The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: rangerrebew on August 03, 2014, 09:46:30 am
-
- The Daily Caller - http://dailycaller.com -
Democrat On U.S. Civil Rights Commission Wants Speech Codes For ‘Adolescent’ 21-Year-Olds
Posted By Eric Owens On 9:07 AM 08/02/2014 In | No Comments
A Democrat on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has urged campus restrictions on First Amendment-protected speech because, he believes, the still-developing brains of college students cannot properly process certain dangerous ideas.
The civil rights commissioner is Michael Yaki, a former senior adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
The Washington Post’s Eugene Volokh was present at a commission on a briefing on sexual harassment law in education last week when Yaki made his bizarro comments.
The civil rights commissioner said he favors outlawing speech that would be grossly unpopular, such as “a slave auction at a fraternity engagement” or a celebration of Latino culture that involves “making everyone dress as janitors and mop floors.”
Yaki also wants to turn Miss America-type pageants into campus speech crimes. He expressed his belief in the unacceptable dangers of “a situation involving women” in which they “parade around in skimpy clothing and turn in some show or something.”
In embarrassingly vague fashion, Yaki struggled mightily to make some kind of coherent point at the civil rights commission hearing.
“I mean where do you think you can, that the university can’t deal with ensuring the route it has environment that is not oppressive or hostile because obviously a campus, especially certain types of campuses where there’s a lot of — where — that are geographically compact, that have a lot of working and living situations in a close area to create a campus atmosphere,” the language-addled law school graduate stuttered.
“Doesn’t that gravitate toward having greater ability to proscribe certain types of conduct that have the ability to escalate beyond what anyone would consider to be reasonable or acceptable?”
Yaki, who spent many of his formative years in highly authoritarian countries, then distinguished himself from fellow garden-variety progressives who seek to criminalize ideas they don’t like by, hilariously, suggesting that his repressive views are backed by scientists (and citing a Supreme Court case concerning the death penalty).
“It has to do with science,” Yaki confidently explained. “More and more, the vast majority, in fact — I think — overall in bodies of science is that young people, not just K through 12 but also between the ages of 16 to 20, 21 is where the brain is still in a stage of development.”
He went on to argue that “the juvenile or adolescent or young adult brain processes information” in ways that are “vastly different from the way that we adults do.” Consequently, he proclaimed, “when we sit back and talk about what is right or wrong in terms of First Amendment jurisprudence from a reasonable person’s standpoint, we are really not looking into the same referential viewpoint.”
The civil rights commissioner then laid out his sweeping, anti-free speech conclusion.
“There are very good and compelling reasons why broader policies and prohibitions on conduct in activities and in some instances speech are acceptable on a college campus level that might not be acceptable say in an adult work environment or in an adult situation,” he said.
Among many others, Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has criticized Yaki for his “depressing” arguments against free speech.
“Yaki’s claim that speech should be especially restricted on campus ‘because of the unique nature of a university campus setting’ turns basic free speech principles upside down,” Bader wrote in a recent essay. “Free speech is especially vital on college campuses, where students can learn how to deal with opposing points of view in a civil and constructive manner.”
Follow Eric on Twitter and on Facebook, and send education-related story tips to erico@dailycaller.com.
Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com
URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/02/democrat-on-u-s-civil-rights-commission-wants-speech-codes-for-adolescent-21-year-olds/
-
Only a double face palm will do here. :facepalm2: :facepalm2:
-
I thought the left believed in Free Speech..
-
I thought the left believed in Free Speech..
Yes, the Left believes in free speech, as long as it is their speech.
Beneath the thin skin of every Progressive, a zealous little tyrant waits to emerge.
-
Yes, the Left believes in free speech, as long as it is their speech.
Beneath the thin skin of every Progressive, a zealous little tyrant waits to emerge.
That is true, and yet they are the ones who call us a tyrants..
-
Yes, the Left believes in free speech, as long as it is their speech.
Beneath the thin skin of every Progressive, a zealous little tyrant waits to emerge.
But see....if the roles were reversed, the 'gentleman'....and I use that word loosely...they would be demonstrated against, boycotted and harassed, perhaps physically.
So, therefore, I vote that he gets the crap literally be beat out of him.
But alas....our side doesn't ever seem to want to cross that line. AND THEY KNOW IT! it empowers them.
They need to understand fear.....like a Syrian Christian feels like today.
-
Yes, the Left believes in free speech, as long as it is their speech.
Beneath the thin skin of every Progressive, a zealous little tyrant waits to emerge.
Seems that way, don't it?
I think most are sincere – wrong, but sincere... It's just when one's argument is emotionally based there's a tendency for them to lose control of their composure. Yeah, that's probably it.
-
Seems that way, don't it?
I think most are sincere – wrong, but sincere... It's just when one's argument is emotionally based there's a tendency for them to lose control of their composure. Yeah, that's probably it.
The reason that the Left's arguments are emotionally-based is that they are compelled to control others, and they cannot justify such desires by means of reasoned argumentation.
-
The reason that the Left's arguments are emotionally-based is that they are compelled to control others, and they cannot justify such desires by means of reasoned argumentation.
Lincoln once observed that emotions are fine in battle or an emergency but after that it is only cold reason that makes a difference. But, being liberals, they have probably haven't heard of Lincoln much less study him.
-
UC Berkeley, 1960s, Free Speech movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement
from cited wiki article:
"There was a substantial voter backlash against the players involved in the Free Speech Movement. Ronald Reagan won an unexpected victory in the fall of 1966 and was elected Governor; the newly elected governor directed the UC Board of Regents to dismiss UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protesters. The FBI had kept a secret file on Kerr.
Reagan had gained political traction by campaigning on a platform to "clean up the mess in Berkeley". "
-
Seems that way, don't it?
I think most are sincere – wrong, but sincere...
* * *
That is what a "useful idiot" is.
-
Paging Mario Savio....
Please pick up the nearest RED courtesy phone.
The U.S. "Civil Rights Commission" is awaiting your advice.
The number you need to call is 800-USA-1984 ...
-
Paging Mario Savio....
Yeah, whatever happened to those 1960s radicals who demanded free speech, anyway? Oh, that's right, they got jobs in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
-
That is true, and yet they are the ones who call us a tyrants..
Yes, of course. When one is a tyrant, racist or whatever; they tend to think everyone else is like them and look for evidence to confirm their belief. Naturally, what one seeks, one finds.
(http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s658/GourmetDan/teaparty_zpsf6b5af01.jpg)
That's why I like conservatives. I like being left alone...