Popehat

A Group Complaint about Law, Liberty, and Leisure

  • About
  • Free Speech Resources
  • Blogroll
  • Free Speech
  • Criminal Justice
  • Law
  • Politics & Current Events
  • Fun
  • Art
  • Geekery
  • Gaming
  • MAKE NO LAW Podcast

"Safe Spaces" And The Mote In America's Eye

April 19, 2015 by Ken White

My three kids are sarcastic and irreverent. This isn't a shock to anyone who knows me. Their mouthiness can be irritating, but usually I manage to remember that I don't set much of an example of rhetorical decorum.

Maybe I should start giving the same consideration to other people's kids.

For some time I've been mean to university students who feel entitled to a "safe space" — by which they seem to mean a space where they are insulated from ideas they don't like.

I call these young people out for valuing illusory and subjective safety over liberty. I accuse them of accepting that speech is "harmful" without logic or proof. I mock them for not grasping that universities are supposed to be places of open inquiry. I condemn them for not being critical about the difference between nasty speech and nasty actions, and for thinking they have a right not to be offended. I belittle them for abandoning fundamental American values.

But recently a question occurred to me: where, exactly, do I think these young people should have learned the values that I expect them to uphold?

Today's college students came of age in the years after 9/11. What did we teach them about the balance between liberty and safety in that time?

We should have taught them not to give up essential liberty for a little safety. Instead, we taught them that the government needs the power to send flying robots to kill anyone on the face of the earth without review and without telling us why. The government, we're told, needs to do that for our safety. We also taught them that the government also needs the power to detain people indefinitely without judicial review, again in the name of safety. We taught them that to ensure our safety the government needs the records of what books we read and who we talk to. With that as a model, it seems like small potatoes to say that safety requires disinviting Bill Maher from a university commencement, because he's something of a dick.

We should have taught them that it's noble to speak out for liberty. We didn't. We taught them that concern with liberty is suspicious. They grew up in an America where police say that talking about civil liberties suggests involvement in criminal behavior and that criticizing law enforcement priorities provides a good reason to investigate you. They grew up in an America were the FBI monitors protestors and activists in the name of safety. They grew up in an America where questioning the War on Drugs is called unpatriotic.

We should have taught them that it's shameful to oppose liberty and work to undermine it. We didn't. They grew up in a world where a man can advise the government to disregard our liberties and waffle on whether the state can crush the testicles of children to torture information of of their parents, only to be rewarded by a prestigious position at a top law school.

We should have taught them to think critically when someone says that "safety" requires action. We didn't. We taught them to submit to groping by TSA agents recruited via pizza boxes who single us out based on transparently bogus junk science. We taught them that even if you demand policy changes based on junk science that is demonstrably deadly, you can still be taken seriously if your politics are right.

We should have taught them that our subjective reaction to someone's expression isn't grounds to suppress that expression. We didn't. They probably didn't learn that lesson from the freakouts over mosques at ground zero or in Georgia or in Tennessee. They probably didn't learn it from calls to deport Piers Morgan for anti-gun advocacy or by the steady stream of officials suggesting that dissent is treason or from their government asserting a right to "balance" the value of speech against its harm. They didn't learn it from state legislators punishing universities based on disagreement with curriculum.

We should have taught them to be suspicious of claims that speech is harmful in a way the law should address. We didn't. We taught them that making satirical videos about police is criminal "cyberstalking" and that stupid jokes by teens justify imprisonment and that four-letter words are crimes (or should be) and that swearing at cops online is "disorderly conduct" and that singing a rude song to imaginary children justifies prosecution.

We should have taught them to be suspicious of rote invocation of airhorn words like "racism" and "sexism" and "trauma" and "unsafe," especially when those terms are used to limit liberty. We sure as hell didn't do that. We taught them that jailing grandmas for buying two boxes of cold medication is justified because think of the children. We have taught them that cops can cops can rape and torture people because drugs are bad. We teach them that "terrorism" is an existential threat, a magic word that can be invoked to justify anything. Rather than teaching them to question catchphrases, we teach them to respond to them in Pavlovian fashion.

We should have taught them to question authority. Instead we taught them to submit to it without question if they didn't want to get shot or tased.

Instead, we are teaching them, even now, that climbing a tree outside our view, or visiting a park unattended (as many of us did when children) is a matter requiring state intervention. This is not a Yakov Smirnoff joke: in Russia, complete strangers will approach you on the street to scold you if you're wearing your scarf the wrong way. "You'll catch cold!" We are becoming the Russia our grandparents warned us about: not a Stalinist tyranny, but a tyranny of concern. For our own safety, of course.

Sure, occasionally we manage to assert that free speech trumps feelings or that speculative safety doesn't trump liberty. But those few messages are drowned out by the drumbeat of safety, safety, safety.

Should we expect universities to teach them to value liberty or question safety? Please. Universities think that free speech is something to be confined to tiny corners of campus to protect students from the trauma of being handed a copy of the constitution. Universities are places were administrators censor Game of Thrones t-shirts and Firefly posters then censor the posters complaining about censorship, all in the name of "safety." Universities are places where enraged educators cut down free speech walls and attack protestors and tell students to destroy displays they don't like. Sending people to American universities to learn to respect liberty is like sending them to a brothel to learn chastity.

Today's young people are responsible for their own actions. They are bound, like all of us, by this truth: the government saying something is right doesn't make it right. But it's not fair to ignore our culture's role in shaping the values that lead to an appetite for "safe spaces."

I'm not going to stop calling out university students who assert that they have a right not to be offended, or who claim that they are entitled to spaces safe from ideas they don't like.

But I hope that some of them will call me out — call all of us out — in return now and then.

Last 5 posts by Ken White

  • Now Posting At Substack - August 27th, 2020
  • The Fourth of July [rerun] - July 4th, 2020
  • All The President's Lawyers: No Bill Thrill? - September 19th, 2019
  • Over At Crime Story, A Post About the College Bribery Scandal - September 13th, 2019
  • All The President's Lawyers: - September 11th, 2019
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Culture, Law, Politics & Current Events Tagged With: Academia, Free Speech

Comments

  1. REvers says

    April 19, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this post a 632.

  2. Clark says

    April 19, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    #BTFSTTG

  3. Spounge84 says

    April 19, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    *Slow clap*

  4. man says

    April 19, 2015 at 4:30 pm

    Insane but predictable, how blatantly you skirt the advancing and powerful industry of trans politics, the chief purveyor of "safe spaces" rhetoric in the past decade in the English-speaking world, despite its requisite of faithful embodiment of all of the anti-civil-libertarianism you describe. Are you just scared, uninformed, or actually inconsistent?

    If PopeHat actually tackled what the top figures in queer theory have been saying (e.g. how some speech is *literally violence), it would be a net loss for the blog. Instead we get vague high-horsing about the words "sexism"/"racism", which accomplishes what? The niche this blog fills is curious.

  5. ElSuerte says

    April 19, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    I had to double check the author, because I was sure Clark wrote that! :P I hadn't thought about the norm setting effect on speech from current developments in national security and policing. For the most part, it seemed to me that the terms the 'safe spaces' advocates used placed them squarely within the zone of left wing politics.

    I'd really like you to do to a post focusing on where you draw the moral and ethical line on private counter speech because I'm having a hard time resolving the tensions between promoting a free and open society, dealing with the problems of 'problamatic' speech and ideas. There's a cliche going around, almost as bad as the Voltaire quote about dying for speech, to the effect that just because it's a private actor engaging in anti-speech actions, then it can't be criticized. I think it's making society toxic.

  6. Arctic_Esquire says

    April 19, 2015 at 4:42 pm

    Can someone who speaks stupid translate for me what 'man' was trying to say?

  7. Ken White says

    April 19, 2015 at 4:44 pm

    @man:

    This blog fills the niche of providing a safe space for lunatics to comment.

  8. Grandy says

    April 19, 2015 at 5:06 pm

    @Arctic_Esquire – oh that's easy. The gays are dictating our speech norms. And trying to make us like them. With rays, I think. Rays shot out of strange devices.

  9. david says

    April 19, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    Best. Post. Ever.

  10. Michael Cox says

    April 19, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    That was awesome. Bravo!

    Your point is correct, we've stopped teaching kids in both school, and by example, that the loss of liberty is a thing to be fought, that restraints on it are to be denied. I don't think the schools even teach the basics of civics anymore, much less the constitution/bill of rights.

  11. jackrousseau says

    April 19, 2015 at 7:52 pm

    What is it with people thinking that a tiny minority group like trans people has the power to destroy civil liberties for all, or at least is the first thing that comes to mind (over Cheney And Friends, Obama And Friends, Nameless Risk-Averse Corporate Or Government Bureaucracy etc)? It's patently ridiculous.

    I don't blame a group of people who have been harassed, attacked or murdered for practically ever to want to have somewhere to go for a while, digitally or in real life, where they don't have to face such threats. It's not like they're demanding the jailing or execution of all bigots, they just want to have a place to collect their thoughts and express themselves where the bigots aren't constantly yelling. What's the harm in having these safe spaces if they don't overlap with the public sphere? Why does the ignorant freeze peach/harassment patrol (because face it, the people demanding I allow them to yell about Gamergate in my living room are generally the people harassing and threatening everyone they don't like) not understand what free speech actually means?

  12. DL says

    April 19, 2015 at 8:04 pm

    Fantastic. And depressing.

  13. barry says

    April 19, 2015 at 9:34 pm

    Ah, kids today !

    They get on this internet thing and find all sorts of different ideas values and cultures. Most will stay close to their own, and others will wander out exploring, and come back and tell their friends. As the world gets smaller, the marketplace of ideas gets larger, and the trade goes both ways.

    For many, giving up the right to bully in exchange for a right not to be bullied will look like a good deal, even if it looks like blasphemy against the constitution to the old folk.

  14. Michael Bischof says

    April 20, 2015 at 12:37 am

    @barry
    "For many, giving up the right to bully in exchange for a right not to be bullied will look like a good deal, even if it looks like blasphemy against the constitution to the old folk.“ Isn't this the attitude of timid slaves that live in an environment where their shere majority sets the pace?

  15. stillnotking says

    April 20, 2015 at 4:44 am

    Transgender mind control rays aside, this post does elide the fact that almost all the free-speech erosion in America comes from the left. You can blame Dick Cheney for our shitty response to 9/11, but you can't blame him for campus speech codes and the heckler's veto — he'd be among the heckled. I somehow doubt American college students are taking their political cues from him.

  16. hippo says

    April 20, 2015 at 5:23 am

    While I agree with the core message of the above article, I think it's unfair to demean the notion of 'safe spaces' entirely — there are instances where they're based on consent rather than censure (asking people to refrain from certain topics rather than demanding it from them). I also think there's room to talk about PTSD, and the actual psychological and physiological damage (like, damage we can *measure*) certain topics can cause someone — particularly when they weren't expecting it*.

    I don't think that discussion should end with the phrase "And THAT'S why we need to restrict freedom of expression!", but there's this indignation I see among professors and other professionals at the very *notion* that not all their students are in the best of mental headspaces — and they should sometimes maybe respect that before leaping into an impromptu, unexpected discussion of sexual assault and violence — or throwing incredibly graphic, incredibly violent images up on the board.

    Like, I've met and listened to professors who say it's their duty to challenge students — even if those students *don't want to be challenged*. But teaching relies on the consent of the student — and sometimes, professors aren't clear enough about what the students are consenting to when they join their classrooms.

    Of course, I think students need to step up on this, too — if you're a student with some serious PTSD issues, or a student that has some hard triggers — you should approach your professors and ask them about their curriculum; ask them what you can expect to see, and figure out whether or not you're going to feel comfortable enough in this environment to learn. But this doesn't work if professors refuse to 'coddle' their students — or, put another way, refuse to work with their students to create a positive, healthy environment to learn in. And yeah, I've seen professors do that.

    I guess what I'm saying is that while I respect that freedom of expression is sacred — particularly in the case of universities! — I think we sometimes take this to mean that not only am I free to offend, but I am *obligated* to offend — to 'toughen you up'. Which, to me, is a pretty repugnant idea, and something I expect from internet trolls — not university professors.

    * I also want to mention: People like to mock others for having 'hurt feelings'. But I've witnessed people respond to graphic imagery by vomitting; I've witnessed people respond to certain phrases (in certain circumstances) with brutal psychotic breaks. That is not a case of 'hurt feelings'. Words can do a lot more than hurt your feelings, particularly when you're mentally and emotionally vulnerable (and let's face it: Most people are). I agree that this is *NEVER* a justification for censorship, but I'm pretty tired of hearing people saying 'Stop being such a wimp, they're just WORDS'. In the right circumstances, words can be absolutely devastating to your mental (and even physical) health.

  17. That Anonymous Coward says

    April 20, 2015 at 5:42 am

    Everyone gets a ribbon, because competition is bad. Letting someone think they are not as good as someone else is a horrible thing.
    You are the center of the universe, and the universe must adapt to your demands.
    We've seen children behaving horribly, and the parent taking utmost issue if someone dares not accept the bad behavior.

    While terrorism & "safety" are feeding these things, perhaps the other driving force is the lack of control people feel elsewhere.
    I can not tell the TSA agent to go away, but I can exert my will on someone not willing to fight back.
    If that person dares fight back, I can still use the TSA model of attacking the person I went after by invoking a few magical words to make others fall into lockstep.
    I blow the word whistle and people come running because the issue is so very important, even if the original "crime" they are punishing my victim for is not daring to acquiesce to my worldview.

    We have children who are going to die because someone who wanted to be rich declared Autism is a secret plot from big pharma.
    Science developed a better understanding of Autism, so now there are huge growing numbers!!!
    Not an expanded range of things pulled under 1 umbrella.

    And the central themes are grab whatever control you can, to try and anchor yourself in the world.
    Push others down to raise yourself up, use whatever words get you the most support, never reconsider a position because the group might turn on you.
    Never question, never think, just act.
    Your place will be secure as long as you can make sure there is someone beneath you on the ladder.

  18. hippo says

    April 20, 2015 at 5:43 am

    @jackrousseau: Also, I just wanted to second that. There's this weird notion I've seen among (some) free speech advocates that not only does freedom of speech mean I can yell whatever I want at you in public — it means you're obligated to let me yell at you in your home, your dormitory, your classroom, etc. I'm opposed to restrictions of speech in public venues, but I think the idea of safe spaces — purely voluntary in public venues, and otherwise enforced to the extent the law allows in *private* venues — is actually a pretty great idea.

    The argument that safe spaces prevent people from growing and experiencing new ideas (because it prevents people from challenging you) is silly: If you're transgender, you're *always* being challenged. 24/7. People need spaces where they're not on-guard; they need spaces where they're *not* being challenged every other minute. They need emotional and mental breathing room. Safe spaces can provide that, and are important — particularly in places like a university — where students have potentially been cut off from their previous support networks.

  19. Joel says

    April 20, 2015 at 6:46 am

    @stillnotking I believe the post leaves that out because it's irrelevant. What "side of the aisle" this stuff comes from is, in fact, a worthless distraction from the issue. Democrats and Republicans alike are responsible for a lot of our countries current problems and treating them like a team-vs-team competition will only serve to replace one set of problems with the other. The solution to censorship issues isn't "more Republicans" it's "everyone knock that shit off".

  20. Ken White says

    April 20, 2015 at 6:54 am

    @hippo:

    While I agree with the core message of the above article, I think it's unfair to demean the notion of 'safe spaces' entirely — there are instances where they're based on consent rather than censure (asking people to refrain from certain topics rather than demanding it from them). I also think there's room to talk about PTSD, and the actual psychological and physiological damage (like, damage we can *measure*) certain topics can cause someone — particularly when they weren't expecting it*.

    Generally I don't have a problem with people who decide not to expose themselves to things that will upset them. That's free speech and free association and free choice. I have a problem with people who think that the whole university should be the "safe space," and who use the "safe space" concept as a basis to silence others.

  21. Joel says

    April 20, 2015 at 6:59 am

    In the specific case of transgender issues (or any other heavily persecuted group, really), doesn't it stop being protected free speech if the insults are personally targeted and frequent? That seems to me like it would cross the line into verbal abuse, which the university should be obligated to address anyway. The "safe space" thing seems like universities lazily trying to avoid having to actually evaluate these issues on merit by creating a blanket ban.

  22. Gerard O'Neill says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:13 am

    The man who shot Liberty Valance / He shot Liberty Valance
    Who shot Liberty Valance? The Communists shot Liberty Valance, that's who.

  23. Mick says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:34 am

    Interesting the defence of the current hive mind nature of freedom of speech/thought. That there are thoughts and speech that are so dangerous that they should be suppressed. The contrary is true.

    Suppression of speech is a short term, and ultimately doomed response, to ideas that are considered a threat. It prevents discussion of the ideas, it allows half truths and rumor to fill the void, it fosters the very threat that is seeks to prevent. The only way to counter dangerous ideas is to expose them for what they are and counter them through reason.

  24. hippo says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:43 am

    @Ken White: Fair enough; I think my concern is that I often see useful safe spaces harassed, invaded, and derided as "coddling" — though we always seem to forget that places like a domestic violence shelter or a therapist's office are a type of safe space, too.

    But I *certainly* agree that universities should not be blanket safe spaces — and I have seen safe space rhetoric used in an attempt to silence others, and find the practice repugnant.

  25. ArtK says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:48 am

    It's not just that we're trading liberty for safety, but we're trading it for an illusion of safety. Security theater. Protecting against events whose probability is lower than low while ignoring the big and likely things.
    Talking specifically about children, there's been an idea prevalent over the last generation or so that it's possible to keep a child perfectly safe. In fact, any bump or bruise is a direct failure of the parents to protect their child. It's producing a generation of kids who can't handle it when things go wrong. Far better a few tears at 5yo than complete paralysis at 25. A few authors, like Wendy Mogel ("The Blessing of a Skinned Knee") have talked about this, but the trend continues. You're a failure of your child cries. These are the children you're seeing now in the universities, unable to handle disagreement because nobody has said "no" to them before.
    The so-called "self esteem" movement bears a lot of guilt for this. It was an interesting concept. People noticed that successful kids had higher self esteem. The problem is that they got the causal relationship backwards. They assumed that it was the self esteem that created the success and not the other way around. How they got that backwards, I can't imagine. They ended up advocating empty rewards and a lack of criticism. Kids are smart. You give someone a blue ribbon for showing up and breathing and they know that it's BS. Give them a task that they can accomplish and reward them for that and then their self esteem will go up. Unfortunately, we now have a generation who have been told repeatedly that they are special and finding out that they aren't is devastating. That's what a lot of the demand for safe spaces is — protection from the bumps and bruises and disagreements that they should have experienced long before.

  26. Ken in NH says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:56 am

    When I leave the house, my dogs prefer to stay in their kennel. I guess they find it to be a safe space. I find this preferable also since it keeps them out of trouble. When I'm home they want to spend all of their time by my side. They are most pleased when I give them tasks to do such as fetching their toys. A little entertainment and a lot of free food keeps them happy. It helps that I have trained them this way.

    What were we talking about again?

  27. hippo says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:11 am

    @ArtK:

    That's what a lot of the demand for safe spaces is — protection from the bumps and bruises and disagreements that they should have experienced long before.

    Are you sure? I admit, I'm not familiar with the majority of safe space rhetoric (I wouldn't even claim to be familiar with a significant fraction of it!), but — with a few exceptions — the majority of safe spaces I've encountered have been focused on things like avoiding violent terminology and imagery (because you've been abused, and words that would strike us as harmless can cause anxiety attacks in people suffering from PTSD), harsh confrontations (because you're not in a mental place where you can handle criticism without spiraling deeper into depression) or just being willing to modify the space to make occupants feel safer (such as refraining from wearing a certain cologne because someone here was assaulted by a person wearing it, and the odor gives them panic attacks). And in those cases — this isn't stuff you just get over with constant exposure!

    I've had a little experience with what I would describe as "frivolous" safe spaces; spaces that existed merely to make a political point — or silencing someone — but those cases seemed rare. More often than not, the safe spaces I encountered existed to protect people who were struggling with some form of trauma, and weren't in a place where they could encounter aspects of that trauma without experiencing a painful and severe psychological — or even physiological –reaction.

    Maybe the "frivolous" kind are more common than I realize, though. It's possible — I tend not to hang out with people who would support something like that. xD

  28. Bunny Watson says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:30 am

    I really appreciate this. Although I will argue until the cows come home that there's a difference between re-triggering PTSD and "being offended," it's essays like this that give me hope we can somehow continue having rational discourse in our culture. We all want the same things. We just disagree on how to get there.

  29. Robert Beckman says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:40 am

    @Hippo

    Addressing only your point about the value of safe spaces in segregating stimuli that may be associated with a traumatic event so as not to trigger a PTSD attack: that's not along the list of commonly accepted treatments.

    As someone who left the Navy in 2002 with PTSD (you can guess the source) who was completely useless until extensive counseling, and then went on to study psychology in college, the safe space concept is almost completely counter to treatments for either PTSD or any of the other anxiety disorders. Most such treatment regimes call for intentional exposure to triggering stimulus (for me, looking down the receiving end of a gun barrel when it was fired – that specific part wasn't practical, so instead my psychiatrist had me do rapid gun drills). Carving out a "safe space" for anything other than a specific area (such as a dorm) is actually counter productive because it doesn't empower the individual to get the exposure they need.

    Now you may argue that psychologists aren't readily available to college students for their anxiety (or other phobias), and so a safe space is necessary because they can't get the generally accepted treatment – this is a factual question I don't know the answer to. However, regardless of the answer, how is it helpful to a person who needs treatment to effectively prevent them from getting it while on campus, only to dump them into the general population where they'll find far less sympathy when they graduate?

  30. What Constitution? says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:50 am

    What's this "we" shit, Kemosabe? Oh, wait, it has been pretty much everyone. I guess that's the point here, huh? If you sow ice, you're gonna harvest wind — right up there with quite a few of Ben Franklin's best quotes.

  31. stillnotking says

    April 20, 2015 at 9:25 am

    @Joel: Can't take the politics out of politics, dude. The stated motives of the free-speech attackers are political! It makes no sense to ignore that.

  32. John Gorentz says

    April 20, 2015 at 9:30 am

    On 911 I got a little teary eyed, because a) my doctor threw the word "cancer" at me while the twin towers were on fire but still standing, and b) I was afraid all of this safety stuff would be coming next. Well, I didn't expect quite ALL of what popehat has described, but I did expect some of it.

    But we had been conditioned to think of safety long before that. I used to get annoyed when I'd explain how I'm going off on a long bicycle tour, and people's first reaction would be to say, "Be safe!" When one of my wife's friends said that to me after church one Sunday (well before 911) I asked, maybe not as nicely as I should have, why she couldn't wish me an exciting time. Why does it have to be "safe"? She is a very orderly person who plans everything very meticulously, but she took this in good humor and ever since has wished me something other than to "be safe."

    And I used to cringe when my fellow conservative Republicans would extoll the benefits of gas-guzzling SUVs and armored vehicles for the highways on the grounds of "safety." They had absorbed the societal obsession with safety long before 911.

    I could go on and on, but I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one, and that popehat has observed how some of these "safety" threads have grown into a net that traps and confines us.

  33. Karmakin says

    April 20, 2015 at 9:36 am

    @hippo

    Here's the way I see it, there's a difference between "front-facing" spaces and "back-facing" spaces (note this isn't black or white, it's a spectrum of course). I have no problems with people wanting their strongly back-facing space…say like a local support group or an online forum meant for just those who are engaging having strong safe space policies.

    The problem is when those spaces are more "front-facing"..like say for example Twitter, a classroom or a public demonstration. I think in those cases, it's not nearly as reasonable to demand a "safe space". Although I certainly think that in the case of a classroom, if the instructor is going to dive into some potentially troubling information out of the blue, it's good to explain that up front. (Puppies! Unicorns! GENOCIDE!!!)

    But often what we see is people shooting their cannons at other people and then getting upset when the other people shoot back. That's not a safe space, and cannot be, in any reasonable definition of the term. (Please ignore that some people strictly define a safe space as a place where some people can shoot cannons at others without fear of people shooting back)

  34. Adrian Lopez says

    April 20, 2015 at 9:41 am

    @hippo,

    While I agree with the core message of the above article, I think it's unfair to demean the notion of 'safe spaces' entirely — there are instances where they're based on consent rather than censure (asking people to refrain from certain topics rather than demanding it from them).

    What happens when the person being asked to refrain from covering a certain topic refuses to do so? The answer to that question is what really defines someone's stance on "safe spaces" vs "free speech".

  35. hippo says

    April 20, 2015 at 9:53 am

    @Robert Beckman:

    Carving out a "safe space" for anything other than a specific area (such as a dorm) is actually counter productive because it doesn't empower the individual to get the exposure they need.

    I'm not sure I understand; in what way does having a safe-space prevent you from seeking out intentional exposure to triggering stimuli? The point of a safe-space is that it prevents *unintentional* exposure to triggering stimuli. Doesn't that make safe-spaces the ideal location for *intentional* exposure to triggering stimuli?

    Wouldn't your relationship with a psychologist, in fact, *be* a safe-space — almost by definition? No effective psychologist is going to confront you with your triggers without your consent, after all; they're certainly going to take great pains to not *unintentionally* trigger you. Rather, they'll work with you to help you confront your trauma on your terms — in a way that works for you.

    Unless you're talking about things like aversion therapy, in which case… ugh. Don't get me started.

    However, regardless of the answer, how is it helpful to a person who needs treatment to effectively prevent them from getting it while on campus, only to dump them into the general population where they'll find far less sympathy when they graduate?

    Again, I'm not sure I understand — in what way does having a safe-space *prevent* you from seeking out treatment?

    It's true that people will sometimes build 'safe' relationships so at least some part of their life can be without pain — but discouraging those sort of relationships can easily lead to the person not bothering with relationships at all (on this issue, I speak from experience!).

    I'm also a little leery of the whole 'safe spaces are bad for PTSD' thing. I've heard it before, but I've never seen a credible source quoted for it; the (notably, very few) books I've glanced through on PTSD even go so far as mentioning safe spaces by name, and describing their importance.

    @karmakin:

    But often what we see is people shooting their cannons at other people and then getting upset when the other people shoot back. That's not a safe space, and cannot be, in any reasonable definition of the term. (Please ignore that some people strictly define a safe space as a place where some people can shoot cannons at others without fear of people shooting back)

    Oh, yeah — I've definitely seen that. Actually, phrased that way, it occurs to me I've seen that sentiment in a lot of internet circles: 'You're a disgusting, ugly neckbeard!' — 'Well, you're a big fat whale!' — '!!! How dare you engage in body-shaming, this is a FAT-POSITIVE SPACE, get out!'

  36. Sam says

    April 20, 2015 at 10:04 am

    Oh noes! Kids These Days, always bullying poor Bill Maher! He just wants to say hateful things about Islam, and all of a sudden these widdew bayyyyybeees are all up in arms about their tuition money going to his speaking fees! What is this, a gulag?! How can poor, meek Bill Maher POSSIBLY get a forum for the garbage that routinely spews out of his mouth NOW? I mean, besides his HBO show, obviously. But we all know that doesn't REALLY count, not when literally dozens of literal teenagers are yelling about him on their tumblrs!
    And sure, rape is a terrible problem on college campuses that's being handled in terrible, ineffective ways by cowardly administrations, but what about the right of a middle-aged man with tenure to rub sexual trauma in the faces of children?! Sure, it's not like he can be FIRED or anything, but he doesn't get to say what he wanted to this one time! That's truly the greatest threat to the first amendment in this country! It's like the old saying goes, first they came for the college professors and pundits, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a college professor or pundit. Then they came for the people who didn't have jobs that literally paid them to say what they think about stuff, and I said nothing, because THOSE PEOPLE HAD ALREADY BEEN ARRESTED AND/OR KILLED.

  37. Ken White says

    April 20, 2015 at 10:16 am

    Is that a fedora or a trilby?

  38. JWH says

    April 20, 2015 at 10:31 am

    I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to the "safe spaces" phenomenon, depending on what it means.

    People should have safe spaces where they shouldn't have to deal with crap, up to and including speech that offends them. For me, that's my house. For a college student, the ultimate safe space ought to be his dorm room. In that little 200 square foot space, as long as he has it paid off, the student ought the be able to avoid whatever the hell he wants. A college student also ought to be able to speak to a counselor, a campus police officer, or a professor (privately, in his office) without dealing with crap.

    If a university hosts an event with some controversial content or what have you (think, for example, of a human-trafficking victim telling his story), I also have no problem with the notion that an audience member ought to be able to duck out into some place — maybe a corner of the lobby or something — to pull himself together if he needs it. Anybody who harasses that person is an asshole, and ought to be called out for it.

    Beyond that, I thought the "safe space" with the toys and Legos and such was mock-worthy. And the notion that you can safety-tape the world is pretty damn false.

    It is a bit disconcerting, though, to think that today's college students prioritize safety over liberty because that's all they've learned … Hmph. I But there's an interesting implication here, if I follow the thread. Basically, Baby Boomers were more or less in charge of the place at 9/11, and they've been more or less in charge in the decade and a half since. The older boomers are now retiring, and I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary Clinton is our last Baby Boomer president.

    So … is that the great charge for Gen X? Is it our job to clean up after the boomers and re-establish liberty as our country's preeminent value? That's a hell of a thing to try to do.

  39. Jacob H says

    April 20, 2015 at 10:49 am

    The thing about most of the college students that you (Ken) call out it that they are almost always from a self-selected pool of the most busy-bodied, concern-trolling, censorious group on campus – namely, the student government (or the student newspaper, to a lesser degree).

    Most level-headed, rational college students focus on academics, in MHO. If they have extra time after working on their major, they consider a minor, or a love life. Only the hair-on-fire "SJW" types are even drawn to student government, aren't they?

    It just seems like the vast majority of college students aren't represented by these examples – most of them just try to keep their head down and get their tuition money's worth.

  40. Daniel Martin says

    April 20, 2015 at 11:08 am

    First off, is anyone else getting the "mobile" layout thrown at them randomly on popehat comment pages?

    Secondly, with regards to "safe spaces", and where one might see frivolous ones used more for political control than for actual management of trauma (if not medically recommended, per Robert Beckmann's comment above), when I have seen such rhetoric for political purposes, it hasn't used the "safe space" language, but rather the (related) "trigger warning" language.

    See, for example, the debate around trigger warnings on syllabi.

    Ideally, this would be handled by some college administrative service having in hand a list of known traumatic triggers for each student and then with a class list a professor would be given an itemized list of "by the way, one or more of your students has an actual medical need to avoid: (trigger A), (trigger B), etc.", and the professor could then mark which parts of the syllabus have such triggers on them and make reasonable accommodations as were medically necessary.

    As I understand things, in the real (as opposed to ideal) world the parts of the college that are supposed to keep track of medical disabilities of students are mostly useless. Therefore, there's not the capacity for this and so instead the demand for trigger warnings is primarily heard from people who feel that it should be traumatic to someone to hear about X, rather than from students with an actual demonstrated medical need, because people actually thrown into traumatic reactions are not generally willing to bring up in class "yes, you can disable me by doing X". So instead you end up with trigger warnings for discussion of sexual violence, or sex at all, or violence at all, for political reasons. (on every syllabus regardless of class makeup) At the same time, you don't end up with trigger warnings in some places you should: for example, a chemistry professor will not be warned that this demonstration that includes an unannounced loud, gunshot-like explosion is a bad idea in a class including some PTSD-suffering vets. (because loud noises are not a target of political activism)

    Also, because politically-motivated trigger warning calls exist anywhere, all trigger warnings (even those that are medically advisable) are then suspect, and you get stuff from people who assume all trigger warnings must be politically motivated demanding ridiculous things like trigger warnings for strong female characters or for discussion of female anatomy, because they want to throw a monkey wrench in the whole system. This then means that you need to introduce judgement calls into what trigger warnings happen, and you inevitably get charges of political bias from all sides.

    I don't see a reasonable way around this mess, absent some magical way to make the institution's disability services an accurate and timely source of information on actual students' medical needs.

  41. PonyAdvocate says

    April 20, 2015 at 11:30 am

    Regarding the specific point

    …where a man can advise the government to disregard our liberties and waffle on whether the state can crush the testicles of children to torture information of of their parents, only to be rewarded by a prestigious position at a top law school.

    I was surprised that the good students of Boalt Hall did not rebel en masse and refuse to attend courses taught by someone who is, some would say, a war criminal. If they did rebel, it never made the news, at least not any news source I consume.

  42. Dictatortot says

    April 20, 2015 at 11:43 am

    I'm not at all sure that the post-911 national-security types were the harbingers of today's oh-so-triggerable "safe space" purveyors. If anything, the latter seem to have been overwhelmingly formed by views on the opposite side of the political aisle from the former.

  43. Dan Weber says

    April 20, 2015 at 12:04 pm

    If anything, the latter seem to have been overwhelmingly formed by views on the opposite side of the political aisle from the form

    Strange bedfellows, those bootleggers and baptists.

    See also: horseshoe theory.

  44. Sami says

    April 20, 2015 at 5:26 pm

    So in the opening paragraphs, I was all ready to disagree with you. When I was at university there was a fairly hardcore maintenance of a "safe space" – in one specific room, though. The Women's Room was a single room with some couches, some shelves, a kettle, even a single bed for if someone needed to "lie down" (sleeping on campus was technically against university by-laws so officially, it was Not For Naps), and it was a Safe Space for women, to the extent that, generally speaking, men were not permitted to enter.

    But… yeah, that's one room, and if you wanted to be a sexist dick elsewhere on campus, all we had the power to do was argue with you about it. The whole point about safe spaces is that they're supposed to be a refuge, a small haven with defined boundaries because you cannot reasonably make society at large a place of safety without changing all of society.

    Which is the objective, sure, but you change society by persuading the people who can be persuaded and waiting for the rest to die of old age.

    The one area where I still disagree with you is that disinviting Bill Maher for being a dick is completely legit. Freedom of speech does not require supplying people with a platform and an invitation. Trying to stop Bill Maher speaking in public, ever, at all (by any means other than persuading the world at large he's a hypocritical crackpot not worth listening to) would be wrong. Trying to prevent him from ruining an important event by his presence is a matter of expressing your standards within your own bounds.

    "You cannot speak," sure, censorship. "You cannot speak at our event, specifically," is not.

  45. Chip A says

    April 20, 2015 at 6:47 pm

    Commenter Man up there makes very solid points. Trans politics really is taking over. Haven't you noticed? I go to the regular porn site for regular thugs on twinks gay porn and there's all these chicks with dicks all over the place. Wut UP wi dat?

  46. Robert says

    April 20, 2015 at 6:57 pm

    See also: horseshoe theory.

    The "Horseshoe" makes sense if you stop thinking of the political spectrum of being just one axis comprised of "progressive vs conservative" or "left vs right", and realize there's a second axis: authoritarianism vs. libertarianism.

  47. Scott says

    April 20, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    So glad I read the sci fi reading list which included Mote in God's Eye.

  48. BigBamboo says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:22 pm

    Everyone has a safespace. It's called your bedroom. If you want a safespace, simple, don't leave your bedroom. The rest of us will appreciate it.

  49. Andy says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:08 am

    I wondered whether rise of young illiberal left is related to the way schools seems to be policed: popularity of zero tolerance policies and the "should have follow rules without complain no matter how ridiculous" attitude that seem to be come out strong every time administration expel kid over something ridiculous.

    Maybe kids just internalized the whole aspirin is like illegal drug too and toy gun is no different from real one attitude our generation forced upon them.

  50. Andy says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:08 am

    The "Horseshoe" makes sense if you stop thinking of the political spectrum of being just one axis comprised of "progressive vs conservative" or "left vs right", and realize there's a second axis: authoritarianism vs. libertarianism.

    You can even move further and realize that people can be very laissez-faire about economic and simultaneously authoritarian when it comes to drug laws or the way other people amuse themselves. And other way round. Elections force you to pick the tribe, but real people are all over the map with their opinions – they do not fall consistently into those few neat boxes.

  51. Yglorba says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:09 am

    This was something I was talking about before, in reply to the post earlier about how confusing it was to see self-proclaimed libertarians trying to silence people they disagree with. I think that to an extent, people who spend too much time fixating on what they see as the worst of their ideological opponents can end up internalizing their strategies — they can start telling themselves "well, it's all right for me to behave like this and to demand these things, because what they are doing are even worse…"

    The "Horseshoe" makes sense if you stop thinking of the political spectrum of being just one axis comprised of "progressive vs conservative" or "left vs right", and realize there's a second axis: authoritarianism vs. libertarianism.

    The problem is that there are plenty of people who claim to be libertarians who will react with with outrage, harassment and worse when faced with people who manage to really get under their skin. I think that the horseshoe theory is sometimes accurate even when it comes to directly opposed views like those; there are plenty of angry young so-called libertarians on the internet who can suddenly seem remarkably eager to call for lawsuits or even laws to silence their opponents when it suits them; if you look at certain parts of Reddit, say, there are plenty of people whose political philosophy seems to boil down to "we must use any method we can, even violence, to silence the enemies of free speech." Usually they use apocalyptic rhetoric to convince themselves that this is necessary.

    And their 'enemies', in turn, are often are basically just some equally angry young people who (if you asked them) would say that they basically support free speech but (if you look at what they're saying and doing) are guilty of similarly poorly-thought-out opinions, which if you pressed them on they would probably say is justified by this other group that has to be stopped at any cost, because…

    And so on, ad-infinium, with everyone telling you that yes, they support most of your ideals, but those people are so terrible that in this case we need to etc etc etc. Mindless self-righteous political outrage breeds mindless self-righteous political outrage. I don't even want to call it "extremism", because they're not really becoming more extreme; they're convincing themselves to discard their beliefs by whipping themselves up into a frenzy at thought of how terrible the enemy is.

  52. TXDave says

    April 21, 2015 at 6:45 am

    Oh, I thought that the "Horseshoe" theory was "close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and tactical nuclear weapons".

  53. Scribbler says

    April 21, 2015 at 8:22 am

    I am graduating from the University of Texas at Dallas in less than a month. I like to think I was raised right, with parents that taught me both that bike helmets were a good idea and that I should join the rock climbing team. I learned the phrase "those who would sacrifice fundamental liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither" very early. I was bullied often, and taught to just shrug it off and not base my worth on anything they had to say. I have been involved in the gunny and libertarian online worlds since I was about 14. I like to think I understand the realities of the world and the tantalizing lie of safety.

    Yet, I read this article, and I can't say that I can disagree at all. I have spent the last 17 years in public education. I've seen all this and more, both in my instruction and in my peers. I have been an outlier for as long as I can recall. Even studying in Texas, the student newspaper last month published an article in response to the ongoing question of campus carry in Texas saying that students being able to protect themselves would be "disastrous" for, you guessed it, making people feel "unsafe". This really has permeated our culture.

    I can come up with a number of reasons for this, many overlapping the above. I'd also argue that we have been insulated from the realities of violence. We have no draft, and our standing military force is fairly small. "Safety" has permeated even there, with overly restrictive ROE and constant PC trainings. We have come from a generation where everyone either knew a veteran or was one to a time when veterans are feared and few.

    I don't think this will last. Frankly, it can't. It's unsustainable and unrealistic. I just don't know either how long it will take nor the manner in which it will change. But, I do have some hope, because even though I'm an outlier among my peers, I'm not ALONE.

  54. JTC says

    April 21, 2015 at 9:31 am

    It isn't so much that certain "speech" should be controlled; it must be It has always been so, but now with new urgency and confusion. The issue is what speech is, and who decides. We need only look to the place where Great Britain used to be, along with their disastrous Euro sister countries, to see what a lack of any "speech" control can do. Speech is now a powerful and instantaneously global tool that is the gateway and catalyst to action, and behavior, and destruction.

    So. Who decides what "speech" might lead to our demise? Tough one.

  55. Oscar Gordon says

    April 21, 2015 at 10:39 am

    Nothing wrong with a safe space. Sometimes we all need to withdraw to a peaceful place to gather our thoughts and still our minds.

    But safe spaces are not where the work gets done, it's not where the challenges are met, it's not where we learn & grow & evolve.

    That said, safe spaces are not really what this post is about. It's about a generation losing sight of the balance between safety & liberty for so long that another generation has come of age with a dangerously skewed perspective on that balance. A perspective that, historically, has a tendency to have very bad results.

  56. lagaya1 says

    April 21, 2015 at 11:13 am

    There's always the possibility of this scary, scary photo-taking of women in the presumed privacy of the bus stop! Call the police if you see anyone male taking pictures on campus!

    http://www.kitv.com/news/warning-man-taking-unwanted-photos-of-women-at-uh-manoa/32485756

  57. Robert says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    there are plenty of angry young so-called libertarians on the internet who can suddenly seem remarkably eager to call for lawsuits or even laws to silence their opponents when it suits them

    I hate to go all "No True Scotsman", but, well, they're libertarianing (shut up, it's word now!) wrong.

    You can even move further and realize that people can be very laissez-faire about economic and simultaneously authoritarian when it comes to drug laws or the way other people amuse themselves. And other way round. Elections force you to pick the tribe, but real people are all over the map with their opinions – they do not fall consistently into those few neat boxes.

    It depends on exactly how you set up your axis, but most dual-axis models do in fact take that into account.

  58. makewi says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:31 pm

    @lagaya1 – Since I watched that report on the news this morning, I'd like to point out that the print version seems to omit that those pictures are being posted to a pr0n site. Allegedly, for what it's worth.

  59. Eva says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    Bravo Mr. White I'm so glad I found your blog.

  60. Yglorba says

    April 21, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    I hate to go all "No True Scotsman", but, well, they're libertarianing (shut up, it's word now!) wrong.

    Oh, I agree; that's why I kept calling them so-called libertarians (since it's not really a No True Scotsman fallacy when the term is clearly defined.)

    At the same time, I think it shows a big part of the problem — some people get so caught up in the labels and identifiers and conflicts that come with their ideology that they lose sight of its substance, and those are the people we tend to define as "extreme" (even if the term isn't necessarily correct.) I think that that's what leads to things like the Horseshoe effect — as people become more and more focused on defeating an enemy at any costs, and more and more radicalized in terms of viewing the conflict as something so desperate and vital and apocalyptic that it justifies any measure, they start discarding their own ideals and become closer and closer to the caricature they opposed.

    "We need to silence these people and drive them out of the public sphere, because they're a threat to free speech" is a very real and irritatingly common.

    Although I also think there's a subset of people who never really had their ideology down to begin with. eg. for libertarians — though this is hardly limited to them — it's easy to say "I don't see anything wrong with that speech, so we shouldn't censor it"; I feel that a lot of people have inaccurately defined themselves as free-speech advocates just because they feel like that. The hard part is standing up for speech you genuinely feel is wrong or even dangerous. And because our culture is inherently censorious, this means that you end up with a subset of angry young kids upset that people are trying to keep them from using racial slurs in public forums who will, inevitably, express that frustration by trying to silence anyone who criticizes them for what they're saying, while still arguing that they're fighting for free speech (which they'll justify by saying conflict is just so apocalyptic now that it calls for it, because these people have to be silenced and driven from the public sphere before they destroy free speech forever, etc etc.)

  61. Paul Bonneau says

    April 21, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    Ken, you forgot the most important point: Almost everybody still sends his own kids to a government school in the formative years of his life. Guess what, they don't teach love of liberty in government schools.

    It's strange to me that this is so. Don't people know by now this "schooling" is harmful to their children? Why do it then?

    If someone gives their children to the state, then it's clear to me that they don't love liberty, no matter what they say. They are faking it. This is particularly so since homeschooling is even easier than using the government school:
    http://strike-the-root.com/homeschooling-is-easy

  62. Aaron says

    April 22, 2015 at 8:00 am

    The answer: Battlestar Galactica.

    No, seriously. In post 9/11 America, where 24 told everyone that torture is the only thing standing between your family and gruesome death at the hands of the ever-present terrorists, BSG said "wait….are you sure that's living? Is it enough to merely not die? Doesn't oppression breed extremism? How do we balance safety and liberty?"

    Even as an idiot college student at the time, BSG helped give a voice to the doubts in the back of my head. It helped me ask the right questions. Best of all, it was the only perspective I saw at the time advocating that there was such a balance, and that there was such thing as excessive safety.

    It wasn't perfect, but goddamn was it good.

  63. Whey Standard says

    April 22, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    Insane but predictable, how blatantly you skirt the advancing and powerful industry of trans politics, the chief purveyor of "safe spaces" rhetoric in the past decade in the English-speaking world, despite its requisite of faithful embodiment of all of the anti-civil-libertarianism you describe. Are you just scared, uninformed, or actually inconsistent?

    If PopeHat actually tackled what the top figures in queer theory have been saying (e.g. how some speech is *literally violence), it would be a net loss for the blog. Instead we get vague high-horsing about the words "sexism"/"racism", which accomplishes what? The niche this blog fills is curious

    – man

    I totally agree with this, it should be obvious to all that the entire Popehat blog is a farce because Ken didn't namecheck the particular ideology that "man" has confrontations with the most. If this place were consistent, each and every post would demand the ideology "man" calls "trans-politics" be banned from every university. /s

    I guess we found who the twitter account was talking about:

    Day 1: "Those SJWs suppress free speech!" Day 2: "That woman who grabbed the flag away from protesters at Valdosta State is awesome!"

  64. Matt says

    April 22, 2015 at 7:29 pm

    They grew up in an America were[sic] the FBI monitors protestors and activists in the name of safety.

    Funny, sounds like the America my parents grew up in, too. Mind you, Hoover's usual claim was that he was protecting us from Commies, but still… plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose….

  65. BethanyAnne says

    April 24, 2015 at 2:03 am

    Chip, this article seems an appropriate continuance of the theory.

    Tho, I gotta say, wtf about trans folk? You know there's like 12 of us right? Shit, personally, you can keep saying whatever the hell you want about us, just maybe fewer murders each year? And hire us occasionally? Language and safe space? Not on my top ten list.

    And I've always thought of trigger warnings as pretty equivalent to movie ratings. Oh, I see this lecture is an "R for sexual violence and flagrant taint waving", hmm, maybe not today. I'll face that crap tomorrow.

  66. Burt Likko says

    April 24, 2015 at 9:15 am

    Ken can drop the mic and walk offstage now. This may well have been the most perfectest blog polemic ever.

  67. babaganusz says

    April 24, 2015 at 11:17 am

    the children you're seeing now in the universities, unable to handle disagreement because nobody has said "no" to them before

    where on earth did these creatures go to grade school?
    and in the U.S. i wouldn't easily dismiss the correlation with affordability.

    also: how ever did I miss the "aspirin is like illegal drug too" memo?

  68. ANON says

    April 25, 2015 at 11:37 am

    Safe spaces are like antibiotics. If you use them appropriately they're nice. If you use them too much they start getting less effective, so you use more, and eventually everything is shit.

  69. cat013 says

    April 25, 2015 at 2:53 pm

    > The answer: Battlestar Galactica

    Yeah, I remember that one. Admiral Adama 101: whenever some young female – who is demonstrably on your side – shows up you immediately lock her up into every piece of BDSM gear you accidentally *wink, wink* have in your closet. On the grounds that she looks suspiciously Asian, just like that other chick, who was a war hero (but you totally approved of her being killed in public by another crew member). And every now and then you give high horse speeches about civil liberties, while staging a military coup.

    That was a good show, will watch it again someday.

  70. opus says

    May 2, 2015 at 12:29 am

    So, hippo, you advocate protecting your snowflakes from speech that could make them piss their pants over a triggering idea.

    Wow, that is so foreign to me. You are charged with guiding these kids into asking questions that should be asked. It's a disgrace that someone like you has a job in academia. It's more than pathetic and that someone like you is being paid to do so is hilarious if it wasn't so sad. That someone like you is being paid by the taxpayer is both revolting and telling.

    Twit of the year in my mind, and may your career indoctrinating our youth be short.

  71. hippo says

    May 4, 2015 at 7:51 am

    @opus:

    I don't work in academia. Tax-payers don't pay my salary. I also have no idea what on earth you're talking about.

    I humbly accept your 'Twit of the Year' award, however; it'll look lovely on my mantelpiece.

  72. grouch says

    May 17, 2015 at 10:01 pm

    Masterpiece. Strangely, this information-dense reference index of the decay since the terrorists won gives me hope that the Bill of Suggestions may someday be elevated to its former status again.

    This should be required reading for anyone on the public payroll until such time as we recover from our total surrender on the infamous 9/11.

Search Site

Make No Law 1A Podcast

Best LawBlogs Award Winner 2014Best LawBlogs Award Winner 2013

Quote of the Month

"I'm only an abstract imaginary foil written to sound like an idiot and even I know that's really stupid" ~ Kenfoilhat (previous)

Twitface

Follow Popehat (mostly Ken & Patrick), David, Grandy, Charles, Via Angus, Adam, and Marc on Twitter.

Become a fan on Facebook.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Subscribe

RSS
Comments RSS

Past Posts By Month

Posts By Category

All content is copyright 2004-2023 by its respective identified authors.
Google's Ad Policy

Website Design by CGD

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.