From Pine View Farm

Misdirection Play, Freedom of Screech Dept. 0

There has recently been much moaning about “freedom of speech” on college campuses amongst the right-wing puniditocracy. Upon a close reading, most of it falls into the “much ado about not much of anything” category and generally seems designed to use ad hominem arguments to discredit ideas, as in

    “Oh, look! Their clothing is unkempt! I shall fall upon my fainting couch clutching my pearls as I refuse to listen to a word they say!”

In other words, it’s a misdirection play.

Joe Patrice refuses to be misdirected.

He tells us of a flying visit by Attorney-General Jeff Sessions to Georgetown Law School. Some students were invited, then uninvited to the event, apparently because they might have had the temerity to disagree with the views of Sessions and his sponsors.

Patrice suggests that the sequence of events illustrates the right-wing selective perception on freedom of speech. The whole story is rather convoluted, so follow the link for the details, but here’s the lesson Patrice draws from it:

This whole affair reinforces how conservatives really feel about free speech. Just about every week, some right-wing provocateur descends on a college to deliver a “speech” about whatever crypto-fascist talking points will inspire the most pointed criticism on campus. Faced with actual free speech, they’ll whine up and down on the cable talk shows about how “crazy” college students aren’t letting them talk, in hopes that a well-meaning liberal authority figure will speak up to chill student speech in the name of freedom.

Share

Comments are closed.