Shocka: Obama Supported Campus Speech Codes
At the Daily Caller, Charles C. Johnson (the “good” Charles Johnson) writes of Obama’s past support for campus speech codes:
At the height of early-1990s conservative backlash over political correctness and “speech codes” on U.S. college campuses, Barack Obama participated in a panel event geared toward denying that restrictions on free expression were problematic, or happening at all.
The 1991 Harvard Law School yearbook quoted the future President of the United States virtually shrugging his shoulders at the thought that non-liberal white students might take offense at restrictions on speech that minority students found objectionable. “I don’t see a lot of conservatives getting upset if minorities feel silenced,” Obama said, flipping the argument around.
This is no great surprise, and yet, it’s important to bear in mind. Obama comes from an intellectual tradition where it is acceptable to put un-American restraints on speech if doing so makes minorities feel more comfortable. And he argues that, sure, we’re silencing people . . . but they do it to us. Accusing others (often falsely) of engaging in oppression, to justify doing the same thing in response, is, of course, the classic argument of anyone rationalizing a thuggish tactic.
Ding.
Patterico (8b3905) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:10 amThat’s different, racist.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:16 am“I don’t see a lot of conservatives getting upset if minorities feel silenced.”
Feel. Silenced.
Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:20 amHey, I’m a minority in my community. If there is a way to silence the Politburo and nug bucking futz progressives who live here, I’d love to find out about it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:25 amPatterico I realize your time is limited and Obama’s scandals are many, but why not throw up a post on Obama’s removing the Benghazi 16-member special forces team, whose Lt. Colonel met daily with the Lybian ambassador for over 6 months before being removed in August, against the recommendations of the force commander? A 6-man State Department mobile security team was also removed.
There, I think, we find the motive for the administration’s implausible cover-up. I personally chalked that up to incompetence because I couldn’t see the Obama administration thinking this coverup could work or help them, but I’ve revised my opinion on that.
Oh, and thanks for this post. It’s also interesting. I do believe Obama is beginning to unravel. Whether enough people recognize that fact is another matter.
Random (edf1d2) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:27 am______________________________________________
Obama’s past support for campus speech codes:/i>
Hardly surprising, since he’s a typical phony-baloney liberal. He merely fits the behavior of so many of those on the left whose tolerance and open-mindedness are about as hollow as their compassion and generosity—eg, Obama’s cheapness in making philanthropic donations, based on his tax returns before he knew he’d start running for the presidency.
^ And since liberalism is a form of religion to the left, it’s also hardly surprising that a larger percentage of those on the left is more likely to discuss politics than centrists or conservatives.
Mark (6d5e0d) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:43 am_____________________________________________
I personally chalked that up to incompetence because I couldn’t see the Obama administration thinking this coverup could work or help them, but I’ve revised my opinion on that.
I have a hunch that the insanity of political correctness has so infused the State Department and even portions of the US military too, that decisionmakers actually were lulled into a belief that Obama-ized Americans were now perceived by Middle Easterners as being I’m-okay-you’re-okay friends. So much so that such bureaucrats may have thought it rude and paranoid to doubt the security of US government officials in Libya.
Mark (6d5e0d) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:52 amDon’t forget Obama’s black half has silenced that white half.
Pete (edd4ca) — 10/8/2012 @ 9:59 amI have a hunch that the insanity of political correctness has so infused the State Department and even portions of the US military too
Mark, do you mean like the directive to not shoot Taliban at night so as not to upset the locals?
Why can’t night-patrols (and all patrols for that matter) be equipped with sound-suppressors for their weapons – it’s not like they’re not in the DoD inventory?
AD-Restore the Republic/Obama Sucks! (b8ab92) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:40 amUmmm, sound suppressor’s don’t work nearly as well as you think they do. Plus they change the ballistic characteristics and throw off the soldiers’ training with their weapons unless sufficient additional training is undertaken. Plus they REDUCE the force of the projectiles they’re used for. Plus they’re difficult to clean and maintain once used.
And how do you suppress grenades and mortars and M-72s and the like?
It’s a war. It makes noise.
Random (edf1d2) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:44 amOh, also, … the enemy, once fired upon, will fire back.
Random (edf1d2) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:45 amPete, actually his “black half” is 6% black, 44% Arab. Amazing that he sold himself as a black African American when he is no such thing.
Krystal (8e2b67) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:46 amObama’s scandals are many,
So many scandals, such a short attention span (the US public)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:50 amWell, the big stuff is what it is. But, in doing sweeps of dwellings, it is perfectly acceptable for CQB to use suppressors to not rouse the neighbors on those M4’s and M9’s – they even have suppressed M249’s.
If they fire back, they’re the one’s waking the neighbors, not NATO forces.
No, this was just another example of PC run-amok; which is an infection rampant throughout all parts of government and academe.
I wouldn’t be surprised that PC-thought was behind the removal of that security detail from Libya prior to the Ambassador’s trip to Benghazi.
So, it can be said that observance to PC can result in the deaths of Americans.
The Administration lies, and Americans die!
AD-Restore the Republic/Obama Sucks! (b8ab92) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:53 amExcept of course he’s not flipping the argument around. He’s doing his usual schtick; arguing against a strawman of his own creaction.
Conservatives don’t get upset because minorities aren’t silenced.
Just because
community organizersdishonest agitators can convince whatever sector of the population their rights are being violated when it isn’t true, is no excuse to call for an official policy restricting the rights of other sectors they obviously dislike (as evidenced in the racist Obama videos).In any case, by calling for speech codes isn’t Obama just admitting he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with trampling on other people’s rights? So I guess nobody has anything to apologize for even if they had been actively doing so.
Steve57 (c8ac21) — 10/8/2012 @ 12:20 pmI should add I definitely know one minority that feels silenced. Egyptian Copts.
And we all know that’s perfectly fine with Obama.
Again, what’s he complaining about?
Steve57 (c8ac21) — 10/8/2012 @ 12:22 pmSupport black actress Stacy Dash’s right to free expression. She endorsed Romney and the racists are out for her blood. Check it out on Drudge, this thing has the potential to blow up.
ropelight (4bedce) — 10/8/2012 @ 12:23 pmI remember when the Federal courts shot down Donna Shalala’s spech code at Wisconsin as being UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
I firmly believe Obama is an Affirmative Action Law School graduate who is not fit to practice law, let alone pontificate upon cases.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 10/8/2012 @ 12:42 pmPCD, keep in mind Obama doesn’t care about what is or isn’t Constitutional. Just as he doesn’t care about what is legal.
It’s all about power with him. “I won.”
The Alinskyite uses the Constitution against his enemies. If the other side pretends to care about the Constitution he’ll claim they ought to act a certain way. Which, since he doesn’t care, he’s not bound in any way to act accordingly if he’s got the power to do otherwise.
This is essentially what makes the left unserious critics, and why they can and should be ignored. When they complain about discrimination, or silencing people, or imposing one’s morality on others, they’re only upset that they’re not the ones doing it.
They act as if they have the moral high ground, when it’s in fact quite the opposite. They don’t even have the moral standing to expect others to listen to them. The left falsely accuse conservatives of doing something to them (as when Obama claims certain people “feel” silenced) not because it’s unjust and should stop, but so they can feel good about themselves when they actually do to others what they previously have falsely accused others of doing to them.
As Solzhenitsyn pointed out, anyone can kill a few dozen people. But to kill millions takes an ideology. Because only then can people convince themselves that they are justified, and can feel good about, going along with the murder because they’ve convinced themselves the people they’re killing brought it on themselves.
Steve57 (c8ac21) — 10/8/2012 @ 1:38 pmStacy Dash.
JD (7ddc11) — 10/8/2012 @ 1:41 pmI should point out that this is why Obama is big on “social justice” and “economic justice.”
Because both of those are just euphemisms for revenge.
As his pastor and spiritual adviser put it, “White greed drives a world in need.”
So that’s why he said on May 18, 2008 that “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.”
By “other countries” he meant how his ideology tells him what other countries think. We see how accurate that is in his Benghazi debacle.
His ideology blinds him to the facts, but it can do great harm here. It’s true his ideology won’t let us drive our SUVs, eat as much as we want, and heat and cool our homes. And we see that in the skyrocketing gas prices, the skyrocketing electricity prices, and his USDA’s starvation level school lunch dictates.
School lunches which his USDA now wants people to use as the model for dinner at home because the kids will “adjust” better to inadequate portions of food they don’t like if they’re not allowed to eat what they want at home, too.
The world would let us eat what we want, drive SUVs, and heat and cool our homes as we wish. It’s just that President “don’t blame it on me, let me point the finger at someone else” won’t let us.
Because American has just had it far too good for for to long, and that has got to stop. His fellow travelers know what he means when he talks; that’s why they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize.
Steve57 (c8ac21) — 10/8/2012 @ 1:58 pmDemocrats want children to be hungry at school!!!!!
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 10/8/2012 @ 2:44 pmThey’re taking food out of the mouths of children!
ropelight (4bedce) — 10/8/2012 @ 2:49 pmWhere’s Dean when you need him?!?
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 10/8/2012 @ 2:52 pmDean’s in drag representing the DNC, pretending to be some nutty chick named Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz.
ropelight (4bedce) — 10/8/2012 @ 4:00 pmCan you still have pudding if you don’t eat your meat?
MostlyRight (4f90a6) — 10/8/2012 @ 4:29 pmWhen the minorities Obama refers to (ideologically) speak up, I hand them the shovel….I mean the megaphone. And when their ideological masters speak deem to speak for them, I call them on their b.s.
MostlyRight (4f90a6) — 10/8/2012 @ 4:32 pm““I don’t see a lot of conservatives getting upset if minorities feel silenced,” Obama said, flipping the argument around.”
Strawman.
john b (f348c6) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:12 pmI have to second john b. Classic straw-man. For those of you who don’t see it, here it is.
“I object to speech restrictions that actually silence me,” says White Conservative.
“You don’t object when we feel silenced,” says Barack Obama. “So why should I care?”
“You should care about the fact that you’ve shifted the grounds of the debate,” says Demosthenes. “White Conservative was saying that he actually was silenced. You responded as if he said he had only felt silenced.”
“Oh dear,” says Barack Obama. “I hadn’t thought of that.” And he promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Leaving us to deal with Joe Biden as president. Crap.
Demosthenes (4532b9) — 10/8/2012 @ 10:20 pmWhy do I get a picture of Michelle Obama when I click Roy Orbison’s Black and White Night version of “Pretty Woman” on YouTube?
And why are little blue midgets slapping me with fish?
As for First Amendment restrictions on campus, why can’t I just eat my waffle?
nk (875f57) — 10/9/2012 @ 5:02 amSafe, if you like guitar. Roy Orbison and a bunch of other white guys riffing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLq0_7k1jk
nk (875f57) — 10/9/2012 @ 5:05 am