One of the free speech issues that we have previously discussed is whether universities are effectively curtailing free speech through student surrogates on campus. We have seen student government bodies and boards engage in blatant content-based discrimination in exercising their control over budgets or publications (here and here and here). The latest example comes from Stanford University where the student government voted against approving a $6,000 grant request from the College Republicans to help host former Vice President Mike Pence for a campus speech. That’s right, they voted against supporting the right of other students to hear from a former Vice President of the United States.
The College Republicans needed 8 votes to approve the funding. However, the final vote was 7 in favor, 7 in abstention, and 1 in opposition. Somehow the seven students not voting considered that act to be more ethical than just being honest and voting against the funding. It had the same effect. Despite only one student voting against the speech, the school refused to support a former vice president coming to its campus to address faculty and students.
The vote captures the rise of intolerance and speech controls sweeping over our campuses. This is a vice president who played a historic role in defying a president to certify the vote on January 6th. He did the right thing. However, whether you agree or disagree with him, this is an opportunity for students to listen and question someone who held the second highest office in the country and served in a critical capacity in a number of key policy areas, including the election and the pandemic. However, a majority of Stanford students in this vote refused to approve a small level of funding for the event.
One interesting element is that university rules require that events needing security must secure over 50% of funding from on-campus sources. That guarantees this type of control by student government leaders — authority that was abused in this case. Previously the Undergraduate Senate initially blocked conservative speaker Dinesh D’Souza.
Conversely, Stanford students approved sponsorship for an array of highly controversial speakers from the left including Professor Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi has written highly offensive commentary, including questioning the adoption of two Haitian children by Justice Amy Coney Barrett as illustrative of “white colonizer” values.
While Kendi’s event was opposed by conservatives on campus, I believe that all of these voices should be welcomed on campuses. Higher education is supposed to foster rigorous and passionate debate. These speakers are part of that spectrum of viewpoints that add to our rigorous debates and dialogues on social issues. For example, Kendi insists that “The life of racism cannot be separated from the life of capitalism. In order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.” That would make for a fascinating debate on any campus. Kendi has also called for a “Department of Antiracism” that would be able to oppose “racist ideas” and even veto or nullify any law at any level of government run counter to an “antiracist” agenda. That proposal runs afoul of a host of constitutional guarantees but again it is the type of viewpoint that can lead to substantive debate.
The actions of the Stanford students shows again that we have a rising generation of censors who have been told that barring free speech is a form of free speech. A new poll shows roughly half of the public supporting not just corporate censorship but government censorship of anything deemed “misinformation.”
They learned this intolerance from academic and journalistic figures of my generation. Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now supports censorship. Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.
The Stanford vote will be appealed and could be reversed. However, that does not alter the disgraceful initial vote or its implications for free speech at Stanford.
There has been a nuclear explosion on the border of Ukraine and Russia where Russian tanks are staged. Probably a B-61.
German planes are bombing Russian tanks right now. Much destruction. Like the first Gulf War.
I usually agree with Tucker Carlson, but tonight I did not.
If Pence can’t make money off the deal, then what’s the point?
That’s the only reason halfway decent people would get sucked into Trump’s orbit – to make money.
Write books, speaking engagements, etc.
It’s all cash from chaos.
If Pence can’t cash in on that chaos then why bother hey?
Ben, when your in your cups the comments get less and less coherent. Hillary made money on a book. Billy Boy Clinton made money on a book. To you it’s books by angels and books by demons. Your only point is to paint Pence as a bad guy. Weak sauce.
Thinkitthrough – The old “what about” — look over there. It’s just like here…only there.
Pence is a non-entity.
Name me one interesting thing he said or did the entire time he was vice president.
Running from the mullethead mob was probably it.
You have to be a pushover to work for Trump, and he was that pushover.
Trump tried to have him killed and he’s still loyal.
Is that even human?
Politicians make money from books, so what?
They’ll probably have to build an additional wing to the Trump Presidential Library in Pahrump, Nevada to store all the tell alls and exposes written about Trump.
If only Melanoma would write one.
Ben Marcus, that’s some really Progressive thinking! No payola, no point!
Pence could have one of his kids sit on some boards, say on the board of a gas company in a foreign country where he is in charge of corruption. Or have is son and brother start a venture fund with the Chinese. He could call himself the big guy and cop a cool 10% for lending the family name. Too, he has that sensitive look that screams hidden artistic talent. He could take up painting for a little spare change.
A couple book and movie deals (wink, wink!) would land a $14 million oceanfront estate on the Vineyard. Imagine the birthday parties where all the cool kids jet in to rock the night away! Look mom, no masks!!!
Maybe a family foundation or two. Should rake in some dough. With enough left over to fund a dossier on a political opponent. Word on the street is the Russians are paying a half million a speech (although all the good uranium rights might already have been sold). Pull that off and there’s need to waste time with some snot nose undergrads in Palo Alto.
Heck, as a former vice president, he could even sell his cable company to Al Jazeera, produce a science movie, invent the internet, or be inspiration for a love story. But those are just table stakes.
The only thing that might be disqualifying is that is hard to imagine Pence being credibly accused of rape, or receiving oral pleasure from a White House intern. Or naked in a Las Vegas hotel room doing blow and telling a hooker about a massive blacked out bender with Russians who stole his laptop and are using it to blackmail him. Never too late to learn, though!
Imagine the Progressive possibilities! No payola, no point!
And because you are a know-nothing. Fox-watching smartass, you have earned the boilerplate defense of Biden and the Obama administration.
I always challenge Trumpers to answer this, but they never do, because there is no answer
Obama and Biden created more jobs and wealth and revolution with one loan than the sum total of everything Trump attempted or achieved.
If Biden and/or Obama were corrupt, they would have raked in shares of Tesla at the IPO.
But they didn’t.
Answer this smartass.
THE BOILERPLATE
Under Obama, Biden loaned Tesla $465 million to Tesla under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.
Tesla used the money to modernize and robotize the Fremont plant and build the Tesla S.
Tesla paid that loan back nine years early with $15 million interest, and that loan is creating tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions in new wealth.
And God knows how much tax revenue. And it’s a gift that is going to keep on giving long into the future.
Look at the factory in Texas, and the jobs created there.
And look at what that loan has inspired, like Ford investing $11 billion to build battery factories and a truck plant in Kentucky.
The success of the Tesla S sparked that, and the success of the Tesla S has a foundation in that loan overseen by Biden.
Point me toward any one thing Trump attempted or achieved that comes anywhere close to that one loan by Biden to Tesla.
The truth is, the sum total of everything Trump attempted and achieved don’t add up to that one loan by Biden to Tesla.
That is proof that the Green New Deal is the Real Deal, and it’s the foundation of the American Jobs Proposal and the Infrastructure Plan.
That’s MAGA. That’s vision and leadership and success.
There’s more to Making America Great Again than parading around the proles in a stupid red hat.
Tesla hovered over bankruptcy for years, almost going under during Obama’s second adminstration. It pulled out of bankruptcy during the Trump administration
Trump had nothing to do with it.
Tesla is a classic example of MAGA – America leading the way, manufacturing in America – but did Trump visit the Tesla plant?
No, because the Tesla plant is in California and California – like Stanford – is too smart and too dignified to want anything to do with Trump.
Or Pence. Or any of them.
Obama and Biden loaned Tesla almost half a billion and effectively jump-started the electric car revolution.
Trump walked around in a stupid red hat and attempted nothing and achieved nothing.
What is Trump’s legacy?
20% unemployment, lying about election fraud, inciting a riot and getting a couple dozen idiots thrown in prison.
That’s the silver lining in Covid – got rid of Trump.
Yay.
You are such a buffoon. “Elon Musk is Betting Big on Donald Trump,” The Atlantic; “After Catching Flak for Donating to Republicans in 2018, Elon Musk is Playing it Safe by Giving Nothing to Politics This Year,” Forbes, 2020; “Elon Musk Says He May Vote for Trump…” The Independent, Sep. 2020
Musk survived Trump and played along like the rest of us and is glad he’s gone like the rest of us.
Biden loaned Tesla $465 million and enabled Tesla to thrive
Trump did nothing.
What is his legacy hmmmmm?
Nothing. A riot. Swell.
So, like, I used to know this dude named Duane. I thought Duane was really cool. Then one day he spent his paycheck on scratch off tickets. Won $400. Used it to buy a bottle of Mad Dog and more scratch off tickets. He woke up the next morning broke with a hangover. He asked me to loan him $100 until next payday, so I did. He got really pissed at me when I asked him to pay me back. Turns out he spent the money on more Mad Dog and scratch off tickets. Duane is not cool.
You are Duane.
And yes Epstein was allowed to kill himself.
A sex addict ×asnt going to thrive in prison.
Or maybe he was doing that erotic asphyxiation thing
OT: Former D.C. National Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6
Col. Earl Matthews calls military leaders “absolute liars” over their accounts of riot
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017d-8aca-dee4-a5ff-eeda79e90000
Maybe I’m a little grumpy today, but this is how I’m feeling lately about so-called academics:
https://youtu.be/g3sq-Y_3RIY
This decision was made by students, not academics.
The students were taught how to be good little fascists by their academics.
No Bubba it is the faux fascism – fauxism? – of the Trump administration the Stanford kids object to.
It is fauxcists who lie like Mussolini about Election Fraud and it is fauxcists who hide in bunkers and dance Hiilerian jigs as riled up mulletheads raid the capitol and try to overturn elections.
Pence was the right hand crony to the head fauxcist. A moral coward who the mob tried to kill.
Stanford wants nothing to do with Pence – for good reason.
A patsy and a coward..
He isn’t barred from speaking.
Are you this clueless? Or just hoping the leftist here are that clueless?
Read the article. The matching funds were to pay for security. The EX VP shows up and lots of extra security is required. Leftist have been playing this game for years. Threaten violence to shut down the speaker, by requiring a prohibitive amount of security. .
The left wing doesn’t riot and threaten vice presidents.
The right does, or have you forgotten that already in a haze of medication?
Pence is a moral coward.
He’s a non-entity, trying to cash in on his connection to Trump, like everyone from Bannon to Mcninny.
It’s all cash from chaos and Stanford don’t wanna play that.
Hey Ben, you have conveniently forgotten that Trump had to be taken to the White House bunker because they were afraid that the White House perimeter would be breached. I guess those rioters who set the church on fire at Lafayette Park were just peaceful leftist protesters. Who weren’t putting an American President in danger. Prairie Rose might be tired today but she doesn’t suffer from your case of continuing selective amnesia.
Taken to the White House bunker where he danced a Hitlerian jig as he watched the mulletheaded Red Hats try to disrupt a free and fair election.
I saw the video of Trump and Guilfoyle and them watching on in glee.
And the people on the left are just as lame as the people on the right.
These people are proles. They don’t even know what they are protesting.
They’re rioting to riot, but the Capitol rioters were more heinous as they attacked Capitol police officers, killed one, and invaded a government building and tried to kill the vice president and speaker of the house.
Lafayette Park doesn’t come close to that, in any way.
Nice try.
Was that the deal where Trump held the Bible upside down or something?
The more you comment, the more foolish you sound. Grow up little Progressive. You don’t make any sense except in your own AOC like mind.
Define “Progressive.” If it means “anti stupid mulletheaded prole” then yep.
I didn’t like AOC until she wore that EAT THE RICH dress which was pretty cool.
The Democrats need another Obama-class Rockstar and maybe she is it?
Maybe not.
You voted for Trump and bet on the Yankees and sold Bitcoin at $5000 didn’t you?
Yeah you did.
Anonymous you never discuss the subject matter of the post in which you were censored. You also never tell us if you used language that people of good sense would consider foul. You could say what you said was bad language and you could tell us that there is nothing wrong with such language but you would prefer to keep us in the dark about your discretions so you can say how your poor little heart has been broken by the mean old Darin. Are you fifteen?
The Beer Hall Putsch. Was that anything like the Blitzkrieg Bop?
Saw the Ramones in San Jose on New Years, many years ago.
Every song sounded the same, but every song sounded good.
As for the Beer Hall Putsch:
From November 8 to November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. Since 1921, Hitler had led the Nazi Party, a fledgling political group that promoted German pride and anti-Semitism and was unhappy with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-18) and required many concessions and reparations from Germany. In the aftermath of the failed “putsch,” or coup d’état, Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He spent less than a year behind bars, during which time he dictated “Mein Kampf,” his political autobiography. The putsch and Hitler’s subsequent trial turned him into a national figure. After prison, he worked to rebuild the Nazi Party and gain power via legal political methods.
𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐜𝐡
In 1923, Adolf Hitler was 34, an age when most people have finished school and settled into an occupation. He was a high-school dropout, however, and a failed artist whose military service during World War I (1914-18) had been the high point of his life. Injured by a British mustard gas attack in October 1918, Hitler was recuperating in a field hospital when the war ended in November 1918. He became convinced that his life’s mission was to “save Germany,” as he later put it.
Frustrated by Germany’s defeat in World War I, which left the nation economically depressed and politically unstable, Hitler returned to Munich, where he had lived before the war, and found employment as a police spy. Told to infiltrate a small group called the German Workers’ Party, Hitler was attracted to the group’s nationalistic and anti-Semitic ideology. He joined the party in 1919 and soon became one of its early leaders. He also met Dietrich Eckart (1868-1923), co-founder of the party and a member of the Thule Society, an occultist group devoted to theories of racial purity and the origins of Germanic culture. Eckart became Hitler’s mentor, introducing him to influential people and teaching him to be an effective public speaker. By 1921, Hitler was addressing crowds of several thousand people in local beer halls, which were common places for Bavarians to gather for political meetings. The German Workers’ Party changed its name to the National German Socialist Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party, and elected Hitler as its leader in July 1921.
In the two years that followed, the Nazi Party grew as people in southern Germany lost respect for the leadership of the Weimar Republic in Berlin. Germany’s payment of reparations to the Allies, required by the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I, had triggered runaway inflation that wiped out people’s savings. Additionally, starting in January 1923, French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr, the center of German heavy industry, an act that contributed to a sense of national humiliation.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐜𝐡
By November 1923, Hitler and his associates had concocted a plot to seize power of the Bavarian state government (and thereby launch a larger revolution against the Weimar Republic) by kidnapping Gustav von Kahr (1862-1934), the state commissioner of Bavaria, and two other conservative politicians. Hitler’s plan involved using Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), the right-wing World War I general, as a figurehead to lead a march on Berlin to overthrow the Weimar Republic. Hitler’s proposed putsch was inspired by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), whose march on Rome in October 1922 had been successful in ousting the liberal Italian government.
Hitler had initially approached von Kahr to lead the march on Berlin, but when von Kahr began to back away from the plan, Hitler moved ahead without him. Hearing that von Kahr was scheduled to address a large crowd in the Bürgerbräukeller, one of the biggest beer halls in Munich, on November 8, 1923, Hitler took hundreds of his followers and surrounded the hall that evening. The Nazi Party leader and about 20 of his associates burst into the hall, and Hitler fired a shot into the ceiling and declared a “national revolution.” Von Kahr and two colleagues were herded into a back room while one of Hitler’s associates telephoned Ludendorff. When the general arrived at the hall, he convinced the three Bavarian leaders to give in to Hitler’s demands for the march on Berlin.
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐊𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐬
Hitler made the mistake of leaving the beer hall later that night to deal with crises elsewhere in the city. His followers were supposed to take over government buildings throughout Munich but their attempts were largely foiled by the city’s military troops. Meanwhile, Ludendorff had allowed von Kahr and the other two leaders to leave the beer hall after Hitler’s departure. By the next morning, the putsch had fizzled.
Ludendorff attempted to salvage the situation by calling on Hitler’s followers for a spontaneous march on the city center. He led about 2,500-3,000 supporters in the direction of the Bavarian Defense Ministry. On their way, the marchers were blocked by a group of state police officers. The two groups exchanged fire, and four police officers were killed along with 16 Nazis. Hitler suffered a dislocated shoulder when he fell to the ground. He crawled along the pavement and was taken away in a waiting car, leaving his comrades behind. Ludendorff walked straight ahead into the ranks of the police, who refused to fire on him.
𝐇𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
Hitler fled to the nearby house of a friend, Ernst Hanfstaengl (1887-1975), where he was reportedly talked out of committing suicide. He hid in Hanfstaengl’s attic for two days but was arrested on November 11, 1923. Accused of high treason, Hitler was tried on February 26, 1924, and sentenced to five years in the Landsberg prison. Hitler’s popularity increased during his trial, as his defense speeches were printed in the newspapers. He served less than a year of his sentence, obtaining a pardon and early release on December 20, 1924.
Landsberg was a relatively comfortable prison, intended for inmates who were considered misguided rather than dangerous. Hitler was allowed to receive visitors as well as fan mail from admirers. Assisted by his deputy Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), Hitler produced the first volume of his political autobiography, “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”), in Landsberg. The book, first published in 1925, was dedicated to his early mentor Dietrich Eckart.
𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐡
The Beer Hall Putsch had several significant consequences. First, it led to a split between Hitler and Ludendorff; the general considered Hitler a coward for sneaking away after the police had begun to fire. Second, Hitler decided that armed revolution was not the way to obtain power in Weimar Germany. After the failure of the putsch, he and the Nazi Party worked to manipulate the political system rather than plan another violent seizure of power.
Third, the putsch brought the Nazi Party to national attention in Germany. The deaths of the 16 party members were also a propaganda victory for the Nazis. The men became martyrs, remembered in the foreword to “Mein Kampf” and entombed in two “temples of honor” in downtown Munich. Hitler held an elaborate march every year on the anniversary of the putsch, retracing the route from the Bürgerbräukeller to the spot where the shots had been fired in 1923. A flag that had been stained with blood from the putsch became a symbol of Nazi ideology. Hitler used this so-called “Blutfahne,” or blood flag, to consecrate all new Nazi banners and flags.
In 1933, a decade after the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler became chancellor of Germany. He went on to lead his country into World War II (1939-45) and mastermind the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored murder of some 6 million European Jews, along with an estimated 4 million to 6 million non-Jews.
On November 8, 1939, Georg Elser (1903-45), a Nazi opponent, planted a bomb at the Bürgerbräukeller, where Adolf Hitler was delivering a speech commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch. However, Hitler left the beer hall shortly before the bomb detonated, killing seven people and injuring dozens more.
“You shouldn’t treat your imaginings as knowledge.”
You should deal with the facts. Anyhow, it appears your voice got cancelled again.
In 2004, I had a neighbor who was a Kerry supporter. Without knowing which candidate I supported, he asked me if I could help him design an anti-Bush flyer on my computer. I said yes. Out of curiosity, I suppose, he asked me who I supported. I said “Bush”. There was an awkward moment, but I still agreed to help him.
He was stunned that I would even help him. I explained to him that I was a free speech advocate. We became friends after that. I was having car problems at the time, and he would give me rides to where I needed to go. And if his wet laundry was in the washing machine, I would put it in the dryer and use my own quarters
to dry his clothes.
Can’t we all just get along?
Thinkitthrough, thanks for posting the links about Liberty University.
Anon, thanks for the thanks. Some of the posters in opposition to our thinking could have found the same info had the made the attempt. Press on my friend press on.
Liberty University allowed President Carter and Bernie Sanders to be commencement speakers on their campus. https://thehill.com/opinion/education/387382-liberal-students-colleges-should-learn-from-liberty-universitys-civility. They also invited Alexandra Ocasio- Cortez to speak. https://roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-ocasio-cortez-should-accept-libertys-invitation/article_783cf9b2-3ea1-5dac-a66d-9eaf700ec2c0.html. No speakers could be more in opposition to the principles of Liberty University. The second article references how bad the head of Liberty University is but it still admits that Liberty allows more speakers on the left to speak than are allowed on campuses such as Norte Dame and Stanford. Of course you have to read down several paragraphs to find this declaration. They then have the gall to tell us that they are acting to protect our democracy. LOL.
“This isn’t about whether Pence can talk or others can listen, only about whether student government funds will be used for it.”
Well, if that’s the case, then that is a reasonable explanation. But what if they barred him from speaking even if private funds were
raised?
Shouldn’t academic freedom mean getting to hear people speak? Why claim that there is academic freedom at your institution when there is not, as
evidenced by how students are barred from hearing someone speak? You wouldn’t stop a book from “speaking” to a reader. This is akin to that.
“Pence can say all he wants to whoever he wants.” Except not to the students of Stanford, apparently.
Stanford are the best and the brightest and they want NOTHING to do with Pence, who is a moral coward.
A president tries to have him killed and he still won’t roll over?
The support for Trump helps me understand who the Germans could have supported Hitler and Nazism out of ignorance, arrogance, stupidty, fear, racism, insecurity, green and insecurity.
Once again Ben Marcus flippantly uses the Nazi comparison. Did Trump ordered the extermination of 6,000,000 people? Did Trump pack a cattle car so closely with people that those in the center suffocated while those on the outer walls froze to death? Did Trump order the taking of Jews to a forest to be shot in the back of the head in numbers so great that brain matter covered the clothing of the shooters. Ben Marcus knows nothing of history so he cheapens the suffering of the Jewish people to make his hyperbolic cheap little statement. A supposed anti-racist using fascist tactics to make his point. The sad thing is he probably doesn’t even put two and two together to realize that he is using the very tactics he proposes to hate. You just gotta shake your head. Ben, I would recommend the books “Ordinary Men” and “The Gulag Archipelago” as a new beginning in you education. Comparing Trump to the monsters of the past is just a cheap trick performed in the circus for your fellow compatriots. I understand, it makes you feel better.
Well it’s not as easy to be as monstrous now as it was in the middle of the 20th Century.
(Disclaimer: My great great grandfather was best friends with Karl Marx at Kaiser Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier around 1835. And I’m told that my great uncle was Emmanuel Schafer – with an umlaut – the Butcher of Belgrade, who murdered 7000+ Jews and other undesirables in a Sauer gas van. A crime for which he served a piddly six years in prison when he should have been hamstrung.)
Trump’s sins werem’t as murderous as bloody as the Nazis but his bending of the truth was every bit as bad as the Nazis and almost 1984 science fiction.
Lying about election fraud and inciting a pack of mulletheaded Brown Shirts to raid the Capitol and threaten the Vice President and Speaker of the House was still about as monstrous as it gets these days.
The Beer Hall Putsch and all that.
Hitler was a monster and Trump is merely a buffoon, but a buffoon who fooled 50% of America.
And shame on America.
I write history books, bubba. I don’t need to read them.
Ben Marcus you must continue on. First you tell us that Trump is as bad as Goering then you say well he wasn’t as bad as Goering. Which is it? Comparing Jan 6. To brown shirts who attacked Jews and homosexuals without mercy. Once again you use the cheap Nazi comparison. You say you don’t have to read history books because you write history books. How can you write history books if you are ignorant of history because you don’t read history books. You admit that you have no points of reference. Keep on telling us who you are Ben it’s fascinating.
In relative terms, Trump lying through his teeth about election fraud and inciting a mob of easily-lead, mullet-headed proles to raid the Capitol, attack Capitol police and threaten the lives of the VP and the SOTH is Nazi-level heinous.
If someone had handed out brown shirts to all the mullet-heads they would have worn them – as they wore the red MAGA hats.
So not Brown Shirts, but Red Hats: Stupid and violent and easily lead.
Unprecedented which is why all those idiots are going to prison and hopefully Trump will get convicted of something.
I’ll bet I know history better than you do.
My family made it.
Great great uncle Fordyce was VP of Kodak in the 30s and 40s and head of the Optical Physics department of the National Defense Research Committee – the agency that developed the atomic bomb and a lot of other fiendish thingies that won World War II.
And my grandfather Clifton was also an optical physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was at the first atomic test at Alamogordo.
Ben Marcus, here is a quote of the exact words spoken to the Jan 6 protesters by Donald Trump. “ I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Did you happen to notice the word peacefully in his statement. Trump said hey all you brown shirts go peacefully and protest. To Ben it was the peacefully part that was a secret code to tell the brown shirts to take over the nation. Hey Ben, you said that you probably know more history than I do but you say you don’t need to read history books because you write history so how could you know more history than I do if you don’t need to read history books. You pull up some personal antidote about your German distant relative but you never tell us how you have come to your point of view because of the history you have studied in one history book or the other. An interesting source for your point of view would be appreciated so that we can all become more enlightened (CNN doesn’t count). The statement that always follows is “I’m note going to do your research for you, do your own research.” The standard cop-out. Wait for it. Wait for it.
What about the rights of students to hear what Pence has to say?
If an employer can punish you for speaking the wrong way, then they can also punish you for voting the wrong way.
Now Ben Marcus is comparing Pence to men who took Jewish children into the woods and shot them in the back of the head. Weak reasoning. Goebbels, Goering and Hitler did not allow anyone to speak in opposition of the state. Like Ben Marcus they too decided who should speak and who should not speak because they like Ben Marcus were completely convinced of their righteousness. I am very happy to see Ben Marcus post on this forum knowing that if allowed to do so he would not allow my postings to be read here. It is important that we see Ben’s postings in the open in front of everyone so that we might understand what he would do underground if no resistance was allowed. We should not try to stop Ben Marcus from posting here but we should be aware of his thinking. Thank you so much Ben for telling us who you are and what you stand for.
There are many countries where speech is drowned out be those who believe that they are the high priests of the one and only truth. It is unreal to see that the students of Stanford can not somehow see the parallel between their actions and those of the dictatorships of the world. How could it have come to pass that their knowledge of the history of the world could be built on so little understanding of the dangers of the limitation of speech? Their actions are no different than the limiting of speech by dictators such as Xi, Castro, Chavez, Stalin and many others. If you think that this is what they want for our nation than you can resist their efforts of domination at the voting booth. Do you need to see any further proof of their intentions? Do you need to be awakened with their hammer before you act? If there ever was a time to put a halt to their madness that time is now while your vote still counts. The people of nations who have lost their freedom once declared that “it can’t happen here.” History tells us that republics will not last forever without the diligence of the populace in overseeing their way of life. What will you do?
Baloney. Pence can say all he wants to whoever he wants. His freedom of speech isn’t limited.
The students of Stanford watched as Pence stood idly by while Trump s@#$ all over the West Wing and Democracy.
Pence did nothing.as Trump held a book burning for the Constitution.
And then even after Trump lied through his teeth and incited a riot in a mob of easily-lead mulletheads that tried to kill Pence, he STILL wouldn’t roll over on Trump.
Why would Stanford want anything to do with someone like that?
Someone with exactly zero courage or integrity? None. Zip. A white-haired, grinning patsy?
Let’s invite Goebbels or Goering or Himmler!!!!
Ben I think you missed the point. The issue is free speech not an attack on Pence which is one of the common fallacies used when your argument is weak.
Pence is free to speak wherever and whenever he wants.
No one is blocking that.
Stanford doesn’t want to hear from Pence because he is an embarrassment, an enabler and a moral coward.
Why give someone like that a platform?
Speech has never been freer than it is now. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc
It isn’t all relegated/controlled by broadcast network TV or newspapers or magazines.
Pence can say what he wants on his own platforms and people can chime in or not
Apparently Pence gets around $100,000 for a speech, and that’s why he’s not going to walk onto Stanford and speak for free.
ACCORDING TO VANITY FAIR
Mike and Karen Pence are living their best lives. No, really. Almost a year after Donald Trump nearly got them murdered at the Capitol by a band of rioters trying to overturn the election, the former second couple is living in a nearly $2 million mansion in suburban Indianapolis. Mike Pence has a megawatt book deal in the bag with Simon & Schuster. And the two are traveling widely, with Mike Pence getting paid upwards of $100,000 a speech, according to Republicans who spoke on background.