A board at the University of Maryland announced it will postpone indefinitely the screening of “American Sniper” on campus after Muslim organizations opposed the watching of the film as anti-Islamic and offensive. I have not seen the movie, but the effort to prevent other people from watching films set badly with me both in terms of free speech as well as the pluralistic values governing university communities. The movie was critically acclaimed and nominated for six oscars, including best picture, actor (Bradley Cooper) and adapted screenplay. Even people like Michele Obama have publicly proclaimed how the movie touched them. This is not to say that they are right. However, opposing other people from seeing a major artistic work is part of a growing effort to curtail free speech in the West and particularly on college campuses.
We have seen a crackdown on free speech in the West. For other recent columns, click here and here and here. This trend has only increased after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo in the West. What is particularly worrisome is that these attacks on free speech are being done in the name of pluralism and tolerance.
The role of universities and private organizations in this trend is equally worrisome. This includes the disgraceful decision of Yale University Press to delete all of the Muhammad cartoons that triggered a spasm of murders and church burnings by Muslims around the world. Yale removed the cartoon from Jytte Klausen’s “The Cartoons That Shook the World.”
There has been a campaign across the country by Muslim students and faculty to ban the film as offensive. The University of Maryland’s Muslim Student Association declared that “American Sniper only perpetuates the spread of Islamophobia and is offensive to many Muslims around the world for good reason. This movie dehumanizes Muslim individuals, promotes the idea of senseless mass murder, and portrays negative and inaccurate stereotypes.”
There are many films that are objectionable from different perspectives. I never liked Zero Dark Thirty (2012) from a civil liberties stand point because it perpetuated the myth that torture was the key in finding Bin Laden or that it is somehow justified by such results. However, I would not seek to prevent others from seeing it. I am satisfied with voicing my objections to the accuracy and implied message of the film.
Recently, a similar effort led to initially to the canceling of a showing of American Sniper at the University of Michigan but later relented to showing the film after public outcry.
Maryland pulled the film after the objections but failed to explain where this line is drawn over groups preventing students from seeing films on campus. However, Student Entertainment Events, announced that it was contemplating “an event where students can engage in CONSTRUCTIVE and moderated dialogues about the controversial topics proposed in the film.” Once again, it is not clear whether other films would be subject to such special measures if groups or individuals object. While I commend the group for seeking a compromise, I remain disturbed by the lack of clarity in the standard for such postponements or barring of films. Any group can schedule a discussion about a film on their own. It does not serve their interests to be seen trying to deny free speech in this way to others on campus. We have long maintained that the solution to bad speech is more speech — not the denial of unpopular speech. There has been no restriction on the Muslim student group from planning such discussions. The question is why other students should be prevent or postponed in seeing a major and critically acclaimed movie.
What do you think?
If you agree leftists struggled against each other you should revisit your absurd assertion that Stalin killing other communists proves him right-wing.
This isn’t a history lesson, it’s logic 101.
So much for Freedom Of Speech! Liberals don’t want to hear or see any opinion but their own. College campuses are filled with freakin’ babies who if they don’t get their own way, they protest until they do! PC POLICE. Ridiculous.
Are you recusing yourself from among the lot that speaks only based on evidence?
No. Why don’t you explain why you think each of the items you cite lack evidence to support them.
Rick
po
Rick
Do we need evidence to believe that among the ones raising an uproar are hypocrites?
Only those of us who form opinions based on evidence need it.
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Rick, is any of the following things you said based on evidence?
I suspect there are more non-Muslim students than Muslim students pushing this. It’s a campus-left initiative.
I’d like to see this. Why reinvent the wheel though? Wouldn’t it be faster and easier to just queue up the videos of Palestinians cheering in the streets?
Are you recusing yourself from among the lot that speaks only based on evidence?
For someone like MikeA, who doesn’t see the left have become Stalinists on campus, I say audit a few classes and spend some time on a campus. For a few, it wouldn’t matter. For those who don’t think Communists are left, well then why did Reagan hate them if they were really right? LOL! Pogo, are you seeing about whom to ignore yet?
Communists are left as Orwell was a leftist and a communist, and I follow in his tradition and politics. Stalinists are not and you follow the Stalin line that he was a red. Reagan was senile and had few rational politics.
randyjet – Stalinists are leftists. Reagan, like most of us will at some time, became senile. At that point he is beyond politics. The question is did it happen while he was in office.
po
Rick
Do we need evidence to believe that among the ones raising an uproar are hypocrites?
Only those of us who form opinions based on evidence need it.
Sounds just as silly as not baking a cake based on what a couple does in their bedroom. Religious belief that can’t take a hit isn’t all that strong it would seem.
FIFY
randyjet
The first victims of Stalin were the real communists who actually made the revolution.
And the first victims of the Bolsheviks were the Mensheviks. Conclusing Stalin must be further right because his victims were on the left is absurd logic.
rick, There were a number of Mensheviks who joined the first Soviet government. The Left Social Revolutionaries were also part of that government as well. The LSRs left the government over the question of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and declared WAR against the Soviets and went so far as to shoot Lenin. One can hardly blame the Soviets for banning them since any government would be right in doing that and would do the same.
The Bolsheviks did not execute the Mensheviks either since the death penalty was banned after the Civil War was over. The Mensheviks were not so kind in return though since they murdered the Bolsheviks who had won election in Central Asia and they called for the Brits to come in and kill the Bolsheviks. The leader of the Mensheviks, Martov was not even arrested, and was allowed to leave. The leading people conducting the first show trials of the 30s were all former Mensheviks by the way. It was quite ironic for the long time Bolsheviks to be tried and shot by the Mensheviks in the name of the party.
“Pogo, You are obviously ignorant of the left and Stalin.”
Hilarious. I spent about 10 years intensively studying the left, including numerous books on Soviet history and communism.
Your POV is pretty typical of liberals who -understandably- cannot stomach Stalin’s communist murders.
Mao and Pol Pot were much the same as Stalin though, as leftism routinely uniformly devolves into authoritarianism and mass murder.
If I were a leftist, I’d be so embarrassed I’d also blame it on the right.
Pogo, since you say you read some book about so called communism, I have to say that you did not read the original ones. Ever read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution? I suggest you do so if you have not. That book has a negative review from Herman Wouk who called it the most evil book ever written. I can understand his stance since the book destroys the western propaganda that was used against the revolution. To give an idea of how the real Reds dealt with foreign propaganda, the French radio was broadcasting into Russia. So rather than jam the broadcasts as Stalinist did, Trotsky simply broadcast into France in answer. He knew most of the French leaders and all their sins, and embarrassed them and answered them so effectively, they quit because they realized they were on the losing end.
In fact, after Trotsky was in exile in Mexico, Congress invited him to testify before a committee. He accepted, but some smarter folks in Congress realized how things would work out if that happened, and they withdrew the invitation.
Oops. Forgot that you probably can´t have a beer party on campus at the University of Maryland. The attendees would be “underage”. Better they watch a bunch of muslims get shot on the big screen than drink a beer.
We see again, a good civil discussion is impossible if a certain group infect it w/ their toxic virus.
The really sad thing is that people think seeing a film about a sniper killing people is “entertainment”. The equivalent of the “Student Entertainment Events” at my daughter´s Uni in Germany uses their money to sponsor huge beer parties with 2 or three DJs on campus. The dancing and whatever else goes on until the wee hours of the morning. Now that´s entertainment, people! 🙂
Pogo, Discuss this w/ MikeA. The other guy is just a bomb thrower and not worth a minute of time.
MikeA, We are of the same era. We went to college in the 60’s/70’s. We agree this horseshit would never have occurred then when colleges were free speech meccas. I returned to college in the late 90’s, Mike. It is now left orthodoxy, PC, speech codes. I am amazed you don’t see this. When the right or left take complete control, they try to limit freedom. How the hell can you not understand this? Is it because you are left but indeed righteous?
po
whichever one more likely to expose the hypocrites.
Surely you have some evidence they are hypocrites rather then just assuming they are.
When I was a member of the Young Socialist Alliance at University of Houston, during the oil embargo and shortage, we asked EXXON to send us a speaker to present their views, which they did. He gave an interesting presentation and we had some sharp questions for him as well. So to smear the left as intolerant of other points of view is simply a slander. We had pretty good attendance at the forum we sponsored too.
A nerve has been struck. Please go to TheFire.org to read the constant push on campuses, controlled by the left, to control speech. Historically both the left and right have tried to control speech. But, to deny the left control US campuses, and they are the leaders in 1st Amendment violations, is Baghdad Bob material. The bomb thrower I expect to say that. Mike Appleton is a bitter disappointment. The FIRST step in solving a problem is admitting you have one.
“The Stalinists had more in common with the right wing than the left”
The left in America had a very hard time with their pal, Uncle Joe.
Their historical revisionism has even gone so far to make claims he was no true communist at all.
Funny, except that he murdered millions in the name of leftism.
P.S. McCarthy was right all along.
Yay! Mullah karen is here to tie it to shariah law and honor brigades! Joy!
Rick
po
TJustice and fiver said it well. Show the damn movie.
Let’s just make sure that when the same students decide to show a movie celebrating, let’s say 9/11, that the same freedom of speech supporters defend that too.
I’d like to see this. Why reinvent the wheel though? Wouldn’t it be faster and easier to just queue up the videos of Palestinians cheering in the streets?
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Rick
Whichever one works for you, whichever one more likely to expose the hypocrites.