We have been discussing the disciplining of professors for their statements on social media and the concern that there are different standards being applied in such cases. As many of you know, I take a robust view of free speech rights and have been critical of the monitoring and punishment of teachers for expressing their political and social views outside of campus. The latest such controversy comes from Clemson University where Assistant Professor Bart Knijnenburg went on Facebook to call Trump supporters and Republicans generally “racist scum.”
Ironically, his bio page begins with discussing the difficult decisions raised by social media (which notably does not include refraining from calling millions of people scum):
Our online lives are full of small but difficult decisions. Which app should I install? Should I post this on Facebook or not? Which YouTube video should I watch? What will this e-commerce website do with my personal information? In my research I try to understand the psychological principles behind these online decisions. Using Big Data and Machine Learning principles, I try to make these decisions a little easier with better user interfaces and “smart defaults”.
CampusReform.org ran screen grabs from Twitter and Facebook from Knijnenburg, who teaches Human-Centered Computing. One Facebook entry from Aug. 16th asserting “All trump supporters, nay, all Republicans, are racist scum.” He later added “All republicans? Yes. Your complacency made this happen. Pick a side: denounce your affiliation, or admit you’re a racist.” When a commenter who is believed to be a student expressed his sadness at the remarks, Knijnenburg responded with “You should come live in the south for a while. It’s exhausting. The republican ideology of ‘everyone is equal and nobody deserves a handout’ is naive at best, covertly racist at worst. I truly believe that turning a blind eye makes you complicit in what is happening now.” Knijnenburg used the hashtag to say PunchNazis and how much he admires violence counterprotesters: “I admire anyone who stands up against white supremacy, Violent or non-violent. This needs to stop, by any means necessary. #PunchNazis”
The reference to admiring violence is enough to put anyone into hot water with a University Administration. The issue however remains what comments are subject to discipline and what comments are viewed as free speech.
As we have previously discussed (including the recent controversies involving an Oregon professor and a Drexel professor), there remains an uncertain line in what language is protected for teachers in their private lives. The incident also raises what some faculty have complained is a double or at least uncertain standard. We have previously discussed controversies at the University of California and Boston University, where there have been criticism of a double standard, even in the face of criminal conduct. There were also such incident at the University of London involving Bahar Mustafa as well as one involving a University of Pennsylvania professor.
Students are still not sure that Knijnenburg will return to teach classes that begin on Wednesday.
There was a guy convicted at the Nuremberg Trials who had the same last name as this teacher.
Teacher, teacher, I declare!
We can see your underwear!
As long as he doesn’t discriminate against people in his class who are “scum” then it’s his own business if he has such a stupid opinion!
He is not capable of reasoning from reality and because of this I’m sorry he’s “teaching” anyone. Here’s some reality he just won’t look at:
“I experienced hate first hand today… It came from these people dressed in all black at a protest in Berkeley.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-28/bay-area-tv-anchor-unveils-truth-i-experienced-hate-first-hand-today-people-dressed-
A revolutionary mind understands that ordinary people are being taught to hate one another so the oligarchy can go about its business. What the oligarchy fears most is a united people who care about each other. He should try that out sometime!
My family are business owners. From that perspective, employee speech matters if it materially damages the reputation or profits of the business. An employer is not required to employ someone that spells the ruin of his livelihood. There also becomes the issue of company values. For instance, for the most part I don’t care what anyone believes as long as they keep their private lives private and it doesn’t interfere with work. But, hypothetically, there would be issues if I found out that one of the employees was a hood-carrying KKK member. I’d be concerned for the safety of the different ethnicities of employees as well as the clients. And I’d have a problem employing anyone that hateful when there are lines of good people looking for work.
But that raises issues of abuses – such as firing someone if the employer found out they were Republican. Bullying over politics or religion. It’s a thorny issue, to be sure. My idea of what’s ethical won’t match everyone’s. It’s my understanding that the First Amendment only protects against government censorship, and not private protection. This is always an interesting topic.
As for yet another university professor declaring that all Republicans are racist, I have trouble articulating my response clearly to this repeated problem among Liberals.
Accusations of racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism have become over-used and weaponized against conservatives. These are serious problems, sometimes deadly serious. So it offends me that there are those who use these terms the way I would use “meanie”. In order to be racist one actually has to be bigoted against an entire race. You know, like Liberals are against caucasians. It is reprehensible to cheapen such terms until they are meaningless. I have been called racist and anti-semitic for no other reason than that I lean right on some issues. Learning to dance the tango from a transvestite and attending the crowing of the Queens is not sufficient to protect me from accusations of homophobia when I’ve expressed concern about the new bathroom laws being abused or unintended consequences. I’ve been told I don’t care about the poor or kids or insert cause like it’s some form of Mad Lib. The false logic is breathtaking in its ubiquitousness. Anyone who leans right in any small degree will waste vast amounts of time in any debate defending themselves that they are not in fact Satanic. By the time they finally get to the meat of the issue the Liberal has grown bored and moved on.
It is true that not all Liberals think this way. I need to keep reminding myself of that or else I’ll fall into the same trap. It is a troubling trend, perhaps because, somehow, false logic has infiltrated the minds of universities across the country. Wasn’t it Aridog who said that he had an openly Communist Professor who would give him a good grade if he was able to defend a capitalist paper? What are the chances such an occurrence would happen today?
This is wrong. We are a multi party state. Half the country is not evil. I am deeply disturbed that I witnessed some of my own family and friends become near hysterical (and, yes, I am applying that term to males and females). They literally believed that Trump was going to kill the Jews and African Americans. They used the term “death vans.” They were shaking, visibly shaking, with terror of a President with a Jewish family and close ties to Netanyahu. That is so absurd it boggles the mind. My dear mother, who is so kind and sweet she never says anything harsh to anyone ever, was called a racist and anti-semite, while she was undergoing cancer treatment and struggling with a long illness for no other reason than that she said she voted for Trump. She is now afraid to ever voice her opinion online or to anyone besides her husband and children. She never spoke again on political issues online. A woman’s voice was completely silenced. Where were the feminists standing up for her right to speak? The family was split when my mother’s Jewish niece and nephew stood up to the other Jewish relatives bullying her and stood by her side. Bless them forever for doing the right thing. My mother was so badly hurt at a time that she was at her most vulnerable. She had so much good karma stored up from a lifetime of being just a genuinely shining light. Savaging her and embarrassing her in front of all of her social media church friends was like ripping the wings off a butterfly.
What happened to my Mom was the final straw for me. I’m an Independent. More of a Classical Liberal. But the Liberals could not have driven me from the Left any more than if they lit me on fire. The bullying and intolerance of conservatives has become such a sore spot for me that I absolutely cannot stand to see this Liberal Fascism anymore. Replace rabid adherence to “nationalism” and complete intolerance of any opposing ideas with “globalism”, “Liberalism”, “Progressivism” or any other Liberal cause, and the definition of Fascism fits to a T.
Don’t like it, Liberals? Then clean up your act. I’ve had quite enough.
The uncomplicated solution is to restore freedom of contract and freedom of association and have the ambo of labor law retreat to some spare transactional questions. That way, the employer has discretion over what he puts up with and what he does not.
Well put.
Karen S. You have probably already viewed this. If not, it is only one of many former liberal Democrat’s that I follow. I find the mass exit from the left fascinating – and reassuring. Some of these people, especially gay and black conservatives or “classical liberals” are truly the heroes in this war. They are subjected to unimaginable vile and hate yet they are unwavering and determined. Because of the corruption in media – I don’t think anyone fully appreciates the complete destruction of the left that is taking place in this country. They probably won’t until the next election, and the next and the next…………….
https://youtu.be/Tq86Beh3T70
Oh, and Karen S, the story of your mother is indeed heartbreaking and horrifying. It is stories like yours, repeated all over this country, that have driven ‘not insane’ Americans to join together to overthrow this poisonous ideology.
Thanks, INlegaleagle. I’m still upset about it. I’ll check out the video. Thank you for the link.
I like Rubin, too, and that video with him and Larry Elder is fantastic. Rubin did come off as “taken aback”, and I respect him for leaving it in the video. Larry Elder is tremendously under-rated as an effective speaker, IMHO. I am about halfway thru his “10 Things You Can’t Say in America” book, and plan to buy others by him. Another great black writer is Jason Riley. I read his “Quit Helping Us!” book.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
My favorite is Thomas Sowell.
Karen, You mom’s story breaks my heart, but more angers me. The left are arrogant, condescending, stupid, bullies.
Thanks, Nick. It broke my heart to see my sweet Mom kicked when she was down by her own relatives, but I couldn’t have been prouder of my cousins and the rest of the family for standing by her.
Here’s what Liberals don’t get about this bullying. You know how much I disliked Trump when he first threw his hat in the ring. I was so furious after this brouhaha with my Mom that do you know what the first thing I did was? I ordered a “Make America Great Again” hat. In scarlet red. I still hammer on Trump when I think he’s done wrong, but I find myself defending him often, too. Instead of making a cogent argument or calmly explaining their position, they took pitchforks to my Mom and got me, of all people, into a scarlet hat. I think I’ll embroider a “T” on it in fancy stitching, too. I might even get a “Rush Babe” shirt to match. It’s become a statement against oppression and intolerance. Does Milo have a fashion line?
Instead of winning people to their Fascist Nationalist Progressive Cause, they just drive thinking people away.
Karen, LOVE IT! The Libs live in an echo chamber and are the bullies they accuse others of being. This stuff, as Steve Bannon just said, will get Trump re-elected. Along w/ being bullies, they’re stupid. And, I don’t know if Milo has a fashion line but being gay, you would think so.
“You should come live in the south for a while. It’s exhausting. The republican ideology of ‘everyone is equal and nobody deserves a handout’ is naive at best, covertly racist at worst. I truly believe that turning a blind eye makes you complicit in what is happening now.”
Equality is racist. I got it, kuijenberg. Up is down. Black is white. As a lifelong Democrat, i find this dumb at best, overtly hateful at worst.
Administration should tough it out. Let him teach, and when the complaints start – as they inevitably will – they should try to find ways to retain him. Firing him will be no-win for anyone.
igpres, see my comment below. Hiring such individuals can be considered reckless endangerment.
Let him rant and rave as much as he likes. Hold him accountable for his behavior if he engages in violent acts. The alumni can withdraw their support, students can choose to not enroll in his class.
Roy, if you were an employer would you want the liability of an employee that hates a certain group of people existing in your company and has expressed violence as a solution?
I would not want this. Personally I do think he should be fired. But universities are so bizarre these days, would the consequences be worse than his ravings? Would Antifa stage a riot? How would the students who have received so much Marxist indoctrination respond? I really do not know what the answers are. I just think of how the enrollment at Mizzou dropped after BLM and select faculty/students created so much havoc.
Roy, the universities should have acted in the 1960’s, but they didn’t to the disadvantage of the nation and its people. I would arrest anyone that was engaged in violence and I would permanently remove all subsidies to any students that were a part of such violence. I would consider expelling all involved students as well.
A university is a place of learning where diverse ideas are reckoned with peacefully. There is no need for a safe space at a university except in a psychiatric ward. One’s dorm room is safe enough.
Wouldn’t this open the employer to lawsuit if an employee who expressed racism and supported violence later attacked people on the job?
Yes. I am just waiting for a few high profile cases.
I enjoyed your poignant discussion about your family and mother.
Thank you, allan.
Forget politics. If the issues in his bio are what he considers to be pertinent to our time, he’s just as brain dead as anyone and does not belong in his position. That’s just basic managerial sense, there are enough grown adults behaving like children, thanks. The misuse of mobile technology, social media, and the subsequent lack of self-restraint is the real plague of the new millennium. I don’t need to get into his partisanship to see he’s clown – I wouldn’t have hired him in the first place.
Institutions of learning, ideally, are there to teach subject matter that has no political form, but more importantly to teach and encourage people how to learn by remaining objective and using a scholastic approach in understanding the issues, whatever they may be. The greatest gift a teacher can give to a student is for that student to be able to learn. When the teacher designs his or her profession around political bias or any other bias then we have an instrument focused on designing the opposite, followers. Examples of this sort of teaching and the damage it can do can be found from that of Germany preceding WW2 to the ‘madrassas’ of various religions today that teach hate and supremacy along with their particular mumbo jumbo.
This sort of deviation from the essence of teaching can be found on both sides, throughout our country’s education system, and often defended by those who bring in ancient scrolls to argue where local rights have precedent over the common sense inspired rights of the nation as a whole. Kind of like how the Civil War was validated by those fat cats that didn’t want to lose their income source; kind of like today with the oligarchs and special interests. An individual bias whether it be for material gains, or simply to make one feel superior, and sometimes even with an ideological foundation, is the greatest obstruction to a society’s evolution. Bounce the left wing, progressive, commie pinko, liberal………
“various religions today that teach hate and supremacy along with their particular mumbo jumbo.”
I think your bias is showing.
And there are no religions that teach supremacy: the chosen, the only way to god, the only god, all other… etc. We have a President who stated on record, that he was the ‘only one’ that could fix the mess, as he described it. If ever there was a person fit for a cult it is this moron. My bias is for universality, common sense, and the understanding that we are all bozos on this bus. I have faith in human kind, that if left alone to understand what is going on, the average person will see through the ideological, religious, political sewer and choose common sense. The minute someone states, with that far away look, that we are all equal and loved by god but their particular approach is, well, more direct or ??, then that someone is speaking out of opposite sides of their mouth. If it stays where it should, in church, chapel, synagogue, mosque, wherever, then fine. When it seeps into the education system, then nope. The purpose of education is to teach people how to learn, not memorize, agree, without thinking.
If you include ‘madrasses’ and not select what you want, you will understand that the point is extremism, which exists in most if not all religions. Read a newspaper from time to time.
Sally, As you’ll learn, the Canadian Rain Man is not worthy of engagement, only ridicule. And even the ridicule should be brief.
And yet you continue to engage, and in the basest manner. But, you do know where to get the best BBQ, right.
LOL. I guess for someone w/o friends or social skills, would see my ridicule as engagement.
His bias is showing. Apparently his religion is climate science and leftist totalitarianism. He doesn’t know how to think.
allan, The late, great, Michael Crichton gave an incredible speech about how climate “science” has become a religion for the left. Rain Man ridicules people of faith and then spouts his religion.
His science is faith based.
“…The greatest gift a teacher can give to a student is for that student to be able to learn…”
In CA, the “gift” to which Isaac refers costs taxpayers about $175k/annual per FTE public grade school teacher (full time employee for welfare queen liberal progressives). Those taxes are collected by threat of violence, imprisonment, and death depending on the level of resistance.
What a great “gift!”
If we all had a penny for each time we heard the word “service” associated with taxpayer financed employment by threat of violence we’d all be rich.
The Education Industry is about indoctrination, not learning how to think. It teaches what to think. That has changed in my lifetime and the reason why home schooling is a growth industry.
A friend of ours has a biz that supports home schooling. Of late, there is a growth in black parents home schooling, as they realize their Dem masters have “hoodwinked..bamboozled” them.
I think the “turning a blind eye” part is a bit off. There are those who purposefully deny the existence of what they see and I’m talking about policy now. Gerrymandering, redistricting, voter suppression, mass incarceration, crack vs. powdered cocaine sentencing. All of these things exist, their effects are clearly documented.
Now, of course, this isn’t limited to Trump supporters or some Republicans, Democrats don’t have clean hands. The ability to deny and look the other way may not make one racist, it does make one complicit.
Let the personal attacks begin!
enigma – black mucky mucks asked for the increased sentencing for crack, not white Republicans.
Didn’t say Democrats were absolved including black ones. Once the results of those actions were known, the discrepancy has only been reduced to 18:1. Why is it stuck there?
Gerrymandering, redistricting, voter suppression, mass incarceration, crack vs. powdered cocaine sentencing. All of these things exist, their effects are clearly documented.
All of these things are MadCow memes you recycle without giving it a moment’s critical thought.
Over 60% of those sentenced by criminal courts in this country receive time served or alternatives to incarceration. Of the 40% actually remanded to state prisons, the mean time served is 30 months. We have lots of people in prison because theire’s a large and active criminal population in this country. If we’re smart, we enforce the law. If we’re stupid, we pretend court systems are social work agencies.
As for the enhanced sentencing for crack cocaine, that was an initiative of Charles Rangel, among others. I love it. People do what black politicians ask at point A and then are castigated for ‘racism’ 20 years later by a different crew of black grievance-mongers.
There is no ‘voter suppression’, but that doesn’t prevent grievance merchants from pretending there is (or from pretending people too inept to obtain a picture ID have any business voting in elections). Striking moral poses in defense of absentee-ballot fraud is unutterably disgusting (but perfectly normal for partisan Democrats).
“Redistricting’ is something that has to be done every 10 years by law. It’s not some fiendish plot to harm the black man. As for ‘gerrymandering’, federal courts for nearly 40 years have been insisting on crustacean districts to assemble black-majority constituencies.
This would be the proactive denial.
It’s actually a point-by-point rebuttal, to which you have no reply;
I was on my cell phone earlier which doesn’t lend itself to lengthy replies. I’ll go back to your rebuttal and respond.
This “point by point rebuttal” is extremely lacking. That criminals go to jail is a given. That incarceration rates have risen dramatically even prior to the 1994 Crime Bill is also true. Also, studies have shown that drug use among white and black people are very similar yet arrests are highly disproportionate. Every President since Bush-1 have participated in this including Barack Obama with some of the provisions in the stimulus bill which incentivized private prisons and continued to pay police departments for drug arrests.
Regarding the origin of the crime bill of 1994. I confess to not having direct knowledge although I’ve heard several versions. The version most favorable to Bill Clinton is that the Republican Congress was about to push through a much tougher crime bill and this was the best compromise he could get. I don’t quite buy that. I think his political instincts told him to get in front of this and lead the way of being tough on crime. Yes several black politicians including Rangel and Mayors of large cities supported it, some with misgivings, others did not. The one thing I’m pretty sure of is that Congress didn’t pass a bill based solely on the support of Rangel or the Congressional Black Caucus because in my experience they never have before or since.
That there “is no voter suppression” is not a rebuttal. It’s not even a fact. Federal Courts have said that Texas and North Carolina have done just that. I am in agreement generally with voter ID with the exceptions of what some states are accepting and not accepting as identification and the cost associated with it. I live in Florida, to get a state ID I was required to present a certified birth certificate which cost me $25 and had I needed it in a hurry I could have paid maybe another $20 to expedite delivery. Despite all the talk of “free ID” they often aren’t and then become an Unconstitutional Poll Tax.
Gerrymandering in it’s present form often creates supermajority black districts where huge blocs of black voters are shoved into a few districts leaving all the rest for… not blacks. You get a few representatives, with no power, that doesn’t reflect the community. Redistricting as instituted by Republicans after the last census was about power and if it makes you feel better the ‘fiendish plot” was not just against the black man or hispanics. Maybe it was only a byproduct that when you deprive Democrats of power you also discriminate against minorities. Wisconsin has a case in court to determine is there such a thing as too much, we will see.
All of the things I have mentioned exist, I think we can agree to that. The effect they have we would likely disagree about but they each have a disparate effect on minorities.
This “point by point rebuttal” is extremely lacking. That criminals go to jail is a given. That incarceration rates have risen dramatically even prior to the 1994 Crime Bill is also true. Also, studies have shown that drug use among white and black people are very similar yet arrests are highly disproportionate.
About 20% of those in state and federal prisons are there consequent to a bill for which a drug charge is the top count, so I don’t know why you would expect arrest data to reflect rates of drug use even if there were no granular features of drug use which induced different arrest rates. The modal reason people are in prison are for violent crimes, and disparities in arrests and convictions reflect differences in the properties of the two subpopulations. As for ‘the 1994 crime bill’, I have no clue why you think a federal statute is driving police hiring in local government, sentencing rules applicable to state courts, or prison construction by state governments. Grant money distributed by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security is a single-digit share of state and local law enforcement budgets.
Every President since Bush-1 have participated in this including Barack Obama with some of the provisions in the stimulus bill which incentivized private prisons and continued to pay police departments for drug arrests.
About 5% of those incarcerated by state and federal courts are housed in prisons run by private contractors. No clue why you and Jill are so addled by this particular practice. And, again, grant distribution by federal departments is a small share of law enforcement budgets (and distributions by the DEA specifically smaller still).
Regarding the origin of the crime bill of 1994. I confess to not having direct knowledge although I’ve heard several versions. The version most favorable to Bill Clinton is that the Republican Congress was about to push through a much tougher crime bill and this was the best compromise he could get. I don’t quite buy that. I think his political instincts told him to get in front of this and lead the way of being tough on crime. Yes several black politicians including Rangel and Mayors of large cities supported it, some with misgivings, others did not. The one thing I’m pretty sure of is that Congress didn’t pass a bill based solely on the support of Rangel or the Congressional Black Caucus because in my experience they never have before or since.
About 89% of the manpower devoted to law enforcement is employed by state and local governments and financed (with some qualification) by their own tax revenues.
That there “is no voter suppression” is not a rebuttal. It’s not even a fact. Federal Courts have said that Texas and North Carolina have done just that.
Define ‘voter suppression’.
I am in agreement generally with voter ID with the exceptions of what some states are accepting and not accepting as identification and the cost associated with it. I live in Florida, to get a state ID I was required to present a certified birth certificate which cost me $25 and had I needed it in a hurry I could have paid maybe another $20 to expedite delivery. Despite all the talk of “free ID” they often aren’t and then become an Unconstitutional Poll Tax.
It’s not a poll tax. You pay the charge just once for documentation which can be used in a variety of circumstances. No clue how you shuffled into middle age without a birth certificate or why it is you haven’t a driver’s license or work ID.
Gerrymandering in it’s present form often creates supermajority black districts where huge blocs of black voters are shoved into a few districts leaving all the rest for… not blacks.
That’s what federal courts and black politicians wanted.
You get a few representatives, with no power, that doesn’t reflect the community.
Blacks in Congress have one vote on legislation (same as everyone else gets) and accumulate seniority at precisely the same rate as every other member of Congress. They’re nearly all Democrats, so they’ve usually been in the minority the last 20 years. That’s what happens when your preferred party loses elections.
Redistricting as instituted by Republicans after the last census was about power and if it makes you feel better the ‘fiendish plot” was not just against the black man or hispanics. Maybe it was only a byproduct that when you deprive Democrats of power you also discriminate against minorities. Wisconsin has a case in court to determine is there such a thing as too much, we will see.
Gerrymandering is a universal practice where one party controls the state legislature and the governor’s chair. It cost Republicans more seats in Congress 35 years ago than it is costing Democrats today.
It’s not that difficult to draw up a practice manual which would remove most of the discretion from drawing electoral constituencies. The thing is, for such methods to work, you’d have to give up strict equipopulousness as a property of electoral constituencies. Which is to say, you’d have to twist the arms of federal judges to rescind about 50 years worth of stupid case law.
This is why I think a Federal statute is driving the various factors that result. The private jails are further driven by contractual guarantees for prison populations.
https://www.attn.com/stories/1663/police-departments-prioritize-drug-crimes-over-violent-crimes
“Define voter suppression?”
Making it harder for minorities to vote. Providing fewer polling locations and machines creating long lines discouraging people from voting. Reducing early voting days and only making them during the week in hours when people are normally working. Requiring ID and then only having one location available in some counties (predominantly black counties in Alabama) once a month which is an improvement from when they were to be totally closed. http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/drivers-license-offices-will-reopen-on-limited-basis.html
Not accepting state issued photo ID’s as identification (State college ID) but accepting gun registrations. Voter “caging” Voter intimidation. Removing tens of thousands of people from voter rolls because of names “similar” to others (think Hernandez, Fernandez, etc). Systemically challenging registered voters.
I’m a little sleepy so I might have missed some. Those would be within my definition.
Making it harder for minorities to vote. Providing fewer polling locations and machines creating long lines discouraging people from voting.
Who did that, where? And how much difference could that make if it was done? A voting precinct in Monroe County, New York (to take one example) has a resident population of about 1,000 on average and (in the city and suburban tracts) a radius of < 0.6 miles. They're empty most of the day, seeing lines only in the morning before work and at the dinner hour (if that). It isn't going to be an impediment even if you cut the number in half. If you wish to complain about the number of precincts in slum zones, did you ask yourself how readily one can recruit poll inspectors in that part of town?
Reducing early voting days and only making them during the week in hours when people are normally working. Requiring ID and then only having one location available in some counties (predominantly black counties in Alabama) once a month which is an improvement from when they were to be totally closed.
Do you honestly think your local board of elections is handing out absentee ballots to whites it won’t hand out to blacks? And where in God’s name is there a county with more than 2,000 people living in it that has only one voting precinct?
That aside, there was no such thing as ‘early voting’ when I was involved in local politics a generation ago. There’s a reason for that and a reason the practice should be abolished: it’s incompatible with ballot security. There are very few people who ought to be voting absentee (military families, Foreign Service families and the like, residential college students, and shut-ins).
And I have no clue where you got this paranoid notion that having a 15 hour window to vote on the 5th of November is somehow unfair to blacks. Other people work for a living too.
I’m happy to know that Rochester, NY and the surrounding area has no problem voting. Surely you’ve seen the long lines in urban areas like Miami, Cleveland, and elsewhere. Because the polls remain open to anyone in line at the time of poll closing. People were still voting in Miami (Eastern Time) when the polls closed in California (Pacific). You’re helping to make my point that it’s easier for, “some people” to vote than others.
I never indicated there was only one voting precinct in any district. I said in certain County’s (majority black) there was only one location where they could get the required ID which was only open one day during the week. I provided a link.
Yes, there once was no early voting. Its purpose was to make it easier both for voters and the locations that need to process them. It encourages more in-person voting where there is the least incidence of potential fraud (which is almost mon-existant already). The elimination or reduction of existing early voting has but one purpose, to suppress votes.
The 15-hour window would be unfair to blacks and other minorities when in places they reside (typically urban areas and often condensed due to past redlining and steering). The number of voting machines is not proportionate to the population and the locations are not the most convenient.
A bit of inconvenience is suffered by all Americans when they vote, yet for some that is pure racism directed direcly at them and no one else on the line. Time for them to wake up and look at some of the more important things in life like the number of homicides of young people in towns like Chicago. To bad these people don’t spend the same amount of energy worrying about the deaths.
No attacks enigma. You merely see the entire world in terms of your own racial grievances. It warps your perspective and makes you seem obsessed. I’m sure you’re not as ideological as you write but the bottom line is that you appear a “man of one argument,” which after a while gets awfully predictable and boring.
More denial of these policies and their effects
The effect of jailing people is to reduce the frequency of crime through deterrence and incapacitation.
We’re not talking policies,; we’re talking your argument style. We can debate policies ’til we’re blue in the face but you cannot overcome mindset. That has to be done internally. Its the reason negotiating with an ideologue is pointless. There is no amount or quality of data that can change their preconceived notions.
You aren’t providing any data, you are only criticizing me. When talking about negotiating with an ideologue, that plank in your eye (love getting biblical) might be keeping you from seeing.
I’m criticising you because I’d like to take you on point by point by I find it a worthless endeavor if your ideology prevents rational give and take. I’m prepared to accept your logic if you will extend the same courtesy to me sans ideological talking points.
Rather than discuss multiple topics at once. Select one and I’d be happy to discuss it. After finishing that discussion, I’d be happy to go to the next topic.
Ok will do.
That’s a very good assessment. I also think he gets lost in phraseology sometimes, which is a thing that happens to people of all political beliefs. What happens is that a phrase like “mass incarceration” or “free markets” takes over the mind and the person loses the ability to finish off the thought process.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I never liked jargon. It hides more than it illuminates. Explain it to me like a fifth grader. If you can’t you don’t understand it.
Don’t commit crimes, don’t do drugs, don’t have kids out of wedlock, learn in school.
All in the power of the individual, community, family. Don’t blame that crap on the “racists” or those that are complicit.
Good gracious people like you are tiresome.
I bet money one of your ancestors in Africa rounded up his relatives and neighbors by force and sold them into slavery.
“Democrats don’t have clean hands” LOL……you mean your glorious Democrat Senator Byrd was not one of the highest ranking Grand Wizard KKK members for most of his life?
You have a funny way of admitting most of the South who fought for slavery were Democrats, and man who took a bullet to the head to abolish slavery was a Republican.
Joeseph, not only might one of his ancestors “sold them into slavery’ but might have owned black slaves. There were black slave owners.
Thank goodness the western world (such as Great Britain and the US) worked and work to end slavery. There is still slavery in the world but too many free people forget about that.
Your view of history seems to have stopped 150 years or so ago. That Republican that took a bullet didn’t personally care that much about slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was a move to keep France or Britain from siding with the South in the war and only freed slaves in those states that had seceded from the Union. He may well have deported all the slaves after the war had he lived. Democrats especially in the South killed, maimed and lynched to keep black people from voting and wiped out whole towns including one in my present County, Orange Co. FL where black people that weren’t killed were burned out or otherwise forced out. From 1920 to 1981 there were no black residents in Ocoee, FL after two black men tried to vote. For all that Democrats have done historically (and still do presently) the greater present danger is Republican policies.
From 1920 to 1981 there were no black residents in Ocoee, FL after two black men tried to vote.
The median population of that town during the period in question was 1,370.
And the percentage of that population that was black was approximately 50% on November 19, 1920. By the 22nd it was 0%. Because you enjoy history so much, you might be interested to know that many of the survivors relocated to neighboring Orlando until they were uprooted by the City and many then moved to the predominantly black Parramore District where many were again forcibly displaced when land was taken by eminent domain for the construction of the then Orlando Arena. Some people have all the luck, eh?
What was your point about the population? It wasn’t enough people to matter?
Post 1920, (nearly 100 years ago BTW) many towns in Europe and Japan were completely destroyed by bombs and artillery fire. Those towns housed millions of people That war came to an end in 1945. Within 10 to 20 years, these towns were rebuilt, and these countries were back to civilized life.
Why? Because the people who lived in them got back to life and did not sit around whining about how mean the Americans and British had been to them.
Perhaps you should find some more relevant to the current black situation, LIKE A 72% ILLEGITIMATE BIRTH RATE, in 2017 to focus your attention on. Or the high drop out rate, or the 6 schools in Baltimore where NONE of the students is proficient in math or English.
But if you did, then you couldn’t blame white folks for your problems.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
That particular response was to someone who thought I only blamed Republicans for events. I was trying to help him out with an example of Democrats so he’d have more to shout than Sen. Byrd, KKK.
Unbeknownst to some, including you obviously. The history of racism in this country is relevant to the current situation. I have a metaphor involving Monopoly where one person gets $200 every time they pass G, start out with Boardwalk and Park Place and keeps playing with that head start for 200 years. The other person keeps being sent directly to jail and pays Luxury Tax for their first 100 years. Eventually, the rules ease but there’s always an advantage for the first player. Who has the better odds of winning the game?
And BTW, I blame white folks generally, just those who help perpetuate the disparity.
enigma – it has been a long time since i played Monopoly, but it was played in turns, not years. And it is a game of luck, not skill. You, my friend, are where you are by skill, not luck. I follow my former students. Some have gotten out of the inner city, some are still there. They all made choices along the way. Some of my brightest girls love being a mom, so they are popping out babies. I have at least three who are pregnant right now. That was their choice. Most of my boys are working. Some went to college. I have one female in grad school right now. Those who went to school, worked and went to school. They did not take the easy road.
In the game Monopoly, everyone starts out with an equal $500 in cash and then luck and strategy determine the outcome.
In real life the advantages (and disadvantages) are generational. Some individuals will overcome any odds but there will be a trend. Let’s imagine that in any given year (some here would say that year was 1954 or 1968 or some other year long ago, I would submit it hasn’t happened yet) where the field was leveled and the rules were the same for everyone. How long would it take for that initial advantage to wear off if ever?
enigma – do the rules of Monopoly change if you are black, white, yellow or brown? No, still the same game. And it is still a game of luck. I do not care what your strategy is, if you do not roll the right numbers on the dice, you are not going to make any progress. Your strategy is zilch without luck. You want Park Place, you have to be the first to get there with enough money to buy it. All luck, no skill.
The rules of Monopoly are colorblind. That game, however, is not real life.
My goodness, but you can’t even get the rules of Monopoly right. Players start out with $1,500 each. But that is trivia. Your example shows that you, like so many black people, are mentally locked in the past, and can not move on to the future. You people are addicted to whining.
So what if your parents left you squat in terms of inheritance. Most white people do not get an inheritance until they are in their 40s or 50s or older. Do they sit there and do nothing in the mean time? Heck no, they get educations, get jobs, get married, have kids the right way in wedlock, and then, by the time their parents kick off, they are already functioning.
Meanwhile, do you really think blacks in Africa and Haiti, and other black run countries leave much of an inheritance behind? Plus, have black people never heard of LIFE INSURANCE??? All black adults have to do is make room in their budget to leave a few hundred thousand to their families. BUT, they might have to go without hair weave and Jordans. Maybe quit smoking pot, or cut out the premium channels. Gee, isn’t life tough???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
You spent so much time demanding the actual statute from North Carolina yet never responded to it? Quite a bit more than voter ID wasn’t it? And yes I’m ignoring your once again denouncement of black people.
You might also avoid the use of the term, “you people.” People tend to draw conclusions.
Squeeky. He likes to whine alot. Racisim is everywhere according to him, but he has very little knowledge about where and why it exists. He is too lazy to learn so he can educate others and really prefers just to whine.
If I know significant racism exists around me I do something about it, but what I find is that too many of the claims are errant and a waste of time.
Eminent domain seizures may be ill-advised, but they’re not a plot to harass the black man.
Ocoee is now a suburban component of greater Orlando. It was in 1920 a village with about 800 people in it in 1920, of whom were about 30% were black. While that sort of violence is grisly, I’m not seeing what relevance there is to this event and contemporary disputes over voting regulations.
I wasn’t responding to contemporary disputes but to a criticism I never condemned Democrats.
Your information regarding Ocoee is incorrect. I live in Orlando and have done a good bit of research. Of course, if you read the headlines the next day of the Orlando Morning Sentinel, it would read, “Two Whites Killed.”
I have a subscription to Ancestry.com and can assemble data from the 1920 census. It had a population of 815 in 1920, of which 255 were black.
And the 1920 Census couldn’t possibly have underrepresented blacks? I’m quite certain I have more reliable information and as certain that any time spent trying to prove this minor point to you would be wasted.
And the 1920 Census couldn’t possibly have underrepresented blacks?
You can try cross-checking against land registers or Polk Directories. I don’t think you’re going to get a different answer.
@Enigma Voter ID laws are very popular. Last August, Gallup found that 80% support voter ID laws.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/194741/four-five-americans-support-voter-laws-early-voting.aspx
Jimmy Carter and James Baker co-chaired the Commission on Federal Election Reform in the early part of this century. When their report was issued, only three members of the 21 member commission opposed its recommendation making it a requirement to show a photo ID to vote. They also referred to a study that found that in three states – Indiana, Mississippi, and Maryland – only 1.2% of registered voters lack a state issued photo ID. So, it’s popular and if the study is accurate across all states, 98.8% of all registered voters already have a photo ID.
https://www.cartercenter.org/news/editorials_speeches/voter_id.html
That said, I think both parties like having voter ID as an issue. Studies purport to show that massive voter fraud is not a problem. But some voter fraud DOES occur. Republicans enact voter ID laws because they believe their voters care a great deal about voter integrity. Democrats like it as an issue because it is a terrific marketing tool. They pretend that Republicans want to suppress the vote of minorities. That motivates minorities to turn out and vote against Republicans. That’s often what happens. I’ve seen studies that minority turnout has increased after voter ID laws have been enacted. So both parties like it as an issue.
I am open to looking at ways to reform the criminal justice system. One person I have been paying closer attention to is John Pfaff. I have already used my two link maximum so I can’t link to it, but consider reading the New Yorker piece, “How We Misunderstand Mass Incarceration” if you are unfamiliar with Pfaff’s work. I think it was Slate that did a lengthy profile of him and his work, too, a couple of years ago.
Scott, all kinds of conduits to vote fraud are now open.
1. The gratuitous use of digital technology (e.g. touch screen voting).
2. The promiscuous use of postal ballots
3. The decline in assiduous purging.
4. The lack of any effective means to cross-check the rolls to strike out aliens or persons who have lost the franchise via legal proceedings.
I could give you voter ID, every one of the states passing those laws also pass a number of associated laws whose sole purpose is to suppress votes
Name one.
North Carolina! It was hard to stop at one but I stifled myself (still thinking about an Archie Bunker conversation in another thread).
North Carolina is not a ‘law’. Tell me the statute and tell me what it does, and tell me what in the bill jacket says it was done to ‘suppress votes’.
If the “bill jacket” doesn’t announce the intent to suppress votes that’s not what it does? Take your pick.
“The federal court in Richmond found that the primary purpose of North Carolina’s wasn’t to stop voter fraud, but rather to disenfranchise minority voters. The judges found that the provisions “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.”
In particular, the court found that North Carolina lawmakers requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state. “This data showed that African Americans disproportionately lacked the most common kind of photo ID, those issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV),” the judges wrote.
So the legislators made it so that the only acceptable forms of voter identification were the ones disproportionately used by white people. “With race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans,” the judges wrote. “The bill retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/north-carolina-early-voting/506963/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-smoking-gun-proving-north-carolina-republicans-tried-to-disenfranchise-black-voters/?utm_term=.1011f52e2e3f
You’re not telling me what the law was, what provisions were in it, or even providing a quotation from the opinion (much less attesting to the character of the judge). You’re giving me The Atlantic‘s gloss on the judge’s gloss on the intentions of the legislature and not even telling me what the provisions of the bill are.
I gave you also direct quotes from the Federal Judges (not a single judge). Here’s the bill. Federal Judges have already found it Unconstitutional and described the intent. If you read it differently, forgive me if I don’t take your word. I think we can at least agree that there’s a whole lot more substance than simple Voter ID.
http://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/SessionLaws/HTML/2013-2014/SL2013-381.html
Federal Judges have already found it Unconstitutional
See Roe v. Wade. Such a finding means the law irritates the judge for some reason. Nothing more.
The Supreme Court found no merit in the North Carolina appeal (which Roberts took great pains to say it didn’t signify an opinion on the merits of the case). You keep saying, “the judge” as if it were a single judge. The opinion was from a panel of judges on the appeals court, not one disgruntled judge who woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
The Supreme Court doesn’t take more than about 4% of the cases filed. They are nearly unique among appellate courts in that they may at their own discretion refuse to hear an appeal. That’s not a comment on the merit of the case.
Sounds unhinged. Add violent rhetoric and he has placed the univerisity at risk. He sounds like a neo-Nazi spewing hate and prejudice while topping things off with violent rhetoric..
If the professor considers “difficult” decisions concerning how to use social media, he truly lives in an ivory tower and his opinions must be viewed accordingly. There are people starving in Darfur, under water in Texas, and in combat in various locales throughout the world. Those people have “difficult” decisions to make.
It’s just another example of something we’ve seen repeatedly over a dozen years: academe is a collecting pool of damaged people who are intellectually gifted. In 1928, about 6% of the late-adolescent / young adult cohorts were enrolled in baccalaureate programs, graduate programs, and professional schools. Now, over 40% of a typical age cohort pass through such institutions. You’ve allocated the task of sorting the labor market to damaged people and the c***y political operators who protect damaged people. You need to stop doing that, and start reforming higher education (which is going to have to happen through changes in the law of corporate governance, among other things).
Because of the call to violence and the support of violent movements, I do support the removal of the professor from his teaching position or any position.
” Knijnenburg used the hashtag to say PunchNazis and how much he admires violence counterprotesters: “I admire anyone who stands up against white supremacy, Violent or non-violent. This needs to stop, by any means necessary. #PunchNazis””
Aside from the groups they target for terror, what, exactly, is the difference between the fascists and antifa?
The difference is Satan AKA George Soros pays money for antifa violent protestors, and this has been well proven. No such person exists on the right.
In Berkeley the antifa hate groups burned parts of the campus while the PD stood by and did nothing. Political leaders purposely order the PD to do nothing when antifa groups commit crimes, even when antifa groups commit violence against the right who assemble with permit. Not so for the other side. Look at the riots in CA before the vote in 2016, when antifa groups battered Trump supporters while the PD blessed the whole thing. Lawsuit pending now against CA for its blessing and welcoming of antifa criminal violence.
Please show me one ultra left wing Progressive assembly with permit, where the other side assembled without permit and committed organized violence, all wearing black hoodies to hide their identity?
A white college teacher is facing conviction now for cold cocking a non-violent Trump supporter. The teacher hid his face behind a black hoodie as I described above. Got any such right wing college teacher doing the same?
You lied or as naïve as a nail or both.
Actually he wasn’t far off. He shouldn’t have said “all.” He should have said nearly all, making an allowance for the one or two who might not be. Should a professor be fired for making statement that’s 99% true?
Louise, we get it. You’re a sectary who understands nothing and has serious conversations with no one. Now can you climb back under your rock?
“Sectary” I had to look up.
But after you…
He said all you idiot.
They can do what they will with Professor Knijnenburg but at some point the college will suffer the benefits of his nebulous and unfounded labeling tens of millions of citizens racists. If it costs the institution in terns of prestige, political support, alumni endowments, or dollars then it shall be their just reward.
It will cost them nothing in any social matrix about which they care.
Clemson’s a public institution. The state legislature should take action and beat up the court system if they try to run interference for the university. Some action may require constitutional amendments, The thing is, there is tremendous inertia in state governments and Republican politicians are generally not interested in doing much other than posturing on crime (a minor amendment to the penal code named after an unfortunate moppet), tossing a few bon bons to business groups, and blocking whatever the latest travesty is that Democratic legislators are flogging.
Hear, hear! I propose the Darren Smith blog. All in favor say aye.
The AAUP has guidelines which Jonathan Turley might care to review.
Nonetheless, it is increasingly the case that faculty are “on duty” 24/7. Which means that faculty need to be consistent in expressing what they hold as knowledge, justified true beliefs.
If he had just called them Republicants there would be no issue.
The AAUP has guidelines which Jonathan Turley might care to review.
The AAUP stands for the comfort and convenience of the professoriate as a class They do not give a rip about dissidents in the professoriate.
Completely wrong. Learn the history of academic freedom to understand its importance.
Alas, real dissidents abandoned by the AAUP have made their accounts public.
“Academic freedom” is code for ‘professors not subject to discipline administered by non-porfessors’. It’s not anything the general public has any reason to value. Professors behave badly and need to be slapped upside their heads.
That is simply ignorance piled upon prejudice.
No, it’s calling bulls*** on the nonsense you’re peddling and on the pretensions of your trade.
Does this mean that the Clemson professor is FOR repealing
unconstitutional “Affirmative Action Privilege”
since “Affirmative Action Privilege” is pure racism?
Repealing affirmative action for Republicans would be a good start.
There is no such things as ‘affirmative action for Republicans’.
At first glance, it looks like this dude is protected by South Carolina law, much like the black racist professor in Connecticut:
I did not pull the statute, because I am watching Twin Peaks right now.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Canning this lout is something you do not need to do. Addressing the social forces which make academic institution a magnet and refuge for louts is something you do need to do.