Hey, just got my first negative feedback on the Kimberlin post.

Well, being on this guy’s list is no worry.  Mr. Bennet seems like a moral giant among leftists and no, it’s not a joke.  In fact, some quick scanning would indicate more of a libertarian than a leftist.  So a response seems needed.

 If they really see this as a conservatives-vs.-progressives issue rather than a censorious-thugs-vs.-free-expression issue…

I didn’t jump in with both feet over “free expression”.  Half the colleges in the country have “speech codes” for their students.  It’s a First Amendment offense, but if students want to spend their own parents’ and tax-payers’ hard-earned dollars on being muffled, there are bigger fish to fry.

Like, oh, a family scared into hiding by a convicted bomber.  And not the funny kind of bomber, either.

That’s why I weighed in.  Er…on Kimberlin, not the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.

While conservatives whinge and bluster and say that someone should do something,

1)  I’m not a conservative.

2) If I wanted to do something, I’d get a life.  I invited the psychopath to come get me, what more does he want from a hermit?  I still haven’t visited local cops to let them know I might be SWATted by cowards.  Good grief.

…free expression is by definition a progressive value: it makes progress possible.

I sincerely hope Mr. Bennett is a better lawyer than philosopher.  That’s a ridiculous statement.  It’s the political left opposing free speech these days (“campus speech codes” being a pretty big clue).  More broadly, “progressive” and “conservative” are relative terms, not absolute ones.  When it comes to enlarging freedom no one is more progressive than me.  Conversely, when it comes to infringing liberty, no one is more conservative.

Moving from Constitutional federalism to pre-Magna Carta rulership may be “progressive” in Newspeak, but it’s regressive in any language that honors freedom.  Good grief part deux.