Better yet, have you offended?
Remember Piss Christ, the object d’ art of a crucifix dipped in a jar of urine 35 years ago? How the rubes and Babbits howled! The chattering classes scolded: Isn’t art supposed to discomfit the comfortable? Except that “artist” used taxpayer money to finance his offensive speech. By contrast, the Stockholm firebug burned his own Koran with his own matches, something Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will never appreciate.
Werkes Rule #218: You want to challenge The Establishment? Don’t take their money!
One-third of students in the University of Wisconsin system “feel strongly” that offensive speakers should not be allowed to speak on campus. That metric moves to an alarming 43% when confined to UW-Madison. (Survey result here.) Which is why conservatives avoid UW-Madison. We remember when Tommy Thompson was shouted down on that campus. Tommy Thompson!
That’s the problem with free speech today. Everyone is an Erdogan. No soup for you! No NATO for the Swedes! America has reached the stage where it’s not enough to disagree. One must claim moral offense!
Students at Oxford University in the UK claim “a right not to be offended. (More here.) By contrast, Massachusetts Institute of Technology resolved to defend even speech some find “offensive or injurious.”(More here.)
Conservatives need not apply
“States need to use the power of the purse to reform higher education,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley advises.
Despite years of complaints over a rising orthodoxy at schools, most universities have reduced conservative and libertarian faculty to rare oddities. Some schools have virtually no Republican faculty. Faculty have created political echo-chambers that advance their own views while excluding alternative voices. As a result, polls show a high number of students are fearful about sharing their views in classes.
— Jonathan Turley
Free speech on campus
According to Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom:
Speech is freest in these universities:
1. University of Chicago
2. Kansas State
3. Purdue (run by a former GOP governor)
4. Mississippi State
5. Oklahoma State
Somewhere in the middle:
98. University of Wisconsin
184. Marquette University
Speech is most repressed:
199. Skidmore
200. Georgetown
201. Rensselaer Polytechnic
202. Penn
203. Columbia
The Left is certain that the governor of Florida is stifling black history, never mind that the State of Florida, by law, requires teaching slavery. But using tax dollars to advocate FOR reparations and FOR “Black Queer Studies” to captive high school students — these are not college students — is to use the Turkish strongman’s methods to enforce a particular ideology.
The College Board has released a serious rewrite of its framework for a new high school advanced placement course in African-American Studies. Critical race theory is out and Condoleeza Rice is in.
— “Ron DeSantis schools the college board.”
You want offensive?
We give you the late, great Norm MacDonald!
Blaska’s Bottom Line: How did that song by Sam Cooke go? “You …of-FEND me!”
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
I’m a straight, white male. what offends me is of no interest to the Left.
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“What offends YOU?
Despicably detestable Lefties who’ve been programmed by their handlers/enabling Social Media algorithms to believe that:
Our VIOLENCE Is SPEECH…Your SPEECH Is VIOLENCE
The Gotch
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This exchange from “A Man for All Seasons” should be required reading for all college students who would limit free speech. Free speech is not for the bigot’s benefit, it’s for your own!
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
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Thanks for this. The self-righteous William Ropers of the world are riding high, cutting down free speech laws to “get after the Devil.” The only difference is that in Tudor England, everyone believed that the Devil–the real one, that is–existed. Nowadays, no one on the Left believes the real Devil (or God) exists, but they need something to take his place, so they’ve invented a slew of substitute devils: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., etc. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to see a modern-day Thomas More willing to call them out even at the cost of his life.
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“Nowadays, no one on the Left believes the real Devil (or God) exists”
The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing The World He Did Not Exist–Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint AKA Keyser Söze
The Gotch
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The original source for that demonic observation was the 19th c. French poet and critic Charles Baudelaire.
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Thanks for that, Gary; in The Gotch’s best Johnny Carson voice:
I Did Not Know That
The Gotch
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Give ’em hell, Harry!
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Disturbing survey to say the least, but I take comfort in that it was completely unscientific. Same as an internet poll, responses from volunteers only, and dominated by lefty activists, of course.
But reading the survey question, brought to mind one problem. The students say they don’t want to hear from any speaker who is offending anybody. The problem is there are no speakers on Earth, who do not offend somebody. Period.
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Well, there are in fact speakers who do not offend anybody–the ones willing to parrot the talking points beloved of progressives: America is and always has been racist; you can change from a man to a woman or vice-versa just by wishing to; there are at least 37 different genders, all of them deserving your unquestioning respect; eight-year-olds are perfectly capable of determining their own gender; parents should have no say whatsoever in what their kids are taught; religion is merely an instrument of oppression; straight white males deserve to be belittled and marginalized, etc., etc. Those who squeal about how offended they are just by living in this country do their squealing from carefully designated “safe spaces”: mainly university campuses or affluent college towns like Madison where they know no one would dare criticize them.
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Sorry, not true. In fact, Progressives are the first ones too squeal that they are offended. Who do think took that survey? You cannot name a single person, who won’t offend SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE.
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218 repubs voted to kick Omar off a committee because she said, “it’s all about the Benjamins.” Clutching your pearls while people like tRump, Duke, Don Jr., etc. say offensive things hourly. This is far from a one side issue.
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Laughably off topic, inanely idiotic, unremittingly unfunny, & EPICALLY STOOPID; descriptors unnecessary during ~ four (4) blissful days.
Sigh; what’s changed…anyone…Bueller…….?
The Gotch
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As ridiculous as your post is I still stand up for your right to free speech. Your patrician ignorance is as acceptable as a Santos vote to the speaker of the house. Since you reject fact over fantasy there is no reason to interact with you on any level. Good day sir.
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“Your patrician ignorance is as acceptable as a Santos vote to the speaker of the house.” (bolds added)
You want ridiculous?
pa·tri·cian /pəˈtriSH(ə)n/
adjective
belonging to or characteristic of the ARISTOCRACY.
Priceless!
Sir Cornelius of the d’Gotchbergvilles has a nice ring to it
The Gotch
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OMAR is a anti-semantic racist. She’s made many comments that prove that (in addition to the “Benjamin” remark). Her, and the rest of the “squats” are pathetic. So, is our own Mark Pocan, who took he turn at the lectern yesterday to spout his typical bullshit.
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Squats?
Heh! Good one Norm, and Gut Laugh Leader Board entry, to boot!
Like The Gotch’s Dear late Father always said:
Li’l Gotchie; a good laugh’s better’n a pill!
The Gotch
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Hard left anti-Semites throwing a fit.
It’s what they do.
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“Hard left anti-Semites throwing a fit.”
The Gotch likes to call it Performative B!tching…
The Gotch
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you saw your shadow, now crawl back in your cave, Richie.
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You want OFFENDED?
Watch the reportedly Black AND Conservative Greg Foreman verbally castrate literally-n-figuratively ‘nadless Lefties in this hilarious Smack Down:
0CRAZY0-Cortez & The Squad TEARFUL MELTING DOWN When They Don’t Get Their Way
The Gotch
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I wonder if any of these students have ever seen the 1980 movie “Airplane”? There is a line from that movie that Barbara Billingsley said that went like this: “Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.”
Saw the movie at the Memorial Union with the wife, then girlfriend. That line brought the house down.
Then, the University promoted a movie that would now be considered racist. I also found out that you can can still get this movie on HBO Max, Spectrum TV, The Roku Channel, Prime Video, Redbox., ROW8, Vudu or Apple TV.
I guess, according to today’s standards, there are more than just students that need to be woke.
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