Morning Brew: February 13th

Sean,

I'm not going to do your Google work for you, but the Pope has explicitly said that bringing back the Tridentine mass must not entail the old Judeophobia.

As for Icke, if a public institution were wasting public resources on giving the guy time and space, I'd protest that too. Free speech and tolerance requires us to know where we stand, to have values and standards. Otherwise, it's just mindless nihilism and vanity (oh how liberal I am, anything goes...). And the problem with the mindless is that they have a need for a jolt of nastiness every now and then to keep entertained. They need little rituals of being against the man, and the system. They think they are on the vanguard of free speech when they are just taking their old anti-daddy rituals to the point of absurdity. Do you think the library is really making a serious statement about "freedom to read" with this guy? Are they taking a risk that people will get outraged over the pathetic? Why didn't they invite a Danish cartoonist, an "Islamophobe" if they really wanted to see what kind of free speech is threatened by violence and the "liberal" state?

I forget who it was who said this, but ""We need to ignore and marginalize those with insane conspiratorial fantasies, by showing them how pathetic they are to free and able thinkers, not turn them into little martyrs in their sad corners of unreality". Oh yeah, it was you.

Yeah I said that. You appreciate the Catch-22. My argument assumes you don't invite someone to speak on insane Judeophobic fantasies. The library should never have invited the guy. But, now that they have, they can't disinvite him without making him into a little martyr in his sad crowd. The library screwed up and they need to be told that loud and clear. What is now the most pragmatic or right thing for them to do is up to them, but in any case people need to protest their insanity and also ask of them the question of how our librarians could have fallen for this madness. The excuse that they have to maintain a space for all views is bogus. It equates free speech with nihilism, but the latter can never support the former for long. Will they let someone go speak on the Islamic conspiracy to take over the world (for which there is actually an argument frequently made, by Muslims, based on the Islamic holy texts? Will they let someone go and advocate for teaching against homosexuality in public schools? Will they let someone go and speak on why people should resent the Chinese conspiracy? Will they let someone argue that women are too ditzy to serve in responsible professional positions, like librarians? Of course not, and rightly so. Every day the librarians make choices on how to use their resources. They can't buy every book. And a lot of meeting time and space at the library has already been given to hateful anti-Israel, anti-American nonsense. They're not opening up new ground for silenced arguments. Someone makes choices, and someone should be accountable for them.

I should add, for clarification, that my "of course not" above only applies to some of the questions asked.

Sorry, having a ditzy moment here: the "of course not" applies to all the questions; it's the "rightly so" that only applies to some.

Michael Smyth seems to think Gordon Campbell can't see the trees for the forest and he is probably right. Gordo's 60 million seedlings he has committed to over 4 years is a drop in the bucket. One experienced tree planter working for 3 months on relatively flat, good ground can easily plant 1500-2000 trees per day. So lets see, that means 105 planters can do 15 million in one summer. Were we supposed to be impressed! Mr. Campbell thinks we're easily fooled by whatever he says. He is about spin, his own vain spin. The more I hear him talk, the more he is beginning to sound like a preacher who will tell you anything to believe in his God or keep him elected. I say de-elect the Liberals throw Gordo to the Bears.