Tuesday, November 11, 2003



Another step down the slippery slope, part V

Nigeal Kearney says it much better than I did:

What is the difference between the state punishing speech that it disagrees with, and the state forcibly taking people's money and using that money to subsidise speech that it supports? I would suggest there's not that much difference. One is a punishment for undesired behaviour and the other is a reward for desired behaviour. The effect is largely the same.

Therefore, a government that funds universities and respects freedom of speech, ought not to make funding conditional on viewpoint in any way. The system of life tenure in the U.S. works pretty well. An illustration of this is the way that tenured faculty members blog under their real name, while untenured faculty (especially the right-leaning ones) use pseudonyms.

Is there anything I can add beyond a "me too"?

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