Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
Like so many, I have some ‘google alerts’ set up to send me news items for a few subjects that I have an interest… it is but one feed. I never expected to see a negative news story about certain subjects… one of them was Cal Poly. Google always appeared to show only sanitized versions of this university. You can only imagine my surprise in seeing the above article on my feed!
Oh, my blog never shows up on the Cal Poly feed… but that is another story.
I think it was Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev who said something about “placing a porcupine in someone’s pants.” If you haven’t tried it, it is such great fun! That is, fun for you , but not for them!
Bringing Ann Coulter into the heartland of radical academia is just like that. Although I am not sure that Osama Bin Laden ever spoke at Cal Poly (at least officially), I do remember seeing a disturbingly high number of pictures of him there.
In any event, Ann is coming to Cal Poly!
Unless you have had your work or your existence censored or found yourself defending your free speech in a court of law, you probably take it for granted that you can have ‘an opinion.’ You might even think that having a popular opinion might protect you; however, this hasn’t worked in Syria, Iran or other places where the exercise of an opinion, no matter how innocent, is immune from persecution or death. I may seem a bit corny to remind others that many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence paid a great price for their exercise of free will. Free Speech is what democracies do…. it is what we are and without it we are like every other despotic system.
In the competitive market place of ideas, speaking freely allows us all to test our values and beliefs and redefine or reshape them, but this is heresy in many parts of the world. ‘Speech’ via ‘speech codes’ is also a central concept under attack in our academic environments. For those who would like to turn the direction of a new generation of our youth, they must manipulate our language to restrict the use of words, meanings and general expression. If you forbid some topics from being studied or discussed ( in some circles , these are referred to as ‘the undiscussables’) then the censors win and we lose and human progress is halted and frozen in time. Let me just add, that this is not a good thing.
Not every university is backward, the University of Virginia has earned the coveted ‘GREEN’ light designation from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). Only a few universities have been so honored. I recommend that you take the time to see what FIRE does to support free expression on college campuses…. and do what you can to support them. They deserve all our support no matter your political orientation.
I have been named in a suit back in December for blogs related to an issue of great ‘public interest.’ CHECK CalCoastNews.Com and their archive for more.
Stay tuned for more.
Roger Freberg
I can’t help but wonder why anyone listens to some of the advice on line on how to raise your children. Everyone seems to have a purpose that doesn’t have anything to do with making your children into better, smarter people or supporting the family. Here are some of the issues that I think everyone has to wrestle with on one level or another.
CLICK on the picture above to read my little diddy about the one thing most people fail to consider when choosing a life long companion: their political orientation. IN addition to basic personality similarities, long term happiness and compatibility is supported by a common political view. Politics today reflects more than just who you supported in an election , it provides an insight into how you view life, what you value and what you think is important.
Roger