Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who died late Friday at age 80, knew about affecting change through policy-making. When Lewis was one of the marquee speakers at the monumental March on Washington in 1963, that event led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964; when Lewis participated in the seminal Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965, that gathering led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Jim Zwerg served as a pivotal Freedom Rider with Lewis in 1961, the year he also met the Rev. C.T. Vivian, another of Martin Luther King Jr.s lieutenants. Vivian, who died at age 95 on Friday morning, was more of a top-notch teacher for Zwerg, as Lewis was more of a prodigious peer.

The Freedom Riders were mostly college students determined to desegregate interstate travel in the South where the custom was to separate passengers by race on buses and in terminals. At that time, Zwerg was a 22-year-old white guy who left an all-white area in Wisconsin to experience the segregated South as an exchange student at Fisk University, a historically black school in Nashville.

A classic walk a mile in someone elses shoes.

Lewis, also at Fisk, inspired him to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement, to get into good trouble, as Lewis preferred to call joining the cause.

Everyone respected his total commitment and discipline to non-violence, said Zwerg, now 81. John had a deep commitment to faith.

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Gregory Clay: Which of us has the right to free speech? - Waco Tribune-Herald

The recent spate over cancel culture saw Americas leading institutions from newsrooms and art museums to aeronautics and utility companies remove or fire employees for perceived transgressions against todays standards; expect tomorrows to unearth new heretics. This began on university campuses but graduated into our professional class, with the primary message: Free speech is unsafe at any speed.

If were to maintain an open, democratic and pluralist society that solves differences through debate, not violence, it starts by countering the cancel culture where it started: on campus.

Its clear that higher education is losing the argument for free expression and robust discourse.

Many university professors, provosts and presidents came of age during the free speech movement and largely live by those values. So whats caused this rapid shift toward illiberalism? One factor is students are arriving on campus less prepared to live and study with those from different backgrounds.

Today, students are growing up in what The Pew Research Center calls think-alike communities. Its no surprise that students first safety impulse is to cancel anyone who doesnt agree with them on every issue. These outsized reactions create a chilling effect, as students are unable to separate the truth of their colleagues emotional response with the veracity of their argument. Essentially, they cannot disagree with a position without disagreeing with their friend as a person.

In turn, political issues cant openly be debated: A 2018 UCLA report found only about half of students were satisfied with their campus ability to provide an atmosphere welcoming to political differences.

Fear of being socially ostracized also prevents students from speaking up. A 2019 College Pulse survey found 68% agreed their campus climate precludes students from expressing their true opinions because their classmates might find them offensive, and a 2020 University of North Carolina survey found many students worry about the consequences of expressing sincere political views and that they engage regularly in self-censorship.

To correct this, many universities are seeking to re-establish themselves as institutions of intellectual exploration, imparting the values of open exchange to their students.

The University of Richmond, under the leadership of President Ronald A. Crutcher, convened a Free Expression Task Force in May 2019, which drafted a recommended statement that will be discussed on campus this fall. Crutcher personally hosts the Sharp Viewpoint Series and Spider Talks to bring challenging conversations and provocative ideas to campus.

Another example worth emulating: Professors Robert P. George and Cornel West, political opposites (George a conservative, West a liberal) who not only teach together but enjoy a famous friendship. Theyve shown disagreement not only can be civil, but friendly and productive.

If students want to build a constructive and diverse country, use college to develop their philosophical understanding, stress-test their prior views and even be willing to change them, follow these basic strategies:

1. Professors (usually) are your allies. Yes, most professors lean left, but most make it a point of pride that multiple viewpoints can be aired in their classes. At UNC, majorities of both liberal and conservative students reported instructors are encouraging of political participation from students across the political spectrum.

2. Show your commitment to hearing all sides in remote classrooms. You wouldnt take a partisan banner to an in-person class. Likewise, for online meetings, choose a neutral background or one that reflects your personality to signal that youre open to hearing from all your classmates.

3. Be ready when a conversation becomes heated. Instead of immediately disagreeing, ask, Help me understand where youre coming from. Listening to someone elses opinion doesnt mean you endorse it, and letting them elaborate might encourage them to give you a fair hearing, too.

4. Know the issues from many sides. Take advantage of student rates to subscribe to a right-leaning news source (for example, The Wall Street Journal or National Review) and a left-leaning one (such as The New York Times or The New Republic). Youll have more information to support your claims and gain credibility by showing familiarity with arguments on both sides.

Cancel culture might have escaped the campus, but universities are poised to play an important role in rolling it back by imparting the values of an open and inclusive society to the next generation of students.

Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill is director of the Bipartisan Policy Centers Campus Free Expression Project. She previously served on the faculties of St. Johns College in Annapolis, Md., and the College of William & Mary. She also has taught at Duke University, the University of Calgary, Humboldt Universitt zu Berlin and in the college program at Marylands only prison for women. Contact her at: jPfefferMerrill@bipartisanpolicy.org

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Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill column: Diagnosing the campus cancel culture and its prescription - Richmond.com

SaturdayJul25,2020at12:01AM

This is in response to Andy VanDeusen. You talk about being bullied and what you dont realize is that is exactly what the superintendent of Wooster City Schools did to the Wayne County Fair Board.

They bullied and threatened the fair board into changing their mind about the Confederate flag. If anyone is offended or insulted by the Confederate flag, then its time for them to put on their big boy pants and suck it up.

What is really bad is that the superintendent did the same thing to the fair board and to me that is much worse.

You dont need to tell me that the students of Wooster City Schools complained about the Confederate flag. It was only a handful of people and that is not enough to squash free speech.

There are a lot of things I dont like, but I ignore it instead of complaining. If you dont like something, I either look the other way or ignore it. Its not hurting anyone, so maybe we should all do that.

As I close, I would like to state that anyone voting for Biden is voting to defund the police. This man doesnt know where he is or what he is running for half of the time. Why in Gods name would anyone want a man like this to run our country.

Dennis Miller

Holmesville

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Letter to the editor: There's nothing more to Confederate flag than free speech - Massillon Independent

New policies include the phrase Students shall be permitted to assemble and engage in spontaneous expressive activity, and students are no longer required to make reservations or be an official club to engage in speech on campus.

In fall 2019, a University of Wisconsin-River Falls campus official threatened to call the police on Sofie Salmon, a freshman student exercising her right to free speech by rolling a six-foot inflated free speech ball around the campus courtyard allowing other students to write whatever they desired on it.

"Students shall be permitted to assemble and engage in spontaneous expressive activity."

The official told Salmon that she could not engage in free speech or free expression in the public outdoor areas of the campus unless she had registered as a student club or had made a reservation.

[RELATED: EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: UW official tells conservative student with 'free speech ball' to move or face the cops]

Salmon, now a rising sophomore, and Rebekah Beeton, who was a Regional Field Coordinator for the Leadership Institute, Campus Reform's parent organization, at the time both took out their phones and recorded the encounter with the campus official.

WATCH:

During this brief encounter, the campus official, Kristin Barstad, accuses Salmon of violating one of the universitys policies but admitted that she was not going to know that [policy] off the top of her head.

UW-River Falls did not respond to Campus Reform when asked which specific policy was allegedly violated by Salmon.

[RELATED: STUDY: Free speech under serious threat at Wisconsin colleges]

Soon after this incident took place and the video began circulating, the Alliance Defending Freedom sent UW-River Falls a letter accusing the school of violating the student's right to free speech. The ADF deemed the universitys policies unconstitutional.

To avoid litigation and comply with the First Amendment we request that you immediately revise UW-River Falls policies on expression to permit students to engage in expression in public outdoor areas without prior restraint, the letter read, adding that public universities have a constitutional obligation to uphold the marketplace of ideas through clear, objective policies that promote the ability of students to engage in the free exchange of ideas and competing views on campus.

On July 15, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls agreed to adopt new policies regarding students First Amendment rights on campus.

"I first extend my sincerest gratitude and congratulations to Sofie Salmon for her active role in changing campus culture at UW-River Falls to be free speech friendly, Asha Moline, the former president of UW-River Falls Liberty Society toldCampus Reform. As the former president of The Liberty Society on campus, few things are more satisfying than knowing the fight for freedom lives on.

Any academic institution that not only lacks protection of students constitutional right to free speech but actively works against them has not earned the right to call themselves an academic institution, Moline continued, adding today, UW-River Falls earned that right."

Follow the author of this article on Twitter@LeanaDippie

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VICTORY: University changes policy that prompted employee to threaten to call the cops over 'free speech ball' - Campus Reform

Review By: Jonathan W. Hickman

The Fight, reveals the price of free speechthe good and the bad.

The vrit documentary filmmakers behind the eye-opening 2016 movie Weiner were granted unprecedented access to the offices and inner workings of the American Civil Liberties Union (the ACLU) to document its efforts to push back against Trump administration policies. The resulting feature, The Fight, is a fascinating legal procedural less concerned with the details of the cases featured and more interested in showing the process behind the scenes.

But as much as the film feels like a moving tribute to the ACLU and its enthusiastic staff, the filmmakers (Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Depres) dont shy away from the possible collateral damage associated with the organizations core mission. And thats whats buried in The Fights second actthe tragedy of Charlottesville in 2017. More on that later.

The Fight takes a fly-on-wall approach to tell the story of a handful of dedicated attorneys and the causes that drive them. The four areas focused on are abortion rights, immigration rights, LGBT rights, and voting rights. We see the legal teams as they go about their frenzied days, spending time behind computer screens, taking trains, preparing oral arguments in hotel rooms, and relaxing at home with their families.

We meet five lawyers.

Attorney Brigitte Amiri is the director of the organizations Reproductive Freedom Project. She is lead counsel on a case that challenges the Trump administrations ban on abortion for unaccompanied immigrant minors.

Joshua Block is the senior staff attorney for the ACLUs Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Projects. His case seeks to strike down President Trumps ban on transgender people serving in the military. His co-counsel is the charismatic young lawyer and transgender activist Chase Strangio.

Veteran attorney Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the Immigration Rights Project, is shown handling several cases involving Administration policies. In court, he challenges the controversial Muslim ban and the practice of family separation.

One of Gelernts frequent television appearances is captured in realtime, as he learns of a crushing loss in one of his most high-profile cases. This scene is masterful. Media watchers will want to pay close attention to how he carefully measures his reaction, first attempting in mere minutes to educate himself and keep his emotions in check. This scene is really what vrit filmmaking is all about.

The final attorney featured is Dale Ho, the director of the Voting Rights Project. Hos efforts in the film challenge the inclusion of the citizenship question on the Census. We travel with him as he spends time in various towns and hotel rooms regularly practicing and researching. And Ho allows the cameras into his apartment, where we meet his wife and children.

The Fight is a story told exclusively from one side in various legal disputes. Pitching the lawyers as David against Goliath works mainly because Goliath, or the government, is rarely pictured in the film. Other than clips from a video deposition, at no time, are the cameras trained on lawyers from the Justice Department.

No government lawyers or officials would likely go on camera, but the filmmaking team makes little effort to dive into the legal claims and defenses. This lack of context may frustrate some viewers. Conservative audiences, who object philosophically to the ACLU, will find The Fight educational.

If I were a government lawyer, Id certainly want to watch this film. And as Oscar-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger learned after making his movie Crude, documentary footage shot (including, in that case, some 600 hours of outtakes) isnt necessarily privileged from the eyes of opposing forces. But whether you like or despise the ACLU, The Fight is an undeniably informative and moving portrait.

What jumped out at me while watching this film was a sequence covering the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The ACLU was instrumental in procuring a permit for the Unite the Right rally. It was lawyers from the ACLU who filed a lawsuit that resulted in an injunction allowing the white supremacist followers to march.

Cameras roll, showing the depressed ACLU staff watching news footage of the deadly violence. The unintended consequences of free speech are on full display, and the lawyers dont feel good about fulfilling their core mission in that circumstance. The good and the bad, it's a genuine American dilemma.

The Fight makes its debut on streaming platforms everywhere on July 31st.

***

A RottenTomatoes.com Tomatometer-approved critic, Jonathan W. Hickman is also an entertainment lawyer, college professor, novelist, and filmmaker. Hes a member of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle, The Southeastern Film Critics Association, and the Georgia Film Critics Association. For more information about Jonathan visit: FilmProductionLaw.com or DailyFIlmFix.com

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The Fight: The collateral damage of free speech - Newnan Times-Herald

The cartoon shows a bearded man in paradise, reclining on a couch in a tent, with a virgin on either arm. God pokes his head in. Do you need anything? he asks. Yes, Lord, the man replies. Get me some wine and tell Gabriel to bring me cashews. Take the empty plates with you. And put a door on the tent, so next time you can knock before you come in, your Immortalness.

Four years ago, Nahed Hattar, the Jordanian writer and intellectual, shared the cartoon on Facebook, captioning it The God of Daesh. He was charged with inciting sectarian strife and racism and insulting Islam. In September 2016, outside the Amman courthouse where he was about to stand trial, Hattar was shot dead by a Salafist gunman.

Telling jokes in the Arab world is no laughing matter. Yet as a new book, Joking About Jihad, shows, poking fun at Islamists and jihadists has become an essential part of Arab culture. Comedians and cartoonists, the authors Gilbert Ramsay and Moutaz Alkheder observe, play an important role in shattering once seemingly inviolable taboos, transgressing the boundaries of consensus while somehow also enabling conversations where they once seemed impossible.

The context of the free speech debate is very different in the west. Many of the questions facing writers and artists and comedians are, however, similar. What is taboo? How far can we upset people? Should we transgress consensual boundaries?

In the Arab world, those pushing the boundaries of speech work within brutally dictatorial states and know the dangers of provoking popular outrage. Hattar is only one of dozens of writers and artists who have lost their lives in recent years for transgressing taboos. It takes immense courage to stand up for free speech in Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

In the west, writers and artists also face murderous threats, from the fatwa imposed on Salman Rushdie to the mass killings of Charlie Hebdo staff in January 2015. But there is also, unlike in most of the Muslim world, a general presumption of freedom of expression and laws and institutions that broadly protect free speech. This has made many sanguine about threats to speech.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, there were protest marches and words of outrage from politicians. But many liberals and the left felt uncomfortable about defending, even in death, figures associated with Charlie Hebdo. Three months after the attack, a host of prominent writers boycotted the annual gala of PEN America in protest at its decision to award the magazine a courage award.

Compare that with the response in the Arab world. Writers and artists, even those critical of the magazine, were, as the Beirut-based critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie observed, unequivocal in their support because they saw the killings as part of a broader threat. At a vigil for Charlie Hebdo in Beirut, people added on to the Je suis Charlie hashtag: Je suis Samir Kassir, Je suis Gebran Tueni, Je suis Riad Taha, Je suis Kamel Mroue. All were writers, cartoonists or intellectuals assassinated for their work.

Arab activists recognise that censorship aids the powerful, while free speech is a vital weapon for those struggling for change. Its a point often forgotten in the west.

Consider the furore over the recent letter in Harpers magazine in defence of free speech signed by 153 public figures. A key criticism of the letter is that it is the voice of privilege.

Its true that few of the signatories have been silenced (though its also worth pointing out that Kamel Daoud, for one, still faces a death fatwa). Its the little people without power or platforms whose lives are particularly disrupted if they say the wrong thing, whether that be Muslim students in Britain, Mexican-American truck drivers, childrens authors, shopworkers, anti-Israel protesters or political activists.

These are all distinct cases and the now-fashionable term cancel culture is not particularly useful in helping us think about the different forms of silencing that people face. Nor are the conditions of censorship in the west comparable to those under which Arab writers and activists operate. The point, rather, is that the harsh conditions make Arab activists aware of the significance of free speech in a way that many in the west no longer seem to be. Would many of the jokes or cartoons for which Arabs risk their lives be published in the west without facing considerable pushback from liberals? I doubt it.

Being able to dismiss concerns about censorship? Now, thats the voice of privilege.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist

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It's the powerless who suffer when free speech is threatened - The Guardian

1. Free-Speech Rights Institute Demands Military 'Un-Ban' Users From Esports Twitch Channels | New York Law Journal  Law.com
2. Army Pauses Twitch Game Streaming After First Amendment Claim  The New York Times
3. US Army pauses video game streams after accusations of violating free speech  The Verge
4. US Army Esports Stops Streaming In Response To Free Speech Violations  Screen Rant
5. US Army Twitch Channel Finally Told to Stop Restricting Free Speech  The Nerd Stash
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Free-Speech Rights Institute Demands Military 'Un-Ban' Users From Esports Twitch Channels | New York Law Journal - Law.com

ITHACA, N.Y. (WHCU) A lawsuit alleges SUNY Binghamton officials supported efforts of a hostile student mob preventing free speech on the southern tier campus.

The suit stems from a November event hosted by college republicans. Renowned economist Dr. Arthur Laffer was presenting a lecture titled Trump, Tariffs, and Trade Wars.

Lawyers allege university officials and police refused to protect the First Amendment rights of students and Dr. Laffer by encouraging the mob and allowing megaphone-wielding activists to shut down the event.

SUNY officials assist antagonist mob in disrupting event, silencing conservative guest speakerActivists shut down world-renowned economist Art Laffers scheduled lecture, university supports hostile mob, punishes conservativesWednesday, July 22, 2020

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. Alliance Defending Freedom and King & Spalding attorneys filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of Young Americas Foundation, College Republicans for the State University of New York at Binghamton, and a Binghamton student, challenging the unconstitutional actions and policies of the university that facilitated a mobs disruption of a conservative speaker.

Renowned economist and presidential medal of honor recipient Dr. Arthur Laffer was scheduled to give an extracurricular lecture entitled Trump, Tariffs, and Trade Wars at Binghamton University on Nov. 18, an event co-hosted by College Republicans and YAF. University police and administrators knew that a student group and an outside group planned to disrupt the event, gave disruptors direct access to the event and an adjacent room to organize the disruption, and allowed the mob to shout down the visiting economist and cancel the event.

Everyone should be free to speak about their beliefs, especially on a public university campus, said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. Instead, the student groups and Dr. Laffer encountered violent opposition to an extracurricular event that provided some deeply needed viewpoint diversity. Unfortunately, SUNY-Binghamton officials and police utterly refused to protect the First Amendment rights of its students and Dr. Laffer. Instead, they encouraged the mob and stood by as megaphone-wielding activists shut down the event. These students and their guests have the same right to speak as anyone else without fear of being physically assaulted or relentlessly antagonized by hostile disruptors. This blatant viewpoint discrimination cannot stand.

Four days before the event, College Republicans hosted a table where they handed out hot chocolate and flyers promoting the upcoming lecture. Using social media messages, members of the College Progressives student organization incited individuals to disrupt this disgusting space. According to the complaint and video footage, approximately 200 persons gathered, confiscated and destroyed event flyers, broke down the College Republicans table, hurled insults and obscenities at their members, and physically assaulted one member, forcibly removing her hat bearing the political slogan Make America Great Again.

When university police arrived, they refused to disperse the hostile mob but directed College Republicans to vacate the area as the mob chanted pack it up. Immediately following the disruption, YAF hired a private security firm to offer personal protection to Laffer and asked the university to ensure the event would continue without interruption. However, on the day of the event, school administrators admitted knowledge of threats by College Progressives and a non-student group, Progressive Leaders of Tomorrow, to disrupt the event. Rather than promising protection, university police blamed YAF and College Republicans for opening their event to the public instead of hosting a private event. University police allowed protestors to shout down the speaker with a megaphone without any intervention for nearly two minutes before directing Laffers security to escort him out of the lecture hall before he had the opportunity to speak.

The First Amendment protects the free speech rights of people of all beliefs. Public universities that pick and choose which voices can be heard on campus violate the First Amendment, said co-counsel Andrew C. Hruska of international law firm King & Spalding. Universities have an obligation to protect students free speech rights, regardless of their viewpoint. University officials that let loose a mob to suppress disfavored speech are as guilty as the mob itself of depriving students of their civil rights. SUNY students deserve better.

The free and open exchange of ideas is critical to a students education, but SUNY-Binghamton is shamefully depriving its student body of an intellectually diverse learning environment, said YAF Spokesman Spencer Brown. All students have the constitutionally protected freedom to organize events and have their voices heard without fear of being targeted and shut down by university-encouraged mobs. Young Americas Foundation remains committed to holding school administrators accountable for their censorship of conservative students at SUNY-Binghamton and across the country.

ADF attorneys and Hruska and Joseph L. Zales, attorneys with King & Spalding, filed the lawsuit, Young Americas Foundation v. Stenger, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Pronunciation guide: Langhofer (LANG-hoff-ur); Hruska (RUH-ska)

The ADF Center for Academic Freedom is dedicated to ensuring freedom of speech and association for students and faculty so that everyone can freely participate in the marketplace of ideas without fear of government censorship.

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Lawsuit alleges SUNY Binghamton supported efforts of mob in thwarting free speech on campus - whcuradio.com

Princeton University campus in 2013.(Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)We cannot allow the United States to become a country in which the price of dissent is so high that all but the bravest among us are unwilling to pay it.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLEA pall of orthodoxy has descended over an increasing number of American institutions. The stifling of dissent and the pressuring of people to conform to ideological dogmas that began in universities has spread to the media and even to the corporate world. While official government censorship may be rare, we are living in a moment where the consequences of speaking out on the wrong side of controversial issues or even supporting others who speak out are often nothing short of personal and professional ruin. And while we can, and should, expect people to display some degree of fortitude when it comes to the private social consequences of free expression, the price has become so high that an ever-shrinking number of people are willing to pay it.

A prime example of this phenomenon is the situation that has been unfolding at my alma mater, Princeton University, over the past several weeks. On July 4, more than 350 Princeton faculty, staff, and graduate students signed a petition demanding the university do more to address racism on campus, including by creating a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.

Many people, myself included, were stunned that a group of faculty would demand such an all-out attack on academic freedom a virtual academic Committee of Public Safety. One such person was Classics professor Joshua Katz, who several days after the July 4 faculty petition published his own Declaration of Independence by a Princeton Professor in Quillette. Katz supported some of the demands made in the petition that do not imperil academic freedom and integrity, but pushed back against the demands that do. Of the aforementioned committee, for example, Katz asked, is there anyone who doesnt believe that this committee would be a star chamber with a low bar for cancellation, punishment, suspension, even dismissal?

Katz also took issue with the demand that Princeton make a formal public University apology to the members of the Black Justice League and their allies. In light of what any reasonable person would acknowledge as abusive behaviors by BJL members towards other students, he described the BJL (a group which was active on campus from 2014 to 2016) as a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members demands.

Predictably, the official denouncements came fast and furious though, unsurprisingly, the shocking demand by Princeton faculty to abolish academic freedom at the university generated no such reaction, nor did their unlawful demand that faculty of color receive extra pay and sabbatical time compared to white faculty. Despite the regularity with which words like fascist and Nazi are used to denounce anyone who does not cleave to the increasingly dominant orthodoxy of the hard left, Katzs rhetorical use of the word terrorist to describe the bullying tactics of a now-defunct student group was deemed beyond the pale. The university quickly announced that it was looking into the matter further, as though someones expression of opinion were an appropriate subject for an official university investigation, and the Classics department posted an official denunciation of Katz on the departmental homepage.

Thankfully, Princetons administration ultimately realized that any investigation or punishment of Katz would have violated the universitys contractual guarantees of free speech and academic freedom, and President Chris Eisgruber publicly confirmed this week in the Daily Princetonian that Princetons policies protect Katzs freedom to say what he did, just as they protected the Black Justice Leagues. He can be answered but not censored or sanctioned.

But this would not have been the outcome at many institutions. And indeed, throughout this episode, supporters of Katz and his free speech rights have learned how deeply the cancel-culture poison has infiltrated American educational and corporate institutions. Last week, a Princeton alumnus circulated a statement in support of Katz, asking fellow Princeton alums to sign on. Sadly, the repressive climate of fear in which we find ourselves was evident in a number of the responses to that statement. To illustrate the reality in which we now find ourselves, I have been given permission to quote from a few of these responses (anonymously, of course, with any identifying details removed).

One individual wrote: I wish I could sign this letter supporting you just as I wish I could write one of my own. However, this persons corporate employer made clear that it would view this as purposefully undermining them and would probably fire them for signing the letter. This person expressed deep regret, but said that they simply could not forego the money they needed to support a growing family.

Another person, despite agreeing with the letter, declined to sign because If I admitted now what I really thought on this and a number of other topics, I would be finished in academic life. This person hoped someday to have the courage to speak their mind, but for the time being said to the statements author and to Katz himself that until then I ask for your and his forgiveness for not signing your letter.

Yet another person this one so fearful that they did not even use their real name and email address wrote:

It is sad that the day has come in America when this kind of article amounts to a brave act. I hope free speech and critical thinking will one day be universally valued again in academia, but I dont think that is the direction in which we are currently headed. For the time being, I hope your article will at least inspire other colleagues to speak their minds more sincerely.

As a junior tenure-track professor, I sympathize with your message, but I cannot afford the luxury to support it openly; hence why this email is regretfully unsigned.

This is madness and it is horrifying. We cannot allow the United States to become a country in which, despite legal protections for free speech, the price of dissent is so high that all but the bravest among us are unwilling to pay it. So how do we pull back from this precipice? Individual courage is important, but I believe a commitment to collective action is also necessary. There is safety in numbers. My own anecdotal sense, as someone who lives and breathes and discusses these issues on a daily basis, is that a majority of people of good faith from across the political spectrum believe that cancel culture is toxic and deeply corrosive of the ties that bind us together as a nation. The problem is, no one wants to be the first to say it. So we all need to say it. Its like the bystanders who allow the school bully to rampage unabated for fear of becoming his next target. Failing to intervene on behalf of someone being attacked may delay the inevitable attack on you, but thats all it can do. Standing up as a group and saying no more, however that can end the bullys reign altogether. And make no mistake: This is bullying, plain and simple.

In addition to standing up to the bullies who cow so many into silence, we must also stand up using, whenever possible, the power of the law to those cowards in positions of authority who give in to their own fear of the bullies by investigating and even punishing students, faculty, or employees for daring to dissent. Public institutions are bound by the First Amendment, and private institutions are for the most part contractually bound by the promises they make to students and faculty.

This fight is not going to be easy, and the victories will be incremental. But it is an unacceptable state of affairs when people cannot even express their support for someones right to dissent without fearing personal and professional destruction. Whatever account is to be given of how we came to such a pass, the sad fact is that we are here the basic liberty to speak ones mind, even on a university campus devoted to free and open inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge, exists only as a formality. It is up to us to make it a reality again. It will take individual courage together with cooperation across the lines of ideological division to produce what we so desperately need: a new birth of freedom.

If you think there should be a corner of our journalistic and intellectual life that defends right reason and is an alternative to the unhinged mainstream media, and if you have been alarmed at the sound of the American mind slamming shut at so many institutions recently, please lend National Review your support.SUPPORT NR TODAY

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Toward a New Birth of Freedom - National Review

This is true; as Zaid Jilani wrote recently, If it were harder for employers to fire people for frivolous reasons, Americans would have less reason to fear that expressing their views might cost them their livelihoods. But it seems strange to me to argue that in the absence of better labor law, the left is justified in taking advantage of precarity to punish people for political disagreements.

None of this is an argument for a totally laissez-faire approach to speech; some ideas should be stigmatized.

I recently spoke to Wasow about the reaction to Shor tweeting his paper. Much of what we call cancel culture is just culture, he said. Culture has boundaries. Every community has boundaries. Those boundaries are always shifting. In the age of the internet, they move faster, and therefore where those boundaries are is less clear and less stable, and it makes it easier for people to cross those lines.

But its a problem when the range of proscribed speech is so wide that the rules are hard to even explain to those not steeped in left-wing mores.

Writing in the 1990s, at a time when feminists like Catharine MacKinnon sought to curtail free speech in the name of equality, the great left-libertarian Ellen Willis described how progressive movements sow the seeds of their own destruction when they become censorious. Its impossible, Willis wrote, to censor the speech of the dominant without stifling debate among all social groups and reinforcing orthodoxy within left movements. Under such conditions a movement can neither integrate new ideas nor build support based on genuine transformations of consciousness rather than guilt or fear of ostracism.

Its not always easy to draw a clear line between what Willis described as reinforcing orthodoxy and agitating to make language and society more democratic and inclusive. As Nicholas Grossman pointed out in Arc Digital, most signatories to the Letter probably agree that its a good thing that the casual use of racist and homophobic slurs is no longer socially acceptable. But those changes came about through private sanction, social pressure and cultural change, driven by activists and younger generations, he wrote.

Willis reminds us that when these changes were happening, the right denounced them as violations of free expression. Of the conservative campaign against political correctness in the 1990s, she wrote, Predictably, their valid critique of left authoritarianism has segued all too smoothly into a campaign of moral intimidation, one aimed at demonizing egalitarian ideas, per se, as repressive.

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Do Progressives Have a Free Speech Problem? - The New York Times

Turkey remains Not Free in Freedom Houses 2020 Freedom in the World index, in large part due to the level of retribution against exercising ones right to free expression. Many of those safeguards for rights protections in Turkey had been stripped away before COVID-19 took hold. In 2016, following a failed military coup attempt, over 150 media outlets were shuttered, and thousands of journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens were jailed under allegations of participation in terrorist activities.

At Freedom House, before the pandemic unfolded, we conducted research on public trust in the media in Turkey. We found that pressures and restrictions against media in Turkey have contributed to low public trust in the media overall, as well as a significant shift in media consumption habits. We learned that the Turkish public has turned more and more to the internet and to social media as sources of information and news.

However, this shift comes with significant public concerns about, and anxiety around, censorship, surveillance and untrustworthy information. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents expressed concern about the effects of censorship in Turkey, and 64 per cent revealed that they were worried about the government monitoring their online activities. Thirty-five per cent of those who expressed concerned about these issues were specifically troubled by the governments concealment of rights abuses.

A proposed draft law on social media appeared on the scene in April, and this month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to tighten his grip on social media. Following that promise, at least 11 people were detained for posting allegedly insulting tweets about Erdogans newborn grandchild.

The passage of this legislation would ultimately give the authorities more control over content online, including Facebook, Instagram, and popular apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. These measures impact the free speech not just of outspoken journalists and activists but the broader public, as they turn increasingly to social and online media for information and expression. These decisions also bleed into the entertainment sphere; Netflix was blocked on the Turkish parliaments campus this month. As 130,000 websites in Turkey were banned in 2019 alone, the streaming giant might very well follow suit.

After a gay character in a Turkish-language drama on Netflix created a backlash in Turkeys conservative circles, Erdogan told Reuters: Do you understand now why we are against social media platforms such asYouTube, Twitter and Netflix? These platforms do not suit this nation. We want to shut [them] down, control [them] by bringing [a bill] to parliament as soon as possible.

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Turkey is Using Pandemic to Tighten Chokehold on Free Expression - Balkan Insight

And one of the biggest threats to our democracy is the ability of the wealthy and powerful to silence free speech.

They do so by using the peoples own court system to file frivolous lawsuits against journalists, authors, bloggers, documentary film makers, civic organizations, protesters, political candidates and others.

Such suits are called SLAPP suits, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Usually used by government bodies to silence citizens, more and more these suits are being used by political campaigns and other individuals to silence critical viewpoints.

Most recently, the Trump campaign and the Trump family have filed frivolous litigation to try to stop news organizations from publishing critical articles, opposing political campaigns and broadcast stations to stop running ads critical of the president, and a member of the Trump family from publishing a book critical of the president.

The goal of these suits is to discourage people from speaking out for fear of being dragged into court, where they then would be forced to spend money on legal fees, go through the time and hassle of a court fight, and risk losing a large monetary verdict.

That kind of intimation is effective and contagious, serving as a chill factor on potential criticism in the future.

Thats not just a threat to individuals; its a threat to our entire democracy. And government must do all it can to protect the peoples right to free speech.

State lawmakers have an opportunity to help preserve our free speech by expanding the states anti-SLAPP statute.

The new bill (A5991/S0052A) would cover any communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public concern and any other lawful conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of free speech in connection with an issue of public concern.

To discourage SLAPP suits, the legislation would compel the courts to award court costs and attorney fees in actions proven to be without a substantial basis in fact or law and that could not be supported by a substantial argument.

The bill has the strong backing of the New York News Publishers Association.

And a New York State Bar Association committee urged the full organization to support the bill, noting that it does nothing to affect legitimate claims.

The Legislature only expects to be back in session a short time.

Its vital to the free speech rights of New Yorkers that lawmakers in both houses pass this legislation before they leave for the summer and that the governor signs it when it gets to his desk.

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EDITORIAL: Bill needed to protect free speech - The Daily Gazette

Editor:

How come free speech isnt free for everyone?

How come the police cant use choke holds or excessive force, but criminals can?

How come flying a Confederate flag is seen as a problem, but burning an American flag is not?

How come some of our statues must be taken down, but not others?

How come burning, looting and rioting is regarded as peaceful protesting?

How come ordinary citizens go to jail when they commit a crime, but many politicians and celebrities dont?

How come news from conservative sources is scrutinized for accuracy, but news from the liberal side isnt?

And last but not least, I wonder why President Donald Trump is considered a racist but columnist Leonard Pitts is not.

Consider these questions food for thought. Wake up, America.

Keith Folk

Gilbertsville

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Letter: Why doesn't everyone have right to free speech? - Reading Eagle

Dean Geddes I&M Staff Writer @DGeddesIM

ThursdayJul16,2020at9:57AM

(July 23, 2020) Yard signs have been sprouting up on public property all over Nantucket this year, advocating for causes ranging from social justice to limiting development on the island.

There have been a lot of questions posed to the town about the legality and regulation of these signs, said Erika Mooney, the towns operations administrator. But ultimately, they are allowed and protected by free-speech laws.

We are advised that the power of the town to regulate speech in a public way is limited. Public streets and sidewalks are generally recognized as public forums. They are generally considered to be publicly-owned areas where individuals have the right to traverse, speak freely, protest and assemble. So, we are not taking them down. Mooney wrote in an e-mail.

(Restricting signs because they are not) visually appealing is too subjective and cannot be considered even if people want that.They can be moved or relocated if causing sight-line or clear public safety issues but the town must be very confident of this and apply the same standards islandwide and consistently.

To read the complete story, pick up the print edition of this weeks Inquirer and Mirror or register for the I&Ms online edition byclicking here.

For up-to-the-minute information on Nantuckets breaking news, boat and plane cancellations, weather alerts, sports and entertainment news, deals and promotions at island businesses and more, Sign up for Inquirer and Mirror text alerts.Click Here

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Signs not regulated, but permitted as free speech - The Inquirer and Mirror

Throughout capitalism's history, the big topic in economics was how far the government should intervene in the economy. Conservatives wanted minimum intervention while liberals and socialists wanted much more. In fact, government intervention mostly aimed at saving, protecting, supporting capitalism. The genuinely "great debate" could and should have been about the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism versus those of a real alternative system, socialism.

Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff takes complex economic issues and makes them understandable, empowering listeners with information to analyze not only their financial situation but the economy at large.

By focusing on the economic dimensions of everyday life - wages, jobs, taxes, debts, interest rates, prices, and profits - the program explores alternative ways to organize markets and government policies.

Missed an episode? Check out Economic Update on FSTV VOD anytime or visit the show page for the latest clips.

#FreeSpeechTV is one of the last standing national, independent news networks committed to advancing progressive social change.

#FSTV is available on Dish, DirectTV, AppleTV, Roku, Sling and online at freespeech.org.

Captialism Economic Update Economic Update With Richard D. Wolff Economy Free Speech TV FSTV government intervention Professor Richard Wolff Richard Wolff Socialism

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Economic Update: The "Great Debate" That Wasn't - Free Speech TV

The letter in Harpers vaguely alludes to instances of alleged silencing that sparked complicated discussions, very often about institutional racism. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the letter concludes, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. (At least two of the signatories have since distanced themselves from the statement, and on Friday another group of writers and academics published a lengthy counterletter that originated in a Slack channel called Journalists of Color.)

That the signatories of a letter denouncing a perceived constriction of public speech are among their industries highest-paid and most widely published figures is a large and obvious irony. Many of the writers who signed their name have been employed or commissioned by outlets including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vox, The Washington Post, and this magazine. Several have received lucrative book deals; otherslike Rowling, Salman Rushdie, and Wynton Marsalisare global icons. The educators on the list are affiliated with universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia.

Theres something darkly comical about the fretfulness of these elite petitioners. Its telling that the censoriousness they identify as a national plague isnt the racism that keeps Black journalists from reporting on political issues, or the transphobia that threatens their colleagues lives. The letter denounces the restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, strategically blurring the line between these two forces. But the letters chief concern is not journalists living under hostile governments, despite the fact that countries around the world impose draconian limits on press freedom.

Across the globe, the challenge facing journalists and intellectuals is not the pain of Twitter scorn; the Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that at least 250 journalists were imprisoned worldwide last year for their reporting. In the U.S., the Trump administration continues to threaten reporters safety and undermine the belief that journalists play a valuable role in a democracy. The country is moving deeper into an economic recession, decimating industries including journalism and academia. And yet the suddenly unemployed people the Harpers statement references clearly lost their jobs not because of a pandemic or government pressure, but for actions criticized as potentially harming marginalized groups. This small group includes James Bennet, the former editor of the New York Times editorial page (and a former editor in chief of this magazine), who was forced to resign after the op-ed page he supervised published an article by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton that endorsed state violence.

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The Harpers Letter Is a Weak Defense of Free Speech - The ...

In one of the more awkward exchanges on television in recent memory, the stand-up comedian Bill Burr sat down with Bill Maher on HBO's Real Time. "I think we have something in common," said Maher. "We think political correctness may be ruining comedy." To Maher's surprise, a visibly irked Burr disagreed.

"It's a really weird time where people are bringing [PC outrage] up all the time like it's a major problem," said Burr. "Like usual, they're acting like the sky is falling. It isn't. It's a fun time." A flustered Maher turned ashen. He is among a growing class of punditscall them the Free Speech Grifterswho flog PC culture as a singularly eminent threat to the freedom of expression in America. And Burr, a decidedly un-PC comic, punctured the narrative.

After that 2015 interview, Burr never appeared on Real Time again. But Maher did find someone to be "on his side": New York Times columnist Bari Weiss.

In just the past month, Weiss has appeared on Real Time twice, most recently to discuss the dust-up over her identifying an American-born Asian as an immigrant. "I love immigrants," Weiss told Maher, despite the fact that no one accused her of the opposite. "Saying 'I am offended' is a way of making someone radioactive, a way of smearing their reputation."

Weiss sidestepped measured criticisms and mild mockery so that she could claim that she was crucified because she "departs from woke orthodoxy." It was a sleight of hand. And it wouldn't be the first time.

Two days prior, Weiss's column titled "We're All Fascists Now" highlighted the protest of a Christina Hoff Sommers talk at Lewis & Clark Law School, the latest example in an overexposed series of well-meaning college students acting like morons. It was riddled with misrepresentations. To frame the debate as another instance of the liberals attacking fellow liberals, Weiss described Ms. Sommers as a "self-identified" feminist and a "registered" Democrat. To that end, she withheld from readers Sommers's more relevant professional affiliation: resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative think tank, which counts feminist Democrat heroes Dick Cheney and Dinesh D'Souza among its past fellows.

Among the Free Speech Grifters, Sommers has perfected the art. She likes to call herself a feminist, specifically a "factual" one. But if there has been one feminist cause worth addressing in the past 30 years, you wouldn't know it by reading her work. She has had plenty to say on how biological preferences may account for gender distribution in STEM fields, while she's been silent on harassment of women in tech and finance. And she's been outspoken about the due-process rights of men accused of rape on college campuses, but apparently has no interest in addressing the complexity of a crime that is notoriously difficult to prove.

Plenty of scholars and writers have challenged feminist talking points. The economist Claudia Goldin wasn't tossed out of Harvard for her work on the gender pay gap, pinpointing childcare, not gender directly, as the cause. Sommers likes to position herself as a Goldin, a noble academic who questions received wisdom to further a worthy cause. The difference between the two is that Goldin offers both better data and solutions to nuanced issues while Sommers only offers naysaying. In interviews and recorded talks, a soft-spoken Sommers emphasizes the importance of being reasonable and polite, tut-tutting meanness. But her stance toward those with whom she disagrees is mostly derisive, serving up red meat to a social-media following rabid for the denigration of feminist and minority causes.

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The Free Speech Grifters | GQ

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on July 13, 2020.

Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

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Re Civil Servants Testimony Fails To Clear Up All WE Charity Questions (July 17): From 1975 to 1995, my husband, the actor and writer George Robertson, and I were deeply involved with UNICEF Canada and UNICEF Ontario. Notable celebrities including Sir Peter Ustinov, Audrey Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Harry Belafonte, Maggie Smith, Sharon, Lois and Bram and many others joined us in giving countless hours of time to UNICEF. There were also television commercials where all creative work and time was donated.

Not a penny was ever paid for appearances. George went across Canada speaking to youth (his role in the Police Academy films made him quite popular with all age groups). It is a very sad day for me when notable figures cannot donate time and energy to charitable causes they believe deserve support.

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Adele Robertson Toronto

Re Parents. Trapped. (Report on Business, July 11): Lack of child care may both prevent women from going back to work and cripple our economy. But Ottawa says the solution might be expensive. Expenses be damned! Lets get more child-care spaces and give women the opportunity to get back to work.

My daughter-in-law is looking after three kids, ages 6, 3 and eight months, on her own. Her husband works from home but, because of firings at his company, has to attempt the work of three. He is on the computer day and night.

Its extremely stressful. And there are thousand of families in similar situations.

Fiona McCall Toronto

Re These Revolutionary Times Have A Downside (July 11): Racism, in its most common forms, means systems, policies and attitudes that create unfair disadvantages for people because of the colour of their skin. Cognitive studies of the brain and the way we think have demonstrated that every one of us white, Black, brown has unconscious biases based on our upbringings.

Science has proven that this affects the way we make decisions about hiring and promotion, entitlement to government or other benefits and arrests, charges and sentences in criminal cases. It also affects the way our fast brain reacts when we hear a particular accent or see a person of a particular race in the course of daily activities. It is a reality in Canada, where racialized people have lived these experiences since they were born or arrived in this country.

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Progress begins with the recognition and elimination of these everyday human reactions, so that life is more fair and equal for all of us. Frustration, fear and suspicion of motives arise when people are unable to reach this starting point.

Raj Anand Former chief commissioner, Ontario Human Rights Commission; Toronto

Re Whatever Happened To Nuanced Disagreement? (Opinion, July 11): Columnist Robyn Urback supports the claim by authors of an open letter in Harpers Magazine that cancel culture has gone too far. It could also be argued that this is exactly how the process of achieving equilibrium, or the middle ground, works.

When the pendulum has swung so far in one direction, it often needs to swing all the way back before coming to rest in the middle. We have tolerated hate speech, police brutality and racial discrimination for so long that we may need to allow a period of intolerance toward those things, before we can achieve the ideal of fair and open dialogue.

As I see it, the problem is not with the message of the letter, but with the timing.

Elizabeth Causton Victoria

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Who gets published and who does not is inherently political. For a movement to demand that some voices be elevated, and that others take a backseat, should not be seen as signs of the illiberalism of our times, but rather necessary correctives to the current forums of social debate.

The real crisis of free speech can be found in the violent repression of protesters in the streets. Curfews and tear gas are censorship who cares what people are saying about J.K. Rowling on Twitter!

Ella Bedard Toronto

Theres a lot of wounded outrage in the air.

First there is the defensive reaction of senior Liberal officials to public scrutiny of family connections with WE Charity. Then there is the open letter to Harpers Magazine about the threat posed by so-called cancel culture to the free expression of ideas.

I believe the Liberals and the letters signatories share some things in common: one is the belief that they are decent, thoughtful people with virtuous motives. Such may be true, but it is complicated by a second thing: the possession of a kind of privilege that makes it possible to conflate your own beliefs and interests with the public good.

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Privilege also dampens the impulse to self-reflect, which might have prompted Justin Trudeau to wonder whether his personal connections constituted a conflict of interest, or the letter writers to think how far and to whom freedom of expression ever actually extended. I find these appeals to liberal values amount to self-defence: of an entitled world of mostly white privilege that is experiencing some ripples of resistance, and signs of radical change that are long overdue.

Susie OBrien Hamilton

Re Hidden Canada (Arts & Pursuits, July 11): The irony was not lost on this southern Alberta resident that Oldman River, one of the pristine areas in Canada highlighted by The Globe, is near the site of provincial plans for a major metallurgical coal-mining venture. Granted, the development will create much-needed employment and cash flow for Alberta but at what cost?

The sparkling waters of the river would be at risk of contamination; the richness of critical wildlife corridors at risk of increased vehicular traffic. Alberta seems to be misinformed and devoid of compassion for provincial wild-lands and the associated flora and fauna.

John Nightingale Lethbridge, Alta.

Re Getting The Fans Back In The Stands (Sports, July 11): On professional sports, Marshall McLuhan once said: In sport there is no game without an audience. The greatest game minus an audience is a rehearsal which is quite the opposite of a reply.

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In losing its live spectators, a game loses something essential to its nature, namely its dramatics, its back-and-forth hesitations and heated interactions with other fans. It would no longer be a game we know and love.

Notwithstanding the vast viewing audience, a game on television seems not so much a game as a show the two experiences are not the same. No matter how creative or involving a TV production, I do not believe it can make up for the experience of riding on the roar of the crowd.

Patrick ONeill Toronto

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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July 18: An entitled world of mostly white privilege. Readers debate WE Charity, free speech and systemic racism, plus other letters to the editor -...

Conservative: Will the Backlash Kill Joes Bid?

When the hard-left theorist Noam Chomsky thinks bedrock American principles like free speech are under threat, Matthew Continetti observes in The Washington Free Beacon, it is a sign that ... things have gotten out of control Joe Biden better be paying attention. The wokesters are going too far: Social media has become a system of surveillance, policing and stigma, news media the vehicle for an attack on the American Founding. This could all spell doom for Bidens presidential bid. There is only so much self-abasement a nation can take. And when the winds of woke start to blow, millions of Americans find that there is one way left for them to oppose political correctness: pulling the lever for the man in the White House.

As street violence spikes in big cities across America, writes The Chicago Tribunes John Koss, its becoming clear that Black Lives Matter is a mere political and fundraising arm of the Democratic Party, not the civil-rights movement it claims to be, and its largely young, white and woke supporters cant work up much concern about black children being slaughtered in big-city gang wars. Indeed, even while protesters are shouting loudly and passionately about defunding or abolishing the police, they arent saying a word to pressure big-city Democratic mayors to do anything about the spiking urban violence probably because they live several degrees removed from the killings and see no political advantage for the November elections in drawing attention to them. Thats not cynicism, sadly. Thats reality.

Much of modern social protest is psychological and spiritual need dressed up as revolution, Mark Judge argues at The Stream. Because many young people dont have a grounding principle like religious faith in their lives, theyre easy prey for toxic ideologies, such as Marxism. Thats nothing new: For many believers, Communism became like a father, providing both love and acceptance and a totalizing solution to all the worlds (and each persons) problems. And like their 1960s predecessors, many antifa rioters are really out there looking for their fathers after coming from broken homes. All of these broken souls share the same distant, soulless nihilism and rather than taking up the difficult task of making themselves more whole, they latch on to radical movements.

Kanye Wests recent pledge to remove extraneous chemicals from deodorant makes me like Americas last rock star even more than I did before he announced last Saturday that he was going ahead with his presidential campaign, half-jokes The Weeks Matthew Walther. Would anyone really expect, much less want, Kanye to run on lower taxes and block-granting Medicare to the states? Kudos, too, for his unabashed pro-life stance: At a time when social conservatism is mostly an unedifying series of non-debates about the flag and kneeling, the rapper sounds like Pat Buchanan in 1992, arguing for prayer in public schools and insisting that We have to stop doing things that make God mad. And he sounds more genuine than more conventional conservatives. Whats not to like?

With COVID resurging, warns Dr. Joel Zinberg at City Journal, we must acknowledge data showing that lockdowns themselves contributed to the death toll. If we dont learn from this, doctors will need a new cause of death on death certificates public policy. Economic recession led to increased drug and alcohol abuse and increases in domestic abuse and suicides. Meanwhile, inpatient admissions in Veterans Administration hospitals were down 42 percent for six emergency conditions, including stroke, heart failure and appendicitis, during one six-week period during the pandemic, a change not seen last year. These and deaths from chronic conditions increased because people had to shelter in place, were too scared to go to the doctor or were unable to obtain care. Bottom line: Public-health experts cant go on pretending lockdowns dont kill.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Free speech is under threat and other commentary - New York Post

Last week, an open letter appeared online under the auspices of Harpers Magazine. It was signed by more than 150 renowned authors and academics across the ideological spectrum and from a remarkable range of disciplines: novelists like Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Khaled Khalifa and J.K. Rowling; historians like Sean Wilentz, David Blight and Mia Bay; philosophers and legal theorists like Samuel Moyn, Zephyr Teachout, Drucilla Cornell and Anthony Kronman; public intellectuals and activists like Noam Chomsky, David Frum and Gloria Steinem; political theorists and sociologists like Yascha Mounk, Melvin Rogers, Uday Mehta, Michael Ignatieff and Francis Fukuyama. Its a list that commands a degree of respect, but its immediately difficult to imagine what could get them all "on the same page" quite literally.

What they collectively raise their voices against is a prevailing "censoriousness", "an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty", which is constricting the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society."

While the open letter does not use the term, its signatories are opposing what is often (and derogatively) referred to as "cancel culture". Unsurprisingly, the letter has attracted considerable pushback, and has itself become the topic of vast disagreement. But this, in some ways, sharpens the questions at play: How does liberal democracy manage incommensurable disagreement? Do the moral and political demands for justice and inclusion trump the principles of free expression and open debate? What is the moral status of "opinion"?

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Is "cancel culture" really constricting free speech? - The Minefield - ABC News