Month: December 2001

Free Speech Should Feel Good!

The Washington Post has a story about problems faced by high school students who oppose the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

On the one hand, the Post highlights some of the heavy handed tactics of high school administrators who rarely put free speech ahead of maintaining an orderly school. But that’s a problem with speech at schools in general, not something specific to this particular war.

What bugs me, though, is the subtext that runs through the Post articles and other articles I’ve read recently that there is no such thing as free speech unless everyone feels perfectly comfortable in saying anything at all. For example, one student says,

It hurts that people hate you because of your view. It’s scary. They are Americans, and they believe in free speech, unless you disagree.

Another student tells the Washington Post,

I feel like one of very few people who wanted to talk about what America had done in the past and how that might have influenced the attacks. After I did that, I got accused of being anti-American and being a traitor. It’s like no one can say that America is anything other than perfect.

Sorry, you can say and think whatever you want, but the possibility of being hated or called a “traitor” (or worse) sort of comes with the territory. It’s interesting that the main lesson these kids seem to take from this is that they should have the right to say whatever they want, but that other people should not have the right to criticize them.

In fact, such severe criticism is extremely important for a free society. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson can rant on all they want, but they have no right to expect the rest of us to go out of our way to make them feel comfortable when they do so. John Ashcroft can testify before Congress that his critics are helping the terrorists, but he shouldn’t expect folks to roll over and play dead just to salvage his ego.

There’s a good line in the film Casualties of War in which Sean Penn’s platoon leader character realizes that Michael J. Fox’s character is thinking about murdering Penn over the rape of a Vietnamese girl. Penn goes off on Fox screaming that every soldier in Vietnam has a gun and anyone can kill anyone at anytime — and that’s the way it should be.

And here in the United States, everyone has the right to air an opinion against anyone pretty much anytime — and that’s the way it should be.

New Look, But RSPCA Up to Its Old Tricks

A recent article in the Independent (London) reported that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has recently moderated some of its rhetoric in order not to be associated with violent activists targeting Huntingdon Life Sciences, but this is still clearly an RSPCA that is beholden to the animal rights ideology.

Currently about 1,500 non-human primates are imported into Great Britain every year for medical research, and the RSPCA is laying out a plan to gradually phase out such research (it is already illegal in Great Britain to conduct research involving on chimpanzees).

In a new campaign against primate research, the RSPCA sets out three goals: make it illegal to import primates into Great Britain; strictly regulate the transportation of animals within Great Britain; conduct a “critical review” of the role of primates in medical research.

Sources:

RSPCA demands monkey import ban. The BBC, December 7, 2001.

Time to stop monkeying around with animal rights. The Independent (London), December 7, 2001.

Should Christina Hoff Sommers Just “Shut the F— Up”?

National Review Online’s Stanley Kurtz recently wrote about an incident that occurred at a Health and Human Services-sponsored conference at which Christina Hoff Sommers was silenced and then rudely dealt with by panel members because she dared to suggest that the effectiveness of government programs that target boys and girls would best be determined by statistical studies of the effects of those programs.

The conference in question was devoted to “Boy Talk” — a program sponsored by the Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention which is designed to reduce drug use among boys. Sommers was delivering a speech which she had been invited to give when her comments turned to discussion a similar initiative for girls called “Girl Power.”

Sommers intended to discuss whether or not there is any valid evidence that “Girl Power” actually reduces drug use by girls, when she was informed by Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention official Linda Bass that her speech was now finished. Bass later claimed that Sommers had went over her allotted time, but Kurtz obtained a video of the conference which disputes this claim. According to Kurtz, on the video Bass never mentions that Sommers has gone over the time limit, but instead insists that discussion “Girl Power” is off limits and then simply orders her to end her speech.

Even Jay Wade, a psychologist who also appeared at the conference, told Kurtz that Sommers’ speech was ended not because she was over any time limit, but because CSAP didn’t want anyone criticizing “Girl Power.” And Wade is hardly a person likely to be sympathetic to Sommers. In fact, while Sommers and Bass were discussing whether or not Sommers speech would continue, Wade lost his temper and told Sommers, “Shut the fuck up, bitch” at which point the assembled crowd at the conference erupted in laughter.

Ah, nothing like a good, rational consideration of the issues at hand.

Source:

Silencing Sommers: Clinton holdovers have their way with HHS. Stanley Kurtz, National Review Online, December 5, 2001.

Dave Winer Spreads More Misinformation

Dave Winer certainly knows how to spread misinformation, usually by talking about things he knows almost nothing about. Today, for example, Winer vents about John Ashcroft, but adds that it would be okay “if they were clamping down on sales of automatic weapons at US gun shows.”

What an idiot. I’ve been to a number of gun shows and never seen an automatic weapon sold or bought.

Why?

Because since 1934 it has been illegal to sell automatic weapons without special permission of the U.S. Treasury Department. You can’t just walk into a gun show or shop and buy an automatic weapon. To buy an automatic weapon in the United States you have to undergo an FBI background check, then submit an application complete with fingerprints and photo to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a signed affidavit from the chief local law enforcement officer in your area that the sale of this weapon is consistent with public safety.

If Dave Winer had ever been to a single gun show he might know that, but why let the facts get in the way of a good argument?

Primate Freedom Project Forms Group to Focus on Chimpanzees

The Primate Freedom Project recently announced the formation of |Stop Experimentation on and Exploitation of Chimpanzees| (the acronym is SEEC, pronounced “cease”, get it?)

Anyway, most of the SEEC material is the same old “chimpanzees share 98 percent of our DNA” rhetoric, but a press release by Primate Freedom/SEEC activist Cyn Krueger did a good job of highlighting exactly where the group places non-human primates in the order of things. From a press release titled “U.S. government engages in child abuse”,

SEEC has received information that the FDA has imprisoned 11 children and is subjecting them to biomedical research. Four 5-year-olds, a 4-year-old, five 3-year-olds, and a 21-month-old infant are the subjects of a hepatitis vaccine study at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

That the victims are chimpanzees and not humans does not lessen the atrocity. Their suffering is much the same.

The SEEC web site, at http://www.seec-usa.org/ is definitely worth a visit. For example, on their “Mad Science” page dedicated to claiming that animal research is unreliable, SEEC actually cites the antihistamine seldane (terfenadine) as one of “numerous drugs shown to be safe in the animal models cause serious harm or even death to humans.”

Seldane was marketed in the United States until 1997, and was the first antihistamine that didn’t cause drowsiness. There were a small number of deaths related to seldane due to two separate issues. First, it turned out that the recommended daily dosage of seldane could cause dangerous heart arrhythmia’s in some people. Neither the animal research nor the extensive testing of the drug in human clinical trials revealed this — in fact it wasn’t until the drug had been available for several years and was on the verge of achieving over-the-counter status that the heart-related problems became obvious and the recommended dosage levels were lowered.

Seldane also caused potentially life threatening changes in heart rhythm if taken in conjunction with some antibiotics and some antifungal medication. The drug was labelled as such and pharmacists and doctors did a good job of making sure people weren’t taking seldane with these other drugs, but inevitably there were a few deaths.

Despite its side effects, the FDA allowed seldane to stay on the market because its side effects were relatively avoidable and there was no better medication for treating allergies. Once Allegra — which is similar to seldane but doesn’t have the potentially dangerous side effects problem — was approved, seldane was quickly withdrawn.

Far from being an example of the pointlessness of animal research, seldane is an excellent example of how such research can help millions of people live better lives (as someone who has severe allergy problems, the drug was a lifesaver before the approval of Allegra and Claritin).

Source:

U.S. government engages in child abuse. Cyn Krueger, Press Release, October 21, 2001.

Mad Science. Stop Experimentation on and Exploitation of Chimpanzees, Web page, Accessed 12/05/2001.

Makah Might Receive Quota-Free Whaling

Back in July the Makah tribe won an important victory when the National Marine Fisheries Service released the results of a study of the gray whale population — a study which was conducted only because of a successful lawsuit by anti-whaling opponents. While anti-whaling activists hoped the study would find a smaller-than-expected gray whale population, what it found was the species population was larger than it had been since commercial whaling began in the 18th century. Now the Fisheries Service is beginning plans to set a new quota for the Makah for 2003-2007, which might end up being no quota at all.

Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the Fisheries Service’s Northwest regional office, said there were four alternatives that would be assessed. The first three alternatives would give the Makah a quota of five whales per year for five years, with the differences between the three alternatives being what, if any, restrictions there would be on the time and place that the whales could be killed.

The fourth alternative being assessed is simply allowing the Makah to hunt without any quota or restrictions at all (and considering the tribe has managed to kill only one whale since it resumed hunting in 1998, it’s not like the tribe is going to be seriously threatening whale numbers).

Source:

U.S. sets stage for whaling through ’07. Brenda Hanrahan, Peninsula Daily News, November 27, 2001.