Many people are going to look at this article and focus on the outrageous assault on that ”academic freedom” that liberals profess to be so fond of. That is all well and good, and I am grateful that there are those who have the time to even attempt to chronicle all the liberal hypocrisy in the world. However, to me, the more amusing aspect of this story is the sheer, mind-numbing impotence of the Berkeley City Council’s rage.
The article, which does its best to treat the Berkely City Council like a group of serious adults, observes that the Berkely City Council is going to try to do two things. First:
Next week, Berkeley’s City Council is slated to vote whether to demand the United States charge Yoo with war crimes.
Second:
The city will decide whether to order Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo’s courses, so no student is forced to take a class from him if they don’t want to.
Apparently, no one bothered to tell the august members of the Berkeley City Council that the United States in this case means the Federal Government, and insofar as UC-Berkeley falls under the auspices of any governmental entity, it is the State government of California. Either that, or all the members of the Berkeley City Council failed their 7th grade civics class, which should have taught them that city governments do not get to tell Federal and State governments what to do. Do you want to know how far out in left field this action is? UC-Berkeley officials are openly laughing at it:
Not that the school would accede to a yay vote on the alternatives-to-You (sic) measure. “They can pass this measure, but it won’t have any bearing on the university’s policy,” says Boalt spokeswoman Susan Gluss, adding that Yoo is a well-liked professor who encourages a wide range of thinking in his classroom. As a tenured professor, he is protected by the university’s academic freedom policy unless he’s convicted of a crime and sent to jail.
Quite an amusing story, all in all. It’s also a helpful reminder that when modern liberals say they want “change,” what they really want is to carry on in endless impotent fury against their imagined boogeymen in the Bush administration. Which is, of course, the exact same thing they’ve been doing for the last 8 years.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Daniel Horowitz
Jake Walker
Victoria Coates
I agree this more venting of fury
ptort Friday, December 5th at 4:19PM EST (link)against the Bush administration. If they were serious about any of this they would have waited until Obama was in office. But of course they wouldn’t want to embarrass the One in front of his lefty friends when he turns them down.
The sad thing about this is they (leftists) encourage torture.
Alberta (Diary) Friday, December 5th at 5:59PM EST (link)By demonizing people like Yoo and the CIA interrogators who are out there in the wilds dealing with savages in an attempt to save the lives of Americans, they (leftists) are actually encouraging real torture.
The CIA has stopped interrogating these people. They have stopped taking them to Gitmo, as they are afraid they will be sued or arrested. Instead, they are leaving these people with Afghanni warlords. Which is fine with me, Im not down with terrorists. But for people who are ostensibly against torture, they should have a problem with it. Afterall, we dont torture. Afghanni warlords do.
Its curious to me, at the least. I think its ironic that the lefts hysteria over torture actually got more people tortured.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Abraham Lincoln
Ahhh Berkeley, hast thou no reason?
Michael Dugas (Diary) Friday, December 5th at 9:13PM EST (link)Tap your Birkenstock s together three times and say, “There’s no place like the home, There’s no place like the home!”
I swear that city council is made up of escapee’s from some home somewhere.
Intro to Federalist Papers; section 5;
paragraph 4.
“…dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the zeal for a firm and efficient government.”
Remember: A Citizen on the dole is a Liberal Vote at the Polls.
END ENTITLEMENTS!
Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum !
If they are going the 'war crimes' rout...
Diogenes314 (Diary) Friday, December 5th at 9:35PM EST (link)Shouldn’t they be ordering the U.N. to prosecute Yoo? Telling the U.S. Government to prosecute something the U.S. government told them to do is even more idiotic (if possible) than trying to tell them what to do in the first place.
Gotta love Berkeley.
So they have an anti-legislation forcefield?
Redman_Blueworld Friday, December 5th at 11:16PM EST (link)It would be such a tragedy if the liberal illuminati training grounds were disturbed by, oh, some government intervention? This is apparently a new concept to the liberal “educators” of Berkley, that the government can and will crack down on indoctrination of impressionable students.