Sunday, May 14, 2006
mocking freedom
Terrific post by the redoubtable John Weidner on the ridiculous resignation at Boston College due to Secretary Rice's speaking at commencement. There are three very important points to make about this:
1. The resignation absolutely mocks free speech by suggesting that only what certain people think should be given a forum such as commencement at a major university.
2. A university is "an institution of higher learning" and as such is supposed to be a forum for exchanging ideas as well as learning to think and speak intelligently. Denying students and anyone else who might be in the audience a chance to hear the U.S. Secretary of State would deprive them of an unusual opportunity to hear such a powerful person, in person, and then to apply their own critical thinking to what they have heard.
3. "Lyle" commented to the post and I'm including his comments here because I would have liked to say these things just like this because when one thinks about all these things carefully and logically, it turns out that the conclusions many have drawn might best be reconsidered:"There is something bizarrely immature about the insistence that Bush Lied, Cheney Lied, Rice Lied, et cetera. [This] presumes daddy-like omniscience on the part of the administration. Even if Bush administration statements on WMD and al Qaeda were wrong, they were based on assessments made by the world's intelligence agencies. Critics evidently believe that US officials have supernatural access to the truth, beyond anything the CIA or NSA can provide. Making an educated but mistaken guess in an environment of uncertainty is not lying. Believing flawed intelligence is not lying. No rational human should need to have this explained to them.... Worse, now that captured Iraqi documents vindicate suspicions about Saddam's WMDs and ties to al Qaeda, Bush critics are unable to absorb the new information. Ironically, it turns out that they themselves have been relying upon incomplete data and bad analysis. By their own definition, they are now liars.
Labels: blogs (others'), huh?, schooling
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