Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
( posted for Laura Freberg)
I was asked to give a lecture and mine was entitled “Think like a Scientist.”
Here I am with friends and new friends from College of the Canyons.
One of my students Nate Honeycutt presented on a Political Psychology study involving over 700 faculty that created a lot of buzz!
Conferences are great experiences for budding academicians and master professors alike!
There are a lot of reasonable things in the world to censor. I did review what my children were reading when they were young, but they did a good job of picking out what interested them. However, I do get concerned when entities — like Facebook — apparently, accidentally and ‘in error’ censor a political message. Mark Z. can love our President and that is his right, but allowing everyone to speak their mind makes for a good exchange of ideas, and ultimately, a better world. Facebook eventually apologized… but here is what the gutsy Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona wrote on her Facebook site about the issue:
Please click “like” and share with your friends.
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The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress, so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat. There’s simply no other description for today’s announcement that the federal government will not pursue the deportation of individuals who are in the country illegally but meet certain criteria.
This plan amounts to backdoor amnesty for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of illegal aliens. Especially disturbing is that it comes in the wake of the Obama administration sanctioning the sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels – even as border states such as Arizona come under threat from those same illicit organizations. With this announcement, the President is encouraging more illegal immigration at the exact moment we need federal focus on border security.
Just last month in speaking to the National Council of La Raza, President Obama rejected the idea of bypassing Congress and imposing immigration reform. He said, “Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. And believe me, right now dealing with Congress, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting … But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”
President Obama got it right last month and got it really wrong today.
Over the next 15 months, I’m certain we’ll hear a lot of talk from the Obama administration about its concern for border security. Those of us who truly care about the rule of law will remember the President’s actions of today. We need to remind President Obama that we elected a president that serves beneath the law and did not anoint a king that is above the law.
I am always surprised at how many folks take for granted but few use their right to freely speak their mind in public. However, using your right to speak is a two edge sword. I have always felt that the best way to let a fool reveal themselves is to give them a podium, a microphone or even a blog. This is not to say that everyone should cower and hide from any public interaction in order to not seem foolish, but having an open environment that can test the worthiness of ideas is the best way for a society to address emerging social issues and economic and political challenges. A good idea can stand the test of a little scrutiny, a bad idea shows itself for what it is.
Our future President James Madison drafted the first amendment to the US Constitution to include our right to free speech , but he was not without his detractors. A number of people felt that speech should be strictly muzzled, but this ran against the grain of all those who were trying to get away from the European system of royalty, restrictive rules and trade castes. For example, you might know that George Washington turned down the ‘offer’ to be King. Eventually, other freedoms were added to the first amendment such as freedom of the press and freedom of religion and association. Although this isn’t very popular in academic circles to say, these ‘founding fathers’ got it right.
However, there are those, especially in Europe, that have made it an art form to restrict free speech and there are those here in academia in America who would like to do the same in our country. Let’s just say its wrong morally and it is unconstitutional.
Not long ago, I took a very strong position in my blog on ‘an issue of public interest’ involving our local university and a ‘Kingdom” not known for it’s toleration or acceptance of diversity or free speech. One administrator took exception to my blogs and sued me for all sorts of bad things. As it turned out, the judge ruled that my blogs were constitutionally protected free speech and that I was blogging on an issue of public interest. (You can search my blog under Saudi Arabia and read more about the issue.)
READ the most recent article here.
The lesson here is not to be afraid, but to stand up and express yourself when it counts on matters and issues that you feel are important to you and those you love. Interesting times are coming and it is important for everyone to be heard.
Here are a few other relevant Blogs I have written related to FREE SPEECH:
terrorist or terrorists?… what one symbol does to a meaning
in America, everyone deserves the right to speak
without the ability to speak freely, we have nothing!
is it really okay to hate, or is it?
it all starts with speaking freely
…oh, there is more.
Let’s not dwell too much on the nuances of newspaper misquotes, but as I am cleaning up some of the issues surrounding a free speech lawsuit in which I prevailed, I thought it important enough to ensure that the record was made clear.
Search “Cal Poly and Saudi Arabia” and you will read what the story was really about. It was concerning a large public concern by many – including me – that Cal Poly was planning to do the business of setting up engineering classes in Saudi Arabia. It seems rather clear — at least to me — that only certain people would be invited to teach and others would be systematically excluded. Would women be allowed to teach? I think not.
I asked a military officer where all the ‘foreign fighters’ ( our media loves to use words that shows they don’t take sides) were originating? In the early days, so many were coming from Saudi Arabia, but this torrent has since been reduced to a trickle … it seems that volunteers are now getting hard to find. Now-a-days, I understand many ‘foreign fighters’ are coming from north Africa.
So given what I just said, my question to Cal Poly was a simple one: was there a chance that we would be providing certain Saudis with skills that could be used against us? So I asked in my blog: (is) “Cal Poly … training tomorrow’s terrorists?”
Free speech may have died in England and is crippled in Europe … but for now, if we are vigilant, the right of free speech will continue to help us ask those tough questions which will help us find American solutions to the problems of our day.