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I would call myself a free speech absolutist. But my opinion has no bearing in the world. So like most libertarians my self-righteous and potentially stupid opinions are fun to belittle other with, but maybe we should get concrete here.

On the most recent Reason Live Stream with Russ Roberts, he stated he used to be of the same mind. He mentioned Skokie Nazis. But then said it is easy to be pro-free speech when 45 Nazis show up in a small Jewish Neighborhood of Chicago. But free speech absolutism is hard when 100,000 people are chanting "gas the Jews" on the steps of the Sydney Opera house.

My challenge to the Fif is: it is easy to be free speech advocates when a culturally relevant, anti-hamas cartoon gets cancelled by morons at the most feckless newspaper in the states. But it's hard to be a free speech absolutist when thousands of people march through New York cheering "From the River to the Sea."

And maybe the point is that Islam gets a different set of rules for criticism, which is true. But the tenor of world makes me question myself and I wonder if it does you.

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Nov 12Liked by Matt Welch

Re: Matt's point about the feeder school thing to the State Dept, totally true. I'm a Georgetown alum and spent a year at the State Department, where I was high-fived on a regular basis while being told "welcome to the mafia." There are so many alumni there that the Georgetown mafia is a well-known cult.

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Gents, or rather Matt, 2nd Sunday is tomorrow.

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Regarding the people without a country. When ever I listen to the Dispatch and other never-Trumpers like the Editors, I start to wonder how long until they finally realize that we're in on of those periods of party realignment, and that they're no longer Republicans.

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The Reagan 1974 CPAC speech is below, including the Winthrop quote of "We will be as a city upon a hill...." (However, just to note, the "shining" adjective got appended by Reagan at a later stage.)

https://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/america/governor_ronald_reagan.htm

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I will say more later but I’m going to say this is one that f the best episodes ever.

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Started with the college comedy Judy Gold video with MM interviewing the bookers. I think I just figured out the root of all of our problems.

College bookers. ;)

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Hi Kmele

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Rufo is one of those people whose toxic personality makes me hate everything that comes out of his mouth. The hate-boner he springs for people like David French makes him look like a petulant child.

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"Apologies by Michael Moynihan" would be a perfect Cameo venture. A great way to communicate that you are only saying "I'm sorry" because you have to.

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I'm not on board with Rufo, but I do recognize that he is -- in misguided fashion -- reacting to real problems within higher ed. The ideological monopolization you fear has already occurred.

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I had not heard of Finkelstein until Moynihan mentioned him, so I listened to the debate with Eli Lake. Equal parts long winded and vacuous, it was absolutely excruciating. It is hard to tell if he is disingenuous or actually convinced of his dribble. I especially loved the Iron Dome trutherism. He is old school and only speaks in fact, if you were not aware.

The comment section on YouTube seemed to think he executed a death blow on Eli. I found him borderline retarded. What am I missing?

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I would like to see more questioning of people who have been greatly enriched by defense contractors and are now very vociferously arguing to attack Iran. It seems the most substantial question to ask of public officials who are basically lobbyists for large companies that will profit off of all of these wars and proxy wars.

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In the documentary The Donut King, Gerald Ford was the one pushing to have Cambodians airlifted to the United States. In that same movie, Jerry Brown was pushing to keep them out of California. To echo Matt’s point about Reagan, this is exactly the opposite of the current politics of the immigration.

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Lost all respect for Judy Gold after she wrote an article defending SNL firing Shane Gillis and basically just calling him racist, sexist, and worst of all, unfunny. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/09/17/opinions/why-shane-gillis-was-fired-judy-gold/index.html

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founding
Nov 13·edited Nov 13

This is the 2019 article about the Scopes monkey trial Moynihan mentions at the end of the episode.

The title (The Scopes Monkey Trial was about racism, not god) isn't really the thrust of the argument.

Basically, the author's claim is that it was little more than a publicity stunt to boost local business.

And, according to the author, the public fear leading to the Butler Act wasn't as much about evolution as it was the potential impact of eugenics--the proponents of which relied on evolution in their arguments--on poor Tennesseans.

As for the article's title, other than its ties to the eugenics movement, as I read the article, racism doesn't appear to have been a motivating factor in favor of or opposition to the Butler Act. The title is clickbait.

The biggest surprise for me was learning that Scopes was convicted. The article doesn't mention but I subsequently learned that the conviction was later overturned on a technicality.

Interesting read.

https://unherd.com/2019/11/americas-great-victory-for-science-and-scientific-racism/?=refinnar

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