Election day highlights from around the country: Ohio nixes marijuana, San Francisco boots their Sanctuary City Sheriff and Kentucky elects a Republican governor whose black, female lieutenant governor running mate has a back story that sounds like a female version of Ben Carson’s.
Oh, and did I mention that both Governor-elect Matt Belvin and his Lt. Governor, Jenean Hampton, are Tea Party activists who have never held public office before? That sounds like bad news for the DNC and the RNC. Connect the dots, Reince.
And as a follow-up on this week’s informal topic, free speech, there’s this killer article from the always wonderful Richard Fernandez: A World of Their Own. Snippets can’t do it justice, you’ll simply have to read the whole thing.
The New York Times has a series of articles examining the causes of why an entire generation “has become less tolerant of free speech” noting the growing list of subjects or persons that are now banned on campuses to prevent people from freaking out.
High-profile speakers — Christine Lagarde, Condoleezza Rice — have been disinvited from or otherwise pushed out of commencement addresses, thanks to students who didn’t want to hear what they had to say. Comedians have sworn off performing at colleges because they say students can’t take a joke. ---
In defense of this trend, a recent graduate from Brown explained that certain points of view were intolerable to people and they saw no reason to endure it. Therefore, a rising generation that simply wanted a “more inclusive and just world” has decided to exclude certain people and topics the way filters block unwanted signals.
In the past, when schools still regarded it their job to prepare the young for a world of danger and disappointment, mentors were expected to teach their students how to look unflinchingly at the facts. In those days educated men were distinguished by their ability to gaze full upon the truth armed with a free speech, which as Eugene Volokh reminds, opened our eyes to the pleasant and unpleasant alike.
Today, we don’t want to know. We don’t even want to know what we don’t know. In all the wide world the only trigger warning that is forbidden is the one which alerts us to our own ignorance.
We are definitely not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. No courage, no brain, no heart, no way home; just a “wizard” of smart.
And colleges everywhere seem just fine with that.
Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!
Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network
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