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?
Time to change the fryer grease, rabbit.
Is WordPress having a problem? What happened to the rest of the comment where we learn the commenter has had years of experience working with astrophysicists, personally knew Isaac Newton’s secretary, and now knows unequivocally that the Copernican construct is antithetical to civil discourse?
Pogo, Do you see why I refuse to respond to the revisionists here. They are not worthy of one second of my valuable time. I bill my time @ $100-125/hr. I know you bill @ a much higher rate. They ask their “clients” if they would like fries w/ their order.
I assert the earth is the center of the universe, and gravity is just a fictional construct.
Isaac, As I said, when leftists and rightists seize control, they act the same. They control peoples speech, thoughts, lives, etc. What is happening here w/ your leftist brothers is they are trying to say leftists were not leftists! It is Alice in Wonderland stuff and terribly fascinating.
It is fascinating to see people trying to rewrite history. I’ve bookmarked this thread for future reference.
Don’t hold your breath, fiver. Pogo knows when to make himself scarce.
So Pogo,
Would you mind elaborating on the leftist policies Stalin and Hitler engaged in? Such an accomplished academic on the subject (ten years of intensive study!) should have dozens of examples.
BTW, we won’t judge which foot you put in your mouth by the label on the shoe.
“Stalin had nothing to do with the left. Stalin was a dictator. ”
No true Scotsman!
HumpinDog said: “Non Muslims at Maryland, speak up or forever hold your piece”. He did not say “peace”. The movie is about snipers. God made rifles for a reason. HumpinDog is often talking about holding his piece and he is not speaking of part of his anatomy. This is not so much a “righty” / “lefty” thing. Nazi and Stalinist believers pretty much look down the barrel of a rifle and have little intellect. The University is wrong here and the perps who stopped the movie need to be stopped. Snipers are important.
Rick
po
By evidence, most of us suggest and understand some objective, non-biased information that is verifiable, not some conclusion derived from one’s own subjective perspective
I don’t think you understand how to apply either one of these definitions. I didn’t quote the statistics but we all know roughly what they are. For your conclusions to be true every statement would have to be linked to an original study in order to constitute evidence, which is absurd. You might as well argue I can’t prove grass is green, it would have a comparable reduction in your credibility.
Rick, the fallacy in your original argument is haunting your current one…though you miss it again. Evidence may come in different forms, but just like pornography, it is recognizable.
You are confusing argument and evidence. Your argumentation may be rational, one part leads to the next, which leads to the next, which leads to a conclusion that makes sense. It is akin to my saying, for example,
Me: karen is a hypocrite.
You: Why?
Me:Well, she attacks other for doing something that she, herself does. Or better yet, she attacks muslims for the evil they do but refuses to condemn everyone else, even when they do worse.
(That’s a rational argument, the premise is supported by the conclusion, or the conclusion supports the premise.)
You:What is your evidence though?
Me: That argument is evidence enough.
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We’re not discussing students generally. We’re discussing a small subset of them: left-leaning political activists. Their efforts to suppress free speech are documented and available in many places, try Fire.org. Most clearly this can be seen in speaker selection. Speakers supporting left-leaning positions, even extreme-left positions, are invited to campus far more often than similarly positioned right-leaning speakers. And the right-leaning speakers who are invited routinely face efforts to disinvite them and if unsuccessful efforts to disrupt their speeches.
Now, Rick, you are moving the goal posts to allow you to narrowly define the scope and terms of the discussion.
We are not discussing a small subset of students (though I see that you may be). We are discussing students generally, and the assertions made here that schools nowadays are a hotbed of leftist activity.
randyjet:
Thanks, I will have to check out Victor Serge, and I have not read Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia.” Thanks for the recommendation.
I agree that dictatorships can arise from varying sources. Nazi fascists did still have some aspects of capitalism, but they also had a dictatorship and subjugated individual rights to the Nation, of which the dictator was the head. Their National Socialist movement was supposed to counter the Marxist Socialism. Yes, they still had private property, but they opposed free market capitalism, and some industries came under national control. Their main aspects were anti-semitism, social Darwinism with superiority of their own race, eugenics, with the driving force being national identity over individual identity. There was no free speech and eroded individual rights.
Talk of secession is madness and not mainstream. It’s as true today as it was for Lincoln that a “house divided cannot stand.” As far as I know, the GOP does not hate Lincoln. Although “states’ rights” was the rallying cry of the Rebels, abolishing slavery and forcing the union to stay together does not mean that the states no longer had the constitutional right to self determine what is under their purview.
Many things are still determined on the state level today, as per the Constitution which set federal limits.
Pogo, saying that Stalin was from the left is akin to saying that Erdogan and Al SIsi (even Bashar al asad) are from the left. Though feet, and shoes, as fiver eloquently showed, come only in left and right, political perspectives range from extra left to extra right and all the stops in between…kinda like skin tone and religiosity.
po – how you cannot call Stalin a leftist is beyond me.
Pogo
Stalin had nothing to do with the left. Stalin was a dictator. Hitler was a dictator. Franco was a dictator. A dictator is a dictator and typically right wing or conservative. You need to go just a little past the jingoes.
Really Pogo?
After the ten years of “intensive” political study you claim to have had, you still haven’t learned the difference between Nazis and “the left”? That is very difficult to believe.
We’re talking about very basic distinctions between right and left that PoliSci students learn in a 100 level class if they somehow haven’t already learned them in high school. We’re talking political right and left on such a basic level that is intellectually comparable to which shoe goes on which foot.
How is it possible you haven’t learned these basics in ten years of “intensive” academic study? I mean, ten years is a lot. You obviously must have an undergraduate degree, multiple advanced political degrees, and an impressive publication list after such a long course of study, so how is it possible such a noteworthy scholar can’t tell his political left foot from his right?
Or is it possible that “ten years intensively studying” just means that you watched FOX News a lot and listened to Rush in the car?
Paul,
You’re almost embarrassing yourself. Someone might have taken that seriously.
Well, everybody seems to on the right side of this issue. I do agree with NickS that Mike Appleton is delusional about the Leftists and Liberals being the chief advocates against free speech on campus. My goodness, Mike, don’t you ever watch TV or read the news??? Just like yesterday, for example:
http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/04/22/texas-university-students-want-gov-greg-abbott-removed-graduation-speaker
You constantly see where the leftist students are raising hell about one conservative speaker, or another. Just google “safe spaces colleges” and see what comes up. Here’s one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/opinion/sunday/campus-safe-spaces.html
Those are not gun-toting, Bible believing clingers they are talking about. Those are leftists. About the only time the conservative right raises heck is when somebody like cop-killer Mumia is slated to be a speaker. And that is usually by off-campus people.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“While generally against censorship of all kinds, I confess I now support it in one instance:”
Well, you have that in common with leftism in general.
Heh.
“Socialism is not communism.”
Socialism and communism are branches of the same poisonous tree.
“And, no, National Socialism is neither socialist nor leftist in the least.”
There is considerable documentation to prove otherwise. It’s not worth the time to replay it here, much as the left never ever admits when it is flat out wrong. Ever.
The shame of fascism, of Stalin’s murders, Mao’s genocide, and Pol Pot’s killing fields, are all too much for the left. Hell, I wouldn’t want them in my family tree either.
But there it is.
It’s their No True Scotsman defense; really just a form of plugging their ears and saying la la la la.
Randy jet: Trying to pull the “Stalin wasn’t a true communist” LOL. Alger Hiss, Lenin, and Lillian Hellman were all true communists and all thought the world of Uncle Joe!
While generally against censorship of all kinds, I confess I now support it in one instance: people who obviously don’t have a clue what political terms mean need to stop using them.
Please. Stop.
I beg you.
It’s painful.
Socialism is not communism. (And, no, National Socialism is neither socialist nor leftist in the least).
“Liberal” doesn’t mean anyone or anything you disagree with (Sorry, Rush; sorry, FOX).
“Liberalism” is not a political party.
Words have meaning – including political terms. Very generally, conservative politics favor private enterprise freedoms over governmental intervention in the economic sphere while preferring governmental regulation of individual behavior over individual civil liberties.
Also very generally, liberal politics prefer civil liberties over governmental regulation on individual behavior while preferring governmental regulation of the economic sphere over private enterprise freedom.
So, yes, the ACLU (or FIRE) defending freedom of speech and other individual rights is definitely taking a liberal stance. But so is the NRA defending Second Amendment rights.
fiver – National Socialism is both Nationalist and Socialist.
RcCarol:
“By the way, I thought fascism was a conservative political doctrine.”
Fascism was an ultra extreme Right counterpoint to the ultra extreme Left socialist movement of the Soviets. They believed in a dictator of a Nation, without individual rights.
Conservatives in the US emphasize individual rights, not service of all to the greater good of the Nation, which is rather a Liberal idea. They believe in equal rights, not equal condition, which is inevitably poor. That is why there are similarities of fascism with ultra Leftists – erosion of individual rights and Free Speech, centralizing power into one person, etc.
It’s interesting how similar an ultra Right and ultra Left movement can be. But Orwell was right. Tyrannies look the same regardless of what party they arose from.
Karen, While all dictatorships use the same methods of control, police, censorship, and prison camps, etc..they have different social bases. In the case of the Nazis and fascists, big capitalists and private property is still in control and is respected. In the case of Stalinists, they arose from dispossessing the landlords, and capitalists in which that property was taken away. Thus the major difference between the two. Trotsky observed that the layer which came to power under Stalin would in time constitute a new class that would eventually convert that property back into private ownership with the Stalinists as the new ruling class. Looking at recent history, he was right on the mark and he wrote that back in the 1930s after the show trials and purges got under way. Thus the reason I cannot call Stalinists part of the left, though they grew out of it. In dialectics this is simply the interpenetration of opposites giving rise to a new class much like the old one. For a recent example closer to home, who would have ever thought a GOP governor, Perry, would give cover to secession? Or that the GOP would hate Lincoln and glorify the Confederacy? Is that the old GOP? I doubt it. In fact, back at the turn of the 20th century, and a bit before, the GOP was the home of progressive reformers. Things and parties change over time and circumstances. Just because the name is Republican does not mean that they are still the party of old. The same is true of the so called Communist parties who became reactionary.