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Trump Signs Executive Order to Promote Free Thought on Campus

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by InTheLight, Mar 21, 2019.

  1. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Hmmm...I thought this was covered by the First Amendment? I guess not.
    ----

    • Today, the President is signing an Executive Order that promotes free speech on college campuses.
    • Agencies will take appropriate steps to ensure that college and university campuses are places of free thought and debate.
    President Donald J. Trump is Improving Transparency and Promoting Free Speech in Higher Education | The White House
    -----

    The government will have an agency that makes sure that college campuses are places of "free thought" and debate. The appropriate steps they will take to ensure that they are places of "free thought and debate" will be to withhold federal funds. So if the government determines that a college is not meeting their requirements for "free thought", money can be withheld.

    I don't know about you, but that doesn't sit well with me.

    Everybody OK with this plan?
     
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  2. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    Hmm... Governmental "free thought" police?

    It doesn't sit well with me either. The radical left and the radical right both like to shut down free thought and debate. I don't think adding a political agency to oversee campus discussion will help things at all.
     
  3. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Actually, NO, it is not covered by the First A. That only prohibits Congress from making a law. (eg- you many not say anything bad about Democrats)

    A college can operate anyway it wants - and if they want to operate without goverment $$ that is their business.

    Now, I am waiting for the Dems to make a big deal out of this. Will they say that a college has a right to prohibit certain speech?

    Remember - Bob Jones U - was penalized for keeping the right not to allow inter racial dating. - oh - I keep forgetting that is not PC - so that was okay for the Feds to get involved........

    I am - as it will protect the rights of minority students on some campuses.
     
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  4. just-want-peace

    just-want-peace Well-Known Member
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    Without knowing the verbage of the EO, hard to say, but, BUT, something had/has to be done to reverse the gestapo tactics used by the left at places like Berkley et al!
    I would prefer that the general public raise so much cain about such that it would solve itself, but so far doesn't seem to be happening.
    Unfortunately the "silent majority" seems to just go along with the status quo as we have since the rebellious '60s, and I am one of the guilty. Guess that is the reason we are called "silent"!
    But, as to your question, I am not OK with more "GOV'T MANDATES"!!
     
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  5. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    Not state universities... They have to abide by the law.
     
  6. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Yes, you are basically correct
    However, it is not so much the law but State/Commonwealth policy.
     
  7. Reynolds

    Reynolds Well-Known Member
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    You been to public college in last 20 years? I was free to receive poor grades for any non conforming thought.
     
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  8. JonC

    JonC Moderator
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    To be fair, politicians typically don't know the stage they are setting at the time they are stage setting. :(
     
  9. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Have I been to a public college in the past 20 years? Yes, last Thursday. And quite frequently for the past four years. I don't attend but I'm there plenty. I also hear about what happens in classrooms and on campus thanks to my two sons who do/have attended.

    So, you got bad grades for thinking things? Must be rough. Hopefully the President having a photo op and signing a piece of paper will help future students in your predicament.
     
  10. Reynolds

    Reynolds Well-Known Member
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    [/QUOTE]

    So, you got bad grades for thinking things? Must be rough. [/QUOTE]
    No. Got bad grades when chose to express them in writing.
     
  11. RighteousnessTemperance&

    RighteousnessTemperance& Well-Known Member

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    Could it have more to do with inquiry in the process of forming opinion, as opposed to expressing it? If you are not even allowed to raise certain questions in the quest for truth, then that would indeed be policing thought. Consider (quotes found on Wikipedia):

    ‘"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom & no such thing as publick liberty without freedom of speech", Benjamin Franklin, 1722.’

    ‘U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo reasoned in Palko v. Connecticut (1937), “Freedom of thought... is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. With rare aberrations a pervasive recognition of this truth can be traced in our history, political and legal.”’
     
  12. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    So now we’re pretending there’s no violence or intimidation of conservatives on college campuses.
     
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  13. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Please show us where anyone has said that.

    I'm simply saying we already have the first amendment protecting free speech. In light of that a declaration by the President that there shall be free speech on campus seems unnecessary and then using the stick of withholding funding if the free speech does not meet his standard makes me a bit uneasy.

    Imagine if Obama had done something like this.
     
  14. Wingman68

    Wingman68 Well-Known Member
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  15. Bro. Curtis

    Bro. Curtis <img src =/curtis.gif>
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    I would support Obama enforcing free speech.
     
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  16. RighteousnessTemperance&

    RighteousnessTemperance& Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it's hard to imagine, as it would have been antithetical for Obama to do such a thing. His was a reign of terror that allowed these issues to grow out of control via BAMN, BLM, Antifa, riots supporting thugs, violence outside Trump rallies, “rogue” IRS agents “investigating” conservatives, even going after Hillary’s presidential rival, etc. Obama’s agenda had almost nothing in common with free speech, but rather the opposite.
     
  17. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    • Informative Informative x 1
  18. Wingman68

    Wingman68 Well-Known Member
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