September 27, 2016

Becket

Glenn Reynolds is off the hook, free and clear, fancy free, acquitted of all charges. He may continue to live his life as he sees fit, and say what he wants, until the next time he offends the SJWs at which time he'll be back on the fire again.

To achieve this, he had to bend knee, abase himself, and submit to ritual flogging. Unlike Henry II, he doesn't have to do it every year; once will suffice. He just has to acknowledge that the SJWs are right and he is an evil heartless son-of-a-bitch. And a racist (and never mind his sister-in-law). And so on and so forth.

It would have been rather difficult for the university to actually terminate him because he has tenure and he holds an endowed seat, but only a fool would underestimate the resourcefulness of SJWs with their teeth in it, and there were a lot of punishments short of that which could have been imposed, so I'm glad it came out alright.

This witch hunt shouldn't have happened at all. The Dean talks about talking to all kinds of people, for and against, and gives lip service to "due process", but the only due process that should have taken place is to tell the SJWs to stick their complaints where the sun doesn't shine.

If Glenn hadn't been as famous and influential as he is, it might not have come out the same way. And if this had happened before Mizzou, likewise. We've raised a generation of perpetually-aggrieved who think that the First Amendment doesn't protect speech when it causes some listeners, any listeners, to feel uncomfortable. Which, if actually the law, would totally gut that clause of the First Amendment.

There is no exception in the First Amendment for hurt feelings. You do not have a right to never be offended. Offensive speech is definitely protected by the First Amendment. I learned that in school, but apparently they aren't taught that any longer. I saw a picture of a student holding a sign that said, "Free speech doesn't include Offensive speech" and it was a head-desk moment for me.

Anyway, certain universities have learned the hard way the cost of giving in to the perpetually aggrieved. There are people who carry signs and parade all over the place and make demands, and there are people who don't do those things but do vote with their feet and their wallets. There are a lot more of those, and they have long memories. That's why the University of Missouri is facing horrible economic problems right now: it's not an organized boycott, it's just lots of students deciding they'd rather go to school somewhere else.

And as a result income is not what was expected and they're having to cut staff.

Others are starting to realize that the cost of giving in can be extremely high.

If Glenn had actually faced any kind of punishment beyond what he did, University of Tennessee would have had its name blackened the same way as Mizzou did -- because it would have been front-page news all over the country, and certainly in Tennessee.

So two cheers for the dean. But not three; it shouldn't have gone even as far as it did.

UPDATE: Glenn says it wasn't all that bad. Of course, he wants to limit the damage to his university and I can't blame him for that. But I'll take him at his word.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 06:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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