Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Hitchens on Yale

Christopher Hitchens has a good column on the disgraceful cowardice of Yale University Press. His point is that not only have deliberately censored themselves, but have said that they would have been culpable for any violence resulting from their publication of Danish cartoons:
But now the rot has gone a serious degree further into the fabric. Now we have to say that the mayhem we fear is also our fault, if not indeed our direct responsibility. This is the worst sort of masochism and it subverts our language as well as our concept of moral responsibility. ...

What a cause of shame that the campus of American hero Nathan Hale should have pre-emptively run up the white flag and then cringingly taken the blood guilt of potential assassins and tyrants on itself.
This craven behaviour is eating away at freedom. If you are not prepared to stand up for your rights you don't deserve them.


4 comments:

  1. Why don't you post the cartoons on your blog here since University Press won't (with your home address of course as any one who wants to can find out University Press's address). Or are you a yellow belly coward? I'm guessing coward.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Josh, I published one of the cartoons in an earlier post. I blog anonymously and am not about to change that to please a wanker like you.

    The real problem here is the religious beliefs of those who think they have a right to use violence to shut down free speech.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do you think Hitchens' belligerent style - ie The Missionary Position - is really the best way to achieve his ends though? I must admit I found the interview in which he cursed the memory of Jerry Falwell very amusing, but a softly-softly-corrupt-the-masses approach might be preferable.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hitchens is too honest to curb his sentiments. Part of his attraction is that he is fearless in stating his various positions. People will always read him for his vigorous and entertaining style.

    ReplyDelete