Quote of the Day 20th march 2016

"Donald Trump may or may not have been forthright about citing safety fears in cancelling his speech Friday night in Chicago, and disrupting the speech may or may not have been the protesters’ goal. But it is clear that protesters view the cancellation of the speech as a victory, breaking out in cheers of “We stopped Trump!”

Preventing speakers one finds offensive from delivering public remarks is commonplace on campuses. Indeed, more than 300 faculty members at the University of Illinois at Chicago signed a letter asking the university administration not to allow Trump to speak. I polled my Twitter followers about whether they consider disrupting Trump’s speeches an acceptable response to his racism. Two-thirds replied that it is. Obviously, this is not a scientific poll, but it indicates a far broader acceptance than I expected.

Because Trump is so grotesque, and because he has violated liberal norms himself so repeatedly, the full horror of the goal of stopping Trump from campaigning (as opposed to merely counterdemonstrating against him) has not come across.

But the whole premise of democracy is that rules need to be applied in every case without regard to the merit of the underlying cause to which it is attached. If you defend the morality of a tactic against Trump, then you should be prepared to defend its morality against any candidate.

Now imagine that right-wing protesters had set out to disrupt Barack Obama’s speeches in 2008. If you’re not okay with that scenario, you should not be okay with protesters doing it to Trump."

(Jonathan Chait, article here about the threats that both Donald Trump, and those of his opponents who have tried to disrupt his events - pose to democracy)

Comments

Jim said…
Happens more than just College Campuses.

The silence from the Legacy Media regarding the launch of the Leave Alliance has been deafening. Only place I have so far seen it mentioned is in Bookers column today
7:13 am
Jim said…
This one is a bit off topic, sorry. Its just that its so good I had to let you know about about it.

- from a blogger known as "White Wednesday"

The referendum explained

there is a link at the bottom to the next part and the current situation explained, and no prizes for guessing what "the plan in the cupboard under the sea" is.
9:47 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Great shame that the "Leave Alliance" has been so badly covered.

Thanks for the link to the Islands story - not sure I agree with all of it but it was a very clever way of explaining it.
6:50 pm
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