[B]ehavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. The school taught its students a simple lesson: If you dislike speech and want it suppressed, then you can get what you want by threatening violence against the speakers. The school will cave in, the speakers will be shut up, and you and your ideology will win. When thuggery pays, the result is more thuggery.Not that long ago, displays of the Confederate Battle Flag were being suppressed for the same reason, that it offended the delicate sensibilities of certain people. Many argued that the attack on Southern symbols was an attack on American culture, but they were ignored. I suppose the next step is that it will soon be a hate crime to fail to salute the Mexican flag. Or the "Rainbow Nation" flag. Why not?
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Federal court rules against American flag in American high school
I don't care to see the Empire's flag anywhere, but I especially don't want it in a State-run facility. But this case isn't about federalism; it's about a student's right to free speech, as well as the further decline of Western culture in our own country. Here's the background: Some kids in a California school were prohibited from wearing shirts with the American flag on Cinco de Mayo. The short story is that certain students exercised the "heckler's veto" on free speech - a threat of violence resulted in the authorities stopping the speech for the heckler. As the Volokh Conspiracy points out, this is not just a defeat of American culture, but of the rule of law itself:
Posted by Old Rebel at Thursday, February 27, 2014