Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kate Aronoff asks how much destruction is needed before we’ll start taking climate change seriously – though the answer at this point looks to be that no amount of damage will be enough to move a substantial number of politicians off their insistence
Continue readingTag: free speech
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tom Parkin talks to Toby Sanger about the utter failure of corporate tax cuts to produce anything other than concentrated wealth and increased inequality. – Steven Greenhouse offers suggestions both as to how governments can level the playing field between workers and employers
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Not Marching in Pride Now Transphobic – David Cavey Stands for Freedom and Freedom of Speech
The VPS is not allowing both UBC and the VPL to participate in the parade because both institutions allowed controversial speakers to hold events at their venues on the basis of free speech. However, the VPS deems both speakers—anti–SOGI activist Jenn Smith and Feminist Current founder Meghan Murphy—as discriminatory and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The ‘Chicago Principles’ are code for the right of the powerful and privileged to shout down everyone else
“Free speech in universities” is nowadays a rallying cry for the snowflakes of the extremist right, who can dish it out but can’t take it. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that pushing post-secondary institutions to enforce the Chicago Statement on Free Expression, an ingenious manifesto that uses “free
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: On Free Speech.
Free speech, or the ability to speak one’s mind in public without physical/material consequences, is one of the hallmarks of democratic society. Now if everyone was nice, and peace ruled the world, I think the concept of free speech would be less problematic. I’d like to talk about three ideas
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Free Speech Award Goes to Meghan Murphy – Congratulations!
See the other award winners at the Quillette.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Violence of Pornography and the Damage Done to Females – Resource List.
Pornography is not free speech. It is a teaching tool for toxic patriarchal values that hurt women. Need to start looking into the topic of the harms of pornography? This list isn’t a bad place to start. https://bunnyemily.tumblr.com/post/181348764986/radicalacceptance-tell-me-again-how
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On J.S. Mill and Free Speech
Most on “Just say ‘no’ to hate speech.” Maverick Philosopher wrote about free speech today, and I’d love to comment there, but there seems to be no means. So I’ll bring it here. He’s reading Mill and questions two things: First, he’s baffled by Mill’s suggestion that we can never
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The furious denunciations of Tzeporah Berman in Alberta are unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous
Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. — George Orwell, 1984 + + + The stream of vituperation directed at B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman for her consistent opposition to Alberta’s pipeline demands is unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous. I am not just talking about the death threats
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tracy Smith-Carrier comments on the importance of addressing poverty as an issue of human rights rather than charity: It is not a matter of being down on your luck or misfortunate, as if people are somehow fated to live a life of poverty.
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford and Andrew Scheer’s Assault On Our Universities
At first glance, you wouldn't think that Rob Ford had anything in common with Andrew Scheer.Scheer is a sinister religious fanatic and alt-right sympathizer, who despite the creepy smile that he glues to his face every morning, is consumed by his hatred of Justin Trudeau.While Ford is a brutish political ape,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Censorship Quiz
I’ve been reading Bob Altermeyer’s book on authoritarianism written in 2006. Here’s a censorship quiz (p 84) that perhaps can help people recognize that few of us actually want every to have total freedom to say whatever we want wherever we choose. There might be a few places that could
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Brian Nolan examines the relationship between inequality and median incomes in developed countries, and concludes that there’s little basis to view inequality as an inevitable outcome of international forces: Globalisation and technological change are often portrayed as exogenous forces sweeping across the rich
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Robert Reich examines how a concerted attack on organized labour has pushed the vast majority of American workers into living paycheque-to-paycheque (or worse) while income and wealth have become increasingly concentrated at the top end of the spectrum: Almost 80% of Americans say
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Trouble with Relativism
From a comment on a social media post advocating that we stop protesting people with Trump hats: “The trouble with refusing to serve someone because you abhor their views, is that tomorrow someone else will do the same thing to you.” Here was my response: That’s like saying we have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – George Monbiot discusses the dangers of treating our natural environment solely as something to be priced and commodified. – The Mound of Sound comments on Stephen Leahy’s work in crunching the numbers on the climate change impact of a Trans Mountain expansion. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joel French discusses the need for Alberta to implement a more thorough and progressive tax system in order to ensure it has the revenue to support its residents. – Meagan Day highlights how Bernie Sanders’ new labour bill would empower workers and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Bit More on Free Speech
You’re free to say the earth is flat and say it all day long on a wide variety of media platforms, and even write a book about it if you’ve got the time. You might not get much notice, but, if you persist, then some people will likely try to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Was the UCP practicing ‘cultural Marxism’ when it fled the Legislature to avoid the ‘Bubble Zone’ debate?
We’re all “cultural Marxists” now, I guess. Consider Jason Kenney and the Legislative caucus of the ephemerally named political entity known as the United Conservative Party. (By which I mean, like a bad homebuilder, whenever Alberta Conservatives are caught doing stuff voters don’t approve of, they adopt a new name
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Peterson, Political Correctness, and Postmodernism
Peterson was on Bill Maher last night. They’re both people that have some clever ideas, but also promote a few questionable notions in a way that’s slick enough to just get a pass from some intelligent people instead of necessarily getting the scrutiny deserved. Here’s an innocuous and pleasant exchange
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