

Go Heels; Beat The 'Noles

This should be a fun game.

Trump's "Bigger Button" Tweet

Will someone please, for the love of God, get him off of Twitter?

Turley on Trump, Collusion, and Obstruction: "A Year Later, An Investigation In Search Of A Crime"

Whelp.*

   Obviously I don't really know much about this. But overall, what Turley writes is consistent with the trajectory of my own suspicions. (Obviously I started out with a bunch of stupid predictions about impeachment within [nine months or two years, depending on which dumb thing I said we're talking about].)
   The Clinton email fiasco was a big turning point for me in that an important realization came into focus for me:  I usually have little real understanding of what's going on re: politics and policy because I don't know enough about the norms and standard practices. So usually the same people who are revealing some alleged fact to me are the ones telling me what it means. Case in point: I didn't know what to think about HRC's email woes because I didn't know enough about how such officials typically handle their email. She used a private server it was treason!!!  Oh...wow...holy crap! That's awful / unconscionable! Uh...right? Right? Or...y'know...is it? Anyway. I started off thinking it was game over for Clinton...but eventually came to realize that I had no idea what it was, because I had no background against which to see it. (Also, the Mystic gave me a bunch of IT info, and pointed out a bunch of stuff about Powell's email.)
   Anyway, eventually I shamed myself into applying the same realization to the Trump/Russia stuff. As it turns out, I have just about no idea what to think about the vast majority of it, really. I mean...they met with some Russians!!! Uh...I have no idea how often the minions of wheeler-dealers like Trump meet with Russians. Nor how often people associated with presidential campaigns meet with them. They could all just about meet with Martians for all I know.
   Anyway, for several months now, I've been willing to bet at least a little bit that Trump didn't "collude"...whatever we mean by that at this point.
   It's more surprising to me that Turley argues that the Comey firing isn't strong enough evidence to prove obstruction of justice. But he's an expert, and I'm way, way not. There's no doubt in my mind that firing Comey was an attempt to trip up the investigation...but my opinion's not worth much, obviously.



* I know that journalists and op-ed contributors and suchlike generally don't write their own headlines...but...isn't every such investigation basically "in search of a crime"? This is just trivial snark, but I couldn't resist the urge to point this out.

The Volunteer Auxiliary Thought Police

Ok, things have gotten so ridiculous that I actually read a post on PowerLine... When you're nuttier than PowerLine, you really have to stop and reassess.
   These are people who apparently want to be "sensitivity readers" for shitty novels:

LGBTQ+ — especially non-binary genders, grey-/demi-/pan-/asexuality and grey-/demi-/pan-/aromanticism. Mental Health — personality disorders (especially, but not limited to, cluster B); being a queer person with a diagnosis; depression; self harm; anxiety (including panic attacks); suicidal thoughts; dissociation and depersonalisation; living on mood stabilisers. Other — unhealthy and abusive relationships (esp. non-romantic/non-sexual ones), with focus on either the abused or the abused; disordered eating (without an ED diagnosis); womb twin survivor (being an only child; knowing/feeling a twin should’ve existed); migraines, sunlight sensitivity, insomnia; polyamory; working in the Arts as a queer person with a MH diagnosis; other correlations of the aforementioned things.

 Sailer comments:

 So being a twin is not an identity politics category. But not being a twin can make you a “womb twin survivor.”

Here is another “sensitivity reader”:

I am Black (with Irish and Cherokee thrown in), autistic, aromantic, noetisexual, demisexual/asexual, Integrated Radical Non-Monogamist, Relationship Anarchist, autodidact, relationship fluid, disabled, single parent, in poverty, kinky switch/Dom/me, assigned female at birth, synesthetic, intersex, genderqueer, Army brat, survivor of several forms of abuse, left-handed, singleish, and pansexual. My disabilities and health conditions consist of endometriosis, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, fibromyalgia, eczema, secondary anxiety and depression. I’ve had several major surgeries, survived more rapes than I can count, and narrowly escaped stalkers, domestic violence, and murderers. I’ve been writing cuil fiction, my invented intersectional queer and polya genre, for nearly 20 years. I am also a not-quite widow.
What is a “not-quite widow”? I have no idea.

Cloverfield 3?????

Cloverfield is one of my favorite flicks of all freaking time.
So I receive this news gladly...though with some concern...

How Popular Is Trump?

Not what you'd call very

Friedersdorf: Right-Wing Media Lies A Lot

Gee, ya think?
  In this case, it's Breitbart. But, as Friedersdorf notes: it's also Limbaugh. And these are just the ones that have admitted it. I've at least seem some things on Breitbart that are apparently true and not covered by the "MSM." Thing is, the place is pretty repulsive, and you have to triple-check even the stuff that seems plausible...it's kinda not worth it.
   But Limbaugh...that dude is pure-D BS from beginning to end. I've said it before, but he's basically the right-wing version of a left-wing academic bullshitter: his method is free-association that produces all sorts of baroque epicycles until the line of his "argument" finally spirals toward some version of the same conclusion every time: the left is intentionally destroying America.
   That guy is awful. And it's long seemed to me that he's had an actual effect on American conservatism. A destructive one, I mean, obviously. Of course he and his popularity could be more effects than causes. I don't know.
   Anyway. I don't really have anything to say about this other than: it's no surprise to me. Right-wing media's a mess.

Still More Anti-Free-Speech-ism: Robert C. Post: "There Is No First Amendment Right To Speak On A College Campus"

Wow.
   Just about everything of substance in there is wrong.
   And dude is a law prof at Yale!
   Not getting the new year off on the wrong foot...so not gonna spend a bunch of time on something that's not worth it. So, very briefly:
   It's true that professors have no legal obligation to allow just anyone to speak in their classes. It's also entirely irrelevant. I don't even have any idea what legal principle is operant in such cases, but you don't need to to see that it's irrelevant. It's probably just an ordinary time / place / manner restriction.
   Is there a First-Amendment right to speak on campus? Absolutely, and it's not even controversial. Whatever is protected speech off-campus is protected speech on campus--at public schools, anyway. Private schools are under less-stringent obligations. But you can say any damn thing you want on a public university campus--subject, of course, to the same exceptions as speech everywhere else: time, place and manner restrictions, no incitement, state secrets, etc. etc.
   Post is right that a university can stop having a formal / funded system of student invitations entirely. But I'll be all universities have such a system--and, if a university does have one, then it can't override students' decisions about whom to invite on the basis of the content of their speech.
   Furthermore, none of this prevents you from just walking onto campus and saying your piece, of course--though I suspect that Post is really talking bout the use of university buildings and suchlike.
   Post's master argument is utter sophistry. It goes like this: since universities are in the business of evaluating ideas, this purpose can/should govern everything they do. So they must always be permitted to turn down speakers on the basis of their judgments about that speaker's contribution to their aims.
   My God that's a shit argument. It isn't even in the vicinity of the truth. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the First Amendment.