"It doesn't change our positions," Staley-Joyce said. "What it does is give us a wake up call — it shows that these ideas are very important."
Update: Here is some more information and commentary. And in a new post on the topic, Instapundit has these two statements to make:
And as a commenter notes, this would get more attention if it had involved a noose on a doorknob even though in this case, according to the reports, we have an actual physical assault and beating.
and
Some of Fausta's commenters think this is a hoax. That's always possible with "hate crime" reports, of course (see the Redstate item linked at the top of this post), but this one did involve a concussion, which probably wasn't fake. At any rate, media skepticism about possible hoaxes -- as another commenter notes -- seems absent whenever there's a noose involved.
Update #2, 12/18/07: It was a hoax; the kid who received the concussion now admits he faked the assault and sent the threatening emails. As Instapundit said, "To me, the concussion made a hoax seem unlikely, but that just proves that some people will go to great lengths, I guess."
7 comments:
It is interesting when diversity is supposedly highly valued that the diversity of ideas and beliefs is not.
Remind me again, who exactly are the jackbooted thugs who are quashing free speech here? We get a great deal of liberal bashing on this issue, but I have heard of exactly zero schools that have told socialist/environmental wackos to shut the **** up. So why then is this tolerated at any level? In short, how is this not a hate crime? If we are going to have that coding for crimes against a person's thoughts, gender preference or religion, then by golly let's use it. Get the ACLU working on that pronto, would you?
There is far too much of this kind of thing going on. See my goon squad thread; also this: Be Afraid.
David, you're clearly wrong. I mean, anti-war lefties are for "peace" and "tolerance" and wouldn't act this way. Clearly you're part of the intolerant right-wing hate machine.
Welcome to the club!!!
Thou shalt not offend the eco-Church of Gore, nor question the dogma. Simplt by referring to Crichton's criticism of Gore/IPCC (fairly detailed, and scientifically informed), and the virtual swastika appears on your GUI.
(Here's an example of the sort of hysteria of the Goreans. The Bay Area chapter is particularly offensive.)
Um, if I may dissent - every small piece of the political spectrum could bring similar examples of nutjobs issuing death threats against this or that. It's nothing new and I think the confrontation between your political views and mine would be much more fruitful if we just accepted that some of the people who claim to espouse my worldview are really scum of the earth who would issue threats of death and violence against those with whom they disagree, and so do some who pretend to share your opinion on a majority of subjects.
Those who assault and beat up American right-wing academics, like those who nail-bomb English gay pubs, are not "left", "right", "dissidents" or anything else: they're scum, period.
While I see your point, Eugenio, I disagree with it. Scum are indeed scum, but nailbombing British gay bars isn't necessarily a "political" statement; in fact, I know plenty of American Democrats (lefties) who are intolerant of gays. Homophobia isn't confined to any one political party in the US.
When you target people for what apparently are political views--and when those attacked are overwhelmingly conservative, as they are in the US--my point stands.
Heck, there's so little conservative-on-liberal attacking in this country that we have a plethora of *fake* hate crimes, wherein the so-called victim staged a hoax just to "raise awareness"! John at Discriminations (see my blogroll) has plenty of such stories in his archives. Daisy Lundy is the only perpetrator whose name I can recall. Recently one of the "noose" stories was admitted to have been done by the so-called victim.
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