From the February edition.
Political Speech Threatened
Category Archives: cancel culture
Regulating Speech at Princeton’s Kiosks
This is the statement I gave tonight on the issue of the kiosks at Princeton Council:
I’m here to speak about the replacement of the kiosks on Nassau St with electronic versions. I should say that I was unconvinced by the Council’s arguments for replacing the kiosks, and remain unconvinced, but my comment tonight is more query than statement.
In the debate over the kiosks back in 2024, Councilwoman Sacks was quoted in The Princeton Patch as saying: Continue reading
Montgomery Township’s Speech Subversion Scheme
This is a letter to the editor of The Montgomery News–a monthly newspaper published in Montgomery, New Jersey–regarding the case of Sadaf Jaffer that was mentioned here a week ago. If printed, the letter will appear in the February issue. Ms Jaffer’s comment appears at minute 16:30 of this video.
Dear Editor:
I’m writing to draw attention to comments made at the January 7 meeting of the Montgomery Township Committee by former mayor Sadaf Jaffer, also the former chair of Montgomery’s Democratic Organization. Continue reading
Eminent Domain and the Resort to Force
I was pleased to see that my letter on Princeton’s use of eminent domain to acquire Westminster Choir College was printed in the January 7 issue of Princeton’s Town Topics, with a note from the editor (p. 13): “Thank you for your letter. We stand corrected.” Good to hear it.
Whether the topic is genocide or eminent domain, mainstream American journalists have an addiction to euphemism about the use of force that should be corrected at every turn. If journalists described the use of force more vividly and accurately, people would grasp its ubiquity in public life, and stop being surprised when it took egregious forms, as in the killing of Renee Good. Continue reading
The Lessons of Renee Good
Having spent time under the Israeli occupation, where killings of the sort we saw in Minneapolis are a commonplace, I have just a few simple observations to offer about the killing of Renee Good. The first is that we should re-assert the obvious: that all human beings have an inalienable right of self-defense, including lethal self-defense, against initiatory assaults on their person that threaten life or limb. This entails that every person in the United States, regardless of citizenship status, has the inalienable and indeed legal right to use lethal force against ICE agents who engage in initiatory assaults that threaten life or limb.
Continue readingStirring the POT (5)
Politics and the Problematics of Fun
I started my “Stirring the POT” series earlier this year as a vehicle for announcements, but it gradually morphed into a series of ruminations on conferences I attended. The latter turned out to be the more interesting enterprise, so I’ll close out the year with a belated conference rumination. This past April, I went to San Francisco, at the invitation of Roderick Long and the Molinari Society, to be on an Author-Meets-Critics panel on Gary Chartier’s Christianity and the Nation State. It promised to be a good time, and it was. Continue reading
Those “Drowned Out” Zionists
Joshua Leifer’s “Conflictedly Connected” Liberal Zionist Center
The well-regarded left Zionist writer Joshua Leifer has a much fawned-over piece in Ha’aretz that’s been adopted in some quarters as the expression of profound wisdom. In it he argues that there’s a “conflictedly connected” Zionist quasi-left “majority” that’s been “drowned out” by the extremist voices of the “ultra-hawkish right” and the “anti-Zionist left.” If only this “conflictedly connected” majority could be liberated from the shackles placed on it by these twin extremists, the Golden Mean would prevail, and virtue would flourish on the topic of Israel and Palestine. Continue reading
The Immigrant Trust Tour: Clifton Redux
Chris D’Amato, Migrant Rights, and the Exploitation of Anti-Semitism
I mentioned the campaign for an Immigrant Trust Resolution in Clifton a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I had a scheduling conflict and had to miss the follow-up meeting yesterday. Below the fold is a depressing report from my friend Jeff Hoey, a Clifton resident who’s been leading the campaign. It’s a perfect example of the cynicism that masquerades as philo-Semitism nowadays–and also the right-wing virtue-signaling that passes itself off as “anti-woke.” I encountered a similar phenomenon when I spoke last week in West Orange, which I’ll describe here in the near future. It’s obviously a trend. Continue reading
Unholy Choirs of Cacophony
People sometimes complain, with some justification, that the Muslim call to prayer is a theocratic attempt to command airspace for Islam. The equivalent in the American suburbs is the gas-powered leaf-blower, which is just as loud, just as jarring, just as disturbing to peace and quiet, and at least as ubiquitous.
Continue readingAPPE/Felician Roundtable Cancelled
Apologies for the short notice, but unfortunately, the APPE/Felician University Roundtable on health care that I mentioned here on October 4th–originally scheduled for November 5–has been cancelled. Apparently, two of the panelists were forced to cancel, and it was decided by the organizers that new ones couldn’t be found on short notice. So incredibly enough, this is a non-ideological cancellation. Believe it or not, they happen.
Policy of Truth 