Free speech and campus conservatives: good news

02/18/201802/18/2018 Brandon Christensen Politics activism, free speech, Gabriel Rossman, Republican Party, UCLA, Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard recently posted an open letter from a very brave sociology professor at UCLA that’s worth mentioning here. I have just three things to add.

First, the sociologist, a self-identified conservative, is doing the right thing by urging the Bruin Republicans to cancel its proposed speech by a shock jock. The subject? “10 Things I Hate About Mexico.”

Second, as alumni I’m embarrassed. I’ve never been a fan of Bruin Republicans, but aping the tactics of Republican groups at less selective schools is pathetic.

Third, back to the open letter: it’s amazing and you should read it (link, again). Apparently, it was so convincing that the Bruin Republicans cancelled the event. What Rossman does – subtly, clearly, and powerfully – is point out to not only Bruin Republicans but everybody else involved in this fiasco that being politically conservative is not the same thing as being a member of the Republican Party. More importantly, by defending the right to speak while vehemently opposing the subject matter, Rossman makes an excellent case for moving the Republican Party in a more classically liberal direction.

Sticking up for your beliefs is important. Always has been, always will be. The pen is still mightier than the sword.

BC’s weekend reads

10/09/2015 Brandon Christensen Links Adbusters, David Henderson, EconLog, Edwin van de Haar, gun rights, Immanuel Kant, interview, James M Banner Jr, Jürgen Habermas, Jeremy Waldron, Lauren Carroll Harris, media studies, New Books in Intellectual History, New York Review of Books, Robert G. Rabil, Russia, the National Interest, Weekly Standard

Our own Edwin van de Haar being interviewed about Degrees of Freedom (audio interview)
Does Gun Control Work? Ben Carson Says Yes. ADL Says No but Yes
The Vanishing Europe of Jürgen Habermas
Leviathan (movie review)
Thinking Anew | What, precisely, changed in the 18th century? (book review)
This Is What Russia REALLY Fears in Syria

“Rand Paul’s Libertarian Lecture in New Hampshire”

04/21/2015 Brandon Christensen Law, Politics elections, Lindsey Graham, Michael Warren, New Hampshire, Rand Paul, Weekly Standard

That’s the title of this short piece of reporting by the Weekly Standard‘s Michael Warren (the Weekly Standard is a neoconservative outlet). I recommend the whole thing, but cannot resist sharing an excerpt:

Without mentioning his name, Paul took on fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who may be running for president and who spoke to the conference just a few minutes after Paul. Paul and Graham were on opposing sides during a 2011 Senate debate on indefinite detention of American citizens accused of terrorism. Graham’s argument was that these Americans ought to be classified as unlawful enemy combatants, and that the rules of war apply so long as Congress has authorized military action. Enemy combatants can be detained for as long as hostilities continue or when Congress otherwise says so, goes the thinking. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You’re an enemy combatant,'” Graham had said during the floor debate.

But Paul didn’t see it that way.

“One of them said, ‘When they ask for a lawyer, you just tell them to shut up.’ Really? That’s the kind of discourse we’re going to have in our country? Tell them to shut up?” Paul said. “You would send an American citizen to Guantanamo Bay without a lawyer, without a trial? He said, ‘Yeah, if they’re dangerous.’”

Paul cracked a smile as he launched into full libertarian lecture mode.

“It sort of begs the question, doesn’t it? Who gets to decide who’s dangerous and who’s not dangerous?” he said, pacing back and forth across the stage in blue jeans and without a jacket. “Has there been a time in our history when we decided who was dangerous based on the color of your skin? Has there been a time in our history when we decided someone was dangerous because of different beliefs, didn’t look like us, or had a different religion? Are we going to give up on our right to trial so easily?”

Say what you will about Paul, but you won’t see anybody else in the primaries discussing the issues he discusses. The rest of the article has a lot more great stuff, and not only about the battle for the soul of the GOP, but bigger issues – thanks in part to Paul’s initiatives in the Senate, but also to the work of libertarian theorists and activists for the good part of four decades – such as asset forfeiture. Also, more subtly, you can find a penetrating insight into democracy itself (and if you find it, brag about it in the ‘comments’ threads, as I’d like to discuss it further). (h/t James Parsons)