Here we have the absurd situation of the governor of Kansas - Sam Brownback - pressuring a school to discipline a student over a nasty tweet she made about him (though he is now blaming underlings for this foul-up). Even more absurdly, the first instinct of the school adminstrators was to comply, and try to get the student to write an apology letter!
What on earth were they thinking? Isn't this an obvious abuse of political power to try to control people's speech about a public figure?
In the end, it's the politician who has had to apologise for his intrusive and illiberal actions (or those of his staff, if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt on that aspect). And rightly so.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
3 comments:
What I find astounding and mind boggling is that the govenor or any of the governor's staff thought this story would end any better than it did for them.
This is the least horrible result I could have reasonably predicted.
Pulling stuff like this just doesn't work all that well nowadays(or hell, for quite a while). Have none of these people never heard of Ms Streisand and her fabulous effect? Surely given their presumed religious backgrounds they've heard of David and Goliath, or seen some of those 50 million scrappy-underdog-vs-* movies?
It makes me wonder how he and his staff treat political opponents that are employed by the state in his fiefdom of Kansas.
Jeff Sherry
Anyone know if the principal apologised for not defending the student?
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