Academia, Free Speech, International, Politics, Society

“More Of This Please”: Professor Calls For The Death of Trump Supporters

An Australian professor of “moral psychology” used Twitter to call for the death of Trump supporters.  Neither Twitter nor his colleagues objected to Macquarie University Associate Professor Mark Alfano calling for “more of this please” after reading that a Trump supporter died in the recent Capitol Hill riot. He also called such deaths “comedy.” He is not the first academic to call for such violence or defend killings. We previously discussed Rhode Island Professor Erik Loomis who writes for the site Lawyers, Guns, and Money and declared that he saw “nothing wrong” with the killing of a conservative protester. (A view defended by other academics). Other professors have simply called for all “Republicans to suffer.” What is striking is that such views are neither barred by Twitter nor, according to a conservative site that broke this story, denounced at his university. For my part, I have always maintained an Internet originalist position on free speech opposing censorship, so I would prefer that these academics not be banned. However, there is a stark contrast in how such views are treated by both social media companies and universities. Likewise, there is legitimate condemnation of the social media statements of figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and many QAnon figures, but virtually nothing on figures voicing extremist views on the left in the mainstream media or academia.

Alfano was mocking the death of Rosanne Boyland, 34, who was crushed to death in the riot. He appeared to relish the news of the death of a Trump supporter and tweeted “More of this please.” He then lashed out at those on Twitter objecting to his hateful statement by calling one a “dumb***k.”  He added “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when a MAGA chud gets crushed by fellow rioters and dies.” “CHUD” is an acronym from the 1984 horror movie C.H.U.D. for “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.”

Alfano previously taught at the University of Oregon. His curriculum vitae lists work on morality and psychology and lists such grants as “Social virtue epistemology: What does it take to be an intellectually humble Socratic gadfly?” and “Challenging the use of masculinity as a recruit mechanism in extremist narratives.” There is also “Scaffolding the media for intellectually humble discourse.” It is hard to see any humility or morality in Alfano’s commentary.

Again, I view this as protected speech and would argue against efforts to ban Alfano from Twitter or punish him at this university. While these extremist figures rarely show the same support for the right of others to speak, they are the test of our principles of free speech and academic freedom.

 

167 thoughts on ““More Of This Please”: Professor Calls For The Death of Trump Supporters”

  1. Unfortunately, Professor Turley’s view on freedom of speech, which I share, is a guarantee of ratcheting towards more restrictions on speech: I say you are free to speak your mind, and you respond by shutting me down.

  2. Something you don’t acknowledge. Academics are commonly other-directed, craven, cruel-to-the-kind and kind-to-the-cruel. He wouldn’t be saying these things unless (1) the academics in his milieu were content with the content or (2) the academics in his milieu were content with him. If they conceived of him as a problem, a sequence of events would be set in motion to make his life difficult. It would conclude with him shutting his pie hole or getting the sack. He’s without doubt an awful character, but not in ways that actually irritate his ‘colleagues’.

    1. @art deco x4

      Bet you wouldn’t say the same if a Trump supporter was calling for the death of his leftists. Of course, you wouldn’t. You would recommend the FBI hunt them down and prosecute them as ‘domestic terrorists’. But you can sure make excuses for your fellow travelers.

      antonio

      1. Huh? I am a Trump supporter. If a Trump supporter called for the ‘death of leftists’, I might under certain discrete circumstances suggest the local police and prosecutor bust him for criminal solicitation or incitement. Both of these offenses are defined in the New York Penal Law and there is certainly a body of case law which makes the definition more precise.

        The institution needs to ask itself how it is it acquires on its faculty men of low character. However, even men of low character have rights under their contract and (given that higher education is usually provided by public corporations) rights under the law.

    2. I read some of his work. It’s actually interesting. That doesn’t change the fact that his political agenda is evil.

      1. Thanks for posting your view. After reading it I had to admit to myself that some of the titles were interesting.

        On a different note, I am reading Turley’s position on free speech so many times that it really is sinking in. But I am still confused how typing that one desires to murder political enemies is not a crime. Does one have to type a specific name of a person one desires to kill? Would it then be a crime? I know Turley doesn’t reply here, so I am open to answers from readers.

        1. Princiess ” But I am still confused how typing that one desires to murder political enemies is not a crime”

          ***

          Saying I would like to kill someone is only an expression of anger or fantasy. Actually taking steps to do it or actually encouraging someone else to do it is a crime.

          The difference is between thoughts on one hand and acts on the other.

    3. Alfano who threatens others, should be raised at the table. People who throw threats, invite and indeed, sometimes morally deserve, physical calls of their bets.

      A bully often does need a punch in the mouth. Alfano is a bully.

      We are well into the phase of political intimidation via speech and mob action. This is unfortunate. But, tit for tat, keeping up with the Joneses will mean, Alfano may get a punch in the mouth. This is the logic they have embraced so let them taste it.

      No need for the university to cancel his ticket. Eventually his mouth will provoke karma too much.,

      Sal Sar

  3. She wasn’t ‘trampled to death’. She fell,, someone fell on her and someone stepped on her, but that’s not going to kill you. Capitol Police were giving her CPR before the ambulance arrived. If you see photographs of her, you can tell she had a weight problem and accounts of her life indicate a history with street drugs. .

    1. “She wasn’t ‘trampled to death’. She fell,, someone fell on her and someone stepped on her, but that’s not going to kill you. Capitol Police were giving her CPR before the ambulance arrived. ” >>> trampled.

      1. No, it doesn’t indicate that unless you’re being willful. That they were giving her CPR indicates a cardiac event, something overweight people who’ve damaged their health through drug use have from time to time. Why’d she fall in the first place?

  4. Do you suppose these Trump haters would lose their minds if Trump was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize?

    President Trump received three nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize for his vision bringing peace to the Middle East. Jared Kushner and Avi Berkovitz were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work in achieving the Abraham Accords bringing real peace to the Middle East.

    You know who else was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize? Black Lives Matter. And now too, Stacey (I’m the rightful Governor of Georgia who never conceded loss) Abrams.

    Gee, the Nobel Prize Committee has a real hard choice to make for the 2021 “peace” prize. Wanna guess which way they will go? Will they ‘go woke’ and continue on their trajectory that is cheapening and diminishing what was once a prestigious award? Of course they will.

    https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/stacey-abrams-nominated-nobel-peace-prize/2021/02/01/id/1008093/

    1. They could also choose the freaky teen climate activist Greta Thunberg or the utterly corrupt CCP controlled World Health Organization. Which way will the Nobel Committee go this year as they select the most deserving of a “peace” prize?

  5. An AUSTRALIAN professor…I guess the Word Australian wouldn’t fit in the headline. Talk about scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Professor, are you really this shameless? Yes, you are. I actually remember when you appeared to be interested in law and not politics. It’s disappointing and sad.

    1. “Now the only question is . . .”

      Have you noticed the photo-op prep work they’ve been doing? A number of times, he’s mumbling into the microphone or signing something (he knows not what). There are wide shots, with KH standing in the wings.

      That’s step one: Get the American public comfortable with the idea of KH being “presidential.”

      My guess for step two: Leaks from “reliable sources” about JB’s cognitive deficiencies.

      Step three: More leaks about congressional discussions of the 25th Amendment.

      Step four: “For the good of the country . . .”

      And then Obama’s third term, by proxy, is complete.

    1. Really? Republicans don’t believe in the rule of law. They don’t believe in personal responsibility either unless they are blaming Democrats, the poor, workers or anyone else who isn’t them!

      1. Yawn. You’re supposed to convert readers to your cult but you are causing the opposite.
        Note to JH handlers: he’s costing you recruits

    1. Thanks Eddie.

      From the Report:

      https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/60187b5f45762e708708c8e9/1612217185240/NYU+False+Accusation_2.pdf

      “Scholars from Harvard, Northeastern
      University, and the University of Buffalo
      published congruent findings in 2019.
      In a study of more than 16,000 Twitter
      accounts active during the 2016 election season, they determined that
      fewer than 5% of people on the left or
      in the center ever shared “fake news.”
      But 11% of people on the right and 21%
      of people on the extreme right shared
      fake news. These scholars defined
      “fake news” as the output of entities
      that lack editorial norms and processes for ensuring accuracy.29
      Finally, on this point, BuzzFeed News
      reported in December 2020 on Facebook’s “hate bait dashboard,” an internalfeature that tracks the U.S. groups and
      pages attracting the largest number of
      hateful user comments. BuzzFeed
      obtained a list of the top 10 hate bait
      sources over a recent 14-day period.
      Although admittedly just one snapshot
      in time, not a conclusive determination
      by Facebook, the list was made up
      entirely of right-leaning organizations,
      led by Breitbart, Fox News, and The
      Daily Caller.

      ….On most days, right-leaning U.S.
      Facebook pages dominate the list of
      sources producing the most-engagedwith posts containing links. In particular,
      during the run-up to the 2020 election
      and its aftermath, the page of conservative commentator Dan Bongino outperformed those of most major news
      organizations. The pages of Donald
      Trump and pro-Trump evangelist
      Franklin Graham consistently showed
      up in the top 10, as did Fox News.
      CNN, National Public Radio, and The
      New York Times sometimes made
      the list, but Joe Biden rarely did.59
      Using CrowdTangle, one can also
      generate engagement rankings for
      “U.S. general media.” Here, three of
      the top 10 spots were held by rightleaning pages during the period from
      January 1, 2020, through Election Day in
      November. Fox News was the runaway
      leader, with 448 million total interactions.
      In second place was Breitbart, with
      294 million. In seventh place was
      The Daily Caller, also a right-leaning
      outlet, with 97 million. The 839
      million interactions generated by
      these three conservative pages
      was more than the 821 million total
      produced by the seven mainstream
      media pages in the top 10—those of
      CNN, ABC News, BBC News, NBC
      News, NPR, Now This, and The New
      York Times. …

      …A look at Facebook engagement
      data arrayed by NewsWhip, an independent analytics firm, tells much
      the same story. NewsWhip calculates
      the most popular publications by
      determining their likes, shares, comments and other reactions to link posts
      shared not only publicly—which is
      CrowdTangle’s method—but privately,
      as well. From January 1, 2020, through
      Election Day, right-leaning publications
      occupied three of the top 10 spots:
      Fox News finished third, with 751 million
      interactions; The Daily Wire, fifth, with
      647 million; and the New York Post,
      tenth, with 376 million. The British Daily
      Mail came in first, with 851 million
      interactions, followed by CNN, with
      788 million.60….

      …In a separate study released in October
      2020, Politico, working with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a
      London-based nonpartisan think
      tank, concluded that “right-wing social
      media influencers, conservative media
      outlets, and other GOP supporters”
      dominated social media discussions
      of two of 2020’s most volatile issues:
      the Black Lives Matter movement and
      alleged election fraud. Researchers
      scrutinized more than two million social
      media posts across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the message boards
      Reddit and 4chan. They found that
      users shared the most-viral right-wing
      social media content about Black Lives
      Matter more than 10 times as often as
      the most popular liberal posts on the
      topic. On election fraud, people shared
      right-leaning claims roughly twice as
      often as they did liberals’ or traditional
      media outlets’ discussion of the issue.63
      Like the findings of the Digital Innovation
      and Democracy Initiative, the Politico/
      ISD results contradict the bias claim.
      Far from being censored online, voices
      on the right are widely disseminated. …”

      1. “Scholars from Harvard, Northeastern
        University, and the University of Buffalo
        published congruent findings in 2019.
        In a study of more than 16,000 Twitter
        accounts active during the 2016 election season, they determined that
        fewer than 5% of people on the left or
        in the center ever shared “fake news.”

        I’m sure their methodology was impeccable.

        1. Oh, surely not up to your high standards Deco: “Can I pull it out my a.s, or not?”.

          1. If you had an ounce of integrity, you’d walk through the impediments to producing valid answers to the questions they’re asking. You don’t, so it’s confirmation bias all the way down with you.

        1. Read as much a you want monument, but yes, facts are boring, and especially if they squelch your passion.

      3. PS Does anyone doubt that the right relies on and inhabits FB and Twitter more than the left? They don’t read newspapers or view mainstream network news – and brag about that – and so rely on the loudest crazy person on these platforms.Than they come here and regurgitate it.

        1. They don’t read newspapers or view mainstream network news – and brag about that –

          They don’t because they’re familiar with the content and the producers of it.

    2. Eddie, We are in the years when many ‘experts’ and ‘expert studies’ lose their masks and reveal themselves as frauds.

      1. Yes indeed, Young shows his post modern creds. Facts are what he wants to believe and expert opinion that counters it must be wrong.

        Today’s GOP in a nutshell.

        1. PS I should have typed – Facts are what he (Young) wants to believe and expert opinion that counters it must be part of a conspiracy..

          1. Joe — Since you rely on ‘experts’ I assume you wear 2 masks now as Fauci said we must do or have you abandoned 2 masks for 1 as Fauci says we can do? How do you keep up? How many ‘expert papers have been retracted because of errors? Hydroxychloroqine was almost poison and useless for Covid according to the AMA and Lancet and now, after many have died, they admit it works after all.
            California went into a rigid lockdown destroying businesses because of ‘expert’ opinion and their daily infection rate soared beyond more open states like Texas and Florida. Expert Cuomo slaughtered people in nursing homes by sending in infected patients. New York still leads all states in deaths.

            Yes, Joe, keep telling people to heed the ‘experts’.

            1. Yes, Young, indeed a do wear 2 masks now as recommended by the experts. The issue is the higher transmission rates of the newer strains. You should try to keep up, and in this case, to help protect those you are near, I recommend wearing 2 masks. It’s not difficult.

              Hydroxychloroqine?

              “OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – OSDH officials have told News 4 that of the 1.2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine Oklahoma purchased last year, none of the doses have been used by the state.

              The state purchased the drug from FFF Enterprises in late March of 2020 for $2.622 million.

              Back in April 2020, News 4 brought you a story stating that hydroxychloroquine was not proven to treat the coronavirus, after the state had already spent millions of dollars to have it on hand.

              The media contact for Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter told News 4 that AG Hunter is working with the Department of Health and the vendor on a buy back solution.

              1. No doctor I know wears 2 masks. Fauci has been seen several times wearing no masks. But I would like you to wear 4 masks, although 2 masks seem already to have given you hypoxia.

                  1. I noticed you skated over Fauci’s flip flops and the fact that both JAMA and Lancet have also flipped on HCQ and the fact the Democrat governors in California and New York have handled Covid very poorly judging by deaths, infection rates and destruction to the jobs of workers.

                    Yes, I have figured it out. You are one of the few remaining trolls who were not offered some little plum in the fake Biden presidency.

                    1. “I noticed you skated over Fauci’s flip flops . . .”

                      Fauci was always a mediocre scientist, with a lust for unearned power and prestige. As a forty-year bureaucrat, his incompetence has thwarted scientific development.

                      His first utter disaster was a massively expensive anthrax project that distorted “priorities in infectious-disease research, sucking money away from work to understand and counter natural disease outbreaks that ultimately pose a greater threat to public health.”

                      His second complete and insanely expensive failure was AIDS:

                      “You admitted that you are an incompetent idiot. Over the past four years, $374 million has been allocated for AIDS treatment research. You were in charge of spending much of that money. . . . Yet after three years you have established only a system of waste, chaos, and uselessness.” (AIDS activist Larry Kramer)

                      https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/13/a-short-history-of-how-anthony-fauci-has-kept-failing-up-since-1984/

                      On the science of Covid19 and the production of vaccines, he contributed nothing — except, of course, to confuse the hell out of the public and to panic them into submission.

                      Fauci is a perfect example of how under government-controlled “science,” incompetence rises to the top.

                    2. Fauci represents an aggregation of knowledge that is seen in the MSM. My question is whether his ‘knowledge’ came from the MSM or their knowledge came from him. Either way the management of that knowledge was very poor.

                2. No doctor I know wears 2 masks. Fauci has been seen several times wearing no masks.

                  People do not realize that the fitted filtration efficiency (FFE) of the popular “procedure mask with ear loops” is 38%.

                  Filtration Efficiency of Hospital Face Mask Alternatives Available for Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic
                  https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2769443

                  Your best defense is a healthy immune system. Lick every door knob, every grocery shopping cart, every stairwell rail and be done with it

                  😉

                  OTOH, if you are part of the shameful 2/3 Americans who are overweight/obese, 49% of Americans who are hypertensive and/or 10% who have Diabetes Type 2, you should probably wear 2 masks since these all involve inflammatory cascades. Or you could lose weight.

                  Faucci is actually advocating for Americans. He knows the above stats, and he is trying to protect the millions of Americans who are ripe targets for SARS-CoV-2. If obesity were a rare condition in America, we would not be having this discussion. However, since Americans are slothful, gluttonous, prideful, and wrathful, the virus is likely an evolutionary response.

                  Free will is a double edged sword

                  1. “Faucci [sic] is actually advocating for Americans.”

                    No he’s not. He’s a phony and a fraud. He wants one thing: That others see him as a great scientist. He’s stealing the prestige of science to panic the public into submission.

                    1. He’s a physician first and foremost
                      Science has no prestige. It’s a discipline
                      If he did not advocate for masks and being hyper vigilant, given the above demographics I cited (which are not new), more Americans would have died by now. Americans should be thankful to Dr Fauci.

                    2. Estovir,
                      Fauci has barely said anything about getting healthy. He barely started talking about vitamin D in like August. If he has been talking about it, the mainstream media isn’t disseminating it. I have friends and family who still think it’s a crapshoot who gets really sick from Covid, and, a year later, are only just now starting to to ask questions about how supplements, diet, and exercise could help them. A year later! Some are still putting all their bets on a vaccine, even though they could be doing *a lot* to change their diet and start exercising.

                      If he (and other leaders like Health secretaries) were really advocating for Americans, they’d be advocating people exercise and eat real food and maybe take a small amount of supplements like vitamin D since it’s winter, or to go to the doctor to get their levels of zinc (etc) checked in case their in a demographic that likely has an inadequate status.

                  2. “Americans are slothful, gluttonous, prideful, and wrathful”

                    A bit anti-American today?

                    1. “Americans should be thankful to Dr Fauci”

                      As much as the Russians should have been thankful to Lysenko.

                      And the answer to the question: What does Fauci believe? is always: Which Fauci?

                    2. Fauci is like a filter permitting talk to go into and out of the NIAID. Even the NIAID recommends changing one’s filters on a regular basis.

                  3. Masks primarily protect others more than the wearer. If we all wear them we are all more protected, though not completely safe.

  9. I take issue with Alfano’s commentary with the use of the moniker CHUD. The proper term should’ve been CHAD since one of the lasting achievements of trump’s term was creating space for these people *above* ground. The MAGA mutants felt emboldened and entitled enough to form a very public lynch mob and invade the Capitol.

    Elvis Bug

  10. 585 million guns. Might be a bad idea. Marxists have never tried this crap in a country with well armed citizens.

    1. Oh boy. More NRA style BS. I been hearing that for 30 years as every year it got worse and worse.

      Now I have formed an uncharitable opinion of my gun loving friends. It seems that the gun owners of america have made it into a cargo cult. they think by hoarding and worshipping guns they will ward off the evil eye of the Left. I am sorry to report, there is no such magic in unused guns.

      Actually if guns just gather dust then they are useless, a sop, an excuse for laziness. one tells oneself one may rebel later instead of taking lawful hard work political action today. Roll that over in your head and see if you can get what I mean. it is all talk

      Availability of guns is never a problem for a people united against an oppressive government. They will take them away and they will make them and they will develop other tools in their very own kitchens. Whereas, laziness among a people facing an aggressive government, laziness and division, spells defeat, no matter how many guns rotting in the basement from rust.

      Sal Sar

  11. Maybe the stupid, unthought out words of this man (I can’t call him a professor, he is more a submoronic twit) and others will come back to bite them in a few years like stupid comments (from high school and young adult years) have come back to bite others. Some stupid comments are just stupid and some stupid comments come from pure hate, which are the saddest comments of all.

  12. An analogy might be protesters burning an American Flag…..they do so to provoke a reaction from onlookers.

    What happens when they provoke a reaction that results in their noses getting broken or their teeth knocked out?

    The Philippines has a lovely law known as “Unjust Vexation”…..which covers such a situation.

    The beauty of that Law is it protects the vexed party and places the liability upon the vexer.

    I firmly believe we should adopt that into our own legal code.

    Were we to do this….I see Free Speech being protected as those who go across the line with their comments would pay a quick and distinct penalty for that excess.

    Just saying!

  13. Monumentcolorado, it’s Silberman, not Silverstein. Can you please do me the common courtesy of getting my name corrrct?

    1. “Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

      Mayo Clinic

      Aka Troll

  14. To have such lunatics in a university department means the department should be shuttered and not reopened. That particular professor is a moral failure.

  15. Well stated and a profoundly refreshing departure from the contrived narratives of the main stream media.

    It is no small wonder that all these so called journalists in the MSM have become irrelevant to all but the most feeble of mind…

    Maybe there should be an acronym with one additional letter before and after… MMSMM

    Mindless main stream media midgets 😉

  17. This is just horrific. Everyday I wake up and feel that I am living in Russia not the US when I look at the news or social media. But then I go out and live my life and realize the majority of Americans are continuing to live as Americans and the media mirage is a mirage that only we can prevent from continuing to become a reality.

  19. “… but virtually nothing on figures voicing extremist views on the left in the mainstream media or academia.” If there’s no condemnation from the mainstream of “leftists” thought, then can these views by academics really be considered “extremist views” or rather merely voicing the thoughts most refrain from saying out loud?

  20. Lefty scum.

    But the anger is widespread, just look at the postings by Anonymous (the angry one) Natasha, and Silverstein.

    These people seem to spend their days stewing.

    There is no awareness on their part that they are the dividers.

    1. Turley: “Likewise, there is legitimate condemnation of the social media statements of figures like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and many QAnon figures, but virtually nothing on figures voicing extremist views on the left in the mainstream media or academia.”

      Let’s be honest. I can count on one hand the number of Republicans currently holding office who have condemned Marjorie Greene.

      I’m glad you have Professor, but I would not hold your breath waiting for your Fox News colleagues to follow suit.

      1. @Jeffrey Silberman: You first need to be able to count passed five. That’s your problem.

        1. Joan Rivers: “My husband is so stupid, he can’t count past 20 unless he’s naked.”

      2. Indeed Jeffrey, but Turley has not written a column denouncing Greene. He saves those for Democrats, leftists, and CNN or MSNBC.

        She gets one of those “Many of us have criticized….” treatments.

    2. Monument- “There is no awareness on their part that they are the dividers.”

      ****

      I think they know. It’s their job. They revel in it. Usually they do not merit a response. It’s like having a discussion on philosophy in a school for outraged retarded kids.

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