Monthly Archives: March 2022

Politics is alive again in university campuses, inspiring students to speak up on social issues. This retreat from political apathy is good news for democracy. But it is rather confined.

Students care deeply about gender and race identity and believe that how we speak publicly is a matter of social justice. This focus is a far cry from the protests against the invasion of Iraq, or the introduction of fees in higher education, which took students to the streets a generation ago. Even recent political controversies, such as thejustifiability of strict lockdowns or mandatory vaccination, fail to get students very passionate. Many appear much more concerned with what pronouns people may use and who should be given a university platform. As one of my students told me last week: It is the only area of public life where our voice gets heard.

The emphasis on identity and speech has redrawn the old political maps. Right-wing conservatives used to favour restrictions on speech aimed at upholding public morals and family values. Now, they champion freedom of speech to criticise the deplatforming of far-right figures and so-called cancel culture. Left-wing progressives used to oppose government regulation of speech. Now, they call for government restrictions on hate speech and the public observance of linguistic norms of political correctness. The new free speech wars are toxic and messy.

The Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the expression of hatred on account of certain protected characteristics. But many students feel that even speech within the limits of the law might make them unsafe and increase the risk of rights violations. This argument is not new: it was made by prominent feminists in the 1980s and 1990s, who called for a ban on pornography. Except that the argument is now turned against the feminists who deny that transgender women are women. Kathleen Stock, a prominent gender-critical feminist who has been at the receiving end of student protestsand attempts to deplatform her, invokes free speech and academic freedom in her defence.

Controversies surrounding who has the right to speak at university platforms are not new, either. Universities in modern times have always been places of contestation. Students always claimed the right to disrupt university events as an act of political protest. In most countries, the tension between speech and protest within campuses is handled internally, free from government interference. But in the UK, the government is now proposing a new law, through the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which would give it great powers over universities. It makes academic no platforming an offence and gives legal powers to a regulatorto monitor university practices. The government is seeking to assert control over academic speech and its proper balance against freedom of protest. We must therefore ask who has rights over academic platforms.

It is easy to conflate academic freedom with freedom of speech, as the proposed legislation does. The aim of universities is to pursue knowledge in a scholarly, critical and impartial way. The free exchange of ideas, particularly through publishing, is essential to that aim. But the primary meaning of academic freedom is not to reiterate a right to freedom of speech that everyone has under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Thereare an infinite number of platforms online, via which any speaker, academic or otherwise, can freely publicise their views. Unlike airwaves, platforms for addressing the public are no longer a scarce public good, to be distributed equally under some conception of social justice. What distinguishes university platforms is that they are credible and influential because they are typically run by experts. But there is no such thing as a free-speech right to a good platform. Jimmy Fallon does not breach my free-speech right by not inviting me on to The Tonight Show. Nor am I silenced by law colleagues who do not invite me to academic conferences on how human rights judges are abusing their power. They are free to have a balanced debate among those who oppose judicial review, and exclude those like me who defend it. You cannot be wronged by being deprived of something to which you had no right.

The point of academic freedom is rather different. It is to assert the independence of the academic community from government, in the pursuit of knowledge. Government has no right to tell academics what to research or teach, what views to defend, or what to publish. Orthodoxies in academic disciplines should rise and fall in a bottom-up way, through peer debate and criticism, not top-down, through government fiat.

This independence of the academic community from government extends to most of its functions, including who should be given or denied an academic platform. Government may not force me to invite home secretary Priti Patel to speak in my human rights seminar series, let alone to defend her policies. Nor can it force me not to rescind an invitation to her if I realise subsequently that her talk will only muddle the debate about immigration and human rights. When the subject-matter is academic, speaker invitations are for me and my colleagues to decide.

I do not mean to suggest that rescinding an invitation to speak is never wrongful. Just like disinviting a guest from ones dinner party, it may break promises made to a speaker, defeat their expectations, or frustrate their plans. But these are neither free speech wrongs nor violations of academic freedom. What violates academic freedom is to take control of university platforms away from academics, as the proposed bill does.

We cannot respect a right to extend invitations without respecting a right to rescind them.

It is tempting to think that the bill does not take control away from academics but, on the contrary, secures it. Deplatforming is often not the choice of the organisers but the result of pressure or disruptive protests by students. We might naturally worry that small groups within universities will acquire a veto over what views academics can express on campus. Or we might worry that this veto always favours one side of the political spectrum, alienating students on the opposite side. But the idea that government should protect academics from their students is not straightforward.

Students have an abstract political right to freedom of protest within campus, including protest that is disruptive. Often, this right prevails over the aim of holding a public debate on some issue. For example, students may legitimately disrupt an event in which a speaker defends slavery, as long as they stay within the limits of the criminal law.

Disruptive protest, too, is a form of speech, falling under article 10 of the ECHR. By making deplatforming an offence, applicable also to student unions, the government will extinguish students right to protest on campus, a right whose exercise has proved pivotal in the past in fighting evil regimes and serious injustices, like apartheid. Justas we would not want government to decide which topics are legitimate for academic research, likewise we should not want government to decide which topics are legitimate grounds for disruptive protests.

Could universities come up with a list of views that all academics agree must never be expressed on campus and insist that any speech outside that list should be protected? The problem is that there is no agreement on what should be on that list. Nor has there been one historically. What is now the dominant view of what counts as extreme or dangerous speech started out as the dissident voice of a small group of student activists. Do we really want to claim that the current majority has the definitive view in history of which forms of speech are out of bounds?

Nor is it a good argument that speakers whose opinions meet some scholarly standards of academic rigour should never be deplatformed. Academics disagree within and across disciplines on what these standards are. It is a noble task to try to show why ones views are not hateful or bigoted, but reasonable and scholarly. But one cannot expect others to agree. University platforms belong to no one and to everyone within the academic community.

A direct consequence of this conception of academic freedom is that mobilised groups of students may frequently succeed in disrupting talks that an academic is scheduled to give outside their own university, on the sole basis that they find their views unacceptable. And this is possible even when the academics views are reasonable and far from hateful or offensive. It could happen to me because of this article.

Such a predicament is difficult and unfortunate. No speaker likes to be heckled, or forced to walk away from a platform. But assuming there is no harassment or other violations of the criminal law, it would hardly be a violation of either my right to free speech or my academic freedom.

Aslong as my job is protected, I can still set the syllabus and the exam questions for my course. I can air my views in countless online platforms. I can publish them in academic journals, including a new title dedicated to controversial ideas. I will most likely receive invitations or job offers from university departments where academics and their students find my ideas agreeable. I will be able to reach whatever audience my views deserve.

It is true that in a worst-case scenario, an academic with controversial views may be ostracised from most university platforms in the country, simply because of a small but vocal minority of protesting students. This would be a sad state of affairs for democracy, but it is the risk that scholars who advocate publicly their views have to take. The alternative is far worse: to allow government to extinguish students right to political protest on campus and to prevent academics from exercising their own judgement as to whether an invitation should be rescinded.

Universities must, of course, condemn proteststhat target individual academics, rather than public events, andthat cross the limits of the law. Harassment is a criminal offence and universities have a duty to protect academics against any unlawful behaviour on campus. This is particularly important when disruptive protests come from students against their own professors since one central element of harassment is persistent conduct that causes distress. It is one thing to be deplatformed or no platformed from public events taking place at other universities. It is a whole different thing to face constantly intimidating protests by ones own students when carrying out day-to-day employment tasks, such as teaching a class or using ones office. But the proposed bill fails to distinguish between visiting speakers and university employees, prohibiting denial of access to platforms in both cases. And no new legislation is needed to ensure that academics are protected in their workplace against harassment.

In reality, the Higher Education Bill has little to do with freedom of speech. It seeks to assert control over academic platforms that, as it happens, will mainly benefit right-wing speech by external speakers. But the very sponsors of this bill would be appalled if the next parliament passed a law that gives government such drastic powers over university speech for a different purpose, such as to mandate the use of gender-neutral pronouns on campus. And whatever arguments they would make against that law also apply against their own bill. The independence of academic speech from government cannot be selective.

If government really cared about academic freedom,it would restrict the scope of the proposed offence to cases where academics lose their jobs or are denied promotion merely because of their ideas, beliefs or views.Itwould specify that university management must not force or put pressure on academics to cancel their courses or change their syllabuses.It would protect academics against any content-based interference by university management, such as monitoring sensitive courses and events or asking academics to share in advance what opinions or views they plan to express.

These are the real threats to academic freedom, and they come from university management. They are materialising already within UK higher education, facilitated by the consumerist culture that has come to dominate universities after the introduction of tuition fees.

The current debate on deplatforming and free speech is a distraction. We must ask: what good is it to academics if access to university platforms is protected by law when the core of their academic freedom has been taken away?

George Letsas is professor of the philosophy of law at UCL.

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There is no free-speech right to a university platform - Times Higher Education

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has cast aside the false filters of political correctness and shed the inhibitions of a warped secularism to tell the story directly to the people as it happened

Vivek Agnihotri's 'The Kashmir Files' has been receiving a lot of love at the box office.

It was a bolt from the blue that caught our bleeding-heart liberals off guard; their lies exposed, their chicanery defined with precision and their immorality hanging like a banner for all to see. The spontaneous and spectacular success of the movie,The Kashmir Files,which portrays movingly the brutal ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, has expectedly unleashed a barrage of criticism violent and malignant that attempts to shred the credibility of the movie, undermine its message and ensure that the atrocities committed on the Kashmiri Pandits is relegated to oblivion so that the nation does not have to answer uncomfortable questions.

One film critic dubbed it a fantasy-revisionist drama while another accused the movie of propagandist verve, and cementing the current dispensations favoured discourse. The very first sentence of yet another review in a major newspaper left no doubt as to where its sympathies lay: Once upon a time, writer-director Vivek Agnihotri told us a Hate Story; this week, he has etched yet another.

But how accurate and valid are these over-the-top conjectures? Do a few insignificant factual compromises that can pass for artistic liberty detract from the leitmotif of the film? And can the sufferings of the Kashmiri Pandits be wished away or trivialised just because the movie fails to address the issue of Kashmiri Muslim lives lost in the conflict?

Tagging a narrative as hate or inciting hate has become an expedient modus operandi for some to discredit their ideological adversaries or counter a stance that does not suit their viewpoint. First, Agnihotri did not manufacture the hate that is depicted in the movie. He merely did his duty by bringing the hate that was rampant in the Valley to the attention of the public, something that nobody had the courage to do so far. The gory incidents that he picturises are all based on real events. For hate to be countered, hate needs to be identified, highlighted and condemned so that the purveyors of hate know that it is unacceptable and will be penalised.

By papering over such incidents under the dubious pretension of not upsetting the delicate communal balances and by not confronting hate face to face, we not only embolden hate-mongers but become unwittingly complicit in their crime. Our inability as a nation to highlight and counter the diabolicity of the separatist movement in Kashmir is what allowed it to fester for so long and get away with such barbarism.

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The Kashmir Files talks about one genocide, but what about others confined to whispers and whisperers?

The Kashmir Files opens up wounds that never healed

After The Kashmir Files, revisiting Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 'sanitised' version on Kashmiri Pandits exodus in Shikara

Vivek Agnihotri on The Kashmir Files: 'I wanted to make a film about people who did not pick up guns'

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri deactivates his Twitter account ahead of The Kashmir Files release; heres why

Watch: Trailer of Vivek Agnihotris The Kashmir Files, starring Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty

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The charge that failure to co-opt the Kashmiri Muslim version of the conflict, makes the movie unbelievable and biased does not pass muster. The tragedy of the Kashmiri Pandits is apocalyptic: Brutal, savage and barbaric. It was also a story that had been deliberately swept under the carpet to mask the fundamentalism and xenophobia of separatism in Kashmir. Therefore, their story had to be told with a single-minded focus, without nuances, without sugarcoating and without dilution or distraction by the other facets of the Kashmir conflict. The perpetrators of the crime had to be called out with a definitiveness that was indisputable. That is what Agnihotri has done in blunt, unvarnished terms; a bluntness that the so-called intellectuals supporting the separatist movement find troubling because the same derogatory terms like Nazi and fascism that they used so flippantly to describe the other side has now become an apt and telling euphemism for them and their misguided cause.

And by the way the dominant narrative of the Kashmir conflict in the international and domestic media, including movies till now has been lopsided; a narrative that has focused overwhelmingly on what has been touted as Muslim self-determination. That story does not warrant reiteration.

Emphasising this one-sided depiction of the Kashmir issue so far, Aanchal Magazine, herself a Kashmiri Pandit writes (On Kashmir, listen to all those who suffered;Indian Express, 24 March): I was one-year-old in 1990. Growing up, I would often scan news reports about us but not to much avail. I would sit through movies based on Kashmir, waiting for a mention of Kashmiri Pandits. An insignificant territory to explore for mainstream filmmakers, they would often be a fleeting reference. In one such movie shot in Kashmir and released in 2014 with a running time of 162 minutes, Kashmiri Pandits had a mention: One line.

When previous films have consistently blanked out the tragedy of the Pandits, why is it thatThe Kashmir Filesis being held to a different standard?

Such double standards and hypocrisy cannot help to build a nation that is morally robust and equitable.

Another reason for the ire of the liberals is because this movie conclusively punctures the myth of Hindu majoritarianism: A false narrative craftily woven into our national discourse by painting a communal riot as a pogrom (Gujarat 2002) and dubbing a humanitarian law (CAA) as discriminatory. Can brutalisation of the majority community occur with such audacity in a nation where the reigning mantra is majoritarianism?

Agnihotri has cast aside the false filters of political correctness and shed the inhibitions of a warped secularism to tell the story directly to the people as it happened. He has dared to uncover the truth of a horrendous past, intentionally kept buried for over 30 years; he has dared to let Indians know what their brethren suffered; and he has dared to jolt the comatose conscience of an indifferent nation. We must be grateful to him for this moral wake-up call.

One film critic (The Kashmir Filestries showing 1990 exodus truth but Agnihotri gives it death blow; Amogh Rohmetra,The Print,13 March 2022) wryly remarked: WhileThe Kashmir Filesbrings out the truth and the much-needed story of Kashmiri Pandits, it tanks its credibility by mingling with facts, defaming JNU, blaming selective politicians

It is not the credibility of the movie that is tanked. By his heart-wrenching expose Agnihotri has tanked the credibility of JNU, those selective politicians and those biased sections of the media that downplayed what is unequivocally the ultimate moral lapse of post-Independence India: The blatant ethnic cleansing of over a quarter million Kashmiri Hindus who became refugees in their own country overnight all in a secular democratic nation.

Finally, what is extremely troubling is the utter insensitivity and crass moral depravity of the anti-Kashmir Filescampaign. Instead of sincerely acknowledging the sufferings of the Pandits with sobriety and empathising with them, what we are witnessing is a vicious and deliberate game of whataboutery; one that derides the government for making it tax-free and accuses the movie of inciting hate all in attempt to distract from the main focus of the film and achieve its nauseating objective the denial of the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits; a negation that parallels the holocaust denial.

The writer is a US-based author. Views expressed are personal.

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How The Kashmir Files has caught our bleeding-heart liberals off guard and their lies exposed - Firstpost

Atlus fighting game seriesPower Instinct will have its 30th anniversary in 2023. However, there will be no ports or re-releases during the timeframe.Keiko Chuuko Ijuu, the former representative director of Noise Factory and producer of the series, made the announcement on Twitter.

The first tweet revealed that Chuuko had sent petitions to the series rights holder since November 2021. However, the holder rejected it because one of the series characters would have a high risk of triggering litigation related to political correctness.

After the first refusal, Chuuko suggested releasing thePower Instinct title by excluding the controversial character. The rights holder still refused the proposal, citing a change in trends of the era and the difficulty in re-releasing past games.

With game ports out of the question, Chuuko is now sending proposals for republications of non-game content, such as soundtrack and character background documents. She also expressed her intent to set up a one-person company to publish content related to Power Instinct.

The series developer company Noise Factory went defunct in 2017. Although the website is no longer available, Chuuko is still actively managing the Twitter account. In early January 2022, she asked Power Instinct fans whether they would like to see ports of previous games ahead of the series 30th anniversary in 2023.

Power Instinct is known in Japan asGouketsuji Ichizoku (The Gouketsuji Clan). Atlus has been publishing the fighting game series since the first title was released in 1993. Only the first two titles received English releases. The company released further sequels exclusively in Japan.

The latest title in thePower Instinct series is Gouketsuji Ichizoku: Senzo Kuyou, available on arcades in Japan since 2009.

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There Will Be No Power Instinct Re-Release on Its 30th Anniversary - Siliconera

The editorial board of The New York Times made a calculated splash last weekend by publishing a lead editorial under the headline: America Has a Free Speech Problem. The piece has already been effectively demolished by many other writers, but of course that does not stop the editorial from convincing the credulous and the conniving alike that there is a deep and worsening problem with so-called cancel culture.

In a Verdict column last May titled Go Ahead and Cancel Me, You Erasing, Censorious Silencers; Also . . . Woke! I argued that the entire notion of cancel culture and wokeness is void of content and merely amounts to a rebranding of the equally vacuous epithet political correctness. That is, every time a person uses any of those terms, we should ask: What does this person actually mean, other than Im going to put a negative label on this thing I dont like? The answer is always that these various labels are merely a way to make personal grievance sound like a high-minded appeal to Free Speech.

Nothing has changed in the months since I wrote that column, but even so, the mythology of cancel culture has moved from novel rebranding to conventional wisdom among the media elite on both sides of the political divide. It is thus worth looking again at why there is no content to this now-evergreen trope, because invoking cancel culture perversely has the effect of genuinely silencing dissentwhich is supposedly what we all should be trying not to do.

It is especially disappointing when a prominent group with a liberal reputation like the editorial board of The Times feeds this beast, because the result is to strengthen conservatives who continue to claim victimhood when anyone dares to criticize their views. Indeed, the editors roused themselves from their fainting couches and led off their editorial with this:

For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

What in the world are they talking about? Have we not all been taught again and again that Justice Brandeis was clearly right when he wrote: If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence?

Being shamed and shunned, rather than estopped or jailed, is exactly what is supposed to happen to people who peddle falsehoods and fallacies. No matter the label usedpolitical correctness, cancel culture, woke mobs, or anything elsethe reality has always been that certain people want to have it both ways: say horrible things and then take offense when anyone tells them that they have said horrible things. But if politics aint beanbag, as the old saying goes, neither is free speech necessarily pleasant.

Brandeis did not say that additional speech must be crafted not to hurt anyones feelings. The idea is that, for example, Nazis can march peacefully through a town where Holocaust survivors live, and the government must allow that to happen, because we do not want the government to make choices about what is and is not acceptable speech in the public square. But the more speech idea enters the story precisely because the bad speech can and must be challenged. No one imagines, I would have thought, that the people who attempt to shame and shun people with hateful ideologies are somehow abusing their own rights to free speech and association.

The response to this from the editors of The Times and those who agree with them, however, is that we are not talking about truly odious people being shamed and shunned. We are told that regular, everyday folks are now

understandably confused, then, about what they can say and where they can say it. People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working throughall without fearing cancellation.

Again, what exactly is cancellation? Former Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York now says that he was the victim of cancel culture, as does his brother Chris, the fired pundit formerly of CNN. They both lost their positions because of things they did, not what they said, but they are now jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to have been hounded out of office by carping prigs.

It is true that there is a small number of well-worn examples of people having been fired or demoted due to what amounted to misunderstandings, but such injustices have always been with us. There is nothing in the public recordand certainly nothing in that editorialthat shows that this is a unique or growing problem.

The best the editors can do is to cite a recent poll (which they commissioned and paid for) which found that 84 percent of adults said it is a very serious or somewhat serious problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

In the spirit of constructive dialogue, I hereby offer an alternative reason that the pollsters find people saying that they feel censored: people are hearing about cancel culture everywhere they turn, and they grab onto it as an explanation for whatever is bothering them. Oh, yeah, I remember someone giving me the stink-eye when I said that cripples shouldnt have their own parking spaces. Come to think of it, Ive been canceled!

Even worse, the poll that The Times commissioned is a classic example of a push-poll, that is, a poll with questions designed to shape the answers. In particular, the question to which the editors referred was this: How much of a problem is it that some Americans do not exercise their freedom of speech in everyday situations out of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism? Well golly, even I might say that that is very serious or somewhat serious, if I had a pollster presenting as fact the idea that Americans are not exercising their freedom of speech. Even people who had never heard of cancel culture might respond in the way that the editors wanted them to respond. It sounds bad. That it is not happening is beside the point.

The fact is that there is nothing wrong with people exercising their freedom not to speak, evenor especiallyin everyday situations, whatever that might mean. If I go to a party with a bunch of people who think that the greatest rocknroll band of all time is ABBA, I might decide not to tell them that they are clearly wrong. (I like ABBA, but the greatest?)

More seriously, if a person were to use a term that has fallen out of favor, like mentally retarded, and if she did so out of pure ignorance from not having heard that that term is offensive, I would hope that she would be corrected gently. If so, she would surely appreciate it, whereas if she were shamed and shunned, that would feel bad to her. But that is not a free speech problem. At worst, it means that she should try harder to make her good faith clear and to be better informed about current usage.

But the editors at The Times are sure that that is terrible. They even claim that it a threat to democracy itself, because [i]deas that go unchallenged by opposing views risk becoming weak and brittle rather than being strengthened by tough scrutiny.

I bow to no one in my concern that American democracy is under threatindeed, that it might already have suffered fatal blows and is in the process of bleeding outbut what the editors wrote is self-contradictory nonsense. The idea, apparently, is that we need to expose our views to potential criticismindeed, to tough scrutinybut then when the criticism comes, we can say: Dont make me feel like I have to self-censor, or youll destroy democracy!

For all of its windy rhetoric about the importance of robust debate, The Timess editorial board is afraid of that very thing. In the end, they seem to be saying that there are polite ways to discuss matters. That is true, but when did we adopt the rule that public conversations must be genteel?

Because of its importance in the global media ecosystem, an editorial in The New York Times garners a lot of attention. This past Monday, the Morning Joe crew on MSNBC responded to the editorial with a long segment in which panelistsincluding a person who was favorably quoted in the piece itselfagreed with everything that the editors at The Times had written.

Joe Scarborough noted what he thought was an ironythat the pushback the editors had received demonstrated that people are in fact too censorious. That response, however, is not censure but argument. What I found truly ironic, however, was that Scarborough did not have a single person on the panel who disagreed with anyone else. Scarborough is a NeverTrump conservative and Al Sharpton is a liberal, but all of the people on the panel are denizens of the ecosystem that has been tut-tutting about cancel culture all along.

In more than 17 minutes of discussion, the examples that the Morning Joe crew came up with were painfully minor. Scarborough twice mentioned a time when Condoleezza Rice was disinvited as a commencement speaker, acting as if that was an example of cancel culture. But as I pointed out in a column several years ago, commencements are the worst possible example for the anti-cancelers to invoke, because graduation day is not a seminar meeting but a celebration. I wonder if Scarborough would hold a wedding anniversary party and invite Donald Trump, who has accused him of murdering one of his staffers (and has insulted Scarboroughs wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, in very personal terms).

For that matter, I do not recall Scarborough enriching the debate on his showwhich is not a celebratory event but a discussion of important issuesby scheduling anyone who has said such things. Is he, as he claimed on his show regarding the supposedly intolerant cancelers, not confident of his own point of view? Or maybe, as is perfectly normal, he has his own standards for what arguments can and cannot be tolerated, even as he complains when others do the same.

Beyond the commencement example, the Morning Joe panel mostly wrung its hands about how young people supposedly feel shut down on college campuses these days. Even though Scarborough laughingly allowed that it was hardly new for students to tailor their speech to the contextclaiming to have written exam answers in college and law school to cater to his perceptions of a professors preferred answershe insisted that there is something big and new going on. He could not define it, but he was sure that it was bad.

When I was in my first year of law school in 2000, there was a discussion of date rape in my criminal law class. After some conversation about the difficulty of defining that crime, a consensus emerged regarding undue influence, threats of force, and so on. One male in the class then said: If thats the definition of date rape, then I and all of my friends have committed date rape.

He apparently thought that this would make people think that the definition was too open-ended, but a female student responded by saying: Thank you for warning us. In current terminology, that man was thenceforth canceledthat is, his dating life was over at that law school. He was not capable of being shamed, but he was undeniably shunned.

I suppose one could say that we lose something if someone decides not to self-indict during discussions in public, but if the sanction of shunning is not available, what exactly is the point? I know you just confessed to being a serial date-rapist, but in the interest of democracy Im going to continue to be your friend?

The most bizarre aspect of the Morning Joe segment was that it opened with a clip from 1966 in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech in Cape Town, South Africa. The speech is a moving description of how free speech can overcome resistance, yet later in the segment, Scarborough claimed that things have become so bad in the US that if Kennedy had tried to give that speech today, he would have been shouted down. That assertion is completely ridiculous, but in any case, Kennedy did not argue that free speech is easy but that it is difficult and that it inevitably meets resistance, precisely because free speech is best used to disagree with the powerful. He did not say that the people who disagree must be well-mannered about it.

To be clear, I absolutely do not like it when people are rude to me. I understand why people like Joe Scarborough and the editors of The New York Times are shocked to have people disagree with them and even to be disrespectful to them. If they are calling for people to be more courteous, then I only ask: Where is your line for when it is acceptable to be discourteous? And if people draw that line where you wish it were not drawn, are you willing to cancel those people?

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No, America Does Not Have a Free Speech ProblemAt Least, Not the One The New York Timess Editors Imagine - Justia Verdict

Theres a politics loose in our democracy that is all about nothing.

The evangelical church serves as the incubator and enabler of the politics of nothing. This is not a sermon, but it suggests a biblical text: The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah speaks here of humanity, but his dreary truthful tropes can apply to what I call the politics of nothing. While the politics of nothing has its chimera of glory, it will wither and fade like flowers and grass.

The politics of nothing sells the public a bill of goods, empty bags, inflated promises, and so much rage. The politics of nothing is riding humanity hard now, and they think it will last forever, but the grass withers, the flower fades.

The politics of nothing is not the future of our democracy, but unless we see it for its uselessness, it may be the end. The politics of nothing is like a frontier medicine man peddling bottles of liquor dressed up as miraculous healing medicine but in reality worthless except for a temporary moment of feeling high.

What is the politics of nothing? It is emotionally laden speech that has no policies attached. It is a rage against how bodies act and interact in culture, with no goods offered to bodies in return.

The politics of nothing has allergic reactions to policies substantive policies designed to empower, enable, protect and assist humans. Our current outbreak of the politics of nothing has no place for policy.

The politics of nothing has allergic reactions to policies.

The politics of nothing uses pathos to induce feelings of freedom and goodness in the audience. Ironically, the feel good, feel free theme of the politics of nothing relies on the rhetoric of demonization, evidence-flouting and repudiation of institutions.

Somehow the politics of nothing manages to be entertaining and terrifying at the same time. The pathos is that of a stand-up comedian getting people to laugh nervously at the destruction of others who can safely be made fun of and put down in nefarious and hurtful ways. The politics of nothing churns out shame on the bodies of those who are different. It channels anxiety, narcissism and alienation to attract supporters who are now given the signal that it is OK to rage against the dreaded others.

The church has not always promoted a politics of nothing. The Reformation was a religious/political struggle as Catholics and Protestants battled over sacraments, polity, theology. At least the age produced an amazing number of theologians: Luther, Calvin and Wesley, for example.

Now, evangelicals are spewing out populist, affluent preachers who are all hand-tamed by Republican politics successful blessers of a successful culture, as Carlyle Marney said. In the 19th century, churches fought to abolish slavery. In the late 19th century, evangelicals promoted the rights of workers, womens rights and care for the poor. In the 20th century, churches fought to end segregation, promote civil rights and protest war. These all were serious issues with both theological and political ramifications.

Now, politicians perform rituals of feeling good, feeling free a nothing dance to win votes rather than help persons. It promises people a land of promise flowing with milk and honey, but it produces a land of fear and violence. It promises a well of fresh water but produces only brackish, bad-tasting water from the sewer. It promises a feast of fine wine and platters of meat but gives only sour wine like vinegar and a valley of dry bones.

It promises people a land of promise flowing with milk and honey, but it produces a land of fear and violence.

The politics of nothing attempts to impose a strict moralism on the nation. Actual issues that impact the political life of the democracy are ignored as evangelicals pour forth emotional appeals dealing with issues that dont have anything to do with food, water, clothing, housing, health care.

The politics of nothing has now degraded to a class of politicians eager to smear, denigrate and defame. Now, the evangelicals line up to promote spurious revisions of history, the undoing of scientific knowledge and a hyper-patriotism that smacks of idolatry.

The politics of nothing obsesses about sex. For example, Newt Gingrichs take on Judge Ketanji Brown Jacksons judicial hearing for a Supreme Court slot was that she disqualified herself because she could not define a woman. Nothing about the Constitution, the law, being a qualified judge, but a slap from Gingrich about sexuality transgender persons. This is the politics of nothing.

In the mighty house of democracy, a house built on the rock of freedom, the politics of nothing concentrates all its attention on the closet and the bathroom.

For decades, evangelicals struggled to keep gays in the closet. I always have been puzzled by the evangelical attachment to the closet as a negative trope where gays were to be housed. After all, evangelicals know that Jesus elevated the closet to a room of prominence in his teaching: Whenever you pray, go into your closet and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you (Matthew 6:6).

The politics of nothing concentrates all its attention on the closet and the bathroom.

The closet was to be a room of prayer, not a prison where you locked away those you deemed unworthy. Now that the closet doors have been thrown wide open, evangelicals switched to obsessing about the bathroom. From homophobia they transitioned to fear of transgender persons. Legislation about bathrooms and transgender persons in sports pile up in state legislators like a late April snow in upstate New York.

The Parental Rights in Education bill, more commonly known as the Dont Say Gay bill, has been signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The bill prohibits teachers and school staff from discussing gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms and limits such discussion among older students to an undefined age-appropriate standard.

The Idaho House of Representatives passed a bill that makes it a crime punishable by life in prison for parents to seek out gender-affirming care for their child. If made law, it also would make it a crime for parents to leave the state with their transgender teen to get gender-affirming care. A guilty verdict would mean life in prison.

InAlabama, lawmakers are pushing a bill that makes it a felony for a doctor to provide gender-affirming care, namely puberty blockers, hormones or surgeries to children 18 years old or younger. The offense is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

At least 29 states have introduced bills that would exclude transgender children and teens from sports. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has called gender-affirming procedures child abuse. There must be something in the water in Texas because it is also the home of the Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress who has claimed that the Democratic Party is now the party of atheism.

The politics of nothing is a gathering of politicians who come out, call on the name of God, freedom and patriotism, wave their hands in the air and declare that people are free from everything truth, responsibility, empathy, mutualism.

An image of Naaman the leper, in his snit fit over the preacher not coming to greet him in person, fits the politics of nothing attitude: I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of theLordhis God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! (2 Kings 5:11).

The politics of nothing is performative rhetoric, not policy-making legislation.

The politics of nothing is performative rhetoric, not policy-making legislation. Lights, action, cameras roll the performance begins. In the 1990s, the situation comedy The Seinfeld Show was dubbed the show about nothing. Closer examination determined that the show actually was about quite a lot.

There is, however, a show that really is about nothing: The Republican Congress starring Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Louie Gohmert of Texas, et al.

Sen. Cotton attempts to deny federal funding for the New York Times 1619 Project. He rails about the loss of civilizational confidence among white people.

Gov. DeSantis of Florida presents a bill designed to make sure no history teacher teaches Critical Race Theory or anything that might make white people uncomfortable. Somehow, he managed to have the word freedom in his bill. How odd that the people of Florida would need a law that gave them the freedom to be comfortable. One would think that the land of sunshine, gated condos, lounge chairs, flip-flops, ill-colored shirts, margaritas, eye-popping bikinis, orange juice and beaches would be basking in comfort.

The politics of nothing turns out to be a labeling company that spends all its time and energy on ginning up protests an entire list of emotional issues that amount to nothing. These efforts are more than quips, slogans or tweets. They are determined propaganda efforts to sway the nations voters. The labeling factory at the Politics of Nothing has churned out political correctness, CRT, wokeness, Dont Say Gay, anti-LGBTQA legislation, and All Democrats are communists. The purpose is to engender rage at, well, nothing.

The new Do Nothing Party in D.C. does have some activity, but like the business end of a bee its got a lot of stings and no value. Greene and Boebert between them have filed five bills to impeach President Joe Biden. Here the revenge motive glares back at us as if we were watching reruns of The Godfather.

Greene has introduced 17 bills in Congress four to impeach Biden, one to present the Congressional Medal of Honor to Kyle Rittenhouse, one to eliminate the ATF, one to remove Maxine Waters from the Committee on Financial Services, one to fire Anthony Fauci, two to give Americans more freedom with guns, and one to congratulate the University of Georgia on winning the national championship in football. Theres nothing in any of those bills of benefit to American citizens.

Theres nothing in any of those bills of benefit to American citizens.

Boebert has introduced bills such as Stop AOC Act, Protect our Kids from Harmful Research, (but dont provide free hot breakfast at school), Were not paying you to break our laws act, impeach President Biden for high crimes and misdemeanors, impeach Vice President Kamala Harris for the same reasons, Stop the Biden Caravan Now Act, and the No Mask Mandate Act.

Sen. Cotton has introduced a bill to defund Critical Race Theory called the Stop CRT Act. He also has introduced the Saving American History Act, which would prohibit federal funds from being used to teach the 1619 Project curriculum.

Media coverage of the politics of nothing has inspired people to run for Congress on a Do Nothing platform. South Carolina Republican candidate for the House Katie Arrington has said her top priorities include dismantling the Department of Education, impeaching President Joe Biden and completing Trumps border wall.

The politics of nothing wantonly imposes poverty, lack of education, fear of public education, ill-health and a truncated social safety net. Dragging its collective feet on the COVID pandemic, the ranting anti-maskers, Fire Dr. Fauci wingnuts, the anti-vaxxers, and the we cant shut down the nation railers, we have managed to kill almost one million of our fellow Americans in the name of something called freedom.

Lt. Gov.Dan Patrick of Texas, a politics of nothing poster boy, famously suggested that senior citizens should volunteer to die from COVID in order to keep the economy running, because, God knows, money is more important than senior citizens. And that rolled off the backs of Americans like water off a duck even though it is crazy.

The politicians of nothing are a gaggle of geese loud, obnoxious creatures who leave a mess for others to clean and add nothing to the well-being of our democracy.

The politics of nothing offends all human compassion. When the politicians of nothing entice us, we should resist. If they say, Come with us, let us lay an ambush for transgenders, the poor, the immigrants, the women, the children, let us waylay the oppressed, let us swallow them as sheol swallows life. Let us undermine the teaching of biology and the life-saving research of science, let us revise American history to make light of our nations flaws, ignore them. When they say, We shall enrich ourselves and fill our houses with spoil. Throw in your lot with us, resist.

The wise woman of Proverbs eviscerates the politics of nothing as twisted speech.

The wise woman of Proverbs eviscerates the politics of nothing as twisted speech, as politicians who forsake straight paths, who take pleasure in evildoing, who journey on ways of darkness. Their tracks are labyrinthine and tortuous. Smooth speech, empty rhetoric, promises without policies this is the way of the politics of nothing. The wise woman uses straightforward speech, plain utterances and her mouth speaks truth, her sayings are honest: I, Wisdom, am neighbor to shrewdness, I find out right procedures. I possess policy and competence, insight and power. By me kings reign, and rulers enact what is right. I walk in the path of righteousness, in the tracks of justice (Proverbs 8:12 16, 20).

Bottom line fact: The politics of nothing does nothing to improve peoples lives. The politics of nothing doesnt advocate for the poor or pass legislation that would feed the poor. Being anti-science, anti-history, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, or anti-CRT doesnt put food on anyones table. The politics of nothing has nothing to say about the comfort of persons of color, persons of precarious economic standing, and persons who are living in fear and want. Hungry people cant eat the ideas floating around in the cesspool of the politics of nothing.

Universal health care would improve all lives, but the politics of nothing rails against it. The parable of the Good Samaritan needs to expand from one wealthy man helping one poor beaten man to a government that provides health care for everyone. The politics of nothing doesnt provide doctors in poor rural areas. The politics of nothing doesnt make prescription drugs available for the poor because the profits of big pharma matter more than persons in need of medical care.

Our most sustained effort at providing health care for everyone is the Affordable Care Act passed during the administration of President Barack Obama. The politics of nothing called universal health care a government takeover and said the program provided for death panels. Misinformation and lies. The politics of nothing thought it was good political strategy to refuse to use the name of the act: Affordable Health Care. Instead, they labeled it Obamacare. The name of the bill was about so much that most Americans support and believe in: Affordable. Health. Care.

Church leaders working to influence politics would be better served to promote issues that improve and empower humans rather than emotions laced with fear, rage and a bunch of nothing. Instead of restrictive rules about bodies, why cant church leaders promote an incarnational, embodied concern for all bodies? Christian faith is fleshly, material, physical.

Politics turns out to be too fleshly, too material, too bodily to succumb to the politics of nothing. A church known as the body of Christ should at least be prepared to make politics more about the least of these rather than about nothing.

Rodney W. Kennedycurrently serves as interim pastor of Emmanuel Freiden Federated Church in Schenectady, N.Y., and as preaching instructor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He is the author of nine books, including the newly releasedThe Immaculate Mistake,about how evangelical Christians gave birth to Donald Trump.

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The politics of nothing and the enabling church - Baptist News Global

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Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has announced a real terms cut forBBC funding, with plans to freeze the license fee for two years. There are several theories on the Tories motives. Are they strong-arming the BBC into shape? Reducing funding in retaliation for unfavourable coverage? Or is this a PR manoeuvre intended to appease hard right voters who think the broadcaster is too woke?

On the face of it, accusingthe BBC of having a left-wing slantwould suggest a woeful misreading of the political temperature. Its a talking point that wouldnt appear out of place on GB News. But while the idea that the institution is biased against Conservatives might be absurd, it would be foolish to dismiss the idea that the BBC has any political leaning in itself given it has a clear bias against the left.

The persecution complex is a right-wingers bread and butter. Delusions of maltreatment contribute to a grand victim narrative: mundanities become sinister anti-Conservative plots, evidence of a society that is actively hostile to their beliefs, as opposed to one literally governed by the Conservative Party. The objective of this is to garner sympathy, to convince the wider electorate that if their views are controversial enough to be censored by influential, wokeprogressives, then surely they must be worth listening to.

In 2022, these dishonest tactics manifest in discourse about a culture war. The term of the day is cancel culture, a mostly online phenomenon involving the supposed censorship of Conservatives by the aforementioned powerful progressives. This perceived political suppression ranges from online deplatforming, i.e. losing access to a social media account, to being barred from a venue or space such as a university campus.

JK Rowling is perhaps the most high profile, alleged case of cancel culture. The authors many, many controversial tweets about transgender women may not have hurt her bank account, but did lead to significant online backlash. Perhaps nursing a bruised ego,Rowling characterised this as cancel culture in an open letter, signed by various writers:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: 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.

If the power imbalance inherent in a cisgender celebrity millionaire smearing a historically oppressed community wasnt damning enough, the fact that said millionaire suffered no professional consequencesfor her comments should have fatally invalidated Rowlings notion of cancel culture. It didnt.

Read on...

Establishment media is a crucial component in this narrative of persecution, with the BBC used as both soapbox and scapegoat. Right-wing commentators and MPs alike use the platform of the broadcaster to condemn what they perceive as the left for the cancelling of their politics. Ironically, the BBC itself often becomes a scapegoat for these grievances a patsy for their image of a left which is somehowinstitutionally all-powerful and morally craven at the same time.

Even while being interviewed on Newsnight or Politics Live, Conservative figures argue that the broadcaster has a discriminative agenda; that its an arm of Big Journalism infringing on their freedom of speech, and that diversity quotas are corrupting its audience and programming. This is what informs right-wing support of the licence fee cut-off: as long as the BBC is cancelling Conservatives, it is a moral imperative to defund it.

Of course, this is all total rubbish.

If the media landscape of the past six years has shown anything, its that the BBCs coverage of historically oppressed peoples is far from impartial. Take recent BBC News articles on the transgender community, such as the notorious Were being pressured into sex by some trans women. When initially published, the piece featured comments by pornographic actress Lily Cade, herself accused of sexual misconduct, who later encouraged the lynching of trans women in a now deleted blog post. Clearly, transgender women arent even permitted to date freely withoutthe nations most popular, impartial news platform associating themwith sexual assault. But its apparently acceptable for the very samebroadcaster to use a cisgender woman accused of sexual assault as a contributor.

BBC News also has a dismal track record when it comes to their coverage, or lack thereof, during protests. Trans right activists were still protestingWere beingpressured into sex by some trans womenmonths after its publication, but theBBCneglected to report on any of such demonstrations, even while protestors rallied outside their Londonbroadcasting house. To acknowledge dissent is to legitimise it.

And who could forget the multiple occasions on which the BBC publicised images of Kill the Bill protestors, after they were circulated by Avon and Somerset Police? A state broadcaster rolling CCTV close-ups of wanted anti-authoritarian protestors like something out of a dystopian police state. Articles like these have laid bare a reactionary bias that legitimises transphobic tropes, and a contempt for those who reject the Conservative status quo.

Arguably even more pervasive is the BBCs ideological bias. For some, the broadcasters red scare-style vilification of Jeremy Corbyn defined the past two elections. BBC News coverage of Labours recent election campaigns continues to be scrutinised, including at an academic level. The former Labour leader and his manifesto were often presented with, at best, an air of exaggerated incredulity, and, at worst, downright cynicism.

The BBCs complaints division responds to criticism on occasion, but never in good faith. For example, former director-general Tony Hall dismissed allegations of bias as conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the 2019 General Election. Also,Newsnight was accused of manipulating a headshot of Corbyn wearing a capto associate him with communist Russia, by photoshopping a Kremlin backdrop and a shade of Soviet red onto the image. Instead of addressing these complaints, BBC editors only responded to the lesser allegation that they had visually exaggerated the shape of the Labour leaders hat. Theirexplanation was a simple technical distortion, a result of the image [being] projected on to a large curved screen as reported by the Guardian, though this didnt explain the colour alteration and background image.

The subtle yet brazen bias of the BBCs reporting is perhaps not all that surprising given the senior figures at the broadcaster withlinks to the Conservative Party. But that isnt changing the minds of anyone on the right. The online behemoth that is cancel culture is a profitable one, generating more political and social capital with every contrived scandal.

The reality is that the BBC isnt cancelling right-wingers. Theyre providing them with a pulpit; giving commentators access to the most popular news platform in the country, from which they broadcast an incredibly powerful faux victim narrative. Cancel culture isnt something wielded against the right, certainly not by the BBC rather, its used to undermine and incite violence against the left. Threatening the status quo makes you fair game: transgender people, young protestors, and anyone further left than the most moderate of social democrats are all subject to incendiary smear campaigns.

Conservative diehards who pride themselves on being frank and outspoken have established themselves as puritans of the online realm. They tell themselves that the entire British establishment is out to get them for their traditional right-wing values, but then condemn media for being inclusive or progressive. They are fundamentally the ones addicted to cancel culture. They clutch their pearls at anything which doesnt fit with their worldview and beliefs, which often includes queerness, Black and Brown people, and sincerity. All the while, they characterise themselves as the only people brave enough to tell it how it is amidst a sea of sensitive snowflakes. The outrage surrounding the BBCs wokeness and political correctness before it (a lineage that stretches back to Mary Whitehouse) is simply the cultural indignation of bigots, dressed up as sensible, no-nonsense populism. Prejudice disguised as pragmatism.

Many British political moderates seem to be reluctant to criticise a broadcaster which has essentially become a right-wing propaganda platform. Some feel unwilling to turn on this world-beatingservice, because the alternative is joining a critical voice that is, currently, predominantly right-wing. But its important to keep in mind that the Conservatives campaign against the BBC, ridiculous as it may be, doesnt mean that the BBC is in the right. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Hand-wringing about optics is useless: if the BBC is allowed to continue its arbitrary, McCarthyist crusade against the left, then speaking out against biased reporting will always be an uphill battle.

Establishment media will never view even the most moderate of left-wing principles as legitimate, so why worry about the consequences of opposing the establishment? Dont be tentative to resist an institution that will never approach you with the journalistic impartiality it affords your opponents. Instead, criticise the BBC!

As a progressive, consider that a de facto state broadcaster that has consistently conflated your politics with Stalinism might, in fact, deserve to lose its funding.

Read the rest here:

If the BBC is cancelling anyone, it's cancelling the Left - The Canary

The new liberalism

Since the terms socialism, Marxism and communism carry the stigma of philosophies that have failed, groups who believe in those ideologies started calling themselves progressives in the 1920s. Their goal was to usurp control of the Democratic Party by creating problems and then offering solutions to the problems they created.

In order to create problems, progressives introduced political correctness and diversity. Type Saul Alinsky into any search engine. Read Rules for Radicals. You will then know what progressives have in store for America.

Liberalism does not mean what it used to mean. If Democrats knew what they were really voting for, they would vote for another party.

Todays Democratic Party is not the party of President John F. Kennedy. Since the 1960s, many laws have been for social reform, such as civil rights and environmentalism. Rules then written by Washington bureaucrats in charge of enforcing those laws are regulations that businesses and you and I must obey or risk fines and imprisonment.

Progressives favor policies that promote social progress by using the government to force reforms while promoting submission to the government, because, according to them, the government always knows whats best for everyone.

Progressives believe in collectivism, not individualism. When you think of Social Security, Medicare or the income tax, do you think of individuals?

New laws normally benefit groups or corporations that have lobbied for them, not individuals, while additional regulations add additional costs that are passed on to us. Along with those costs there can be hidden taxes we never see on our sales receipts.

In medieval times, serfs had to give their lord one-third of all they produced. Today, because of embedded (invisible) taxes, every dollar you spend you are unknowingly paying almost 40% for local, state and federal taxes!

What does that make us?

Sonny Heninger, Leesburg

One picture says it all.

I'm talking about Nancy Polosi tearing up the State of the Union address a few years ago. I guess some people think this is an example of class.

Ever notice how Democrats just don't seem to be able to get past Trump? No matter what else is going on, it's always Trump, Trump, Trump.

I guess it's not surprising, after all. You can't expect them to mention the disastrous exit from Afghanistan (Biden ignoring advice from military advisers); the unspeakable situation on our southern border (caused and then ignored by Biden); the surge in crime in so many Democrat-run cities (ignored again); our completely embarrassing and incompetent vice president (ignored again); the skyrocketing inflation (Bidens solution is to spend more); or the systematic destruction of our coal, gas and oil industries (a policy too unbelievable to believe).

Of course, don't remind them of Biden's campaign promise to unite the country, shut down the coronavirus, or never to invoke mask or inoculation mandates. But, the most troubling of all is their plan to remake our country into what they think it should be. Take the country that has achieved the highest level of industrial success, greatest military strength ever achieved and the highest standard of living ever, and turn it into some kind of socialistic state, a system that has been tried in many different forms and has never worked! Could it be that their real and only objective is to gain as much power as they can?

The Democratic plan: Keep the people thinking about Trump, and they will not notice what we are doing behind their back.

Roger Ball, Leesburg

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Today's letters: Readers comment on the term 'progressives' and the Democratic plan - Daily Commercial

PARENTS taking their kids to a playground are being asked to sign a disclaimer in case they get injured.

The health and safety-gone-mad rules were brought in by bosses at a Birmingham park after a change of insurance provider.

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New rules at Meriden Adventure Playground dictate mums and dads must sign a waiver agreeing that their kids enter the park at their own risk.

Bosses at the charity-run play area in Chelmsley Wood said in a statement: The playground is a wonderfully free place for children and young people to spend time exploring, gaining independence and taking (calculated) risks.

With all environments like ours, including open playgrounds, there will be bumps and bruises along the way and these are part of the adventure of free play and exploration.

The statement explained that the playground is fully insured, and anyone injured would be covered for any reason, adding their approach to risk is robust.

But due to a swap in insurance provider, documents must now be signed by anyone entering.

The statement said: You will probably all be aware that the environment is changing with regard to managing risk and we are having to make some changes to our operating practices, as required by our new insurers.

From now on, we are asking every person who steps inside the playground to sign a disclaimer that they do so at their own risk.

Some parents were pleased that the park - which had briefly closed while the insurance issue was sorted - was back open, and others suggested the waiver was overkill.

One dad, who did not want to be named, fumed: Im never taking my kids there again.

Children are supposed to rough and tumble, its normal.

This just feels like political correctness gone mad.

The park, which is free to enter, is usually open all year round.

It features a giant rope swing, a giant climbing frame and two slides - as well as regularly hosting activities.

There is also a youth night, and closed SEN sessions for children with special educational needs.

Last Christmas, sick yobs stole 2,000 worth of Xmas toys collected for struggling families in the area that were stored at the playground.

Fundraising efforts saw more than 4,000 raised to buy back the gifts.

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See original here:

I refuse to take my kids to the playground after parents were made to sign DISCLAIMERS in case they get... - The Sun

The responses are oh so predictable. When Tory grandee and minister Jacob Rees-Mogg had the temerity to suggest what many of us have been thinking, that the war waged against Ukraine put the sins of Downing Street and Partygate in some perspective, there was outrage both faux and real.

No one in the Jewish community could ever take for granted Covid, lockdowns and the fallout. We all lost friends and acquaintances to the pandemic. One of the most disturbing sights for me during Covid was attending a slimmed-down funeral at the New Bushey Cemetery for a friend taken from us by coronavirus, and seeing the serried ranks of newly-dug graves.

Yet to be furious about alleged breaches of lockdown when Europe is under military threat shows how distorted our privileged Western value systems have become. The savage Russian flattening of Mariupol, including a maternity hospital and an arts school providing shelter, is distressing in the extreme. Heart-rending images of three-and-a-half million mainly women and children fleeing war, leaving behind elderly parents and spouses, makes the lockdown deprivations seem minor.

A cousin, an Auschwitz survivor, says she has barely slept since Russia began reducing parts of Ukraine to rubble. It brings back horrendous memories of her own flight from her home in Hungary (now in Ukraine) and separation from her parents (my grandparents) on the train platform leading to the gas chambers.

The brutal war being waged by Vladimir Putin has been explained in many ways. It is sometimes described as Russias desire for a return of lost empire and prosperity. Others say Putin is determined to teach Nato a lesson for daring to remove buffer states and bring its borders so close to the motherland.

His campaign is also seen as a consequence of Western strategic weakness exposed by acceptance of Russias intervention in Syria, the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and concessions made to mad mullahs in Iran developing nuclear weapons capacity.

There is an alternate view that the West has brought the war of the worlds upon itself. An obsession with secular consumption, political correctness, the woke agenda and condemnation of anyone who dares challenge peoples right to assign their own gender are all looked upon as evidence of a 21st century decadence.

Writing in The New Statesman, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggests Putin is driven by religious and cultural motives and sees himself as theprotagonist for integral Christian culture.

He cites Putins close ally, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, as a source for the self-righteousness with which the Russian leader is pursuing his war in Ukraine.

In a sermon delivered on 6 March, the start of Lent, the Patriarch argued that the campaign was justified because the Orthodox Church has to defend itself against Western corruption. Gay pride marches are singled out as a leading symptom.

Williams writes that, in spite of high recorded levels of prejudice against LBGT+ people in Ukraine, recent policy has liberalised and Kyiv has a high-profile activist community and annual parade. He says the Patriarch particularly is exercised because Kyiv is where Russian Christianity was born.

Launching a barbarous war against the people of Ukraine and their enjoyment of freedoms cannot be justified or accepted. Religion as a weapon of war, as Jewish communities around the world know to their cost, is a fearful and terrible weapon. It is pure evil in the hand of an unbridled autocrat seeking to claim moral cause for indiscriminate death and mayhem.

Alex Brummer is the Daily Mail's City Editor

Read the original:

Ukraine devastation puts 'Partygate' in perspective | Alex Brummer | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Andrea Vance is a senior journalist with Stuff.

OPINION: In the last week I received an email from a man who seemed to be deeply angry with me.

It was borderline incomprehensible, but his rage appeared to stem from my failure to respond to previous correspondence.

I have no idea who he is. And by the tone of his note, and the insults he battered into the keyboard, I have no wish to.

READ MORE:* How Twitter spies are changing the war in Ukraine* Kanye West vs the world: when abusive behaviour is called out* How a loss of trust has fed the divisions in society

Maybe Michael did write to me before. If his emails didnt end up in my aggressively filtered Spam folder, I probably did take no notice. I have a strict policy of ignoring dickheads.

Stuff

One in 10 female journalists have sought medical or psychological help after being abused.

In truth, years and years of online abuse means I rarely read correspondence that stems from my weekly columns. The messages that do have value are lost in the maelstrom of vitriol, misogyny, and xenophobia.

Female reporters get a disproportionate amount of abuse. A Unesco report published last year laid bare a problem that targets every woman journalist. One in 10 sought medical or psychological help, one in three self-censors.

You may have recently become aware of this epidemic of online violence, mainly because Covid-19 has seen it spread to our male colleagues. Now it is a real problem.

Upsettingly for my correspondents, I do not self-censor. I am emotionally numb to the abuse. I care not that you are a man (they are always men) with a strong opinion and a keyboard. Your long, potty-mouthed tirade was in vain, it was most likely never read.

In my small way, I am breaking the cycle. Being rude to someone generally provokes a bad-mannered reply, setting in motion a sequence of increasingly discourteous interactions.

Social media is an accelerant, spewing this anger out into the world. Platforms make it easy for users to instantaneously hurl insults, and difficult to hold them to account. People are sucked into a vortex, arguing politics that spirals from mean-spirited to ugly and then plain nasty. Its at once addictive and exhausting.

The spite is so casual, Im not even sure these wannabe politicos and supporters even recognise it as such. They malign, denigrate and defame without a second thought. There is something dehumanising about their behaviour.

The disrespectful dialogue is reflective of real-life politics. Insults have replaced arguments in debate.

Last week alone, ACT leader David Seymour made a nasty personal attack on microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles. Te Pti Mori called ACT bigots. Christopher Luxon characterised the poor as bottom feeders.

Hamilton City Council is redrawing its code of conduct after one councillors inappropriate online comments and personal insults drew a slew of complaints.

Politicians abuse each other and in turn are abused by their rivals supporters. Weve seen recent debate about the slow-burning hatred directed at Jacinda Ardern. The conversation was largely sparked by venomous language used by the protesters who occupied Parliaments grounds last month.

But its not just women Nationals Chris Bishop receives eye-watering levels of abuse from those on the Left. Simon Bridges wrote movingly about how criticism of his accent affected him.

Politics has always been a nasty sport. But today it seems brutish. And what does all this toxicity achieve - apart from more ad dollars in the bank accounts of tech moguls?

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Former National Party leader Simon Bridges was reduced to tears by digs about his accent.

It doesnt take a huge leap of imagination to see the tangible effects of this hostility. The hatred spilled from online accounts onto the placards displayed on Parliaments lawns during the anti-mandate protest.

The sheer strength of their malice seemed to justify and embolden their extreme behaviour. The ugly mood has awful consequences: 40 police officers were injured restoring order.

We have already seen violence against public figures: James Shaw was punched in the face in 2019. MPs have had to increase their security. The murder of British MP Jo Cox is a terrible reminder of the darkness of politics.

Jericho Rock-Archer/Stuff

The area around Parliament was the scene of violence as police removed protesters.

So what can be done? Likely nothing. Social media normalises hatred and yet plays a larger and larger role in political processes. Given Mark Zuckerberg created a website to rank hot women, I dont think we can look to him or his company to dam this torrent of horrid.

Mainstream political reporting thrives on conflict. Protesting in dramatic and disruptive ways captures attention. There is no incentive to break out of incivility, to recalibrate politics. To be nice.

And there is a paradox. Any culture shift whether it be political correctness or Arderns bid to restore kindness to politics has backfired. Attempts to police behaviour or avoid offensive or inflammatory language has further fuelled the nastiness: the snowflakes hating on the boomers. The Deplorables attacking The Woke.

On it goes the venting and ranting, no matter how irrational or hurtful in order to ensure a healthy debate and the maintenance of free speech.

Just leave me out of it.

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Read more:

The culture of nastiness: insults have replaced arguments in political debate - Stuff