Let us now proceed to the moonbat drivel, mind you keep those three quotes in mind as we will touch on them later in the commentary.

Intolerant Speech Threatens Minority Free Expression
By Ian S. Port
Senior Staff Writer

Pretend that you are among the 1 percent of black students at UCSD. As you walk to class one Thursday, a white girl casually hands you a newspaper displaying, on its front page, a sloppy caricature of two thick-lipped black girls eating watermelon in slave garb while masturbating each other. Next to them, a black man in gangsta gear holds two pistols to the head of a man who appears to be standing behind a cash register. Above the picture runs a headline reading: “Cocked: A lifestyle rag for nappy Niggas and Hos to spend welfare money on.” Ridiculing your race as being overly fond of fried chicken and handgun violence, this imaginary publication argues that blacks should “be sent back to Africa where they can kill each other and save our tax dollars.”

Or we could look at the lyrics of rap music where they call for the death of police officers, whites, and anyone who opposes their chosen lifestyle. But lets humor the author for a moment and consider the hyperbole. Of course we would be offended. But wait I do not have to be black to be offended. Many things about the described magazine offend me.

The whole premise is flawed. In fact it presupposes that one would have to be black to understand the depths of the offense that this supposed ‘zine would invoke. The writer is using hyperbole and admits it later in the article. But by opening with playing the race card there is little worth to whole of the situation. It matters not what color my skin happens to be the publication in question offends me to the core. And I do not have to pretend to know what it feels like to be a minority on a school campus. I was a white boy in a mostly black high school as are many kids today. The writer automatically supposes that we must be a minority in order to understand discrimination and racism. This colors the whole article and brings doubt to any wisdom contained therein. To be sure there isn’t much if any wisdom but let us proceed further.

Those who oppose banning intolerant statements within the university decry limiting free speech just because it hurts people’s feelings. The First Amendment, they argue, cannot be limited for making others feel bad.

While the backstory is obviously that some are trying to limit the free speech of others it is also apparent that this writer is in favor of doing so. Let’s think about Ben Franklin for a moment. Consider the strong words he used to describe those willing to sacrifice liberty for safety. Now think of what his reaction might be to those willing to limit the liberty of other, not just their own liberty for something as temporal as the feelings of others. I think Ben would be spinning in his grave and shrieking could he hear this liberal nonesense. This is an abomination. This writer is using the very same amendment to publish his thoughts as he wishes to limit. Now before you start trotting out that USCD isn’t congress it would serve you well to know that they accept federal money and therefore are bound in the same manner as the federal government. So don’t bother to trot out that tired old line.

Of course there’s more…

But, as the above example illustrates, the kinds of statements that speech codes should prohibit — if they were allowed under the rules of a university such as UCSD — do much more than merely hurt people’s feelings. Whites and other members of general majority groups cannot fully comprehend the violence of these statements, because they are necessarily ignorant of the context in which they are received.

So we are necessarily ignorant? I am ignorant because of the color of my skin? I am unable to understand the depths of feeling the blunt end of racism? Our writer has now gone into an area best avoided. My ancestors were chained to the railroad. My people had to deal with “Help Wanted - No Irish Need Apply” signs. The race card is played again and we are only on the third paragraph. It may suprise you that later this is not even the main point. Oh did I forget to mention that I was spit on and beat to a pulp because of the color of my skin while in high school? I didn’t think you knew that. No my friend you are so steeped in the victim mentality you cannot see that racism permeates every part of our society and that is not and necessarily cannot be only the evil white man propogating the evil.

Consider your imaginary black identity. As one of the least-represented minorities on campus, you spend most of your day around students who look differently from you. Not only does skin color make you stand out, but your life experiences vary greatly from those you share a classroom with — few know anything of racism first-hand, or understand in real terms the struggle you may have undertaken for the right to show up at UCSD today.

Please ignore the fact he keeps bringing up the color of skin. Ignore the fact that it should not matter. Ignore the fact the people should be judged as humans and children of God. In fact ignore all the facts and play along for a minute. So we look different from everyone else. Note also that our life experience differs. The glaring racism in assuming that all whites have had similar life experiences is apparently lost on our good author. I can’t really keep playing along. Once I ignore enough facts to play along I may as well be purple and going to school on venus with all blue people. When you have to ignore so many facts to keep the hyperbole going the whole analogy falls apart. Yes this is actually an analogy and not the main point. Keep reading on if you can stomach it. It won’t kill you or make you liberal. I promise.

So when you see that newspaper, it’s not merely offensive. It assaults and ridicules every aspect of your identity, from the way you look to the cultural heritage that defines you in every way you know. Then the newspaper says that you don’t have a place here, that your culture and that of your family and friends is fundamentally inferior and unworthy of existence.

Or we could assume that the black student in question is intelligent as they are in fact attending a university. We could also assume that they may well place their offense to the side and feel sorry for the ignorance that produced such a publication. But of course the only reaction that we are allowed to feel, even forced to feel by the author, is feeling bad about ourselves.

While I generated this imaginary example in a deliberate effort to shock, publications trumpeting similarly intolerant views are, as any Koala reader knows, well established on this campus. In 2003, the Koala printed its now-notorious “Jizzlam” issue, which viciously mocked Islam, inciting outrage among campus Muslims and physically violent backlash against Koala members.

It seems to me that comparing racism to commentary on a provably intolerant religion is quite the norm these days. If you think Islam is not provably intolerant take a look at the reaction the author describes. No-one went out and assaulted Moslems. Nope. The Moslams went and assualted those who were doing the offending. If anything the point that could be argued is that we should limit free speech to protect those doing the speaking.

Statements of violence like these, which single out specific social groups for public humiliation and assault, are not part of the marketplace of ideas that universities should promote — in fact, they directly inhibit the school’s role as a host for reasoned, informed and intelligent debate. While contrarian provocation is certainly a valid tool for intellectual stimulation, verbal assault interferes with the ability of students to concentrate academically and function as productive members of their community. Universities intent on maintaining a relaxed, productive intellectual environment therefore have an obligation to draw a line defining statements of social intolerance as being outside of the bounds of appropriate conduct.

Now simply mocking a religion is a “statement of violence”. Nevermind that there was actual real violence that happened because of the words and it was aimed at those writing them. Just ignore that fact completely. In this paragraph the author implies that universities actually have an obligation to limit free speech so that real dialog can occur. So we limit speech so we can have free exchange of ideas? That makes complete and total sense to me. We are not talking about private institutions. We are talking about government funded education. We also have to ignore the fact the the Moslems the author is apparently defending would limit his speech severly were they in power. In fact we have to take total leave of logic, reason, and fact to play along to this point. And it, truly, only gets better.

Defining certain words or arguments as unacceptably violent, harassing or hateful not only halts the rights of people to use them, it gives rulemakers power to determine what others can and cannot say — but, importantly, only in certain situations. Seeing the need for free speech codes in the university environment is not equivalent to believing that the First Amendment is fundamentally flawed — it’s only understanding that certain environments foster an intellectual creativity too valuable to let it be threatened by bigoted spew from the ignoble basement of human social thought.

Giving anyone the power to limit any words at any time gives them the power to limit all words at all times. This is not a slippery slope argument. This is sheer reality. Words mean things. Also one of the ideas in this piece is complete and total bullshit. There is no such thing as a “free speech code”. Speech is either free or it is not. If you limit it in certain situations it is, by definition, no longer free. If this is what modern academia consists of then I want no part of it and am truly glad that we homeschool. When someone with a degree, a staff member at a univeristy can come up with the idea of a “free speech code” it is time to dissamble the monster that university education has obviously become.

While issues of black/white equality rarely cull the kind of open intolerance students nowadays reserve for gays and Muslims, no violent expression is more acceptable than any other. Conservative Christians have recently been trying out the argument that campus tolerance codes limit their right to free expression by defining their religious beliefs as intolerant toward homosexuality. The key difference, they say, between racial intolerance (which they decry) and their perspective is that sexual orientation is voluntary, while ethnicity is not.

Here we get to the meat of the matter. Christians are not allowed to speak of their beliefs on campus and this author is quite fine with it. Nevermind that the policy obviously violates two seperate parts of the First Amendment. It’s alright to limit them because they are Christians and they are intolerant. Nevermind that you would actually have to redefine intolerant. The whole article including all the hyperbole has come down to this. Christians are demanding their rights as afforded to them by the Constitution at a federally funded institution and the author is alright with denying them their rights. Of course you will note, and yes this is the article in whole, that the author never once condemns the Moslems for their violence against the folks involved with the mocking of Islam.

Conservative activists correctly point out that equating homosexuality with race puts evangelical Christians in the same bin as racists — and it scares the heck out of them. But whether or not their beliefs are as morally reprehensible as racism, they are similar to racism in that they assert a basic inferiority of a fundamental aspect of others’ identities.

It does not scare me to make the false connection between homosexuality and race. It saddens me that anyone could be so ignorant. I do not think anyone is inferior to me. In fact if the author had bothered to know anything about Christianity he would find that we are all sinners, all fall short of the glory of God, and only come to be saved by grace. There is no superiority in that. In fact one of my favorite saints opened his autobiography with these words “Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many”. If you are really dense and need an explanation of which saint that was I can no longer help you and must ask that you move right along. There is nothing similar between disapproving of a sinful lifestyle and wishing to help those caught up in it and hating someone because of the color of their skin.

These kinds of assertions threaten the function and freedom of the university to such an extent that the First Amendment should be limited to mute them within that precious context. The argument of the American Civil Liberties Union and others that limiting the speech of some limits it for everyone only applies in this case if campus authorities go out of bounds and interpret the code to limit more than viciously intolerant, identity-assaulting statements. Criticism, even that informed by cultural differences, should not be limited unless it directly and cruelly challenges the basic rights of others to exist as they please.

He states very clearly that the first amendment should be limited. I beg you to harken back to the words of HL Mencken they are quoted near the top. I defend this authors right to publish this drivel, even in a university setting, I defend the right of the Moslems to believe and even preach that I am unclean and an infidel, I defend even the disgusting Fred Phelps’ (may his soul burn in hell) right to spew his hate. You either believe in liberty or you do not. You cannot claim to believe in liberty and then in the same breath ask to limit said liberty. Not one single person’s liberty is more important that any other single person’s liberty. No group’s rights outweigh the individual’s rights.

Limiting free speech must never be taken lightly. But members of the community with more mainstream identities cannot fully comprehend the devastation of having one’s social identity publicly deprecated in what is intended to be a relaxed, creative environment. As unsettling as they may be to Americans accustomed to free expression, speech codes help secure a university community where so many viewpoints and lifestyles must productively co-exist.

Limiting free speech must never be undertaken. Here again he pulls the race card and tells us we cannot understand. It doesn’t matter what we cannot understand he has just done what he is accusing us of doing. He has just done the very thing he wants to limit. Herein lies true and complete hypocrisy. He is placing the social climate at universities well above the rights outlined for us by our founding fathers. Therein lies true and complete ignorance. The beauty of it all is that I can call him ignorant and I do not even know the color of his skin. Of course I am probably being insensitive by assuming someone named “Ian” is a male but that’s another piece for another time.