I write quite frequently here about how the tenets of classical western liberalism, particularly freedom of speech and assembly, have been bastardized in the humanities and social sciences of many modern “progressive” universities—and about how the subversion and re-signification of these concepts into their near opposites (free speech is now “free” only when confined to a designated space in the commons, and groups that gather willingly to express certain political views are considered “threatening” or “intimidating” or “intolerant” to those with competing views, and therefore must be broken up) are helping to promote an idea of “tolerance” that would find itself quite at home among history’s totalitarian regimes, where behavior is often controlled by an effort to control and delegitimize thought.
In an effort to show that I’m not overstating the case (this new paradigm for personal freedoms is, according to many on the progressive left who like to paint me as reactionary and paranoid, as toothless a constraint on liberty as dishonest criticism of the war is on public perception), I’ve been pointing out instances of such abuses, along with the rationale offered for them, courtesy of FIRE. From The Torch, here’s FIRE President Greg Lukianoff:
After nearly five years of dealing with all the terrible and often absurd abuses of free speech in higher education, I am a hard person to shock, but hats off to professor Sally Jacobsen of Northern Kentucky University (NKU) for showing me the most perverted inversion of the concept of free speech I have seen in a long time.
Jacobsen, a professor at NKU, invited students in one of her classes to “to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy [an anti-abortion] display if they wished to.†The anti-abortion display had been erected by an NKU student group with permission from university officials. You can see a picture of her apparently actually helping destroy the display (which was a field of approximately 400 tiny crosses) in The Northerner On Line.
George Orwell’s name is bandied about a lot these days, but cases like this demonstrate why: a university professor is trying to claim destruction of others’ property and expression equals free speech? That’s madness.When asked about the incident, Jacobsen said “Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged.”
[my emphases]
And there it is—the new “tolerance” expressed in neat and concise fashion: anything that offends me (the argument goes) is by its very nature intolerant and can be—nay, must be—squelched, through violence if necessary. And in fact, the very act of squelching such “intolerance” is, conveniently, the apotheosis of tolerance!
Up is down. Black is white. Penn is Teller.
Continues Lukianoff:
Wow. So Jacobsen is so compassionate and tolerant that she feels she has the right to destroy expression that disagrees with her world view? I am so tired of college administrators, faculty, and students excusing their attempts to silence opinions they dislike or disagree with by treating their censorship as a necessary part of a decent university society. This turns the ideal of individual freedom on its head and transmogrifies it into a mandate for enforced conformity.
[my emphasis]
…Hmm. Where have I heard that before…? To reiterate: “Once again, we see the consequences of allowing language to be controlled by the receivers and not the utterers: because EU officials Professor Jacobsen and her student lackeys fear that Muslims may take offense to certain words and phrases, they are actively working on reforming the language [in this case, by annihilating expression] to prevent giving having to endure said offense.”
Which is to say, they are following the same path that the EU elites seem to be taking, one that is based, whether they recognize it or not, upon an incoherent (yet increasingly institutionalized) philosophical conception of how language works. And out of this grows such defenses as that offered for her actions by Professor Jacobsen.
This case, so far, is all too similar to another truly shocking case: that of student playwright Chris Lee at Washington State University. In that case, administrators at Washington State actually organized and paid for hecklers to attend Lee’s satirical play Passion of the Musical. The hecklers repeatedly disrupted the musical through shouts and threats of violence. Astoundingly, Washington State’s president later defended the hecklers’ behavior as a “responsible†exercise of free speech. After months of public criticism from FIRE and the media the WSU president seems to have backed off of his outrageous claim. Thankfully, NKU president James Votruba does not appear to need a lesson from FIRE about what is free speech and what is condoning violent repression of speech:
“Freedom-of-speech rights end where you infringe on someone else’s freedom of speech,” Votruba said. “I don’t buy the claim that this is an act of freedom of speech, to destroy property.”
Votruba also told the Cincinnati Post that Professor Jacobsen and those involved could face disciplinary action and even criminal prosecution. “In my mind, this is a serious violation of a faculty member’s responsibilities and undermines what a university is established to do,” Votruba said. “If people are occasionally offended by points of view on a campus, that’s what a university is all about.”
I commend Votruba for his clear thinking on thisâ€â€which is something I have learned to never take for granted with college presidents. […]
[my emphases]
University Presidents like Votruba are precisely what is needed to turn back the tide of collectivist groupthink and PC mob mentality that is helping turn our universities into bastions of anti-intellectualism. Because at this point, students are far more likely to hear competing political views on any number of “protected” subjects at a local pub than they are on campus. Which has it’s advantages of course—pubs serve beer and burgers, the campus thought police send PC offenders to cultural sensitivity re-education classes—but still, one would hope that with tuition costs skyrocketing, and with a university degree a near prerequisite for entering the job market at a certain level, we are entitled to expect universities to be institutions where the marketplace of ideas is alive and well and not reduced to a type of third-rate flea market specializing in only the blandest of merchandise.
For more, see Russell Wardlow, who calls the NKU affair “possibly the perfect story about the intellectually infantilized and totalitarian Left of the academy”—and, commenting on the photo of Prof. Jacobsen helping to destroy the display that so offended her (it’s YOUR WORLD, PROFESSOR J! WE’RE ALL JUST LIVIN’ IN IT!), notes:
And there you have the perfect symbol for academia in modern America: an incoherent, sputtering old fat woman clumsily trying to destroy some crosses.
Heh. This being Easter, I sure do wish I’d said that.
Related.
My rage is paramount. You should probably shut up about yours though. I might be offended.
From Dr. Pat Santy regarding another left wing narcissist,
“Our lady of the riddled empathy is a perfect example of someone who likely for a very long time convinced herself into believing that she was a loving, tolerant, and compassionate person. Of course, she blames Bush because she’s become a raving lunatic. I submit she was likely always what she is now; but her ideology helped her to hide it from the world under the mask of wanting to help people (for their own good, of course). When thwarted, the mask slips and the hidden tyrant rushes out.”
Hey Professor, the Talib were mighty offended by those Buddas over in Bamyian – blew ‘em up in fact. Guess that was OK, huh?
What you are doing is very important, Jeff. Thank you. This issue is of paramount importance, and you are not only bringing these issues to our attention but also providing much-needed relevant commentary. Please keep it up. The more we are aware, the better we can appreciate the delicacy of what we face: the erosion of free speech for the sake of fascist progressives. Again, thanks.
Dear Mr. Wisdom,
Can you not see that this woman is the real victim in all this?
First, to have her tender sensibilities ravaged by this display which dares to challenge her world view? Can you imagine her outrage? Doesn’t anyone, feel her pain? Don’t try to cloud the issue with logic, ethics or philosophy, this is about compassion.
Poor Ms. Jacobsen acted out of the purest of motivations. Her desire to spare others the pain that she was exposed to is an act of true selflessness. Her wish to stifle any public expression that conflicts with her own, is a selfless act of academic tolerance and free speech in the purest tradition of direct action.
What compassion. This woman will surely be nominated for the Professor Nancy Hopkins Speaking Truth to Power Award.
Words absolutely freakin’ fail me.
Add to all that is this female and her graduate students (old enough to know better) again play to the stereotype of hysterical women acting rashly on their feelings and emotions rather than logic and rational discourse.
Thanks a lot, Sally. PLEASE don’t let the door hit your wideass on your way OUT.
You know what Jeff: I don’t like your tone of face.
Not one bit, Mr. I-wonder-what-an-Armadillo-looks-like-under-that-shell, naked. We’ll play games, Jeffie-poo. We got Yahtzee and checkers and Risk for your war-mongers. Oh, we’ll play.
It appears to me that if someone yelled, FIRE!! and everyone had to haul ass this Prof would have to make at least two trips.
Woman?
THis concept of Penn equals Teller confuses and outrages me! I declare a BLOG JIHAD!!!
Major John, you suck! Musilhoon, you pinko bastard! Allan, suck my white ass, clown! rls, this is my buttocks on the screen, baby! Yeah!
Pablo! Why aren’t you cleaning my lawn?
Darleen, you had better be barefoot and pregant! And oppressed!
I declare BLOG CRUSADE!!! on the WINGNUTTERY SPHERE!!! Actus, yeah, you’re cool. Well, not you, but the things you have, man, are like cool.
Alright, somebody explain the concept of “woman” to actus. I can’t do it, I’m pretty busy right now.
Specially why it is a ‘perfect symbol for academia.’
They should have called the anti-abortion “display” an “art installation.” Those are supposed to shock and outrage, aren’t they? Anyone who would destroy an art installation is a fascist Philistine.
BTW, what relationship, if any, is there between a Philistine and a Palestinian?
The Academy is really, really, bad.
Jeff got his Bachelor’s from Towson University (MD), where he received a Dean of Liberal Arts scholarship and graduated with both general and departmental honors (with an emphasis on the fiction of Flannery O’Connor); he did his graduate work at Johns Hopkins and the University of Denver, and spent two summers at The School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, where he studied under Walter Benn Michaels and Catherine Gallagher.
He also devised and co-chaired an international conference on the intersection between creative writing and theory that has since become a signature event of the DU English Department (most recently held in Oct 2005).
His published fiction has appeared in a number of academic journals—the kinds read by other short story writers but, sadly, no one else. He’s also won a number of awards too insignificant to appear on certificates that aspire to embossing or caligraphy—though some of the awards did pay a modest sum, blessed be the Lord, amen.
Some of the writers Jeff studied under are Rikki Ducornet, Beth Nugent, Brian Kiteley, and Brian Evenson
You can read some of Jeff’s short fiction (in Word format): Isaac and Rachel: A Love Song, “The Last Brunch”, “Graduation”, and “Unlimited Semiosis”. Portions of his novella, Brautigan, Revisited, you can find online here.
Long live The Academy.
Robert Schumann fought the Philistines of his day with his Davidsbündler, the League of David.
Frau Professor Jacobsen, “The laws of morality are also those of art” – Robert Schumann
Of course, Herr Schumann was poisoned by his beloved wife.
That does it Vercingetorix, I am calling in the Roman Legions on your butt. Say hello to Legio X and Legio V. That whooshing sound is several thousand pila flying at you, Gaul!
I love the bit from the University offical in the Northern On-line about determining the identity of anyone involved… right next to the captioned pictures of the people involved, specifically naming the professor. Heh.
I realize they probably had an earlier statement from the official, but the comedy value of seeing that right next to the picture was just too rich.
UNCLE!!
The spam bot has blocked me five times. UGH!
Anway see this plea from an Iranian girl over at Atlas Shrugs in the post:
The Fatefull Hour Has Arrived
This is where free speech is truly a matter of life and death.
Just Google Atlas and you will find her blog.
RBT
*****
Lose the Army of Davids !!!
Now Please!
Anyone reading this thread should go immediately to Atlas Shrugs and see this plea from an Iranian girl in the comment thread that has more collective wisdom than all of the LL and MSM combined!
RBT
So anonymous troll citing my “about” page: I take it you are against the 7 generals who’ve come out criticizing their former boss, Rumsfeld?
What’s that?
Speak up. I can’t hear you.
I thought that was weird, Jeff.
Actus,
The are a couple reasons this facistic “woman” is the “perfect symbol for academia”.
First, she purports to be “outraged” over views that differ from hers, and therefore allowed to marginalize or silence these so-called “offensive” views. So much for the “free exchange of ideas”.
Secondly, Prof. Hopkins is so convinced of her own piety and intellectual superiority, she’s totally ignorant of her inner-Nazi.
She’s the poster-girl for the leftists that have turned academia in this country into a system that would make the administrators of Pol Pot’s re-education “camps” smile with envy.
I’m sure there was an important point made by detailing Mr. Goldsteins accomplishments guys. It’s right here…hang on.
Just a sec, I’m looking……
I’m an anonymous troll’s link doesn’t work.
I was all set to sign him up for the Ronco vegamatic opt-in spam machine, and transfer the “I’m from the police benevolent association would you like to donate” Easter Sunday 9 a.m. solicitation to his phone. I guess I’ll just have to go back to my reactionary right wing Easter dinner, remembering not to watch the Yankees while eating.
NKU, huh? That’s one school I didn’t attend or flunk out of.
lee, all it did for me was remind me that Jeff has, well, accomplished things. Heh heh. Not sure that is what that troll wanted.
Yeah, thank you, trollster, for reminding me of Jeff’s cool writing. So there.
Good to see you guys are keeping this non-event in its proper perspective.
Keep walking, tb.
I am quite sure that if this was a Phanatique ‘winger stomping some student shanty-town or Peace Memorial or such, tb would consider it a non-event and keep it in its “proper perspective”. .. The proper perspective being THE RETHUGLICAN THEOCRATIC NIGHT IS DESCENDING ON US!
OK, that was little snarky. But I do remember the Kossacks rage at people actually daring to take the pictures down or crosses with the names of loved ones from the Sheehan Crawford Ditch Camp.
Yep, labeling it a “non-event” is the proper perspective.
I think we need to look at root causes here. Why was Professor Sally so enraged by the display of crosses?
They were set up to represent aboorted babies, and therefore each represents a pregnancy, which in turn represents an instance in which a woman got laid.
Take a gander at this, apply Occam’s Razor, and I think we’re all done.
OK, Kos did call this guy an “anti-American asshat”, but that’s arguably true. Destroying memorials to American war dead pretty much makes you anti-American in my book. Comparing this nobody college professor, on the other hand, to Pol Pot is ludicrously out of proportion. It’s right-wing bedwetter shit.
Hmm, here we have a leftist university professor jackbooting the free speech of someone she disagrees with. And y’know what? It’s “Dog Bites Man” through and through (especially since as we all know, there are no pro-life womyn!). And you know what “Dog Bites Man” means for “newsworthiness.”
tb,
You aren’t clever. Really. Vastrightwingcomspirator was comparing totalitarian mindsets and using hyperbole. It wasn’t a comparison of the nutty prof to Pol Pot, and it isn’t the crux of this discussion. So just move on. You took you dump now go take a nap.
McGehee sez:
And lets not forget the “taking her students with her” for instruction in the supression of other’s free speech part…
What’s to worry about?
Pablo,
You have ruined me for the day. I had plans.
I hope you’re happy.
Not much. The Philistines invaded the area we now call the Gaza strip and coastal Israel around 1250 BC. While the current-day Palestinians probably share some genes, the Philistines were assimilated into the local population probably around the 7th – 6 Centuries BC – around the time of the conquest by the Assyrians and then the Bablonians.
I trust I’m not alone in not wanting to know about your masturbation schedule. Anyway, is this your idea of getting to the “crux” of the discussion? Commenting on the prof’s looks?
Wow, did we finally break Verc? I think he lost it.
tb  Prove to me it’s a matter of preference, not scale of opportunity.
Again, tb, we see this everyday. You aren’t dropping any new Koskid illogic bombs on us. It’s just the same old displacement. It’s boring.
Anyway, if you have actually engaged in the discussion you would have seen the crux, seen that it wasn’t a very complicated matter, and seen that we’ve mostly moved on to sillier stuff.
Major John  We might also remind the progressive amnesiacs of the left that the people in Texas (and a similar site in CA) were taking down the crosses with the names of their own sons and daughters.
Well, at least we know he has committed literature…
No. You’re the one standing by this ridiculous comparison. It’s up to you to support it.
tb,
How about you display your amazing powers of reading comprehension and explain what the comment at 4:46 means?
…cuz I don’t yhink you can.
No thanks. I will not parse that gibberish for you. He doesn’t like that she invoked free speech as a reason for demolishing the display, and it sent him spinning off, human pinwheel-style, into comparisons with Nazism and Pol Pot. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Well, if you ever learn how to parse text then come back and talk. Otherwise, just stay stupid and dance for us.
You wouldn’t happen to fit into an Armadillo shell by chance?
I understand the point. Just not what it has to do with being a woman.
If you have any remaining faith in academia that you’d like to disabuse yourself of, check out the comment sections of
IHE.
Actus,
I can see that. Although if one is more focused on the feminist brand of this mentality then I could see the why the “she” part would be symbolic.
Would you rather he’d called her a man?
‘Cause, I think a case could be made…
Again, not sure why academia is a woman. Perhaps the sex doesn’t matter, but that was just added to the description.
Actually it’s a good analogy. Academia on the whole has become increasingly feminized.
Jay  BTW, geneticists have confirmed that the modern-day Lebanese are the descendants of the Phoenicians.
actus  to no one’s surprise, I’m not sure why your question isn’t peripheral past the point of irrelevance…
tb  Define for me the difference between what she did and what the Taliban did destroying the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan.
High explosives?
?
What is this ‘it’ you accuse me of once having?
I blame Jeff, for not giving us erasers on our pencils.
How do you mean? Whats feminine about it?
This display was how old? How irreplacable.
Would someone like to inform actus about the majority of college students who are women, and, gee, the Womyn’s studies departments?
I know he’ll argue back that Math and science and economics and history are racist white male studies and that womyn, with their history of oppressive oppression deserve their own separate ‘discipline’, but bear with me.
Oh, and most of the university faculty are Donks, you know, the ‘Mommy’ party…
So there are more women in the academy, and thus its become ‘feminized’? I see. Is that all it takes, numbers? Or is the presence of Women’s studies departments important?
Classic threadjacking from the retarded telephone pole. Bravo, sir!
“is the presence of Women’s studies departments important?”
You’re damn right it’s important, Actoff.
At least it would be if the discussion here was really about the feminization of academia, (the small point you seem to have seized upon for your own inscrutable purpose), and not about the hairy-armpit brigade stomping all over a peaceful expression of social/political views on a university campus, which happens to be the one place where such expression is supposed to be sancrosanct.
But of course that’s not what this discussion is about, although you didn’t let that stop you, and you likely never will.
Take one look at the manatee-with-hair who led this little wannabee kristalnacht and tell me this discussion is about anything feminine.
Seriously, have you “seen” that yeti?
So, according to ACTUS, it’s only “intolerant” to destroy symbols or representations of others views if they’re ancient relics. If, on the other hand, they’re recently constructed, it’s simply an exercise of free speech?
Such is the poorly considered and shallowly supported “intellect” of the new left.
This reconfirms an interesting theory that explains the inability to have an “intellectual debate” today between conservatives and liberals that doesn’t descend into name calling and ad hominem attacks.
Given the rejection of traditional religous-based vales and morals by the left, they’ve embraced instead a secular definition of “morality”, defined by where one stands on political issues, such as supporting gay marriage, “ unlimited choice” (as defined by a woman’s right to a partial-birth abortion on demand, but not to parents of children in failing public schools or smokers, gun owners, etc.) and the aborgation of property rights to benefit “the many”. Therefore, when conservatives attempt to make rational, intellectual arguements
against the liberal positions, it’s interpreted as an attack on the “morality” (and in turn the sense of superiority)that empowers the liberal minded to marginalize conservatives and ignore the logic of any of their arguements.
Discuss among yourselves.
God, why does that fit so well?
Oh, and Actoff, one more thing.
Please take note of the difference between the reaction of the prolife Christians to the literal trashing of their sacred symbol, the cross, and the psychotic rage of the guys you’re supporting in the war on Islamofascism to any non-lickspittle reference to their pedophile “prophet”.
Kind of makes me wonder if you were sick the day they covered “how not to be a politically blinded hypocritical douchebag” in school.
“Although” you may just be as dumb as you sound most of the time.
Well, the dude replied that’s why the ‘woman’ part of the description was fitting for academe.
How nice.
No. Its just not the same thing to destroy ancient statutes as it is with a temporary installation. I’m surprised people don’t see the difference here. Think Mt rushmore vs. papier mache.
Tell me about it.
Ya know, Actus, when you’re not deploying the
“I am so detchaed from this whole blog commenting biz” persona, you offer some interesting viewpoints – witness your take, for example, on the defense strategy of Libby’s counsel. Would it be fair to say that, aside from the question of whether or not the case in point exemplifies the current academy, that you agree that Professor Jacobsen’s actions were unacceptable? If not, why?
Or like burning 3rd edition books and burning the 1st editions.
Because if anybody has it coming it is Hawthorne and Melville and Twain. Some books and art and diaramas and cenotaphs just deserve to be annhilated. It’s for the greater good.
And who doesn’t understand the outrage of the Womyn at the fascistic Man trying to put his Laws all over their bodies?
Uhhh…. and that should be “detached.”
“the dude replied that’s why the “woman” part of the description was fitting for acadame” because some dumbass decided to nitpick and bring the use of the descriptive word “woman” up in the first place.
Not how I would have answered your attempted swerve into the swamp. I would have simply replied that if it makes you happy, we’ll refer to her as “it”. “It” (professor Whatever) is a fitting description… etc.
Happy now?
And seriously Actoff, while it may not be nice to refer to “it” as a manatee-with-hair, that’s a damn site nicer than some of the terms I’ve seen you use when referring to people you differ with.
“Like” take another look at the picture, fool.
Maybe. I mean, are we talking gutenberg bible vs. gideons? or the first run of harry potter?
That goes without saying. The proper reaction is to put up another display. I’d recommend burka’ed women.
Like what?
Whats with all the concern with the appearance? Like if it was barbara bush, all white haired, things would be any better? I just don’t see it.
As interesting as this discussion has been
, I’m surprised that no one’s commented on just how far off the beaten path this woman went to destroy this display. It wasn’t a women’s studies class, or even a humanities class (like I’d expect). She got British Literature students to do her dirty work for her. What the heck does American freedom of speech have to do with the irregular spellings and dry humor of the odd British writer? That alone should be grounds for punishment.
“Maybe. I mean, are we talking gutenberg bible vs. gideons? or the first run of harry potter?”
Actus, on this one, you know better. Distinction without a difference. Book burning is book burning.
“Like what?”
You, uh, tend to see the worst in folks, including, to your credit, yourself. Classic melancholic. Useful corrective to the choleric general tone of the bogosphere, although I may be too sanguine.
. . .right. Because the appropriate form for free speech is not to respond, but to shout down. Please. If the professor in question had simply chosen to put up a display of her own alongside the one which offended her, *that* would have been an acceptable and intelligent form of free speech. What she in fact did displayed a desire to censor opposing views, not to debate them.
And actus, if you really believed yourself capable of intelligibly defending what this woman did, you would have done so in the first place, rather than engaging in your usual brand of trivial, indirect sniping, trying clumsily to discredit your opponents by implying that referring to a female professor as–*shock**horror*–a ‘woman’ somehow implies sexism.
Sorry, Bwhacker (and the rest), I couldn’t resist. Now this is the best of what England has produced.
God save The Queen! Cheerio!
Yes, Minister! Capital, Musilhoon, absolutely capital! That and the sequel – Yes, Prime Minister – were pure gold, and the sort of thing that only the British can do, like the Blackadder series. (Imagine one of the big three networks optioning Blackadder – imagine, if you dare, the Fox version!)
Hmmm.
Does this mean that if I’m outraged by Jacobsen that I’m fully permitted to whup her ass?
Anybody for a road trip to Kantuk?
sw: she had me at utter deranged moonbatty fruitcakiness.
I’m dazzled. What a perfect jewel of stupidity. The Buddhas, carved out of the living rock with primitive tools, through great devotion and decades of labor, were works of art. The birthright of all mankind. If you can’t see the difference between that and some crassly faux-religious bullshit political display slapped together in 45 minutes, I can’t help you.
Tuberculosis – what, in your opinion, established that this display was “crassly faux-religious bullshit”? Are you arguing that because they were kitsch in your view, rather than the art you believe the Buddha statues to be, that their destruction was of no moment or significance? Are you suggesting that the motives of the builders of the cross display were not of the same spiritual purity as that of the sculptors of the Buddha statues? If so, where in the accounts offered did you find this insight? You’ve clearly got some type of sliding scale here that allows you to quantify this sort of thing.
“I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to,” Jacobsen said.
THERE IS NOT A “RIGHT” TO “DESTROY” ANOTHER’S FREE SPEECH, PROFESSOR.
Jacobsen must be fired.
The students participating in the vandalism must be punished by the University.
All must be prosecuted for their criminal acts.
I hope NKU President James Votruba [votruba@nku.edu] does the right thing.
That she is a language professor and yet spit out that abomination is cause enough for her termination.
Hey, how about if tb explains to us what “administrators” means in this sentence:
Then, maybe tb can explain why it professes to have some deep understanding of the situation, yet can’t accurately describe what it’s read?
<style, into comparisons with Nazism and Pol Pot.</blockquote>
Ahem. Good thing runninrebel didn’t refer to Hitler’s Autobahn administrators. Nothing worse than a guy who paved things for Hitler.
No, sweetie. You’re fucking stupid. Get a tutor, and maybe a fresh set of “See Dick Run” books. Start from scratch. You’ll be glad you did.
Unless you were an Islamic fundamentalist, then they were just another…
So then by Jacobsens’ own rationalization a person who disagrees with Jacobsen would be within their right to cut out her tongue ala 3rd world despots, and then claim to be exercising their right to free speech?
Destroying memorials to American war dead pretty much makes you anti-American in my book.
The Buddhas, carved out of the living rock with primitive tools, through great devotion and decades of labor, were works of art. The birthright of all mankind. If you can’t see the difference between that and some crassly faux-religious bullshit political display slapped together in 45 minutes, I can’t help you.
And in two separate comments, Tb carves out of the living rock that is her head, a lasting memorial to her own idiocy.
Stirring.
Crosses fashioned by Sheehan against Bush: a memorial to our dead
Crosses fashioned by students against abortion: bullshit political display
Major John,
Tb just made the needle on my new credibilimeter plunge below negative 8 and it shorted out. Where do you get your Fetzer valves?
alpuccino, thilly rabbit, you can’t take credibilometers or, even worse, bullshitometers, onto the internets; the Gamma-stupid radiation emanating from the chain-smoking, Left-wing Hills Have Eyes blogosphere always makes them peg out. Like here, we get to witness left-chiral cranial decay on a daily basis.
TW: Make A Wish, because the World’s-Most-Fucking-Stupidest-Commenter Who-Shall-Remain-Unnamed (actus) IS probably a tumor.
Of course it is. And destroying ancient artifacts is destroying ancient artifacts. We recycle and toss books into the trash. We don’t do that with ancient artifacts. Crosses or other props used in protest get recycled or trashed. Artifacts get saved.
Thats why I said the proper reaction would be another display. Something to argue that the anti-choicers are really anti-sex and anti-women, for example. A pean to contraception, for example. Or red white and blue burkas.
Well, her womanhood was listed as representative of the academy. I was wondering why. If it was just there for the narrative purpose, I can see it. But at least one person leapt up to say it was an appropriate adjective.
No, the proper reaction is to fire the professor for destroying someone else’s property, or arresting her for the same.
So you do make distinctions about whose speech is acceptable, is whose is not. Why is your view more valid? Who’s to say the people who created this display didn’t take “great devotion” to their work? They thought they did, but it was trashed anyway.
Look, it’s simple. Destroying the buddhas was wrong. Destroying someone’s anti-abortion crosses was wrong. Period. There ARE no degrees of wrong on this – both were examples of squelching someone else’s speech because it offended. Both should be treated as such.
I would love to see tb blowing this off if it were a pro-abortion display destroyed by those horrible wingnuts.
TV (Harry)
I’d say destroying the buddhas was two wrongs. The normal problem we have with destroying symbols, plus the fact that ancient irreplaceable artifacts were lost. Like, imagine a looted museum. Or maybe people don’t care about that.
And should also be treated as something else: destruction of artifacts.
Some apparently more than others.
So it is inappropriate for women to have sex with pro-lifer’s during their protests? Geez, why protest if not for the chicks?
As opposed to the more gender neutral ‘man’ of the academy??? Should we throw out a tranny so we can get both sexes at the same time?
Oh, holy shit, what absolutely magnificient fuckheaded idiocy.
“It’s not a tumor!”
Detective John Kimball
So actus,
Given Prof Jacobsen’s physique, would beating her to a pulp technically be categorized as defacing an old Buddah?
Like I said, it could have been there for just narrative convenience. But someone did say it was a ‘perfect symbol.’
Excuse me, I meant ‘genders’, and all of the ‘gals’ with their hanging fruit taped to their shaved leg (actus, looking at you), please forgive my tranny comment.
This is really fascinating stuff.