The problems with free speech absolutism

These days we seem to see a proliferation of hate speech, the tone being set by the petulant man-child who is currently president of the US, who lashes out at everyone he doesn’t like or who opposes him on anything, using the most incendiary rhetoric. This has given encouragement to all the bigots who see his words and actions as giving them a license to let loose too. The ghastly video below, seemingly cribbed from a scene in the film Kingsman: The Secret Service that shows Trump murdering various journalists, media organizations, and political rivals, was shown at a conference of Trump’s supporters at the Trump National Doral Miami resort and is an example of what is being supported and promoted by those at the very top. (Violence advisory.)


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The annoying smugness of Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais is an atheist, stand up comedian, and actor. He made a pretty funny film with an interesting premise called The Invention of Lying that I reviewed favorably back in 2010. More recently, though, he has joined with those comedians who are ticked off with audiences who do not find humor aimed at marginalized groups to be funny. They claim that they are being silenced for their edgy humor by those who can’t take a joke.
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Trump snubbed yet again for Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the prize this year has been awarded to Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed for his efforts to bring peace between his country and neighboring Eritrea and for his efforts towards bringing “reconciliation, solidarity and social justice” to the region.

Giving the Peace prize to current politicians is always a dangerous thing since they can then go on and do things that make a mockery of it. For example, the committee awarded the prize to Barack Obama in 2009 even though he had done nothing to deserve it and indeed soon after announced the surge of 30,000 troops sent to Afghanistan and increased the drone killings. Of course, nothing could be worse than giving the award to war criminal Henry Kissinger, something the prize committee was roundly and deservedly condemned for.
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Good one, Elizabeth!

Yesterday there was a town hall style forum with nine Democratic presidential candidates talking about LGBT issues, similar in format to the earlier town hall on climate change where each candidate came on serially for an allotted time. During it, Elizabeth Warren showed that she is becoming increasingly comfortable thinking on her feet and dealing with difficult questions.

Here she is responding to one such question.

Is this a realistic analysis of the UK political situation?

I have been struggling, and failing, to keep up with all the convolutions generated by the Brexit negotiations and the turbulent politics accompanying it. Polly Toynbee, a columnist for the Guardian, writes that despite the factional fighting at the recent Labour party conference, when compared to what is going on with the Conservatives, the chances for the Labour party to do well in the next UK election (which she thinks will be very soon) are good. I have no way of gauging if this surprisingly optimistic (to me at least) view is justified and hope that some of the readers who are more familiar with UK politics will chime in.
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George Will goes after Trump and the Republicans

The conservative columnist has been souring on Donald Trump for some time but Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds seems to have sent him over the edge and he excoriates Republicans in Congress for enabling his behavior.

Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire. Spiraling downward in a tightening gyre, his increasingly unhinged public performances (including the one with Finland’s dumbfounded president looking on) are as alarming as they are embarrassing. His decision regarding Syria and the Kurds was made so flippantly that it has stirred faint flickers of thinking among Congress’s vegetative Republicans.
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Jonathan Pie on the Extinction Rebellion protests

The climate activist group Extinction Rebellion has organized protests that shut down central London and elsewhere to highlight the need for urgent action on climate change. Jonathan Pie takes aim at those (including newspapers like the Guardian) that snicker at the supposed hypocrisy of the people involved in the protests and moan about the disruptions caused, while ignoring the biggest issue, that those who have known about the climate change crisis for a long time and could have done something about the problem, refused to do anything. (Language advisory)

Trump revealed once again to be a paper tiger

When Donald Trump suddenly announced that the US was withdrawing from the region of northern Syria that the Kurds claim as their homeland, he was warned that this move would result in Turkey launching an assault on the Kurdish fighters who had been allied with the US, since Turkey views them as allied with the Kurds who live in Turkey and who oppose Turkey’s control of the region. In response to that criticism, Trump issued his infamous “I, in my great and unmatched wisdom” wisdom tweet where he, in his usual bombastic way, that “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)”
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Jared Kushner, super failure, given yet another chance to super fail

As Donald Trump flails about angrily in response to the impeachment inquiry currently underway, we learn that the person he has assigned to oversee the defense is his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Kushner is yet another example of someone who has got where he is because of his immense privilege. He is the son of a wealthy father who got into Harvard university under highly dubious circumstances, as reported by Daniel Golden.
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Qualifications to be president

After the election of Donald Trump as president, the bar for this position has become so low that pretty much any sentient being that has shown any signs of intelligence (and I include apes, dolphins, and crows in that category) would be better. So it is irritating to see any Trump supporter asking questions of the Democratic candidates as to whether they are qualified for the job, whether they have the requisite experience, skills, etc.

I am not saying that the public should not value expertise and wisdom and experience. I am only saying that Trump supporters have forfeited the right to raise such questions. I think cartoonist Jen Sorensen agrees with me.