What It Means to Choose Freedom

Funny thing for an Ivy Leaguer who makes a living shaping elite opinion to write. Maybe she should look in the mirror!

 

My life experiences have been very different than hers. If this was the dream she chased, I find it sad:

 

What, you didnt spend your formative years trying to get Ivy League professors fired for supporting Palestine then starting a lucrative grift over "free speech?"

 

I'm not sure that she was speaking for herself so much as for the aspirations of a large percentage of middle and especially upper middle class Americans. I also suspect that a lot of Americans admire a certain politician because he has achieved those goals to an extent of which they could only dream although his "success" was the largely the result of a fortunate accident of birth.

 

While conceding that she's not free speech absolutist, to the extent that your statement is even remotely accurate she didn't try to get Ivy League professors fired for their support of Palestine, she tried to get them fired for rationalizing the acts of a terrorist organization that has provision in its charter calling for the eradication of Israel as well as all Jews.

 

I’m not sure that quote really captures the essence of her speech.

While I sometimes grow tired of her obsession with wokeness you can’t get around the recent horrible behavior towards Jews in universities and other places is disgraceful.

 

Nah, she didnt like that a professor claimed (accurately) that Israel was a racist colonial state then claimed he was intimidating students. This was in 2004, when she was a student, long before any of the current stuff going on. She was basically a conservative student activist!

 

That is probably more common among the people she is talking to, those who participate in such activities.

 

That's really general, all these people, including Weiss are laser focused on Ivy League schools and elite institutions when it comes to 'wokeness' or perceived anti-semitism, because that's their audience and their perceived role, shaping elite opinion (which is basically reassuring them rather than challenging them in any way). Bari and her ilk dont give a shit about what's happening at Southeastern Texas State and the like. They pretend Harvard is basically all schools everywhere, when they probably havent set foot on a state school campus for any time beyond a speaking engagement.

 

Bari doesn't want "free speech" for the Amalekites, she wants them blotted out (smitten, exterminated).

 

I am going to partially agree here. Their perspectives are warped in that they see what’s going on at these places, which can truly be awful, and think that’s the way it is everywhere, meanwhile shrugging off people who are storming capitols and threatening people who don’t support Trump.

 

Bari, like the people storming the capital arent really anti-elite, they just want an elite that reflects their views. In Bari's case, one that isnt as superficially concerned with race but also actively hostile and punative of any anti-Israeli sentiment (which is basically the status quo now!). In the case of the Trumpers, sort of the same thing, but even more punative in general of anything they deem anti-conservative.

 

This is barely on topic and not nearly as important but gives an idea how much of insufferable freaks some of these people are

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/tom-cotton-new-york-times/677546/

https://archive.ph/CY7i3

On one of my first days at The New York Times, I went to an orientation with more than a dozen other new hires. We had to do an icebreaker: Pick a Starburst out of a jar and then answer a question. My Starburst was pink, I believe, and so I had to answer the pink prompt, which had me respond with my favorite sandwich. Russ & Daughters’ Super Heebster came to mind, but I figured mentioning a $19 sandwich wasn’t a great way to win new friends. So I blurted out, “The spicy chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A,” and considered the ice broken.
The HR representative leading the orientation chided me: “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.” People started snapping their fingers in acclamation.


I mean honest to God, who acts like that? Can you imagine your first day and you found out this is the way people acted? I’d probably resign on the spot.

So if you worked in a place like this, or parts of an elite private school, this may be your reality. What they don’t fully realize is a small segment. But it is kind of alarming that these are supposed to be some of the most influential people in the world and they act like complete idiots.

 

There is a bit of hypocrisy here. They complain about victim culture and suppression of hostile speech towards certain identity groups, but are pretty quick to call out and amplify inappropriate speech towards Jews

 

I generally think this is overstated and ignores how much shit other minority groups have to put up with, but I saw that news story about Berkeley where the pro-Palestine protestors acted like January 6th insurrectionists to try and stop a speaking event, and yeah, that shit was really bad. There are some other bad examples too. It's sad.

 

I think there have been examples where Jewish students were being accosted and protestors banging on their door.

Even the Bari Weiss article, there are people protesting an event with Jews. So if I don’t like what some crazy dictator in Africa is doing, should I go protest at an NAACP event?

 

You could, I guess. If they're protesting an event merely because the people are Jewish, yeah, that's anti-semitic. If they're doing it because they're Zionists who outwardly support Israel, it's not.

 

Anyone who drones on about freedom in this country usually is only referring to the things important to them. They are more than willing to strip freedoms from others that they don't approve of.

 

So if you are a supporter of Israel, at all, are you a Zionist? Does that mean that only Jews who chant “to the river to the sea” aren’t Zionists? I suspect most people there support Israel as a country but many probably not the current government or all of their actions.

From the article:

This past Sunday, I gave a speech at the 92nd Street Y called “The State of World Jewry.” The address is a historic one. Over four decades, it has been delivered by the likes of Elie Wiesel, Abba Eban, Amos Oz, and more.

But for a sense of the state of Jewish life in America these days, you need only to have walked by the building that night. You would’ve found that police had cordoned off the entire block—and for good reason. Anti-Israel protesters, many wearing masks, gathered to intimidate those who came to the lecture. On the way in, you would’ve been screamed at—told you were a “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” among other choice phrases. You might have even glimpsed Jerry Seinfeld being heckled and called “Nazi scum” on his way out of the talk. (Classy.)