Comments on: Bollinger Still Doesn’t Get It

By: lester

lester — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:39:08 +0000

to me the point of ahmednejad speaking there was to prevent war with iran. same with his apearence on 60 minutees. he doesn’t like us we don’t like him but that doesn’t mean it’s in either of our interests to have a destructive expensive war. that is I believe the sort of message of the whole thing

By: Commentary » Blog Archive » Mazel Tov!

Commentary » Blog Archive » Mazel Tov! — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:37:45 +0000

[...] had other things to do yesterday but still chose to spend the waning hours of his bachelorhood writing an item on Columbia University’s president and his misguided commencement address, is getting married today. Details in the New York [...]

By: David Thomson

David Thomson — Sun, 25 May 2008 13:15:56 +0000

The Ivy League schools have deteriorated to the point where we have every right to be suspicious of the quality of their graduates—especially in the softer sciences. I personally assume everyone associated with these “elite” universities is an idiot until proven otherwise. Intellectual prostitution has perhaps even become the norm. At this very moment, for instance, many Americans are realizing that “Barry” Obama received a mediocre education at Harvard University. He has never done serious reading during his entire life. Obama is simply able to hide behind the somewhat ill earned image of Harvard. This nonsense has got to stop.

By: nacl

nacl — Sun, 25 May 2008 04:55:09 +0000

There IS a Censorship Impulse. One proof and aspect is the very act of denying its existence. And it isn’t exclusive to government. It operates in society as PC. Among newspaper editors and media producers it poses as news judgment; web forums call it, posting etiquette. It is an all too human urge to squash or distort disliked opinions. It sorely tempts almost everyone in a position to control communications.

Not universities that go out of their way to demonstrate the exercise of free speech but those that don’t, merit our contempt. For example, NYU’s President John Sexton gave a high minded lecture in 2005 pledging to back free speech on campus, if necessary with the school’s security force. However, when the Danish cartoon controversy erupted, in March 2006, he forbade the display of the cartoons as part of a panel discussion.

Perhaps, inviting Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to present his case was an abuse of freedom of speech. But it is an old dictum that the abuse of free speech is what best characterizes that freedom, and is its real use. Where that freedom cannot be abused, there it does not exist.

Allowing Ahmadinejad’s a platform did the US credit. It showed the difference between a mullatocracy and America.

By: Herbert Rubin, M.D.

Herbert Rubin, M.D. — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:39:10 +0000

Justice Jackson was a great Judge, one of the all-time greatest. He advocated judicial modesty and restraint in giving deference to executive and legislative powers, and limiting the judiciary to interpretation, not social engineering. Also a distinguished Judge at Nurenberg.

Columbia, my Alma Mater, and that of my daughter, had giants as administrators and teachers in the not too distant past. The required Contemporary Civilization taught most that a well-educated man needs to know. Moses Hadas, Lionel Trilling and many others, were the greatest teachers in the country. The campus, and surrounding New York City, gave incomparable opportunities to learn.

The place is now populated with Anti-Semites and Anti-American pinheads, Bollinger being the most public.

Still, its possible to get a decent education.

By: David Thomson

David Thomson — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:25:08 +0000

“Justice Jackson’s famous comment on the constitution not being a suicide pact is fllled with common sense, a trait which will elude Lee regardless of his diplomas.”

There is something interesting that few know about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson: he never attended law school! He merely passed the appropriate tests. We need to return to a system where actual classroom attendance is no longer required. Americans should also learn more concerning the destructive court decision, Griggs vs. Duke Power. It set our country back decades. My guess is that it has harmed our national economy by over two trillion dollars since 1971.

By: edward rykken

edward rykken — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:56:55 +0000

First amendment idiot might be more precise. Justice Jackson’s famous comment on the constitution not being a suicide pact is fllled with common sense, a trait which will elude Lee regardless of his diplomas.

By: DJF

DJF — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:44:10 +0000

Bollinger is a good example of the utter futility of discussing politics, or political principles, with anyone on the left these days, no matter how intelligent, experienced or highly educated. The man is a First Amendment scholar, and he conflates the controversy over Columbia’s invitation to Ahmadinejad with a dispuate over free speech. Obviously, he knows better, so pointing out the error to him would make no difference. All that is important to him is that the left supported the invitation, and the “right” opposed it, so A’jad had to be allowed to come, and the decision has to defended. The left is never wrong!

By: edward rykken

edward rykken — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:34:22 +0000

Lee Bollinger was able to make a definintive display of bufoonery that is a sad statement on just how low our higher learning is these days. Utterly pathetic in contrast to his predecessors.

By: David Thomson

David Thomson — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:08:39 +0000

One can hope that Eric Trager’s sister received at least a half way decent education at Columbia University. The school is, for all practical purposes, an institution devoted to intellectual prostitution. Never forget that Edward Said also taught at Columbia. It is indeed vastly overrated. Of course, that is probably true for all the Ivy League schools. Standards have been lowered, grades inflated, and the only real goal of the teachers is often merely to turn the graduates into self hating Americans.

By: J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:58:17 +0000

Censorship occurs when the force of the state is applied to suppress speech. It isn’t even the issue here. The issue is disagreement as to what Columbia University ought to give a forum to.

We all of us have the right to express disagreement with Bollinger’s choice in that regard. If he doesn’t understand the distinction between censorship and private decisions about what to promote or not, then he needs to go back to high school. If he does understand the distinction, and chooses to improperly invoke arguments about censorship because he thinks they give his position on Ahmadinejad weight, then he needs to revisit his ethics.

In either case, with all due respect to him, he’s the one with the need.