I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the answer is most definitely yes. His column today, aside from being written in his usual mouth-breathing style, declares that free speech is dangerous. Some excerpts:

Last September, a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad, a key figure in the Muslim faith. A controversy arose not because these cartoons depicted violent and offensive stereotypes (though they did), but because they depicted the prophet, period.

Well, he’s right about the “depicted the prophet” bit, but I’ll let y’all decide for yourselves whether the cartoons depict “violent and offensive stereotypes.”

I’m a big free speech supporter. I believe 100 percent that more people have died because of a lack of free speech than because of an overabundance of free speech. But this isn’t just about free speech; this is about worldwide culture wars. This is about global stability.

There’s a quotation around, often attributed to Ben Franklin, that those who will give up essential liberty for temporary security will lose both and deserve neither. That’s the path you’re treading on here, Gabe. You’re poposing that the limit of speech freedoms isn’t threats, libel, slander, “fighting words” or incitement; no, in Gabe-world, the limit is “offense”. That doesn’t wash, you idiot. Having to see and hear things that are offensive is just one of the small annoyances that comes along with freedom, and with being part of the larger global community. I have very few sensitivities, but creeping statism sure offends my sensibilities, if I threaten to kill a few people (and perhaps actually do so) while shouting will that get the statists to shut up? Would I be justified in doing so or would you call me a sociopath and a murderer? I’m going to guess the latter, and you’d be goddamn right .

I offend people every week. I go out of my way to do it. But no one has ever died because of something I’ve said. The news outlets that published the cartoons had every right to do so. But they should have exercised better judgment and decided not to.

Muslims make up 20 percent of the world’s population. With the global political climate being what it is today, we can’t afford to piss off that many people.

I know when I was editing the Commentator, the first thought in my mind was “will some idiot with no sense of humor be offended by this?” If the answer was yes, I published it. If the answer was no, I reworked it until the answer was yes and then published it. The blame for violent reaction falls upon those who react violently, not those who publish newspapers. The blame for this past week’s violence falls not on a few very frightened Danes, but rather on the humorless fools burning down embassies. Being offended is one thing, using that as an excuse to cause violence and death is quite another. The appropriate response to offensive speech is, well, more speech, not self-censorship for fear of violent reprisal.

UPDATE: Jaques Chirac can go to hell.

UPDATE II: Bush 43 and King Abdullah can go to hell too.

I feel very strongly about this: The press has no responsibility to consider who will be offended by publication of a particular item. None. At all. Good, insightful, incisive points are often quite offensive to their targets and it is the duty of any free press to put those forward where they see fit regardless of which nut-job flips out. “Thoughtful about others” means the same thing as PC. The politically correct trend, while often well-intentioned, is dangerous, in my view, to a free exchange of ideas. If I want to argue that “it” is a perfectly servicable non-gendered pronoun in English, or print cartoons about Zombie Jesus (back from the dead to forgive your sins and EAT YOUR BRAIN), or call a bunch of war protesters “Fucking Racists”, that’s my right. Aside from actual threats, fighting words, and incitement (such as yelling “fire” when there is no fire in a crowded theatre), there is no limit to what can be published, nor should there be. Again, if someone is offended, well, okay, fine, and anyone should be free to publish some other piece of speech counter to mine. The onus is not upon publishers to keep people from being offended, but on the offended to respond in a proportional and appropriate manner.

I should really be studying instead of watching silly videos. Argh.

UPDATE: Dammit, Blogometer linked to it before me. Serves me right for not reading Beutler’s site as soon as I wake up.

Ah, John Kitzhaber, everyone’s favorite cowboy-booted former governor.  He’s back, and as further evidence that doctors don’t know anything about economics (or business, a fact to which anyone in the financial sector will gladly attest), he’s proposing “free” healthcare for all Oregonians.  Proving that kids in the Journalism school don’t learn anything while busily failing the world’s easiest economics class, Ryan Knutson buys the “free” line hook-line-sinker.  The nut ‘graph:

In the future, O’Leary and all other Oregonians may not have to pay a dime for health coverage if former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposed health plan is put into effect. The former emergency room doctor announced his goal to implement drastic reforms to the Oregon health care system to provide free health care to all Oregonians. He hopes to get an initiative in November’s elections and possibly enact legislation in 2007. [Emphasis added]

Right, because the taxes they pay don’t count as expenditure.  I guess the $5000 I paid to Uncle Sam in one way or another in 2005 doesn’t count, then.  Moving on to Kitzhaber’s actual plan:

Kitzhaber’s plan says that pooling tax dollars and federal funds that currently pay for Medicare and Medicaid with the tax break employers currently receive for providing medical insurance for their employees would create an approximate $6.4 billion fund. That fund would provide universal coverage for everyone in the state, yet allow citizens to purchase private insurance if they wanted.

That money breaks down to about $2,000 per person per year, which Kitzhaber said isn’t enough to provide for all Oregonians because the current health care system is too inefficient. However, by overhauling the system to be more cost-effective, the funds would be enough, he told the Register-Guard.

Let’s get this straight, shall we?  His plan relies on diverting money already going to Medicare/caid, diverting other tax revenues from other sources, and “streamlining administrative costs”.  Color me unimpressed.  If the geezer drug giveaway is any indication, this plan is likely to cost much more than initially expected.  Further, there’s going to need to be an additional government bureaucracy to administer this new “free” healthcare.  A couple of years ago the cost of Measure 23 was estimated at $10 billion once the model assumed people with health insurance would drop it to sign on to the socialist medicine.  Kitzhaber’s plan comes up $3.6 billion short of that estimate, and unless he’s got some sort of mystical power over administrative costs, the money is going to have to come from some place.

 States have only two ways to raise money: taxes and debt.  Being that debt is really just deferred taxation, states only have one way to raise money in the long run.  With the heavy anti-growth sentiment in Oregon, the 5.8% unemployment rate (nearly a full percentage point above the national rate), and the cyclical volatility of Oregon’s primary revenue stream (personal income taxes), Kitzhaber’s plan would be a disaster for Oregon.  Unfortunately, the same people who roundly rejected a similar proposal just a few years ago may be duped into ruining their economy with compassion this time.

M. Reza Behnam seems to have been writing this op-ed for the ODE while wearing a stylish tinfoil hat. The issue at hand is the absence of a major in Islamic Studies at the UO. Well, that’s not quite the issue – it’s more the presence of a different major…

What forces led to the inclusion of Judaic studies while excluding Islamic studies? … Are [non-Muslim social science professors] at all responsible for the inclusion of Judaic studies and exclusion of degree programs in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies?

Notice that the very presence of a Judaic Studies major – established via a private endowment, with a whopping two faculty members, and offering (along with a sequence in basic Hebrew) three lecture courses that look to be of quite general interest – constitutes de facto “exclusion” of Islamic Studies.

And the bigoted University establishment won’t stop at this act of exclusion, of course:

Is the plan to hire a specialist on medieval Islam and occasional conferences and special programs on the Middle East a prophylactic exercise to disguise the racism and favoritism of faculty members?

Will the exclusion never end? They’re even hiring a specialist on medieval Islam, the devious bastards.

I’m quite sympathetic to the idea that the UO should offer a major in Islamic Studies under the general social science umbrella, and I’m sure that, if there’s sufficient interest from the student body, this’ll come to pass. What’s more, hiring experts in medieval Islam – besides helping disguise the fact that all the professors who study other things are obviously terrible racists – will help foster this interest. You’d think that people who actually want this to happen would be all for expanding course offerings for students in the social sciences or religious studies – after all, the more pluralistic these faculties are, the more chance they have of attracting undergraduates. It is, however, possible that there is another policy goal here:

Until then, in the interest of balance and fairness, Judaic studies should suspend operations.

Ah. I should have guessed, really.

UPDATE: The ODE feedback forum presents an exciting pop quiz:

“Do you not see the parallel between the black civil rights movement of the 60’s and the rights of the muslim community now?”

No!

“So do you blame the Catholic diocese for its wayward child molesters?”

Yes!

And so on.

The headline is my answer to this headline.

In typical ODE columnist fashion, Kristen Brock takes a completely nutty position and then manages to completely miss the point. Her column, I’d like to note, is called “Illustrating Absurdity”, to which I say (as an English compatriot might): Quite.

Let’s go ahead and get down to the naughty bits:

However, the FISA court isn’t always fast enough, or it sometimes serves as an obstacle in and of itself. Because of the FISA court’s reluctance in granting domestic wiretap warrants, the FBI decided not to file for a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui’s computer because it had been turned down so many times in the past. If the warrant had a good chance of being granted, the U.S. government would have known about the Sept. 11 attacks months in advance.

This would be true…if FISA didn’t provide a 72 hour window to obtain a retroactive warrant. That’s right, kids, under FISA the government can get a warrant after it’s already searched whatever the bejesus it was interested in. The rest of the column rambles off into Jimmy-Carter-Did-It-Too-And-Clinton-Was-Worse la-la land before coming to this gem of a penultimate paragraph:

As a Republican, I cringe at the thought of the government being given more power in the — usually vain — hope that it is given back. In this instance, however, I try to remind myself that every administration since the 1960s has been using these programs, and I still have my civil rights intact.

The last time the GOP cringed at the government being given more power was at least a decade ago, and we’ve all seen that, really, that only boiled down to partisan politics after all. And, frankly, this kind of crap going on against American citizens violates (just off the top of my head) the Fourth Amendment and the due process clause of the Fifth. Do you remember those, Kristen? They’re in what’s called the Bill of Rights. You do know what that is, right? As for the government yielding back power once it’s granted, I’ll point you to the “temporary” Federal Excise Tax that was started in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American War.

Last, but certainly not least, there’s the final paragraph:

Is the president’s practice of authorizing spying without warrants a bit frightening? Of course. But is it an impeachable offense? Hardly. The Democrats need to cut their losses, drop the issue and focus on something that’s actually important.

I think she’s right here folks, those pesky Democrats (admittedly likely doing the right thing for the wrong reason) should shut up and let Bush 43 go ahead and wiretap any citizen he feels like without a warrant. I mean, Jimmy Carter did something similar and they like Carter! And, besides, it’s not like Bush has suspended habeas corpus the way Jefferson tried to in order to get Aaron Burr for treason or the way Lincoln did during the Civil War….Oh wait.

AP trots out a poll of old people complaining about rudeness. It seems to have mostly sampled the old, a class of folks notoriously disatisfied with everything but Matlock. Some tidbits:

Carole Krohn, 71, a retired school bus driver in Deer Park, Wash., said she has seen children’s behavior deteriorate over the years, including one time when a boy tossed a snowball at the back of another driver’s head. In this litigious society, she argued, a grown-up risks trouble correcting someone else’s kid.

{snip}

Bernard F. Scanlon, 79, of Sayville, N.Y., would like to see one railroad car set aside for cell phone users to ensure peace and quiet for the rest. Amtrak has taken a stab at that by banning cell phones and other loud devices in one car of some trains, especially on chatty Northeast and West Coast routes.

Yeah, like the old guy can even hear the other passengers talking to begin with. Anyhow, Amtrack might be dying. [Hattip Drudge & Asymmetrical Info.]

Since Olly got us back on the topic of things that are both disturbing and hilarious, I present to you this little ditty — a song sung by a grown man with a munchkin voice, told from the perspective of an aborted baby.

Enjoy.

After a full year of being legal, still we’re inclined to celebrate the only way we know how: shots at Rennie’s.

I’m a few steps behind the curve on this one, but some mention must be made. Mr. Bobby Henderson, currently up the road in Corvallis, has issued a thoroughly reasonable demand to the Kansas School Board.

I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design…

And hilarity ensues. I won’t spoil the details, but be sure not to miss this bit.