From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 6:25 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - PC speech codes come home to roost

(This is an interesting article about the target of politically correct
squelching of voices.  Previously, politically incorrect opinions about
markets, science, politics, and slavery reparations were targeted, now, it
seems, the target has switched to those previously doing the squelching.
Ironically, Horowitz, of the paper published arguing against slaver
reparations fame, is now criticizing the anti-war leftist movement which
previously quieted his views. From the article "Horowitz has preached the
dangers of closed debate on campus for years. But the current crisis has
revealed his true colors." Horowitz says "this country was too tolerant
toward the treason of its enemies within".  Whether or not the Anti-war
stance or the pro-war stance is right is not the issue.  It is, in fact, the
heart of what defines America, that is diversity and free speech.  When all
members of a country agree uncritically (whether voluntarily or forcefully)
with the states agenda, you get a totalitarian regime, you get the USSR.
Right now, politically incorrect views are anti-war comments and are
responded to with angry emails and once in a while a loss of a job.  In
Russia, politically incorrect comments were in support of mendelian
genetics, criticisms of communism, or complaints about the millions starving
to death, and to dissent was a death sentence.  'Politically correct' views
can easily diverge from the way the world really works, which is why it is
important to always allow voices critical of the state, and why ANY trend to
silence voices, no matter how much one may disagree with them or how
'unpatriotic' they are is very disturbing to me.
	I would like to also add some comments about Horowitz's remarks of
Vietnam.  As the time from this conflict grows, people will have to rely
more and more oh physical evidence and objective historical accounts then in
the reports of the media and protestors of the time.  As anyone familiar
with history knows, the accounts are distorted by the winners, losers, and
those involved.  List member Will, a resident foreign policy expert
elaborates on Vietnam... - Mike

	"I offer warm thanks to all socialist countries of national
independence and all peace and justice-loving peoples, including the
American people who have supported and helped our people in its just
struggle. The victory gained today is also theirs." These were the words of
Dinh Bah Thi, North Vietnamese representative at the Paris Accords which
ended U.S. involvement in the war on April 30, 1975, the day Saigon fell to
the Communists. In addition, Bui Tin, the colonel of the North Vietnamese
Army who demanded and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam
on April 30, later talked about the war and said, "Every day our leadership
would listen to world news over the radio at 9:00 a.m. to follow the growth
of the American anti-war movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda
and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence
that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.
	We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said
at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war,
and that she would struggle along with us."
    For those who downplay the role the anti-war movement played in
comforting the North Vietnamese as the war turned against them, these words
are a sobering reminder of the true nature of the conflict. - Will)

PC speech codes come home to roost
----------
The American Prospect
by Brendan Nyhan
   After years of suppressing of politically incorrect speech
   on campuses, the Left is rediscovering the virtues of free
   speech. With opinion running strongly pro-war, many professors
   are finding it difficult to speak out in dissent. (10/22/01)

http://www.free-market.net/rd/180922571.html

The Right's Fights for Free(ish) Speech
                                             Brendan Nyhan

After years of railing at the suppression of "non-'politically correct'"
speech on college campuses, conservatives have turned the tables
on their left-wing foes. With the vast majority of Americans supporting U.S.
military actions in Afghanistan, it is now students on the
left who find their speech unpopular. Have the conservative free speech
champions now embraced the cause of protecting open
debate on the war? Hardly.

Just as those on the left seem to be rediscovering the importance of free
speech, many conservative pundits have mocked anti-war
protesters who claim that open debate is being silenced. Some are advocating
squashing the protest altogether. And so the battles
over academic speech rage on.

The best evidence of this changed environment came from Robin Wilson and Ana
Marie Cox in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
In an October 5 article, they report "professors across the country have
found their freedom to speak out hemmed in by incensed
students, alumni, and university officials." In fact, they detail a number
of war related controversies that have resulted in suspensions or
leaves for faculty. Some incidents involve people charged with upsetting
Muslim and Arab students, as Virginia Postrel points out, but
more have been triggered by insensitive and/or controversial statements from
left/liberal professors.

Much of the conservative commentariat, however, is unconcerned. These
grizzled veterans of years of battle against "political
correctness" who once railed against the Left's suppression of opposing
views now dismiss such concerns. This is unfortunate. While
the reflexive reaction of many leftists to the war is a ripe target for
criticism, there is a real danger of suppression of opposing or critical
views by the vast pro-war majority. Conservatives correctly argue that
speech codes, campus pressure against dissenting views, and
politicized tenure processes have had a chilling effect on speech in
academia. Concerns for open debate seem no less valid today for
those who question or criticize the war. But, unfortunately, the ranks of
principled defenders of free speech and open debate on the
right seem thin.

Thomas Sowell, a Hoover Institute fellow and syndicated columnist, is a case
in point. In a recent column, he actively mocked the
concerns elaborated in the Chronicle, arguing that the "self-righteousness
of those who want to be exempt from criticism is incredible."
Sowell laboriously constructs a straw man based on this supposed view, from
which he eventually extracts this fiction: "Apparently
anything short of uncritical acceptance of whatever asinine statements the
profs make seems to them like a violation of the First
Amendment."

John Leo, a prolific critic of "political correctness" who published a
compilation of his columns called Two Steps Ahead of the
Thought Police, has gone in a similar direction. While he has repeatedly
criticized attacks on free speech and the silencing of dissent in
recent years, Leo's post-September 11 columns have been silent on these
concerns. He has instead aggressively called for the
"multicultural-therapeutic Left" to "be pushed to move away from sloppy
multiculturalism and all-purpose relativism. Let the pushing
begin."

Even more hypocritical, however, has been the offensive against the anti-war
Left by conservative provocateur David Horowitz. Last
seen stirring up controversy with college newspaper ads criticizing plans
for slavery reparations (some of which prompted shameful
displays from opponents), Horowitz has preached the dangers of closed debate
on campus for years. But the current crisis has
revealed his true colors.

Horowitz's website, FrontPageMagazine.com, has been a center of hysterical
anti-Left discourse since September 11. In fact, it took
the lead in publishing the first major call for the direct suppression of
speech on September 21 with an article ominously entitled
"America's Enemies Rally at UNC-Chapel Hill." The authors, two University of
North Carolina students, condemn panelists at a
campus teach-in who "stepped forward with one Anti-American libel after
another," calling the event, "a shameful example of how
state-funded universities are responding to the deadliest terror attacks in
our nation's history." A box at the end of the article delivers
the anti-speech goods: "Tell the good folks at UNC-Chapel Hill what you
think of their decision to allow Anti-American rallies on their
state-sponsored campus. Chancellor James Moeser can be reached at..."

This article was picked up and disseminated nationwide, first by
conservative pundits (Leo, Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy
among them) and later by the mainstream press. As a result, a political
controversy has developed, with Moeser receiving hundreds of
angry e-mails. While the chancellor has thus far stood strong, the incident
is a reminder of the danger of attacks on free speech in
state-funded institutions.

In a followup, Front Page Magazine denounced "UNC-Chapel Hill's Holy War
Against America," continuing a pattern of equating
domestic dissenters with terrorists. The site asserts that a recent teach-in
featuring an interfaith panel shows how, "[l]ike Osama bin
Laden, UNC-Chapel Hill has invoked the name of God in its ongoing campaign
to undermine America's war effort."

Not surprisingly, Horowitz has personally inserted himself into the
controversy. His new college newspaper ad calls on the anti-war left
to "Think Twice Before You Bring The War Home." According to the former
anti-Vietnam War protestor, the "blood of hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese, and tens of thousands of Americans, is on the hands
of the anti-war activists" who opposed the Vietnam
War and thereby "prolonged the struggle and gave victory to the Communists."


Horowitz then discusses his activities as a radical leftist in the 1960s and
1970s, saying that like "thousands of other New Leftists" he
"crossed the line between dissent and actual treason." The moral of the
story: "this country was too tolerant toward the treason of its
enemies within." Even as Horowitz argues for opening up debate (telling the
Daily Tarheel, for example, that he wants to make UNC
a "two-party school"), his invocation of treason and domestic "enemies" --
like Andrew Sullivan's imagined "fifth column" -- does much
to silence a wide range of speech. He has even made wild claims of
protestors helping terrorists, telling Scripps Howard that "Marxists
and radicals" leading anti-war protests "will do things that can hurt
people, [and] collaborating with a terrorist group is one of them."

The Left's regrettable history of suppressing speech -- however well
intentioned it might have been -- has empowered a much more
powerful conservative movement that is now moving to take advantage of the
pro-war climate. Liberals, many of whom indulged
campus restrictions on speech in the name of diversity, must now return to
first principles -- namely, free speech and open, rational
debate. In this way, we can both win the war on terrorism and keep American
democracy strong going forward.

                                             Brendan Nyhan
www.matus1976.com