Dropping Math: Censor != Censure, OK != Legal
I thought I should clarify a comment attributed to me in a Daily Emerald article about the Insurgent Town Hall forum.
Several Christian students said The Insurgent’s publication was an attack on Christianity that misinformed readers with false ideas.
“It’s not OK to pay people to attack us viciously,” music major Jethro Higgins said. If it’s not already against the law, “it should be,” he said.
Spencer told Higgins it’s OK to make fun of and offend people.
I told Higgins that it was legal to make fun of and offend people under the Constitution. One of the points I wish I had gotten across at the forum is that something can be idiotic, offensive, blasphemous, or whatever other negative you want to call it while still being legal.
The Students of Faith are making a tactical error by asking the University administration and ASUO to censure the Insurgent by forcing them to make an apology since, by law, that is something the two bodies legally cannot do. (Oh, and there’s something which is lost on various people: censure is a different word than censor.) Instead, as I tried to point out at the meeting, Students of Faith should be arguing that noone should have to pay for any sort of publication on campus, whether it be the Insurgent, the Voice, the Commentator, or the Emerald. The current system forces students to sponsor speech which they disagree with and in my opinion, this is a terrible position to be put in. But the bare fact is that this is an all or nothing proposition, and most people on campus seem to prefer the “all” option. And if that’s how it’s going to be, then I’d love to see a Students of Faith publication. Spew can always use more contributors.
You know, Jethro, it isn’t the fact that you’re a *student of faith*. We all know many people who are students and who also have faith in one thing or another, and I personally like and respect many such people. The fact that not everyone shares the same faith is not a cause for consternation in any modern rational mind. But you’re kind of a dim bulb, Jethro. Stupidity is a pretty common human failure, though, and I ordinarily don’t hold it against a person– but you’ve got to go around blathering and moaning, making your stupidity impossible for others to ignore. It’s disgusting, honestly.
Check this out, Jethro: there was in fact a concerted negative response to the Insurgent’s Jesus-imagery issue. Perhaps you missed it because you played a central role in it, I don’t know. The Commentator ridiculed the Insurgent. The Emerald wagged its finger at the Insurgent. The Administrators in Johnson Hall revoked the Insurgent’s bulk mail funding. President Frohnmayer condemned the Insurgent’s actions in a letter to the Emerald. A lot of people, in fact, wrote letters to the Emerald. A lot of different perspectives were voiced regarding student journalism and the history and current role of Christianity. To me, it seemed an awful lot like an open, informative discussion. Bill O’Reilly even got in on the act– I don’t know how you missed that part, as you were there on his show, sporting your crucifixion couture bling.
To what do you make reference when you ask for a response equal to that “when a paper over steps it’s (sic) bounds, and attacks minority groups or sexual identities”? I’m guessing you’re making reference to a little scuffle the Commentator got into in a previous school year. Since you seem to have not been paying attention, I’ll tell you what the campus community learned from that affair: a) the Commentator did not actually attack minority groups or sexual identites, and those who are incapable of grasping the true meaning of our words can either keep their confusion to themselves or lose whatever fight they pick with us, and b) regardless of our content or the content of any other publication on campus, no one is an any position to control it. Ultimately, the Commentator was neither censured nor censored. Sure, some people put up some charming little flyers about how evil they perceive us to be. Is it a stretch to surmise that the people making the flyers were the same people that were so pissed at us they wanted us defunded? Here’s a suggestion, Jethro: if you don’t think this campus’ reaction to the Insurgent has been sufficient, go ahead and print up some flyers about how evil you perceive them to be. You or somebody else in your big ol’ affinity group. You’re the ones in the position to do it, because you’re the ones who feel strongly about it. Better yet, start your own ASUO-funded paper. See if it makes you feel any better.
You are correct when you state that if the Emerald made demonstrably untrue claims about an ASUO official, there would be a retraction forthcoming. Do you really not know why that is? No one forces them to take an interest in credibility. They’re interested in being the paper of record so that people will think of them as a paper of record, so that they will have lots of readers, and therefore revenue from advertisers, and so that their employees will seem like good hires at other publications after they graduate. The Insurgent isn’t interested in all those same things, and that’s why they don’t have the same interest in credibility.
But seriously, man, what are the viscious lies they supposedly printed? Mostly they printed opinions– silly, unimportant opinions. As to their claims of fact, most people agree that the Inquisition and such horrors did actually occur at remote points in history. There isn’t much to gain in wondering why the writers at the Insurgent thought the reiteration of such facts would be significant, other than the simple observation that on the whole, the Insurgent bunch is not terribly bright. Everyone knows about the Inquistion, and nobody in their right mind holds Catholics in contempt for it. It was a long time ago. But if you want to claim it never happened, I guess we can lump you together with the Holocaust deniers and other revisionists.
Ha ha ha! Oh gosh that’s funny! That’s really funny! Do you write your own material? Do you? Because that is so fresh. You are the weakest link goodbye. You know, I’ve, I’ve never heard anyone make that joke before. Hmm. You’re the first. I’ve never heard anyone reference, reference that outside the program before. Because that’s what she says on the show right? Isn’t it? You are the weakest link goodbye. And, and yet you’ve taken that and used it out of context to insult me in this everyday situation. God what a clever, smart girl you must be, to come up with a joke like that all by yourself. That’s so fresh too. Any, any Titanic jokes you want to throw at me too as long as we’re hitting these phenomena at the height of their popularity. God you’re so funny!
Maybe it’s some sort of threat veiled in a four year old pop-culture reference.
“You have a pattern of doing stupid things, and you end up killing your self. It
I think Jethro has a bright future working at Minitrue.
Remember, kids, we have always been at war with Eurasia.
Jethro, maybe if you spent more time in class at the UofO you’d be able to post a coherent, semi-grammatically correct post instead of running logical circles around yourself. You’re acting and thinking like those two girls who are part of your club falsely attributing abortion to genocide. You never respond to an argument – you just blather on and on about what your worldview is, and then you never really support it.
Why is the U of O paying for the inturdgent? For free speech.
What does your group want? To have the University coerce an apology, thereby abridging free speech.
Would you like the government to have a massive fact checking department so all published materials must be approved prior to printing?
You know who holds others responsible when offensive material is published? The UO community. It just happens that the majority are not offended by it so the backlash against the inturdgent wasn’t as strong as you’d like probably.
You know, I’m high as a kite on narcotic pain medication right now and I’m more coherent than Jethro. Are you high, man? Are the purple elephants talking to you too?
This is my favorite part of this post (besides the ending):
Especially when the media makes us out to be the enemies of free speech, and I am personally offended that the writer of this article felt like he needed to teach me about what is and is not allowed to be printed.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha
It’s really unfortunate that the Commentator can’t see the double standard of discrimination taking place in our campus community. Most would expect this publication to apose the Insurgent and yet it does not. Unfortunatley, like many issues in this world, when students of faith defended them selves against discrimination the media used it as a jumping off point to talk about something completely unrelated. This issue in general is probably one of the most misunderstood things that has happened on campus this year. We are simpily asking for an equal response. We want a response from campus equal to the outcry made when a paper over steps it’s bounds, and attacks minority groups or sexual identities. This became harder and harder to achieve when papers like this one and the Emerald start spewing incorrect information about our goals, and our reasons. Especially when the media makes us out to be the enemies of free speech, and I am personally offended that the writer of this article felt like he needed to teach me about what is and is not allowed to be printed. I know a body can print offensive material, but a paper can not ralley the community to discrimination, and a paper must be responsible for the “facts” it prints. If the emerald started running stories saying David Goward is an illegal immigrant from Mexico I think something would be done to correct that false information. However nothing is being done to correct the false information printed by the Insurgent, and people take those “facts” to be true, and form negative opinions about our church because of them. Not to mention what is the university doing funding a marxist/anarchist propaganda machine. My favorite part about this whole discussion is that the University is trying to say, “It’s not us it’s the students” Well guess what U of O is the students not much of a university without students, and the university has to take responsibility for the impact it’s enrolled have on the local community. Fortunately many people have stopped donating to the Uof O because of this event, and with Phil Knight putting his money into campuses that don’t attack the hand that feeds them this University is on a slippery slope to being broke. That’s how it goes though. You have a pattern of doing stupid things, and you end up killing your self. It’s the natural order. The University of Oregon is the weakest link. GOOD-BYE!
You were speaking Norwegian. How about we leave it at that?
And I can’t spell. ‘Perhaps’ was how that was meant to begin.
Perhpas we should be charitable and assume that they’re backforming from ‘censurious’?
Ablaut confuses a great many people.
Yeah, I might agree with sponsoring “nothing” from a ideological standpoint.
But doing it simply in response to this incident reminds me of those “one person ruins it for the whole class” schemes that middle school autocrats loved to employ. You know, the ones where you couldn’t go to the bathroom because some idiot decided to toke up during 5th period? It was just absurd logic.
In the mean time, I’ll ponder the idea of abolishing the student fee on principle.
I think your quotation was something like, “It