In my book out this week, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I write about the anti-free speech movement that has swept over higher education and how administrators and faculty hold a view of free speech as harmful. Now Harvard is again at the heart of a free speech fight after Lawrence Bobo, the Dean of Social Science, rejected views of free speech as a “blank check” and said that criticizing university leaders like himself or school policies are now viewed as “outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct.”
Bobo warns that public criticism of the school could “cross a line into sanctionable violations.”
In his opinion editorial in the Harvard Crimson, Bobo declares:
“A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the University and its independence.”
The column adopts every jingoistic rationale used by anti-free speech critics today, including the invocation of the Holmes “crowded theater” analogy:
“But many faculty at Harvard enjoy an external stature that also opens to them much broader platforms for potential advocacy. Figures such as Raj Chetty ’00, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jill Lepore, or Steven A. Pinker have well-earned notoriety that reaches far beyond the academy.
Would it simply be an ordinary act of free speech for those faculty to repeatedly denounce the University, its students, fellow faculty, or leadership? The truth is that free speech has limits — it’s why you can’t escape sanction for shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.”
First and foremost, the ability of faculty to speak out on public disputes should not depend on whether you are more popular or visible.
However, it is the theater analogy that is most galling.
I have an entire chapter in The Indispensable Right that addresses the fallacies surrounding this line out of the Holmes opinion. It is arguably the most damaging single line ever written by a Supreme Court justice in the area of free speech.
I have previously written about the irony of liberals adopting the analogy, which was used to crack down on socialists and dissenters on the left.
One of the most telling moments came in a congressional hearing when I warned of the dangers of repeating the abuses of prior periods like the Red Scare, when censorship and blacklisting were the norm. In response, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes’ view that free speech does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. In other words, citizens had to be silenced because their views are dangerous to others.
When I attempted to point out that the line came from a case justifying the imprisonment of socialists for their political viewpoints, Goldman cut me off and “reclaimed his time.”
Other Democrats have used the line as a mantra, despite its origins in one of our most abusive anti-free speech periods during which the government targeted political dissidents on the left.
Dean Bobo is now the latest academic to embrace the theater rationale to justify the silencing of dissent. At Harvard, he is suggesting that the entire university is now a crowded theater and criticizing the university leadership is a cry of “Fire.” It is that easy.
By punishing criticism of the school’s leadership and policies, Bobo believes that they can look “forward to calmer times” on campus. It is precisely the type of artificial silence that academics have been enforcing against conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters for years. It is the approach that reduced our schools to an academic echo chamber.
The reference to Professor Steven Pinker is particularly ironic. As we have previously discussed, Pinker was targeted for exercising free speech. In past controversies, most Harvard faculty members have been conspicuously silent as colleagues were targeted by cancel campaigns. It was the same at other universities.
As faculties effectively purged their ranks of conservative or Republican members, the silence was deafening. Others either supported such campaigns or justified them. Notably, over 75 percent of the Harvard faculty identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Then the Gaza protests began and some of these same faculty found themselves the targets of mobs. Suddenly, free speech became an urgent matter to address. Fortunately for these liberal professors, the free speech community is used to opportunistic allies. Where “fair weather friends” are often ridiculed, free speech relies on “foul-weather friends,” those who suddenly see the need to protect a diversity of opinions when they feel threatened.
Bobo’s arguments are consistent with years of rationales for silencing or investigating dissenting faculty for years. It violates the very foundation for academia in free speech and academic freedom. The university is free to punish students or faculty for unlawful conduct. However, when it comes to their viewpoints, there should be a bright line of protection.
Of course, this criticism is likely to trigger another common fallacy used to rationalize speech controls: as a private university Harvard is not subject to the First Amendment and thus this is not a true free speech issue.
As discussed previously, free speech values go beyond the First Amendment whether it is a controversy on social media or campuses. For years, anti-free-speech figures have dismissed free speech objections to social media or academic censorship by stressing that the First Amendment applies only to the government, not private companies or institutions. The distinction was always a dishonest effort to evade the implications of speech controls, whether implemented by the government or corporations.
The First Amendment was never the exclusive definition of free speech. Free speech is viewed by many of us as a human right; the First Amendment only deals with one source for limiting it. Free speech can be undermined by private corporations as well as government agencies. This threat is even greater when politicians openly use corporations and universities to achieve indirectly what they cannot achieve directly.
Dean Bobo’s desire for “calmer times” would come at too high a price for free speech as well as Harvard.
Jonathan: Promoting your new book and attacking Harvard Dean Lawrence Bobo–and all in one column! Wow!
Bobo is no stranger to controversy. He and former Harvard President Claudine Gay were instrumental in cancelling a lab program at Harvard instituted by Prof. Roland Fryer–who was the youngest Black professor at get tenure at Harvard and won the prestigious Joh Bates Clark Medal, the prize for the best economist under 40 in the world. Bobo and Gay were criticized heavily for that decision by other Harvard professors. Apparently, Bobo and Gay thought by cancelling Fryer’s project, that focused on how Black kids could achieve academic success, that would appease the dominant White academic culture at Harvard and outside right-wing groups intent on a “cancel culture” at Harvard. That appeasement didn’t work because Gay lost her job anyway due to continued attacks on her by MAGA Republicans in the House.
Now it’s about Bobo and his op-ed piece in the Harvard Crimson and your attacks on him. It follows a familiar pattern of attacking Black academics for their research and papers that show systemic racism is ingrained in every part of our society. Bobo’s column pointed out that if students can be arrested, disciplined and their diplomas taken away for protesting Israel’s war in Gaza why not apply the same standards to Harvard professors who encourage students to engage in different forms of protest–like encampments.
This is where I part company with Bobo. When students engage in peaceful protest that’s protected speech. When professors tell students they have a right to exercise their 1st Amendment rights that’s also protected. Neither should be subject to University sanctions. If the police are called in the arrest students, as happened all over the country last month, that should be the end of it. Students who have to pay fines or do jail time is enough punishment. Universities should not pile on by denying diplomas, expulsions or other sanctions that serve no useful purpose.
Frankly, I don’t know what you are so exercised about. Bobo’s op ed was just his opinion and does not reflect Harvard’s official policies. Isn’t he entitled to express his views just like you claim for “conservatives”?
“A faculty member’s right to . . .” (Bobo and his ilk)
Translated from academese into honest English:
We, the race/gender/class activists, are university policy. If you dissent, we have our means of persuasion. (sometimes called “academic mobbing”)
It’s an academic putsch — 25 years in the making.
It is slow, methodical process but George Soros has infused billions of dollars into dismantling this nation and seems determined to do as much damage as he can before he dies. He is dangerous.
He is currently trying to corner the lion’s share of talk radio, Audacy with 235 stations across 48 markets. There are few sources of dissent on traditional television. The legacy television outlets do little to seek truth. Radio still has voices of dissent, unless George gets his way (which he will likely do). He can throttle any upstarts who do not agree with his agenda.
Controlling media and censoring dissenting voices is what Hitler and Stalin did to subdue the masses. Here we go again. Meanwhile, George (like all of us) will stand in judgement when he soon passes from this life to the next. I wonder if he thinks he will live forever?
I am rereading The Stand. Stephen Kings description of Randall Flagg, He was the timeless embodiment of evil. This is a battle against evil.
“He looks like anybody you see on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits. He’s always outside. He came out of time. He doesn’t know himself.”
Stephen King, The Stand
Tags: randall-flagg
E.M.
Funny you made this comment, after I just read Democratic strategist James Carville wants the Biden admin to force the media to help Biden beat Trump. He has no problem with slanted media as long as it is in favor of the Democrats and against Republicans.
When they tell you they are totalitarians, believe them.
Lawrence Bobo was Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies.
Gender and ethnic studies are responsible for much of the rot in academia and in the culture. They breed aggressive propagandists who have a maniacal desire to control others.
They presume their own students guilty of horrendous crimes (see the Duke lacrosse hoax). They censor books (see Jytte Klausen at Yale). And now, as revolutionaries always do, they come to eat their own.
Spanish translation of Bobo: https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/bobo
Professor Turley:
I think that we would need to look at any employment contract applying to the faculty that the Dean is talking about. Certainly anyone employed at will can be terminated for speech, otherwise protected in a public environment, that might impinge on the employer’s enterprise goals. I’m not sure how this issue might apply to the university’s “customers”, but I would think that employees would have limited speech rights under employment contract law.
Democrats are preparing for war. They do not expect Biden to win and are already coalescing around a Resistance Part II to a Trump presidency, per NYT. Should be a riot and loads of both fun and ammo. Vive le resistance, pass the 5.56 x 45mm.
###
“The New York Times thinks it’s important to tell you that “The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.” The importance to the Times of this message is underscored by its printing more than 2,800 words in the widely read Sunday edition, bylined to four senior national political reporters: Charlie Savage, Reid J. Epstein, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan. The article warns that “the early timing, volume and scale of the planning underway to push back against a potential second Trump administration are without precedent. . . . Interviews with more than 30 officials and leaders of organizations about their plans revealed a combination of acute exhaustion and acute anxiety.” That should tell us something right away: The Times senior national political brain trust thinks Joe Biden is going to lose. It’s time to start preparing for the wilderness, with all the thematic and rhetorical shifts that come with being the party out of power. And this is a more important message to deliver, in June, than happy talk about Biden’s prospects and Trump’s unpopularity.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-resistance-sequel-will-be-even-worse/
“One of the most telling moments came in a congressional hearing when I warned of the dangers of repeating the abuses of prior periods like the Red Scare, when censorship and blacklisting were the norm. In response, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes’ view that free speech does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. In other words, citizens had to be silenced because their views are dangerous to others.
When I attempted to point out that the line came from a case justifying the imprisonment of socialists for their political viewpoints, Goldman cut me off and “reclaimed his time.”
**************************
The “fire in a crowded theater” case (Schenck v. US) was reversed in Brandenburg v. Ohio and Holmes himself walked away from his line of dicta in Abrams v. United States. No lawyer thinks that’s good law or should I say no GOOD lawyer thinks that bumper sticker analogy is good law.
“Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, invoked Oliver Wendell Holmes’ view that free speech does not give a person the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. In other words, citizens had to be silenced because their views are dangerous to others.”
Turley misconstrues the point of that line. He’s not wrong about the history behind the Holmes theatre line. He’s not gasping the point or maybe he’s deliberately ignoring it because it undermines his argument. Professor Bono’s point is not about silencing criticism. It’s not criticism, it’s the incitement to students to violate school policy. Bobo is talking about the responsibility of school staff using criticism to incite civil disobedience and other acts of protest that violate school policy.
“Even this commitment to instruct students on protest, however, is not without justifiable limits. If we are prepared to sanction our students for a line of action contrary to our codes of conduct, then I believe professors or administrators who encourage and advocate for such actions should also face parallel consequences.”
He’s arguing a very valid point. That free speech has limits and it’s not merely a ‘blank check’ to exercise it without consequences for school staff. They have a professional responsibility to ensure they exercise free speech responsibly and professionally.
Turley is mischaracterizing Bobo’s point to paint a false narrative to promote his book. It’s guaranteed that the blog readers didn’t read Prof. Bono’s opinion piece and just took Turley’s mischaracterization at face value.
This is what Turley ignored,
“Is it acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to encourage civil disobedience on the part of students that violates University policies? Faculty advocacy for actions clearly identified as in violation of student conduct rules is extremely problematic. Doing so after students have received official notification of a potential serious infraction is not acceptable. Such behavior should have sanctionable limits as well.”
George, JT used to be.pretty good, fair. Not so much anymore. Read pretty much every post of his that has a political element to it and you will find JT does not mention facts (yes actual facts) that are in evidence opposing his point of view. Very convenient to not even mention those facts as if by leaving them out they don’t exist? But they do, Evidence is evidence and JT has become the very embodiment of what he complains about. Sad, he had a good rep until a few years ago.
No there is no very valid point, there is no point at all.
You may not incite others to violence. SCOTUS is very clear on that, they are ALSO very clear on the very specific requirements for incitement to violence.
Harvard accepts governent funds – in return for doing so – regardless of policies, codes of conduct, … it has voluntarily subjected itself to the same First amendment constraints as apply to the federal governmnet – Bobo’s remarks do not even come close to complying.
FIRE has been busy suing universities over this type of nonsense for over two decades. FIRE ALWAYS wins. This i not even a close issue.
FIRE’s real problem is that so many universities violate the first amendment so much that it does not have the resources to sue all of them.
But lets us presume for the sake of argument that Colleges and Universities weew NOT subject to the same first amendment constraints as the government AND that they had not contracted with students and faculty – which nearly all have to guarantee first amentment rights.
You and BoBo would still have a major problem. That problem is quite simple – there are very very few circumstances where the supression of speech does not make problems WORSE not better.
I have a poster on my wall for the lat 40+ years “You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” – John Morley
The FACT is the censorship does NOT create a calmer environment – it creates a more anxious one.
Driving dissent underground does not make it go away.
Or a different truism from John Stuart Mill
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them…he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
It is not an accident that we have exploding anxiety almost exclusively among those on the left, among women, and among the young.
This is the direct consequence of CENSORSHIP.
This is in part why the USSR failed, and why the US which until recently had the strongest free speech in the world outperforms the rest of the world.
It is that allegedly bad ideas are openly expressed in their strongest form by their best advocates that assures us that the “consensus” is correct (or not).
Censorship is literally harmful to those who censor. It undermines the truth even when the consensus is correct and what is censored is FALSE
Which BTW is NOT the norm. The norm is the what we perceive as Truth is at best mostly true and what we perceive as false is at worst partly true.
You can defend censorship until you are blue in the face – but this debate is centuries old – and the censors lost it decisively.
Nothing has changed. The modern let had not discovered some new magic that left (and occasionally right) censors over the past were oblivious too
Look arround you – The left’s own efforts to censor have backfired.
I have alwasy said that the collusion delusion was an iQ test – if you for a moment beleived that Putin colluded with Trump – you are a moron.
It was NOT in Putin’s interests to do so. It was not in Trump’s interests to do so.
I know this is difficult for those of you on the left – but it is very rare for successful people to act against their interests.
You can love Trump or hate him, you can love Putin or hate him, but presuming that either would do something monumentally stupid only demonstrates YOUR stupidity.
But that is only ONE of dozens of examples where the left has pushed a narative and tried to silence dissent, and ultimately proved WRONG.
The result is that people do not trust you – not even those who share your values – those who oppose you think you are morons and liars and justifiably so.
Those who support you are increasingly anxious about what new stupid claim you are going to make and they are going to support that will be proven wrong.
The problems with public discourse today are not too little censorship but too much.
It is too much that is destabalizing, that causes anger and anxiety.
Finally I would note – which Turley failed to that “You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” is the most well known WRONG statement about free speech.
You absolutely CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. It does not come close to meeting the Brandonburg test for restricting speech muh less the even stricter standards that have followed more recently.
If you do yell fired in a crowded theater – you can NOT be arrested for your speach.
But you may be banned for life from the theater,
You may face a tort claim by the theater for real tickets it had to refund.
You may face culpability for real harms that are caused to others – should they panic and harm each other.
I would note that recent work by Nobel Prize Winner Elenor Olstrom demonstrates that this and other variants on tragedy of the commons are in reality FALSE.
People do panic and die – but they do so exclusively in response to REAL threats – like ACTUAL fires or bleachers collapsing.
In the real world the things that left wing nuts use to justify taking control of everything – almost never happen, and never have negative consequences even colse tot he damage of the laws, rules and regulations that seek to prevent them.
“I have alwasy said that the collusion delusion was an iQ test – if you for a moment beleived that Putin colluded with Trump – you are a moron.mIt was NOT in Putin’s interests to do so. It was not in Trump’s interests to do so.”
Of course I know what you mean, and perhaps I’m nitpicking, but this is something I don’t think gets enough attention. I don’t believe IQ and common sense are meaningfully correlated. In fact, I think high IQ people….take academics….are quite often more idiotic than actual idiots. Such people have very little Wisdom, which is an entirely separated realm.
John Say,
You’re missing the point, just like Turley. Your argument is based on incitement of violence which is NOT what professor Bobo was talking about. You went off on a tangent completely irrelevant to what he was talking about.
Bobo, was arguing for limited speech which is NOT censorship and it has been upheld by SCOTUS. He’s talking about the responsibilities of professionals, the staff and why it’s important for them to recognize that while free speech it’s important it’s also important to know why it must be exercised responsibly. He was literally talking about professors and staff inciting or encouraging students protesting while violating school policies codes of conduct. He was using the Holmes example to show how that can lead things to go wrong. Turley only focused on the historical aspect which had nothing to do with the point Bobo was making.
Staff and professors criticizing school authorities for wanting to punish students for exercising their free speech rights in the harshest possible terms runs counter to free speech principles Turley wants everyone’s to adhere to. The excuse that because they take government money they must adhere to the same standards as government is a poor one. Government officials often use “civility rules” or “rules of decorum” to stifle or censor speech. Bobo, is saying that’s not right, but it’s also not right for students having a black check to engage in civil disobedience and protest that leads to violence and destruction of property. He’s advocating for professors and staff to do a better job of teaching students how to engage in protest using civil disobedience and disruption to its legal limits. Not beyond. He mentions the rich graduation and history of using civil disobedience and annoying protest tactics that have been a hallmark of free speech since this nation was founded. It’s always going to be there, but students also need to know their protests have limits and so does the school administration’s need to limit speech by way of punishment. Because retaliation for exercising free speech IS unconstitutional even for private schools who take government money.
The majority of student protest at campuses all over the country this year were largely peaceful. But it was republicans and right-wing pundits demanding harsh retaliation and punishment for the audacity of expressing their outrage over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. That in itself is attempting to censor their speech through threats of punishment such as expulsion and other academic infractions. Turley is always complaining about students protesting in classrooms. That they should take it outside where it belongs. Those students did take it outside and Turley still complained that it was now disruptive and amounted to trespassing. There will always be an excuse to keep limiting students protests when they become annoying, disruptive or just plain a nuisance because they are disrupting HIS peace and sense of civility. But that’s the point. It’s supposed to be that way so they get the attention to their cause. Turley wants things to be neat and tidy and orderly when it comes to protesting and exercising free speech. But, we both know that’s not what the law says and that’s not what the constitution says. The constitution does not demand free speech be exercised in a tidy, neat, and orderly manner. Free speech can be offensive, rude, obnoxious, disruptive, and yes even involve shouting down another.
Look at Svelaz, hanging out on day old threads.
How’d you like that scotus ruling?? Bruen much?
You were told.
Bobo is made of the same slop that fills Jack Smith: Biden manure
FJB
“Special Counsel Jack Smith is accustomed to trying war crime and corruption cases, but come Friday and Monday he will find himself the subject of a hurricane of hearings that could upend his prosecutions of President Trump.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Mr. Smith’s Mar-a-Lago case, will convene a session on Friday devoted to the question of whether the special counsel has been constitutionally appointed. The judge, who has been less sympathetic to Mr. Smith’s case than her counterpart overseeing the January 6 case at Washington, will hear not only from the government and Trump’s team, but also from amicus curiae, non-parties to the case who have been granted the rare opportunity to argue orally.
On Monday, Judge Cannon will devote half a day of arguments to Trump’s contention that Mr. Smith’s funding is unconstitutional under the Appropriations Clause. That Trump has secured hearings on the special counsel’s appointment and the appropriations that allow for his work suggests that the 45th president’s appeals to constitutional bedrock are gaining ground.”
https://www.nysun.com/article/jack-smith-prepares-for-major-battle-as-trump-readies-constitutional-hurricane-to-disqualify-special-counsel
The hearings are unnecessary.
Both the Mueller and Smith appointments were OBVIOUSLY unconstitutional and an own goal by the left.
It was trivial to get this right. SCOTUS long ago determined that latteral appointments meet the requirements of the constitution – therefore SC Weis’s appointment does NOT have the problems that Smith and Mueller had.
Though there is a more fundimental problem – that is there is no SC law. The independent Counsel statute expired decades ago. Congress did NOT enact new law.
There is no law authorizing the AG or anyone else to appoint an SC. Should there be – probably so.
But the DOJ does not get to manfacture the position of SC from whole cloth
None of this should be a right left issue.
Just follow the law and the constitution.
And if you do not like that – change it.
Bobo participated with Claudine Gay in the railroading of Roland Fryer.
JT why do you keep ignoring the elephant in the room?
https://flip.it/0HWDZv
Might be an interesting article, but it’s behind a paywall.
Never click on mysterious links. Never
No paywall
https://newrepublic.com/post/182926/report-judge-aileen-cannon-trump-classified-documents-step-aside
There is no reason to read past the title – and the fact that you are linking to TNR.
Rrgardless, – so long as Merchan, Kaplan, Enmoron, Howell, Carter and nuemerous outher incredibly biased and lawless left wing nut judges sit on the bench – I have ZERO interest in claims that Cannon is “biased”.
I would note that in FACT she is – she should have dismissed this case at the start. She should have thrown out the warrant on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and violates JW V. NARA
While the 11th Appeals semi-rebuffed that – improperly i might add, their OWN decision did NOT say that Cannon was wrong, only that she was premature.
The 11th cir appeals court said that Trump could not challenge the Warrant in a civil suit (that is actually false, it has been done many times in the past, is it just not common)
We are no longer in a civil suit. This is a criminal case now, and Trump is free to challenge the Warrant, he is free to assert that according to JW v NARA (and several other cases) that all documents that FBI took are his personally – classified or not. That no crime is possible, and that the entire case should be thrown out and his property returned.
And if Cannon follows the law and the constitution – that is exactly what she will do.
I will Bet you that she will NOT. She will absolutely do everything possible to make the SC dot his eyes and cross his t’s – and hold him accountable for the mess he has made.
But she will NOT dismiss the SC and she will NOT dismiss the case But she will delay the case until after the election when it will die.
That is NOT bias FOR Trump, that is bias AGAINTS him. The law is CLEAR. The papers of ex-presidents are their personal property if they so choose,
And there is nothing that congress or the courts can do about that – the issue is CONSTITUTIONAL.
While JW v. NARA cites the PRA – the real problems is the constitution. The PRA is ONLY constitutional, if it does NOT restrain the ability of presidents to deternine on their own without constraint what is personal and what is not.
For the same reason the espionage act can not and does not apply to presidents – if it did it would be unconstitutional and it does not and can not apply to anything that a president did while they were president. Nor can it transform the consequences of acts while president into crimes as an expresident.
The FACT that the constitution gets in the way of your “Getting Trump” is not evidence of bias by those who follow the constitution
It is evidence of lawlessness by those who do not.
President Clinton did not violate the espionage act.
President Obama did not (not did Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, nor can Biden as president)
Nor did Trump
Conversely
Sec State Clinton clearly did.
As did Senator Biden and VP Biden and possibly VP Pence.
The law and the constitution do not care who the president is. They do not are whether you are democrat or republican.
They do care WHAT was done and Whether the actor was president at the time.
,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-cannon-trump-documents-case-peers_n_66746d38e4b069d92e249c5f
If the facts of the article are incorrect, explain. Lame dismissal because it is on HuffPost is, well, lame.
It does not matter if the facts in the article are correct.
The left fixates on “peers”. Thus far Cannon has done a good job on the law – despite the bad advice of here peers.
So far the biggest judicial error has been the 11th cir ct of appeals idiotic constraining Cannon from addressing the merits of the warrant in a civil case – which though on common is NOT contra the 11th improper or unconstitutional, and in FACT is judicially efficient.
That said the 11th appeals did Trump a favor sort of. In a Civil Trial Trump had to prove by the preponderance of the evidence that the that the warrant was constitutional
In a criminal trial Smith must prove beyon a reasonable doubt that the warrant was constitutional.
Though as this is a question of LAW not fact, the outcome still should have been the same. The Federal Government an the courts do NOT have the power to even review the decisions a president makes regarding WH documents they decide to take posession of. This is settled law. Worse try to bend it any other way and you have MASSIVE constitutional and separation of powers problems.
It is not often that a case has errors so fundimental as to run afoul of MArbury vs. MAdison – but this is one of those.
Defending Huffpost is LAME
Posting ANYTHING from Huffpost is LAME
What is “Insanity”? The Oxford defines it as having ‘Bats in the Belfry,’ whereas I see it as the Democrats’ notion that their push towards a supposed nirvana of despotism is nothing more than a doorway to the Gates of Hell.
It is in a practical sense absolutely irrational, yes. And I suppose it’s a matter of semantics, but I think it’s mostly just plain old human idiocy. There are and always have been far too many idiots in the world. Many have high IQ’s but as I mentioned above, that’s got nothing to do with common sense, much less wisdom. This has to do with their own screwed up characters, which skews their thinking and blinds them to things that should be obvious.
Perhaps too off topic, but somewhat related to the crowded theater. A decade or more ago there was a fire in a theater during a music concert. It was caused by the use of pyrotechnics on stage. Dozens were killed by smoke inhalation and trampling at the exits. The “obvious” cause of the deaths was proclaimed to be panic.
A couple of years later a study of the incident revealed that the actual cause of the deaths was a lack of panic. Concert attendees all saw the fire on stage, saw it spread to the curtains and beyond and just stood there watching. (I think it was before the widespread use of phone cameras so I can’t claim the victims were taking selfies.) At any rate, by the time they finally panicked it was too late. They were trapped by fire on all sides, they began to suffer from smoke inhalation and the exits clogged up.
In that case nobody needed to yell fire in a crowded theater because they all saw it. But perhaps hearing the word might have snapped some of them out of the illusion that there was no danger.
I haven’t yet gotten to the part of JT’s new book on the crowded theater argument but I’m pretty sure that even that canard included the word “falsely ‘, as in falsely yell fire… If there really is a fire in a crowded theater you are morally obliged to yell fire as loud as you can. So if, as someone above theorized, Dean Bobo thinks of Harvard as one big theater, and if a member of the faculty or student body believes it to be morally, ethically or legally on fire it is their duty to scream fire!
But I could be wrong.
You can not make yelling “fire” in a crowded theater a crime. But it would be a tort.
Holmes was wrong – and not for the first time.
Holmes is also responsible for “3 generations of imbeciles is enough” – Buck v. Bell which unlike “yelling fire in a crowded theater” is still valid (though egregiously unconstititoonal) law.
Harvard is a joke.
It’s all become noise. Like a clanging cymbal your words no longer have meaning. Your radios, Televisions, computer and media shows are just noise meant to annoy and harm. There’s really nothing more to say. It’s lies and hogwash. Yes, Harvard is un-American. Stay out of there.
Well Jonathan, at least Lawrence Bobo is only the Dean of Social Sciences. Can you imagine how defensive he would be of any criticism if he were the Dean of Applied Mathematics or Electrical Engineering ??? Bobo’s pants would be on fire.
Either the Constitution and Bill of Rights are absolute, or America is under the dominion of the arbitrary “dictatorship of the proletariat” of the Communist Manifesto, or an equivalency.
The first consideration herein is that Harvard is private property over which only the owner has the power to “claim and exercise” dominion in every aspect and facet thereof, including, but not limited to, employing, compensating, directing, disciplining, and terminating officers, staff, and personnel.
Related individuals enjoy the absolute freedom of speech outside the borders of that private property or on that property by permission of the owner.
The universe does not exist in the absence of imperfections, however slight.
“The invocation of the Holmes ‘crowded theater’ analogy…” is vacuous in that it absolves individuals of the responsibility to assess speech or potential threats themselves.
The freedom of speech is absolute; opponents must “work around” that fact, and the few who abuse it are responsible for the consequences of their actions.
The right to keep and bear arms is not altered by the fact that crimes are occasionally committed through the use of arms.
The Constitution is not enforced, controlled, or modified by fanciful hypotheticals that are never, or extremely rarely, realized.
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“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
Given the pea-brained mentality he demonstrated, I infer that Dean Lawrence Bobo’s surname is misspelled. I think it’s B-o-z-o. One thing is sure: his moronic behavior is trashing the Harvard brand. If I were a Harvard alum, I’d be in touch with Harvard Interim President Alan M. Garber and, as the old saying goes, I’d be raising more he** than the alligators did when the pond went dry.
Calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and killing Jews is ok by Mr. Bobo, but criticizing him is a no-no. I think he really is a bozo.
Well the Dean of Harvard is from Egypt and worked for the WEF.
IOW, he’s a leftist, and is acting in conformity to leftism . . . which reflexively reaches for totalitarian solutions to any problem they discern. You can take it to the bank: the Left’s instincts are always totalitarian.