About the Real McGill-ah

General Discussion
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Is it “okay”, is it covered by the First Amendment, to call for genocide, as long as you do not take action toward that end?
If I were back in law school and this were an exam question, I’d scribble down “Yes”.
I can hear my Constitutional Law Professor wrapping up a lecture on the First Amendment by declaring
“In our country, we do not punish thought, nor ‘pure speech’.”
The same gent also taught criminal law, where we learned that “conspiracy” is not a crime, even though the enterprise under discussion is criminal, unless and until one or more or the conspirators commits some “overt act” ( which need not be criminal in itself) in furtherance of the illegal plan.
I just heard Penn president Liz McGill”s exchange with Elise Stefanik, which led to McGill’s resignation, and, um….while the use of the word “context” was unfortunate (see Powerline’s This Week In Pictures feature) , it seems to me what she was doing was stressing the presence or absence of actual criminal ACTIVITY.
I gotta respect that.
People think the famous exception for “yelling FIRE in a crowded theater” is metaphorical, but I don’t think so: in that , er, “context”, that word alone will trigger an arguably involuntary flight respones, inevitably resulting in injuries and/or death.
(Also of course, UPenn is not s state school; if she was asked to resign, she isn’t facing criminal prosecution for her remarks; this isn’t the stuff of a Section 1983 lawsuit.)
I want the freedom to think, say, and post, as I recently did, that Israel oughta take those slobby-lookin’ guys they just flushed outta the tunnels in Gaza, render ‘em down to make tallow outta their abundant adipose tissue, and distribute it to light the Menorahs across Israel this Hanukkah season.

Now, for which do you dislike me more:
My advocacy of making candles outta the fat greasy Muslims?—or
My backhanded and reluctant support for the widely mocked Ms. McGill?
I hate and deplore Jew hatred, but I love and cherish the right to express my untempered hatred for Islam.
(:heart:you, dear Polymaths—don’t be too rough on me please! )

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In practice, it seems to depend upon the “gens” you’re planning to “cide”. For example, there are plenty of “environmentalists” around advocating for radical reduction in the human population to around 500 million worldwide. In a comment I posted here on 2022-08-11, there’s a clip of Jane Goodall at the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos advocating such reduction, which would involve extermination of around 95% of world population. Then there’s the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, founded in 1991, which goes further, advocating on their Web site (a fine example of mid-1990s Web design), “Phasing out the human species by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.”

If killing off 95% of the human population or going all the way isn’t genocide, I don’t know what is, yet nobody is advocating for banning such speech.

This drives me nuts. What Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in Schenck v. United States was (emphasis mine):

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.

Without “falsely”, this makes no sense. Surely one would be justified in shouting “fire” if the theatre were, in fact, actually on fire. The detail that Holmes made this argument in upholding the criminal conviction of man for distributing flyers advocating young men resist military conscription, or the fact that this decision was largely reversed in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which introduced the standard of “imminent lawless action” only muddies the issue.

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I was under the impression that her greater failure, as supposedly one of the top intellectuals in the New World, was her inability to define that strange concept “woman”.

If I may beat one of my drums again, I recall the white male dominated days when (white) “women” would assert that the world would be a much better place if only “women” were in charge. That experiment is now being performed, and the early results are not encouraging.

To turn the question around on the Hamas tunnel rats, would it be ok for them to hate us for wanting them melted down to tallow? The answer is yes, according to an old dictum from Chairman Mao: It is a good thing to be hated by our enemies, because that proves we are different from them.

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Now, that raises an interesting point. It could be argued that, even if there IS a fire, yelling “Fire! “:could be…imprudent. Lawful but not expedient, as St. Paul woulda said.
But, no, i just slapped me in the face: of course I reject that, truth should always be a defense in that situation, as in defamation. “You shouldn’t say it even if it’s true” is the path toward tearing down the Israeli hostages’ photos.

It’s just……there’s a big important distinction to be made between the writer John Wilkes and the assassin John Wilkes Booth.

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If the learned college presidents took a principled position on freedom of speech, there would be no issue here. The haters could say whatever they like. @johnwalker puts a fine point on it. What is the most hateful is the undeniable fact - known to all - that these liars before congress (sic) would be singing a different tune were even mildly critical words spoken about any of their preferred minority victim groups, which does not include Jews. A mere whisper of a question about the ethics of castrating children (or anything transsexual) would have them throwing the speaker of such words off campus and making certain they would never have an education or employment forever, anywhere. And that’s assuming they weren’t charged with some trumped-up criminal offense of some kind, or had their dwelling “contextually” burned to the ground. It’s the hypocrisy, counsellor.

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This is not a legal issue, nor even nuanced.

The reason for the outrage at those three illiterate university leaders is that an institution of higher education, like any other important piece of our culture, has an obligation to teach and further enlightened, civil behavior. The question posed by Stefanik was whether or not the school’s code of conduct allows behavior that includes uninhibited vocal support of genocide. That’s an easy no for any normal person.

Similarly, the question about reading materials in elementary schools is not whether some publisher has a right to sexually inform your kids, but whether schools support an age-appropriate and moral environment for them. The leftists and purveyors of smut don’t get to set the standards in our community.

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Now again, that is interesting; could one advocate genocide and still be entitled to A1 protection? Yes.

But I think you’re getting to it: when people have spoken their piece, it’s up to other people to indicate that they won’t tolerate it.
That’s what happened with Ms.Magill.

But—does it strike anybody else as funny?: who have been bigger donors to all these universities than Jews have been? I mean, visit any campus, check out the nAmes on the buildings. Lately we hear there was a lot of Arab money given. Even if that’s true, I can’t believe they’ve surpassed Jewish donors yet. Jewish philanthropy to these quisling institutions has been going on for decades.

For at least a decade now, I’ve been exhorting, “Jews, pull out your money!” It looks like, at last, they are. Good!
Yes, Ms.Magill has a right to say whatever she wants vis à vis the government, and so do the “students” ( if such these Hamas supporters be.) She, and they, SHOULD have that right, is the point i was making. Yes they should, because I want the right—vis à vis the government—to say how much I hate and despise Muslims.
Those djinni-come-latelys just cancelled Christmas in Bethlehem, fuggod’s sake! It’s intolerable, like back in the 11th century when the Muslims wouldn’t let the Christian pilgrims in to visit their most holy sites. C’mon, let’s take it back! Dieu le veult!

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Yes, they have the 1A right to say it, but the location and time matter. Nobody has unfettered vocal access to all venues. They can go to downtown Dearborn and shout their tonsils out.

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One of the more mendacious ideas set forth by Scott Adams is his concept of “word thinking”: people arguing over the definition of a word to impose their own definition. This, Adams says, is a primary fallacy of social interaction. I recall way back in the early days of Facebook one of the first interactions I had with probably the most beautiful girl from my high school class was her assertion that the Constitution is a “living document” that we must go along with because as the definition of words change so must our interpretation of that document. She, like about 90% of the best of the girls from my high school class from small town Iowa – you know – the daughters of “Private Ryan” – had been seduced into the urban “culture” that then did the world a favor by terminating her bloodline along with tens of millions of other valuable Boomer bloodlines.

Genocide.

Tell me about it.

The word “Genocide” is an example that, although not appearing in the Constitution, is nevertheless in legal use and, in fact, is used as justification for declarations of war against the perpetrators of “genocide”.

Here’s what I wrote just after 9/11/2001:

You Have Been Misled As to the Meaning of the Word

“Genocide”

You have been taught that nationalism is the primary source of “genocide” – that nationalists perpetrate “genocide” and that ridding the world of nationalism is an important, perhaps the most important step in eradicating the threat of “genocide”.

You have been taught, and are now a believer in, the exact opposite of the truth.

Rafael Lemkin and his work with the Geneva Conventions led the term “genocide” to be incorporated into the Geneva Conventions.

Here is Lemkin’s definition:

“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity but as members of a national group.”

Cited in “Beyond the 1948 Convention – Emerging principles of Genocide in Customary International Law,” Maryland Journal of International Law and Trade, vol. 17, no. 2, Fall 1993, ppp. 193-226.

The conclusion is inescapable:

Those who have taught you that “genocide can be eradicated by eradicating nationalism” are actually perpetrators of genocide under its proper definition within the Geneva Conventions.

Furthermore, since the pervasive teaching of this ideology has been the primary moral force for the distintigraton of, not one, but most national identities during the last half of the 20th century, its teachers have been and are by definition the primary perpetrators of genocide over the last half century.

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Screenshot 2023-12-11 at 10.13.45 AM

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I agree with you, but I worry about using code of conduct to essentially violate people’s right to free speech. If the gov wasn’t in a position to impact the business or institution, it would be a different scenario. But that isn’t the case, so institutions and businesses are doing the governments bidding which is fascist. Why is the gov having hearings? What business is it of theirs what happens at private institution? Who is Stefanik to question a private institutions code of conduct? Is questioning and investigating Liberty next on the agenda. Those intolerant bigots need to be pressured into teaching proper enlightened thought.

I happen to think many institutions are teaching that free speech is hate speech and are hiding behind code of conduct to justify it. The government is supporting it.

I think the catch is and what threatens free speech is that this argument can be used to shut down all speech by anyone that goes against some definition of what is enlightened, civil behavior.

The same or very similar argument is made everywhere. The racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism (the isms for short) will destroy our brand or needs to be repudiated so we (Disney, Walmart, CBS, etc) will not advertise on X or we (Google, Amazon, Facebook) will not allow it. In Europe hate speech comes with a prison term. Doesn’t a country have the obligation to its people to provide a place that is civil?

I am a free speech absolutist (and would be considered an “ist” by the leftys) and I hoped for GAB’s success, but I couldn’t take the amount of real “ism” and quite using it after only a few sessions. (Reference CWs post on quitting GAB). Thus, they are not wrong. Excess true “ism” will destroy your brand, your business, your institutions and a free country. By the way, that is proof that their isn’t systemic racism and why mass importation from cultures that are is not smart.

The problem is words like enlightened and civil are continually changing. It is likely that 100 years ago, calling for the right to have abortion would be considered calling for mass murder and today being pro-life is considered by many to be misogynistic. It only takes a little twist to say that calling abortion murder is calling for the enslavement of women.

Not only are enlightened and civil words that are defined by an ever changing culture, what is “ism” changes. Today facts or criticism of behavior of protected groups is considered by the elite and many in the Western world as hate. Our government just overwhelmingly passed something that declares anti-zionism as antisemitic. So easy to twist something into hate.

I was just watching an episode of The Pacific. The commanders said “kill them all”. What if, for whatever reason, after Pearl Harbor, the US government sat on its hands. Would it be ok for my parents to have protested with signs that said “kill them all”? If they knew about “the bomb”, could they shout “drop the bomb”? My father advocated for it during Vietnam. If my brother advocated for it on campus, should he have been disciplined?

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In the case of these “private” universities, the “research” they perform (not just the real stuff, but all of the squishy topics down in the Dungeons of Nonreplication) is lavishly funded by federal “grants” (e.g., money stolen from taxpayers or borrowed from rubes stupid enough to buy exponentially growing debt). Further, these “private” institutions benefit from tax exemptions which allow their endowments (Harvard’s was valued at US$ 53.2 billion in June 2021) to grow tax-free and for many to accumulate lucrative real estate holdings exempt from state and local property tax.

These benefits, which are often denied to for-profit educational institutions, are at the discretion of legislators. It seems within their purview to look at what’s going on inside these institutions which are receiving these benefits from the public trough.

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I understand the rejoinders and arguments that you and Mettelus are making, but my original comment is aimed at the idea that this is above and beyond any legalistic framework. We all have a right to opine in public about any and all topics, and the gummint can’t interfere. That doesn’t apply to any and all times and places, such as within a family. There is no right to unfettered speech on a campus, and if the teachers, students or parents don’t agree with the guidelines of a particular institution, then they simply don’t join it. A school can and should have goals for an environment of its choosing, and notwithstanding the murky and corrupt grant business, it is free to form it without governmental interference, and hopefully without the gadfly media opining and moralizing in their subversive commie fashion.

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Maybe the problem comes down to ‘big university’ - similar to ‘big company’ and ‘big government’:

We can see this as a problem of quality control. A large university is going to have some rate of iffy research, sexual harassment, tainted donations (and see here for a pointer to a horrible Harvard defense of that), faculty who work for bad people, etc., and it’s not really set up to handle this. Indeed, a top university such as Harvard or USC could well be more likely to have such problems: Its faculty are more successful, so even their weak work could get publicity, their faculty are superstars so might be more likely to get away with sexual harassment (but it seems that even the non-tenure-track faculty at such places can be protected by the old boys’ network), top universities could be more likely to get big donations from rich criminals, and they could also have well-connected business and law professors who’d like to make money defending bad guys (back at the University of California we had a professor who was working for the O. J. Simpson defense team!). I’ve heard a rumor that top universities can even cheat on their college rankings. And, again, universities have no serious legislative or judicial institutions, so the administrators at any top university will find themselves dealing with an unending stream of complaints regarding research misconduct, sexual harassment, tainted donations, and questionable outside activities by faculty, not to mention everyday graft of various sorts. I’m pretty sure all this is happening in companies too; we just don’t usually hear so much about it. Regarding the case of Harvard’s political science department, I appreciate Brunet’s efforts to bring attention to various issues, even if I am not convinced by several of his detailed claims and am not at all convinced by his attempt to paint this all as a big picture involving Gay.

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/12/11/concerns-about-misconduct-at-harvards-department-of-government-and-elsewhere/

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This in essence was my long winded point. Once you accept money from the government or if you do business with the government, you don’t have a private code of conduct that has any meaning. The executive branch says vaccinate and these so called private entities force vaccination. If they say censor, these so called private entities censor. In this case the board used the government investigation as an excuse, but it is a real, ever present threat. What we have today is an all encompassing government that is skirting the Constitution through the so called private institutions.

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Screenshot 2023-12-18 at 3.40.22 PM

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By Wesley Yang, some interesting background about the Harvard personalities:

Carol Swain grew up in a shack without running water with 11 brothers and sisters. She was much feted in academia upon her emergence but quickly engaged in heterodoxies that got her blackballed and went on to become an evangelical Christian and a Trump supporter. That’s why her outraged demands for accountability for Claudine Gay stealing her work carry no weight with anyone that matters. She lacked the implicit knowledge of how to stay within the right-thinking consensus that Gay learned at Exeter and therefore became a pariah while Gay made a rapid ascent to the very pinnacle of all academic leadership.

Roland Fryer was abandoned by his mother early and his abusive father was convicted for rape, leaving him to fend for himself in the streets as a teenager. He righted himself and became the youngest tenured professor in the history of Harvard University, a favorite of the then-President of Harvard Lawrence Summers, and one of the most productive scholars at Harvard University, studying subjects seeking to find ways to ameliorate the condition of the black underclass.

Soon after publishing a study demonstrating that police officers were slightly more likely to shoot white suspects than black subjects, he became the subject of a sexual harassment investigation. He ended up suspended for a year and the lab where he studied ways to ameliorate the condition of the black underclass was shuttered – despite the fact that the female best friend of his accuser told investigators and went on the record with the press that his accuser was typically the instigator of the sexualized banter that occurred in Fryer’s lab.

The dean of Harvard College who delivered this punishment was – Claudine Gay.

Gay is the scioness of one of Haiti’s wealthiest families and a graduate of Exeter. She obtained tenure at Stanford on the strength of four published papers, and was poached by Harvard. She has gone on to publish a total of eleven research papers and no books – a record that a professor told me was easily in the bottom 5th percentile of all professors employed at peer institutions. Seven of those papers have been shown to have violated Harvard’s rules on academic citation.

All of these professors are beneficiaries of affirmative action – Swain and Fryer overcame great adversity and disadvantage to do high level academic work that was generally regarded as of the first rank by their peers. They fulfilled the promise of that policy by taking opportunities granted to them on the basis of considerations beyond the strictly academic, given the diminished opportunities available to them in youth.

Gay is a child of privilege who learned how to play the game among other elites – she stole from Swain and shut down Fryer on her path to the presidency.

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Suit against Harvard:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/harvard-sued-by-jewish-students-over-antisemitism-campus-2024-01-11/

Docket:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68152041/parties/kestenbaum-v-president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college/

Complaint:

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