2460 More Bake Sale

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michel de Montaigne: “The man who thinks he knows
does not yet know what knowing is.”

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Yesterday's bake sale post garnered a comment from a representative of FIRE, a legal aid-ish organization dedicated to the protection of individual freedoms and due process on American campuses. They are involved in the bake sale issue. He (the commenter) gave me a link to further information on the issue - which I appreciate. I went there and read stuff. It's fascinating, if you like that kind of thing.

I responded to his comment. But since few people go back to read responses to their own comments, let alone read additional comments left since their last visit, I've chosen to reproduce it here. (And if you're interested, check out the FIRE link.)

Brandon, FIRE said...

For the most recent update in this case, please read:

Bucknell Lies Again
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10797.html

6/25/09 2:24 PM

~~Silk said...

Thank you for the link. I read the top five missives.

I am not on any particular side on the issue. My point is that I'm tired of the First Amendment being expanded to cover anything and everything anyone wants to do, anywhere.

In fact, the shutdown of the "Obama dollars" distribution fits a charge of suppression of free speech better than the bake sale thing, so one has to wonder why the bake sale was chosen as the straw.

I went to college in the mid-60's, the heyday of sit-ins. Folks who participated in sit-ins expected to be arrested, and were arrested. In fact, sit-ins were specifically engineered to result in arrests, since that got the publicity, and drew the most attention to the issues.

Having been trained as a court mediator, I don't quite understand why the college and the students don't sit down at a table and negotiate interpretation of the rules so that both can be satisfied. In fact, I will happily volunteer my services.

But, I have a feeling the students don't want compromise, even if such compromise would allow them to get their message out in the way they want to.

Back to my point, my only real objection is the bloat of the First Amendment.

6/25/09 3:29 PM

If I have any other thoughts, it's amazement at how the administration fell so neatly into the trap. And it was a trap.
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