A state ideology

Mark Steyn was breathtakingly good in his Congressional Testimony today.

Quote of the day, academic extremism edition

People who become intoxicated by the progress of knowledge, often become the enemies of freedom.

Friedrich von Hayek, quoted at No Tricks Zone.

Silencing dissent

Is that a brown shirt?A group called Ecojustice has called for an investigation into global warming dissenters, under Canada's Competition Act. Their case, if you can credit it, is that the act forbids anyone from making misleading statements when selling stuff or for promoting their business interests.

Interestingly, the groups targeted are Friends of Science, the International Climate Science Coalition, and the Heartland Institute. Given that none of these are businesses, the investigation promises to be rather short.

Interestingly, one of those involved is Danny Harvey, an academic from the University of Toronto. He gets a mention in the Climategate emails, where he was involved in Hockey Team efforts to dish out retribution after the publication of the Soon and Baliunas paper (Hockey Stick Illusion p. 406). I understand that he is now an editor at Climatic Change too. I imagine you have to take care about what you submit to that journal.

The decline and fall of the university

'Is it OK to write "kooky", I wonder'.A series of stories in recent days leaves me with the impression that the university system in the Anglosphere countries is on the verge of total collapse.

Take for example the story that students at Brown University are going underground in order to meet and discuss current affairs free of university policies on "safe spaces", which, for the unitiated, are designed to restrict any speech that challenges left-wing memes.

Tales of similar left-wing attacks on free speech at other American univerities are rife as well.

Until recently, I had rather blithely assumed that such foolishness had not yet crossed the Atlantic, but how wrong I was. This video of a debate on gender politics at the University of Bristol is a case in point. The constant hesitation by the panel chairman, as he tries to work out whether what the speakers have said falls foul of the "safe spaces" policy, is something to behold. Is "kooky" OK, the panellists wonder at one point.

Click to read more ...

Top French weatherman suspended for forbidden views

France's top weatherman, Philippe Verdier has been suspended from work for publishing a book about climate change which suggests that the IPCC might be just a tad unreliable and more than a little politicised.

In his book, the author, who rejects the term "climate sceptic", notes "the many happy and positive consequences of global warming." It also highlights scientific uncertainty... [he] speaks of "manipulated science", "blinded media", "mercantile NGOs" and "religions in search of new creeds."

It will be Île du Diable for him then.

Academic demands totalitarian response to AGW

Tony Thomas points me to this remarkable video of University of Melbourne professor Peter Christoff talking at a conference on "Law and Desire". Professor Christoff is

...a member of the Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation, and member of the Board of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He was formerly a member of the (Victoria) Premier's Climate Change Reference Group, the Vice President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and the Assistant Commissioner for the Environment (Victoria).  

From about 20 mins, Prof Christoff makes a remarkable call for "climate denial legislation" to criminalise dissent on the issue.

Click to read more ...

Campus freedom of speech

Spiked has done a very interesting survey of freedom of speech on UK university campuses, rating each one on how good it is at protecting individuals' right to speak their mind and hear different views.

Needless to say the London School of Economics is right down among the worst. I wasn't surprised to see UCL or Birkbeck with a red flag either. More surprising were the red flags for Oxford and Edinburgh. My own alma mater - St Andrews - was at the other end of the scale and it was interesting to see that the UK's only private university - Buckingham - was also top-rated.

But the really striking thing is just how few universities received a green flag and how many got a red. This really does make the Spiked survey very important and I hope a few universities are now going to take a long hard look at themselves.

India cracks down on greens

Hot on the heels of its decision to crack down on foreign funding for Greenpeace, the government of India has started what looks like a full-scale crackdown on green groups:

Authorities over the weekend barred a Greenpeace staff member from traveling to London to speak to British lawmakers about alleged legal and human rights violations in India by Essar, a British-registered energy company.

I'm uneasy about this. Greenpeace is certainly an organisation that has engaged in criminal behaviour in the past but not, to the best of my knowledge, in India. They certainly have a policy of using dishonesty as a tool in their campaigning. Their hypocrisy is beyond dispute. But travel bans look a bit over the top to me.

The argument of the Indian government seems to be that the greens are threatening the economic security of the country, and in some ways you can see their point. In a country with an energy supply that is far from secure and far from regular, any threat to that supply is quite possibly a matter of life and death for the people who depend on it. But does this justify travel bans and funding freezes?

Hitchens on freedom of speech

A propos of my recent flurry of posts on freedom of speech, here is Christopher Hitchens on the subject. Some lessons in there for Lord Deben and Bob Ward I would say.

Blocking the door to the marketplace of ideas

There are people who are willing to tough it out in the marketplace of ideas and there are people who are not. Charlie Hebdo and the violent attempts to silence dissent apart, in recent days I've noticed other bits and pieces that touch upon the same issues, albeit in a less violent way, but perhaps in a more insidious one as well. 

A couple of days ago I noticed a geography teacher asking for help in finding someone to put the pro-fracking case in a school debate - the chief executive of iGas had dropped out. The panel already featured no less than three greens as well as an academic (with no particular expertise in unconventional oil and gas), so I raised an eyebrow at a reply from Chris Vernon, a PhD student and one-time contributor to the Oil Drum blog.

@KESWGEOGRAPHY @Profiainstewart Why need for a 'pro' view at all? Balanced speakers better. Most pro voices linked to private profit anyway.

— Chris Vernon (@clv101) January 5, 2015

Click to read more ...

Steyn fights

Mark Steyn has posted an interesting update on his defence of Michael Mann's defamation suit. It seems that Steyn has had differences with the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute over tactics and is now feeling vindicated as the case has become bogged down in procedural argument. And he wants the case dismissed rather than going to trial, as this is what will best protect the principle of free speech:

Defendant Steyn stands by his words and is willing to defend them at trial and before a jury, should it come to that. However, as a noted human-rights activist in Canada and elsewhere, he believes that the cause of freedom of expression in the United States would best be served by dismissing the amended complaint, and that a trial would have a significant "chilling effect" in America of the kind the Anti-SLAPP laws are specifically designed to prevent.

You can see his point.

The right to be rude

Tom Chivers  in the Telegraph on freedom of speech:

...there is a difference between taboos on rudeness, held in place by social convention, and legally enforced politeness. Have we outsourced our sense of decency to the state? The law as it stands can be used to make almost any angry or offensive speech criminal. As I hope I’ve shown in this piece, some of the greatest English literature, and much of humanity’s most entertaining language, is angry or offensive. Should the law suppose that we are so volatile that we need to have our every word policed for inflammatory content?

Luckily, Charles Dickens has prepared an insult that does just the job at answering that question: “ 'If the law supposes that,’ said Mr Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is an ass – an idiot.’ ”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100185612/how-can-rudeness-be-criminal-the-best-insults-are-pure-poetry/

The forbidden history of unpopular people

This really excellent video about free speech was recently posted up at Jo Nova's site.

With the Leveson inquiry currently looking at regulating the press and blogs in the UK, this is well worth passing on.

Government surveillance of windfarm protestor

In an eerie echo of the use of anti-terrorist police to investigate Climategate, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has apparently authorised the use of surveillance to delve into the background of a windfarm protestor.

The victim, George Watson, is going to sue.

Appalling, if true.

H/T Ben Pile

Update on Jan 10, 2012 by Bishop Hill

A correction. RIPA is not strictly "antiterrorism law", as I originally characterised it above. It applies to criminal and terrorism activities. I've changed the headline and text accordingly.

A civil liberties post

Many current readers of this blog may be unaware that one of its major focuses used to be civil liberties, so I hope I will be excused a temporary reversion to this subject. The quote below is an extract from a Hansard debate last week.

Mr Bacon: What my hon. Friend has just said is really quite extraordinary. As I understand him, he is saying that a court in this country... prohibited someone from talking to a Member of Parliament and from referring to the existence of the proceedings. When one thinks of secret courts, one thinks of unsavoury regimes such as those in Burma, Cuba, Hungary in the 1950s or Stalin's Russia, but one does not think of the United Kingdom. How can a judge feel it appropriate to make an order making it unlawful-supposedly-to refer to the existence of proceedings?

Report here.