28 Replies to “What’s The Opposite Of Diversity?”

  1. Keep an eye on the fellow sitting beside the speaker.
    He’s got officious bureaucrat written all over him.
    The topic of free speech is obviously distasteful to him.

  2. I have mentioned before on this site (in regard to the professor at Kansas who had made some truly offensive remarks) that Greg Lukianoff is a friend of mine. He is a friend of mine because I am a financial supporter of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, of which he is the president. We are friends even though he is, by his own description, left of center politically and I am somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. Greg and all the employees of the FIRE work to defend the rights to free speech, free press, and freedom of association of all students, faculty, and staff of all colleges and universities in the United States who are legally obligated to honor those rights or who profess that they value those rights (there are some private colleges, generally of a religious affiliation, who do not profess that they value those rights, and the FIRE leaves them alone). They work equally hard whether the incident involves conservative speech, progressive speech, or speech that is not political (there was an incident a couple of years back about a parking garage at Valdosta State University in Georgia). More people like Greg would make the world a far better place.

  4. We are hooped!
    Our little town of 5000 people that is lucky to get 1200 – 1400 voters out for municipal elections has decided to use electronic voting machines next election. Let alone the cost at + $3000 the electorate does not have a problem with it.
    The lack of a ballot paper trail does not appear to be a issue. The idea that corrupt officials might manipulate results is not an issue. Young people actually embrace this option.
    I guess when one reflects on the success of the Demos stuffing ballot boxes last POTUS election it makes little dif. The next federal election in Canada will be hotly contested and the checkered history of Elections Canada concerns me.
    If electronic voting is introduced at the municipal level how long before it is used provincially and federally. I suspect not long.

  6. The results of elections are too important to be decided by the voters, CT . . .
    I share your concern about electronic voting; I think once that’s implemented the will of the people will no longer matter at all — the results of elections will be changed with the click of a mouse in some head office somewhere.

  7. I had the same reaction.
    I, too, couldn’t help but watch his facial expressions and body language during the presentation.
    It would be very interesting to find out who he was and which organization he represented.
    Unfortunately, he appeared to be arrogant, disapproving, and rude to the speaker.

  8. Don’t we have many examples of this in Canada with our Human Rights Councils, commissar Barbara Hall, Mark Steyn, Christie Blatchford, Ezra Levant and UofZero shutting down Ann Coulter. Guess its not an issue when you loose your liberty, its only important when they loose theirs.

  10. Noticed a little blurb about a “Mission Creep”.
    The mission seem to be that everybody shuts up.
    Little bit by little bit.
    If you don’t speak up, you will be definitely shut up.
    Many a times seems to be that you are the only person talking sense and can’t even scratch surface of the low information people.
    Not being particularly GB, had to defend him from people that knew absolutely nothing about the maneuvers of Bavney Fvank and Chris Dodd to prevent fixing the mortgage business and prevent financial meltdown.
    the people would willfully refuse to even have a look at it when asked to look for themselves.
    With perhaps majority of people like that, it is not surprising that he mission to shut you up is moving along without major obstacles.

  11. Doowleb & Jerry Edelen,
    I had the same immediate thoughts regarding the bearded guy to the right of Greg Lukianoff. Can’t help but wonder who he is and what sorts of policies he supports.

  13. In Canada, the hostility to free speech at universities and colleges is enshrined in the policy statement on academic freedom issued by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Reading past the fluff which is meant to placate the superficial and the stupid reader, you discover that according to our university and college presidents and vice-presidents, it is they that must decide what faculty members and students can and cannot say. Moreover, they explain patiently, the rest of us hard-of-thinking types have misunderstood for generations the purpose of academic freedom. We had thought that unfettered speech and thought was the most likely means of arriving at truth, even if it sometimes protects foolishness along the way. Silly us, apparently: academic freedom, the administrators assure us, is to protect them from criticism.
    These are our universities, one of our most important institutions—surely the most important institution for protecting the life of the mind, even if its “clown-quarters” (h/t David Thompson) sometimes protect the idiots, too. But it is one example of the much broader phenomenon in which those who think they are our “moral and intellectual superiors”, and thus best suited to manage the rest of us—God knows, we need managing, right?—, actually own our rights. Our managers, whether in the universities, or the courts, or the legislatures, will decide what those rights protect and what not. They will decide, not only what we may and may not do—we’re all quite comfortable with that, right?—but they will decide what we may and may not say, discuss or otherwise utter. See the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
    What could possibly go wrong?

  15. This has been going on for the last 50 years.. Almost all of our leaders and opinion makers have been politically indoctrinated into the new Royalty club of leftism.. Royal blue with purple trimmings they have no time for the peasant class, never mind their opinions..
    What strikes me the hardest is hope for the future lives in the lower class, moderately educated people.. Free to make fools of themselves and free to question everything around them.. Free to see what actually works and free to all agree on what does not..
    Its the self regulating idea of honesty with nothing to lose or gain because you lack the purple robe.. Nothing to defend, no reason to attack because its been made crystal clear its not your fight.. Your opinions are not welcome..
    Which is fine if your talking about a stamp collecting club.. Not so fine if your talking about the place our leaders and opinion makers get crafted.. Then its Feudalism stripped of its positives pretending to be democracy..
    Feudocracy isn’t even a word, much less a political reality.. Beware the peasant with a keen eye 🙂

  17. The atmosphere and the suppression of free speech and thought on American and Canadian campuses is chillingly reminiscent of Russian universities after 1918. The really sad part is that this is being fostered and implemented by university leadership.
    Stalin would be proud of how well his fifth column has been able to take over our schools.

  18. Public education, as an institution is increasingly lost to anyone advocating liberty. It is now controlled, lock stock and barrel by the institutional left. On campuses, the Marxists who were trying to take them over for the last 50 years have pretty much succeeded. In this environment “conservatives” and other dissenters are uninvited guests and only tolerated if they conform by remaining silent and compliant.
    Conservatives only fight a rear guard action, merely slowing down the growth of leviathan because of their naive faith in public institutions which, more or less “worked in the past”. As political nouns, these words (conservative, liberal) have little meaning. If one were to ask the question, how do we cede liberty? The words conservatively, liberally or with a progressive vengeance (NDP) make more sense but only as adverbs.
    Public school curricula is now a political prize to be won at the polls and then rammed down the throats of the “other” (secular, religious, conservative, whatever). Even worse, conservatives can’t and won’t change the problem whenever they win at the polls. Public education now transfers wealth from productive individuals not only to the idle but to the socially destructive (anti-productive).
    The best solution is for “conservatives” to fall-in with libertarians in advocating for the elimination of public education. The results would be a freer society, better and more efficiently (cheaper) educated society, with an environment tolerant of diversity as addressed by the market rather than squashed by statist monopoly.

  19. Really stupid question here: Whose fault is it that the Marxocrats now run the universities? Whose fault is it that free speech is verboten on campus. I don’t know about anyone else but back in my hippie days we would protest, kick scream at anything we saw as being unjust. Now everyone nods along like the Marxocrat’s opinion is received wisdom and those who disagree with them spend their time grumbling to each other on blogs and other fora (forums for those who wish to go with the herd) that reflect their views.
    Not showing up for a riot is indeed a failed conservative policy!

  20. Joke
    “Really stupid question here: Whose fault is it that the Marxocrats now run the universities?”
    yup, stooped question fer sure, if you understood math and mathematical concepts you’d know who (what) was at fault, butt then fools like you enable the process. You see Joke, you rite wing religious wackjobs are as much at fault as the “mathematics” is, as you want things in public education that has nothing to do with education, and every thing to do with religious indoctrination. And then there is the Joos who ain’t Joos in your world because they ain’t conservatives like you want them to be, so you call them “atheists”, which is as bad as the spin that lefties like to put on things, just anti left instead!!

  22. The name of the fellow sitting to the right of the speaker (our left) is John Samples. He is the Director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government and probably the host of the event. My guess is he was needing of a little caffeine or he was too familiar with the material. yawn yawn. I always feel sorry for those sitting at the front.

  23. Traditionally, youth has always rebelled against the establishment. Since the establishment is rapidly turning socialist it’s only a matter of time before the youth starts to swing in the opposite direction and start eating lefty professors along with socialist ideals. Once they find that their University education is close to useless and their dreams sink along with the economy because of inept leadership and pixie dust promises, perhaps they will realize they have been screwed by the very people they believed in. Simple math says the whole system will crash before too long and legions of youth will be facing a very bleak future. They will turn on the people that promised hope and change in full blown fury. Too late to blame Bush and there will be blood in the streets but that could well be a turning point as it has been in every other socialist experiment. Just a matter of time. Hey….I can dream, can’t I ?

  24. Unless I misread the obvious, the correct figure for those who agreed with the proposition that the First Amendment goes too far is 37 per cent, not 47 (the pale blue line on the graph at 5:30). That’s still much too high, but inaccuracy doesn’t help.
    Also, the peak figure appeared to be 50 per cent in 2002, followed by a ten-year slide down to below 20 per cent last year, then a sudden jump this year. Let’s hope it’s anomalous.

  25. Peterj, I really hope you’re right about the rebellious nature of youth in fighting the now socialist establishment. From what I’ve seen, there are sure a lot of sheeple at universities.
    I do my bit such as when UofC sent me an email asking about whether as a UofC Alumnus I’d be interested in supporting the university. I gave them a broadside of comments about how it’ll be a cold day in hell before I consider giving a single penny to what is now just another statist indoctrination organization. Also reminded them about the days when universities were considered to be bastions of free thinking.
    This attempt to restrict free speech is not confined to universities and hospitals are the latest targets of statists. One of the recent statist moves last year was to have a “simplified” plan of renewal of hospital privileges for physicians and a province wide form to complete. One of the things one had to agree to was support for the human rights act of BC. I crossed out this line and every other offensive line in the “new and improved” form letting whoever read the form that there was no damn way I was ever going to agree to such statist crap. Never heard back although I’m sure my file at the agency that monitors dissenters in BC got a bit larger with that action. Also, refuse to become a member of the UBC clinical faculty as any UBC faculty member has to agree to abide by similar restrictions on free speech. Haven’t been asked to become a member of the clinical faculty for a few months now, but am looking forward to blast the statist prohibitions on my freedom of speech when I will inevitably be asked this question again.
    One thing that those of us who believe in freedom of free inquiry can do is to work towards abolition of the current university system. Universities have gone from providing a useful function 40 years ago to a bloated bureaucracy used primarily for providing work for academic flunkies who would otherwise be starving. Ideally, the science, medicine and engineering faculties of universities would be taken away from the main university and the spirit of the engineers and physicians from 40 years ago allowed to flourish again. Arts faculties would be downsized and law schools should be allowed only to produce a fraction of the lawyers that are currently retiring considering the huge cost to the economy of every statist lawyer they graduate.
    The useful parts of the university (science, medicine and engineering) would be exempt from “human rights” acts so that the ribald creativity of such students would be allowed full expression. Discipline would be restricted to preventing cheating on exams and the only reason for expulsion would be flunking all ones courses. Offended students would be given courses in how to grow a thick skin. Urgent task forces would be setup to determine how to provide the largely male students of the remaining faculties with a replacement for the arts faculty women; a target rich environment for horny engineers.
    The current process of dealing with “past wrongs” would be junked and acceptance of students would be purely on the basis of academic ability (and, in the case of medicine, knowing how to effectively interact with meatware and knowing that the communication protocols of meatware meatware interactions are not the same as meatware hardware interaction) and one wouldn’t see 60% of a medical class like currently exists at UBC being female because of such idiotic reasons such as the moonbat in chief assuming that too few women were admitted in the past. Expect howls of outrage from the various sacred cows that would need to be barbacued to carry out the necessary restructuring process.
    As far as arts faculties go, either these faculties would enroll enough financially secure students who were going into this subject of study out of pure interest, or they would be disbanded. No student loans should be given for any arts course. The financially secure students would include individuals such as myself as I would be interested in taking courses in figure drawing and pottery but would much prefer to do so in an environment that was non-statist. Other people I know have chosen to do a philosophy degree just out of interest once they’ve made enough money so they could take the time off to pay for this themselves. Student loans should be available only for courses of which the graduates are in great demand and expect arts buildings to be turned into welding shops to help meed the large demand for welders and other trades in short supply.
    Any program or course that has the world “sustainable” in its title would result in the students and profs given 5 minutes to vacate the building before flamethrowers were brought in to purify the architecture in preparation for hosting something of value.

  26. Good luck with that. I’ve been a guest lecturer at the UBC Forestry Faculty several times and while there were a hand full of traditional forestry students destined to work in the forest industry in attendance, their ranks are now swollen with “conservation” students in order to keep up the enrollment. You can imagine the reception I get when I present the students with economic and sociological reasons for privatizing BC’s Crown forests. The faculty members that initially showed up confessed to me later that my numbers were all correct but the message is foreign. That has been true for the last 50 years.

  27. Exactly, that’s the first thing I noticed, he looked bored and then reflective with the speaker’s closing statement.
    He looks like he was invited under false pretense’s and found out he was in a room full of freedom loving people.

  28. Excuse me folks, but the man who looks bored is not there under false pretences nor does he hate freedom.
    The conference was put on by the Cato Institute a libertarian think tank.
    His name is John Samples. He is a fellow with the Cato Institute.
    He is the Director for the Center for Representative Government
    Author or “The Struggle to Limit Government”
    He would be more in line with Tea Party than RINO’s
    All of us have at times had body language which belies how we feel.

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