Well, we already have the Left policing campuses for “wrong” speech (aka “hate speech”), and now the right wants to do it, too. Here’s an “rapid-response” interview of Ben Carson by the odious Glenn Beck (via PuffHo).
If you’re liberal, you’ll be either amused or horrified, and if you’re a free-speech advocate, get a load of this at 3:39:
“I actually have something I would use the Department of Education to do,” Carson responded. “It would be to monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists.”
This isn’t the first time that Carson has called for monitoring colleges for “political bias” (what he means, of course, is “left wing bias”). BuzzFeed notes this:
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson says that part of his plan for education would be to have the Department of Education monitor colleges and universities for “political bias” and withhold funding from them if it exists.
“I think the Department of Education should monitor institutions of higher education for political bias and withhold federal funding if it exists,” Carson told Las Vegas radio host Heidi Harris on Thursday.
The retired neurosurgeon was discussing his plan for education — a plan Carson said would rely heavily on the embracing on new technology.
“I would change the function of the Department of Education,” said Carson.
Is this an example of the Right taking a cue from the left?
Uh, because we want the government monitoring our speech? Has he checked with his conservative buddies on this?
No problem. There’s plenty of non-overlapping compartmentalization to help prevent the kind of contact dissonance reactions that can break out when ideas accidentally bump together.
We can just allow total free speech and let the chips fall where they may.
That is what those who think policing speech for hate is a two edged sword and better to live with it than discourage it officially. Maybe it is. How would we implement that is my concern?
I say we do nothing, allow all speech and if some chips break when they fall where they may, make the speaker pay for them. Free speech cannot become a crime unless we decide we are better off with even less freedom. What else should we restrict? With all the newest neurological equipment why don’t we restrict thought too. That alone will prevent much of the unwanted speech. And you know what? Today’s haircuts stand for subversive ideas. Let’s ban most haircuts and certainly all facial hair. And what about the trimming of private areas? How is that not worse than anyone’s words?
This is the paradox that always amuses me the most with conservatives — they are vehemently against so called “big government” but then they are all for big government to monitor, suppress and punish people whose ideas they don’t like.
You said it!
Bing, bing, bing, we have a winner! 🙂
Argh
It’s rather depressing that millions of Americans would love nothing more than to see Doc Carson living in the White House.
A muskrat would have more sense.
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Don’t you mean a *dead* muskrat?
Don’t say that to John Kovalic!
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I wish this myskrat would go pine for the fiords already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBYV_7a0FQs
Given the total cluelessness of this guy, I doubt he even made the connection to “politically correct” censorship of the kind practiced by nearly equally clueless left wingers.
So for you hate speech is still speech and must be given voice? Calling people “fatty” and “niggers” and “kikes” and “spicts” aud nauseum must be allowed. So how do we curb it from leading to hangings and other violence? Which it will. How do we pressure such hate to extinguish it? That is never addressed. Just shut up and let them vent their hatreds is wanted. Being clueless seems to lie more with those who want such speech vented than to defuse it.
Yes. Absolutely, unquestionably, unhesitatingly.
It most emphatically has not. Empirically.
Racially-motivated lynchings were so common a few generations ago that the hangman’s noose was colloquially known as a “nigger necktie.”
We haven’t placed any legal restrictions on the word. It’s become socially unacceptable, yes, but there’re still plenty of racists who love using the word with reckless abandon and who face absolutely not the slightest legal obstacle to doing so.*
And lynchings are now a thing of the past.
The only speech that needs to be protected is the speech you find hateful. Inoffensive, uncontroversial speech needs no protection.
Cheers,
b&
People have been lynched in the 21st century. Whether beaten to death or tied up to a fence to die or dragged behind a truck till they are torn apart. Oh they have died because of what they are and others who hate them for it. So I cannot cheer yet.
We still live amidst barbarians in a barbarian society. Till that barbarianism is crushed and gone we will never be safe. The problem is how without violating others rights. That is the problem since our adversaries do not bother with the rights of others and no horror is beyond them should they have the chance to use it.
The whole idea of free speech is for that which is unpopular, unpalatable and unlovable.
And we don’t want to become the monsters we want to slay either as Nietzsche warned.
The limits are from Jefferson in that as long as it doesn’t break our legs or pick our pockets it can be said. So it is no easy task even so too often those who say such things may be willing to do violence as well. But not always.
Yes — but only in rare and isolated and newsworthy incidents. Not that long ago, it was unremarkable casual entertainment.
We still live amidst barbarians in a barbarian society. Till that barbarianism is crushed and gone we will never be safe. The problem is how without violating others rights. That is the problem since our adversaries do not bother with the rights of others and no horror is beyond them should they have the chance to use it.
Wow…you are so far out of touch with the actual reality of life in the West in modernity I’ve not a clue how I could possibly get through to you. Reading that paragraph, I’d think you were in Iraq or North Korea or Saudi Arabia or someplace like that.
But, you know what?
It’s places like that, with the real problems of barbarianism, that have the most stringent restrictions on freedom of speech. The safe places don’t censor and have no need for censorship. Indeed, censorship is inevitably used as a tool of oppression, tyranny, and barbarity; it is an active cause of the ills you would have us combat with it.
Just as you can’t kill your way to peace, you can’t censor your way to freedom.
b&
“Just as you can’t kill your way to peace, you can’t censor your way to freedom. ”
So worth three-peating!
There are murders now. They happen all the time.
But not lynchings as acceptable (not even worthy of comment and never punished) as a form of public entertainment as was the case before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
You cannot punish thought (period) or speech (unless it’s a direct incitement to immediate violence).
You are missing one really important point: Who gets to decide what is acceptable speech? In general, where such restrictions have been in place (look around the world — blasphemy laws are one of the most egregious examples) they wrong sort of people have been making those decisions.
In fact, I’ll go further: Any person who wishes to restrict free speech is, by having that stance, the wrong sort of person to decide.
Indeed – the best weapon against unsavory speech is more speech! Free speech allows people to say whatever they want without the government suppressing them….it doesn’t mean we have to listen, accept or condone what the speakers say and the best way to persuade others to ignore, reject and condemn speech they find offensive is to counter that offensive speech!
“The only speech that needs to be protected is the speech you find hateful. Inoffensive, uncontroversial speech needs no protection.”
Indeed!
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favour of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.”
— Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)
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Erm, that’s pretty much the way it is now, and has been for some time. People call other people “nigger” and “kike” all the time. On rare occasions, it leads to violence. That violence is not viewed as justified. But the speech is legal.
And where such speech takes place during a face-to-face confrontation likely to break into imminent violence, law enforcement may call a halt to it to separate the parties (and may take them into custody, if they refuse to separate). That is the “fighting words” doctrine.
There’s a flip side to it.
Let’s go ahead and wave a magic wand and make the utterance of the word, “nigger,” a crime of some sort.
Who, then, is going to arrest and prosecute Chris Rock the next time he performs this routine?
First part … second part
Or are we going to have exceptions for Blacks? For comics? Only Black comics? Can you use it in historical contexts, or art or literature? If you’re reciting Huck Finn? What if you’re at a trial for somebody accused of saying it, and you’re a witness for the prosecution — are you permitted to repeat what you heard? Is the prosecutor permitted to use the word in his prosecution? Can you use the word, “niggardly,” or is that also banned?
There’s no reasonable way to restrict speech like this.
Indeed, the only solution is twofold. First, make it socially unacceptable to use language, whatever language, to insult others; second, embrace the unacceptable language for yourself.
My recent ancestors all came from Europe, but we all here know that all our ancestors eventually trace back to Africa. That makes me a nigger, and it makes you a nigger, and it makes us all niggers. And, in my particular case, I’m also a kike, a gringo, a pommie, a katsap, a roundface, a polack, and more. I don’t happen to have much spic or wop or kraut or coolie or raghead heritage, but what little I have is plenty for me to demand membership in those tribes as well, even if only honorary.
Offense must be taken in equal measure to how it’s given; if you don’t take any offense, then no offense has been given, even if great offense has been offered.
Cheers,
b&
You raise legitimate, though not fatal, concerns. Criminal offenses require both an “act” and a “mental state.” (An actus reus and a mens rea, per the Latin terminology taught in first-year law school classes.)
It would certainly be possible — although I am by no means advocating this — to craft statutes prohibiting the use of certain words uttered for a blameworthy purpose (say, with the intent to offend another). It is, after all, upon such fine mental distinctions that the difference between murder or manslaughter or justifiable homicide sometimes turns.
As I say, I’m opposed to any such efforts on policy grounds. Such statutes would create a host of practical problems, some of which you’ve touched upon in your comment. But it is enough to disposes of them now to observe that they would offend existing First Amendment free-speech doctrine.
“Intent to offend another”? That is the very essence of the First Amendment – the right to offend anyone, of high station or low. The First Amendment isn’t there to protect speech we agree with. Such speech doesn’t need protecting.
The Constitution doesn’t recognize the concept of “hate speech.” We don’t criminalize “hate speech.” Hate actions, another matter.
Well, that’s my point, Jeff. Ben had suggested that no practical distinction could be drawn between an epithet uttered by a bigot and the same epithet uttered by a comedian.
I’m saying that such a distinction could be drawn — that the law makes such distinctions all the time, based on the intent of the accused — but that drawing such a legal distinction involving speech (rather than pure conduct) would clearly run afoul of the First Amendment.
Is there some basis on which you disagree?
Don’t forsake of checking those categories off quite yet, Ben. After all, Hitchens didn’t discover he was a Jew until the last couple years of his life.
Well, that’s codified in many, if not all, state and municipal disorderly conduct statutes. Such statutes do not depend on whether anyone “halts” or “separates.” Usually, language intended or likely to provoke a violent or disorderly response is sufficient. Such statutes are routinely challenged on First Amendment grounds. They sometimes need tuning up, but rarely found unconstitutional in toto.
Yes, but I’m not talking about the authority that municipal ordinance or state statutes purportedly give the police; I’m talking about what the First Amendment allows. “Disorderly conduct” and “disturbing the peace” laws must be narrowly construed to pass constitutional muster. (They were, after all, often used by the cops as pretexts for breaking up legitimate protests during the civil-rights era.) Disorderly conduct offenses, in this respect, are like trespassing violations; attempts to enforce them are routinely preceded by warnings from the police to desist in the allegedly unlawful conduct.
Well, I don’t want to get sidetracked here, but I’ve dealt with these cases from all aspects – prosecutor, defense attorney and judge – And in the overwhelming number I’ve seen, the cops weren’t even around until all the shouting was over.
I think we got sidetracked by this discussion of disorderly conduct laws. My initial point was that the government can suppress a particular type of speech under certain specific circumstances — where that speech creates an imminent threat of retaliatory violence. For First Amendment purposes, it matters not at all if the speech at issue also happens to technically violate the essential elements of some state statute or municipal ordinance.
By the same token, the government can suppress speech that presents a “clear and present danger” of inciting others to violence whether or not the speech happens coincidentally to violate the essential elements of some local ordinance, if any, outlawing incitements.
In both instances, the representative of the government suppressing the speech may well be a police officer or other law enforcement agent — and the officer may or may not cite some local ordinance or statute as the pretext for suppressing the speech — but such details are immaterial to the core First Amendment free-speech analysis.
That would qualify as “immediate incitement.”
That is so unfounded and misguided! Are you so cloistered that you’ve never heard the rejoinder that the answer to hate speech is more speech?
You overcome bad ideas with good ideas, not by sweeping them under the carpet and then pretending that the lump isn’t there. Let the bigots and racists and homophobes and misogynists, et al, make themselves perfectly obvious, then call them out for the bigots, racists, etc., that they are.
Hear, hear! 😉
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Your guess is correct, he doesn’t make that connection. Liberals don’t even need to censor, they just need to complain about him making hateful remarks, for him to compare them to Nazis. The US is becoming a “Gestapo state,” according to Carson, thanks to “political correctness”.
What is with all this “extreme political bias” talk regarding American universities? Ben Carson has spent enough time on campuses to perceive the kaleidopolitical makeup of most college faculties. Once you realize that professors are all conservative enough to vote their own pocketbooks, and therefore will support issues and candidates likely to benefit higher ed, that is.
Yup. Silencing the opposition is an equal opportunity activity
Gee, I wonder if they’ll use this logic to start eliminating money from religious organizations that are politically biased. Or maybe they would repeal their tax-free status – the way it’s supposed to be. I’m sure they’ll start that just about the time hell freezes over.
I’m sorry, religious considerations are stored in the next compartment over. The one without a mirror.
You need to watch out for Carson. Despite the complete f**kwittery displayed on every topic, he is extremely popular with voters on BOTH sides. There’s a lot more here than just his freedom of speech ideas that are troublesome.
He has been asked if his idea applies to conservative bias too, and he said it did, although it was clear the idea of conservative bias had never occurred to him.
He has mastered the art of speaking softly while his words are the big stick. The latest Quinnipiac Pole shows him 28% to Trump‘s 20%.
I hadn’t seen that one yet. That’s really scary!
Well, that poll is the Iowa Republican Caucus, an important early primary for the GOP, but nationally, and in most other states, Trump still leads. For me, it’s hard to say which one is scarier.
I would not put much stock in the Iowa results for many reasons. It is not a good example of almost any other state. Very white, very small, only 1% of the population and also pretty rural. They do the caucus here and that is far different than a primary. It gets lots of attention because it’s first but that is about all it is.
Yeah, I’ve found out since too it was only Iowa, but since that’s a swing state, the results the results could be significant. If I had to choose between Carson and Trump, I’d choose Trump, although as you say, both are really scary.
My opinion, fwiw, is Carson has some weird delusions (like believing in the End Times) and thinks he knows better than anyone else but is easily able to be manipulated. Trump has delusions about himself, but at least talks about appointing good people to do stuff, and has proved to have an ability to pick good people, and listens to them.
Choosing between Trump and Carson is a bit like choosing between being boiled in oil, or merely fried in it.
But Trump is far more dangerous. Carson has no idea who to call and give orders to. Trump does, and would expect them to be obeyed.
Carson would become somebody’s bit…er…puppet, and Trump would not, yes. But Trump would be instantly stymied by the existing checks and balances and be rendered mostly ineffective. Carson would have his strings pulled by somebody like Rove or Cheney.
Between the two of them, as so very dangerous as Trump is, Carson is far more dangerous.
b&
That’s definitely also a potential scenario.
Just how dangerous Carson might be would depend upon how Cheney-like his Cheney, and how Rove-like his Rove, turned out to be, no?
No doubt the department of education already monitors it’s curriculum and professors for “extreme” political bias. I would hope so, anyway. Mild political bias obviously exists already in higher education. It would be almost impossible to avoid it in certain subjects. And I’m sure we are all against extreme political bias in colleges and universities and would want it to be stopped if noticed. The only question is what is your definition of “extreme” political bias and what is Ben Carson’s definition of “extreme” political bias.
As has been true at least since the time of Juvenal, there are two even more crucial questions: Who will be the watchmen — and who will watch the watchmen?
Schools should have no interest in whatever political bias anyone has unless it can lead to violent rhetoric which can lead to violence.
Clearly. But what Carson is proposing is much worse than that: a central authority within the Department of Education to monitor the universities to make sure they are policing the speech on campus for “political bias” (and to sanction the schools that aren’t doing so to the Department’s satisfaction).
As Frank Zappa put it: The Central Scrutinizer …
Well if we are looking for “extreme” bias we will need extreme watchmen and even more extreme watchmen of the watchmen. This is extremely important. And don’t get me started on extreme sports.
Watchmen all the way down …
His answer to the first question is good.
And then the second one…as it so happens, a couple weeks ago I myself was in Bisbee. You could see the Great Wall from the motel parking lot. We drove down there to look at it up close…absolutely horrific. It was pretty clear that Naco, the town on the other side of the border, was, on the one hand, indistinguishable from Bisbee…and, on the other, actually looked like a lovely little residential area that likely had a market just begging for tourists to fawn over.
There’s no doubt about it…the Wall is evil and we’re on the worng side of it and history.
Reagan demanded of Gorbachev that he “tear down that wall.” I demand the same thing of Obama. I’m sick of there being an artificial barrier dividing what should be a single people, of being simultaneously fenced in and out.
How can it be the land of the free if we’re not free to wander the land?
…and then Carson just kept going farther and farther off the rails….
b&
Our walls are “different” of course. Walls can keep out, but also keep in.
Ours does both.
I would have loved to have popped over the border to Naco and wandered around, tourist-style. As I noted, through the fence it seemed quit a lovely little place. But doing so was absolutely out of the question.
Even if I had enough papers with me to satisfy our Stasi enforcers — papers I don’t even have, period — no way would I be even remotely interested in subjecting myself to the sorts of gate rape they’re obviously set up to perform.
I would be personally delighted to bulldoze the entire length of the wall, collect all that scrap metal, and turn it into something useful.
b&
Yet, according to the meet recent polls, Carson is now leading amongst likely Republican caucus voters. He even beats Trump. The Republican party is now dominated by very aggrieved people, who have no compunction in backing the most extreme candidates (all Republican candidates are extreme, just some more than others). The Republican party is both a danger to democracy as well as just the everyday running of government.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-iowa_5628c87fe4b0ec0a3893405b
Um, Ben, WEATHER is “always changing”, CLIMATE has been pretty stable for the past 10,000 years but now IS changing.
In 1992, Nat Hentoff published the book “Free Speech for Me–But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other”.
He quotes Clark Kerr “The purpose of a university is to make students safe for ideas–not ideas safe for students.”
The lessons of this book don’t seem to have sunk in over the past 28 years.
Clark Kerr, the man who Ronnie the rat fired as one of his first acts as Governor of California.
Looks like Reagan got the message about
Clark Kerr and got rid of him. How can you trust an FBI fink like our former president?
Kerr took fire from both sides during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. As the saying goes, there’s nothing in the middle-of-the-road but yellow stripes and road-kill.
And even it you aren’t. This, however, is one of the key points about censorship: Once you admit the principle, it’s only a question of who gets to decide.
Did Carson say at the end of the clip that the US should withdraw from the UN?
Sure, the UN is in many respects feckless. But what’s Carson propose in its place, nada? Say what you will about the United Nations, the Cold War never got hot.
Extreme Reich Wingers have been advocating leaving the UN since its formation in 1945. Even though today’s UN does what the US Empire wants. A paper tiger.
If the UN does the imperial bidding of the United States, why would the extreme right want to the US to leave it? The annual membership fees are too pricey? Not following your logic here.
If you are in the UN you have to admit that other peoples are at least human. This weights heavily on the right.
A fraction of them do, think the UN is some powerful force. It is illogical on its face. The only possible reason I see for some of them to believe is that they would “fight against the UN” in the USA should they be directed by others as useful idiots. And it isn’t “my logic” I am using here.
It’s even part of the official platform of the Texas Republican Party.
Good thing, then, that the TX GOP doesn’t qualify for a seat on the UN Security Council, huh?
Nah, RONNIE RAYGUN saved us from the Cold War. Didn’t you get the memo from the Cato Institute?
/sarcasm
The thought of Ben Carson being in charge of education policy, or anything else, is frightening, but I’m a cynic as well as a skeptic and find that there’s so much outrageously repressive thought and speech policing originating on the left that the left will be horrified only because this is coming from the other end of the spectrum.
A few days ago, in a reply to the “Caturday felids trifecta” post, as an aside, I gave the link to an article on Carson by Marty Kaplan, Norman Lear professor of entertainment, media and society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
The citation was out of place in a post about cats, however fetching, and I want to repost the info because this is an excellent and comprehensive critique of the man and his beliefs, so that those who have an interest in Carson and such matters can access it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/the-nutty-neurosurgeon_b_8266342.html.
Those with an interest in the fallacy of art as being a necessarily humanizing force should read this as well. This link is different from the one originally posted, but it is one Mr. Kaplan sent to me after I queried him about something in the article. In the previous reply I wrote, “In addition to his trenchant, across-the-board take-down of Carson, Kaplan has some apt thoughts about the fallacy that an appreciation of literature and the arts in general is de facto humanizing…”
Re the thought police and their relentless quest to regulate speech, thought, and behavior (mea culpa the Oxford comma, but it’s an ingrained habit and one that makes sense to me) the other night on the ever amusing and appalling Coast to Coast AM, George Nouri interviewed yet another woo-woo who believes in extraterrestrials. She happened to mention that it’s now “politically incorrect” to refer to ETs as “aliens.” Nouri concurred. The imagination runs riot with thoughts of an emergent undocumented extraterrestrial migrant rights movement. “Reptilians from Draco, Unite!”
Stick with that Oxford comma. That way you won’t have a series mistaken for an appositive phrase (as in the book dedication “For my parents, God and Ayn Rand”).
Righto. I’m stickin’ with it.
I wouldn’t trust commas to clarify that particular dedication. I’d write it as, “For my parents; and for God; and also for Ayn Rand.” It being a dedication, I might even make it more flowery: “For my parents, who gave me a great start to life; for God, who’s the bestest imaginary friend ever; and for Ayn Rand, who makes it so easy for me to not think about what a selfish prick I am.”
Then again, anybody dumb enough to dedicate a book to God but give the place of honor in the dedication to Ayn Rand is dumb enough to write the dedication in a way that makes readers think he’s God’s bastard love child with Rand.
b&
Given your efforts above, I’m interested in your solution to the inverse problem: If one doesn’t use the Oxford comma, one’s appositive phrase may well be misconstrued as a series.
For example: “I gave copies to my parents, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
This sentence is ambiguous as to how many copies were given to whom — unless the reader knows that the writer employs the Oxford comma, the absence of which here renders it beyond peradventure that the copies distributed by the author (Chelsea, or an as-yet undisclosed sibling) numbered two.
Lots of options.
I’d probably go with, “I gave copies to my parents and to the Clintons.”
Or, “In addition to the copy I gave to my parents, I also sent one to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
If the list starts to grow, don’t hesitate to reach for the supercomma (typographically identical to the semicolon): “I gave several copies to my parents; one to the former first couple; two each to the current members of the Supreme Court; and a dozen to the EPA’s Superfund administrator.”
If it grows much more complex than that, forget the descriptive language and put it in a table.
Cheers,
b&
Oh, I realize that there are always other syntactical or usage options. My concern is that by abjuring the Oxford comma you’re regularly at risk of having your serial lists and appositives mistaken for one another — that, without the extra comma, you have to add prolix verbiage to ensure correct understanding, and that you cannot simply write
and have them immediately understood as meaning two different things — since, without that extra comma after Bubba’s name in the first, they appear identical.
Why are you agin’ the Oxford comma?
I would like to know why Ben Goren and Jerry Coyne are against the Oxford comma. It was his comment in the August 21st post that prompted mine; and though that post generated replies asking him why, so far he’s been mum on the matter. Unless I’m reading something purposefully ambiguous, say a poem or certain kinds of prose, when I read I want to know what the referents are so that my attention can stay focused on understanding what I’m reading and appreciating the substance of the writing itself. I don’t want to have to stop, lose focus and concentration (precious cognitive resources), my over-taxed synapses frustratingly firing blanks trying to figure out which whatever goes with which other whatever in these kinds of grammatical constructions – is this in apposition or is this serial or what? Is this peritaxis or hypotaxis or are those considerations grammatically irrelevant? When I get stuck on those things, when the referents aren’t clear, pretty soon I don’t care and lose interest in what I’m reading. This doesn’t mean that I’m a strict constructionist; one must reserve the freedom to use either construction; and the use of the comma in general is fluid these days. Ambiguity isn’t inherent in the dropped comma; but too often the omission is due to sloppiness or ignorance, which is what creates the ambiguity. However, one doesn’t throw either baby out with the bathwater. If one detests the Oxford comma so much that one must resort to creating Rube Goldbergian grammatical contraptions to evade it [,?] that again defeats the need for clarity. Consider how much ink has been spilled over the rule against placing a preposition at the end of an English sentence; how many have been forever bedeviled and needlessly cowed for violating what Fowler calls “a cherished superstition,” when in fact that rule derives from the imposition of Latinate syntax on a Germanic language. The comma in general is frequently misused, and the problems relating to the Oxford comma point to the greater problems of ambiguity; but there are few rules and one must develop a kind of comma sense, which I admittedly haven’t mastered, and am guilty of not always making my referents clear, though I try. I find that I’m apt to use punctuation marks while unintentionally under the influence of some book I’ve been reading. Now, after reading this spirited, thought-provoking thread I’m as confused as ever comma-wise, but that’s a good thing, because I hope that it’s productive of meaningful synaptic confusion, i.e., learning.
I like Oxford commas. I also like line breaks …
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That’s it in a nutshell.
Yes, one can propose syntactical rules to make everything neat and elegant, and the Oxford comma is one such possibility. But the great thing about standards is that there’re so many to pick from. So, no matter what, nobody’s going to know for certain which standard you’re using…and, therefore, confusion will reign.
So, sidestep the matter entirely. Write in such a way that it doesn’t matter which standard your audience prefers.
Cheers,
b&
Who gives a fuck about the Oxford comma?
b&
@ Jenny
“…and though that post generated replies asking him why, so far he’s been mum on the matter.”
Assuming you mean Jerry and not Ben…there’s no way the former has the time to read each and every comment after a post. I.e., he’s likely to be completely unaware of such replies rather than being mum about them.
(PS: All hail the Oxford comma!)
WTF, WP?
The @ Jenny comment was from me (not I). Sorry for the anonymous post.
The reason for the “rapid-response” is to match how much time either Carson or Beck has spent thinking about the subjects. And I say thinking in the loosest terms possible.
I do believe they would get faster answers from Trump because he is a high energy guy. Both of these boys, Trump or Carson would save lots of money in staff alone because they really have no need.
Never in the anything goes and endless campaign do you hear anyone ask – How the hell do you get that idea past Congress. These are the Nike candidates….just do it.
The unifying element between him and the social justice warrior “left” is authoritarianism. See this highly informative entry on this very
blogsite:https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/guest-post-linda-calhoun-reviews-the-authoritarians/
“Is this an example of the Right taking a cue from the left?”
There’s quite a profound difference between the suggestion that the government should control what can and cannot be said or taught in universities and the sort of thing you tend to characterise as ‘attacks on free speech’ by students. Some of those student complaints and protests may be misguided, but they are within their rights to make them. Indeed, they are exercising their free speech by making them. Carson is advocating a genuine attack on free speech. I.e. government censorship.
Yes, and he is the constitution guy.
It’s a clear indication that Ben Carson has no unified political philosophy, that he is instead making it up ad hoc as he goes along, sometimes seemingly on the spur of the moment after he’s been asked a question.
Some of his proposals suggest he favors laissez-faire free-market solutions (as in the case of health care). His proposal here for a centralized authority to police speech on campus, on the other hand, smacks of Stalinism.
The only difference between Carson and the students is their current job aspirations.
As someone said, reality has a liberal bias, so there’s little wonder people like Carson know so little about it (reality, that is).
“Is this an example of the Right taking a cue from the left?”
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Carson a “I decide what to think” fascist? Who knew?
Speaking of which, Sweden got another Breivik yesterday, a putatively politically motivated school killer which is a rare occurrence (4 years since the last one?)* and among young children which is a first.
Not so many dead by all means but a young kid and two young adults so far. The killer among them, but preliminary results is finds of expressed right wing extremism and ethnic bigotry.
*I dunno about Sweden’s statistics, but a paper claimed that the incidence rate in Europe is rising. Haven’t seen the statistics yet though.
Depends what he means. If he means preventing Marxist nutters from proselytizing in the classroom, well, we all know that exists in pretty much all universities, and trying to shut them down would be a huge case of censorship, not at all in keeping with the spirit of the constitution.
On the other hand, he could mean something quite different: some universities have policies that inhibit free speech, encouraging left-wing views, but censuring expressions of right-wing opinion. Punishing universities for operating such systems of censorship would be entirely in keeping with the spirit of the First Amendment.
Well, he *could*. But do you honestly think he *does*?
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Yes, he could, and no, I don’t know whether he does. What I can say with some certainty is that he will at some point be forced to to explain his position more precisely.
Sub
Sub?
The prefix to scribe. Some of us passive agressively point out with this method of following comment streams that WordPress should incorporate a method to follow posts without commenting…anyone listening out there in WordPress land? Probably not…
Thanks. I know I’m not “hip” to the “lingo” those crazy kids use these days, but I’m trying.
No worries, Jeff, this question gets asked about once a week or so. 🙂
Once again, that was me, not Anonymous. OK, WP, why do I have to keep signing in today?
That wouldn’t necessarily be as bad as you’re implying Jerry.
The question is: is he talking about bias just in the general attitudes of the people on campus or is he talking about the rules and behaviour of the campus authorities, whoever they may be.
The first would be bad.
The second would probably be good. Anyone with any authority over what students do, learn or think SHOULD be forced to represent the range of political views of the general population.
No they shouldn’t. First of all, this nonsense about schools being hives of “leftist indoctrination” has been a false trope for years.
Second, you forget they come to college already indoctrinated. By their parents and their church, among others. They could stand to learn a few other viewpoints, even if those include some liberal ones.