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Comments
Thee are a lot of problems
Thee are a lot of problems everywhere, and if people are supposed to get Very Serious looking fake official communiques about each one, we have a major problem.
Got to go - I got some letter from a collection agency and a summons in the mail.
Just going through my mail yesterday
And saw the most "clever" one yet. From a debt restructuring business, buried partway in, paraphrased: "Failure to call for information and to pay your monthly bills on time will result in interest rate hikes, wage garnishments, account defaults, etc".
English is a great language.
universities these days . . .
don't have much respect for free speech. It's all about banning hurt feelings and "triggers."
This bodes ill for the future of freedom. It's training youth to get used to living in an authoritarian regime. High schools have always sucked, but now there's PC hypersensitivity and "zero-tolerance" to add to the old stupidity ("I'll get you, Ferris!!"), too. But at least colleges used to be free.
Back in the 70s this leaflet would not have raised an eyelid. Is the hysterical reaction now because kids are poorly educated and can't read and understand context and words like "mock," or because they are sensitive little plants coddled by their helicopter parents?
It's also true that criticism of the state of Israel's policies gets jumped on quickly by the authorities. Cue up the cries of "anti-Semitism" [edit: and "terrorism" (see comment below)] because some college kids complained in a satirical leaflet about Israeli settlers taking Arab land on the West Bank.
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and Mass ACLU are involved:
http://www.thefire.org/free-speech-concerns-swirl-around-northeastern-un...
their feelings are hurt?
They support Hamas. Good grief.
oh, I left that out. . . .
it's TERRORISM!!!
I don't think it's because
"kids are poorly educated and can't read" or "sensitive little plants." It's because:
a) most universities have rules about flyers and leaflets being pre-approved. This one was not.
b) after the menorah-tipping incident a few years' back, Northeastern is not eager to have a repeat of another anti-semetic hate crime.
Most big universities have these rules because they have a wide international draw. Freedom of speech is great and I 100% support it, but you can't have students from 100 countries and 50 US states living and learning together as a community if people don't learn a little tact about when to keep their opinions on controversial topics to the appropriate designated forums. No one wants to be hassled about their race/religion/ethnicity/home country/sexual orientation in their home (dorm room.)
You really support free speech about 31%
if you want to limit "opinions on controversial topics to the appropriate designated forums." There are so many authoritarian attitudes in that phrase. If you think expressing an opinion about the policies of a government is "hassling" to the natives of that country, there would be no free speech at all under your regime.
Thanks for throwing in the "anti-semetic" (sic) in there, I like to see my predictions proven right. The leaflet was about the policies of government of Israel, no more.
In order to educate people about what's going on,
If anybody wants to educate people about what's going on with the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian debacle, and in the Israeli-occupied territories, these fake "eviction" notices to Northeastern students who live in the dormitories are the wrong way to go about it. It'll only frighten people and really undermine the cause, and nothing will be achieved.