So much for Harry Reid’s stunt. Politico reports:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill. Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid’s has said the Senate bill will.
“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.” Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line.”
So much for the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster. In fact, other Democrats are already squawking. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, for one, isn’t pleased with a public option.
Reid has once again embarrassed himself and left supporters of ObamaCare wondering: Is there anyone capable of passing a bill? Well, not Reid, it appears.
“I think the First Amendment is probably the most important thing that you have in this country. And I’m always horrified at the cavalier way that you (Americans) treat it.”
Neil Gaiman
Question: How many countries in the world have a constitutional protection on speech?
Answer: Just one. Think about that.
According to the article, College Democrats are still allowed to hold public meetings at Liberty, and if any of their pamphlets have been destroyed/confiscated, or if any of their members have been threatened with official discipline/retaliation, it has gone unreported. I strongly doubt that anything of the sort has taken place at Liberty.
Ms. Brashier seems like just another student who cannot be bothered to follow procedure and then claims her speech rights are being infringed when busted for same. It happens all the time at universities. They can’t let anyone and everyone who wants to solicit people on campus, handing out pamphlets and potentially harassing students, so they set up policies, which are usually pretty similar. CCAC’s is typical. Brashier didn’t follow it:
Hoovler also referred to a statement released by the college in response to FIRE’s letter, which states that Brashier “is welcome to follow the appropriate CCAC procedures to seek recognition of the proposed group as a student organization. CCAC does not have any intention to limit the student’s involvement in the group or her ability to discuss her own political viewpoint.” [...]
According to Fran Cairns in the student life office at Allegheny, students seeking to form a group on campus must complete an application, show interest from at least 10 students and secure a faculty advisor. The application then goes on to the student government for approval, which Cairns said is rarely denied.
It’s real easy. You get ten students on board, get a faculty advisor, who usually needs to do no more than sign a form, and you’re an official student organization that can post or hand out flyers on campus. Brashier was trying, without any sort of recognition from the institution, to hand out flyers for her group which identified it as an official organization (implicitly, by printing the name of the school right next to the name of the non-existent student group).
Schools have these policies in large part because there are quite a few national religious organizations that specialize in proselytizing college students, and can be quite predatory and cult-like in their operations, and because businesses want nothing more than to set up shop on college campuses. The institutions must have some way to keep their campuses from becoming covered in religious flyers and credit card applications and their students hounded at every turn by solicitors and nutjobs. So they restrict activities to recognized student groups.
Brashier doesn’t want to follow the rules and wants to get attention for herself so she trumps up some free-speech accusations and calls FIRE. I like FIRE, but they have a bad habit of believing everything any student claims with very little skepticism, and won’t amend anything until they hear from a university directly. When you work public relations for a small community college and the Associated Press is writing stories about you, getting back to FIRE is not your top priority. They’ve spoken with Inside Higher Ed, as I linked above, but FIRE isn’t interested unless they get a letter directly, so they’re sticking with the student’s story.
At least she didn’t carve an “B” in her face, I guess. Get some friends on board, Christine, fill out the forms, and you’ll be all set. Don’t, and we’ll know you just want attention for your fake victimization.
Joe, I assume that you mean a written constitutional protection of free speech.If not, a great number of Englishmen will disagree with your statement.
Besides the fact that segments of both the Left and Right seek to repress other views, we face the growing problem that repressive actions are either ignored or excused by too many people in both camps. In other words, responsible leftists and rightist need to denounce the anti-democratic types within their ranks.
I’m thinking here of the intimidation by leftist groups of speakers like Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz and those who attend their lectures, and the failure of universities- and university liberal and leftist groups- to demand that such organizations be punished for their actions.
Let’s hope here that groups such as James Dobson’s publicly call for Liberty to adhere to the norms of free inquiry and debate and free association.
J.G., the two situations you have mentioned are not even close. The latter situation sounds far worse and egregious than allowing a bunch of Democrats to congregate at a blatantly conservative school.
Well, yeah. I appreciate J.G. Thayer seeking to be evenhanded here, but the two situations are, in fact, subtantively different: because one institution is private, and the other public.
They can do whatever they want at Liberty, as long as I don’t have to pay for it. And Liberty should not have to host activities to which it objects. No one has a right to go hold meetings or proselytize on private property for things the proprietor is opposed to. Liberty’s private status entitles it to be opposed to political party platforms, and call things un-Christian if that’s what it wants to do.
CCAC, on the other hand, as a public institution, is obligated to administer its rules for political speech on its facilities evenhandedly — not disfavoring specific political views.
And, Hallelujah! — we all still have the choice of where to go get a baccalaureate education. Most of us end up going elsewhere than Liberty or CCAC. God bless America!