Did Erik call, in any meaningful way, for anyone to be jailed for political advocacy? Are a few tweets sufficient? What actions were the tweets either intended or likely to trigger?Look, there's one standard for free speech. You're either for it or you're against it. Professor Parsia (yeah, a professor; follow the link at his login creditials) would like John Yoo's tenure revoked. He cites Brad DeLong. I don't care to follow the links, although I'm pretty sure what the outrage is. Hint: think "enhanced interrogations."
Contrariwise, people didn’t just tweet back: “I hope you get fired.” Or “I think you should be fired”. Or “You don’t deserve to be a professor.” They did things like call the FBI and the University (indeed, they called Erik’s ultimate boss). There were people calling for that as well (e.g., in this comment).
I don’t know that there were any direct calls for Erik’s firing from blog proprietors and there were a round of posts (e.g., Instapundit’s) saying that Erik wasn’t making threats, etc.
Given e.g., Malkin’s history, I’m not so convinced that the intended effect of all this wasn’t exactly what happened.
Now, with the possible exception of the call to the FBI (really?!) and some arguably defamatory statements, none of this is illegal. Nor, I think, should it be. There are circumstances in which I think I’d advocate for someone’s firing, even for things they said. I want those to be relatively rare, of course. Probably even exceedingly rare. I prefer them to be cases where there is a direct job connection.
An interesting case is Brad Delong’s explorations as to whether John Yoo’s tenure should be revoked.
(Personally, I think even if the case is reasonable, it wouldn’t be worth pursuing because of the potential backlash and precedent.)
These people are authoritarian tools, progressive tools. I made the case against such hypocritical idiots yesterday: "Smirking Spectator? Guilty as Charged."
And Robert Stacy McCain has an update on Loomis the Lumberjack: "‘Candyass Blogger’ Update: Free Speech Absolutists Who Banned Mr. Althouse UPDATE: ‘These Are Historical Dildos’."
Hey, speaking of the "Candyass Blogger," remember this? "Althouse Slams Robert 'Porn Guy' Farley!" Douchebag.
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