If you're like me, you've spent, oh, weeks of your valuable time trying to figure out how it is that otherwise intelligent people who teach at and run institutions of higher learning come up with restrictions on student expression. Well, I finally found an article that (finally) explained it to me, and I'd like to, well, "share".

There was, once upon a time, a German professor (socialist, of course) named Herbert Marcuse. Turns out that Marcuse, unbeknownst to probably all of us who were still in grade school at the time, was quite a popular fellow amongst 60's radicals.

Marcuse had no problem with double standards. He took the position that certain views (ones we now term liberal, no surprise) are superior to those held by the (capitalist and conservative) status quo. AND, because those liberal views are (ostensibly) suppressed by said status quo (using their money and power), it's only fair that those holding those liberal views are enabled by the powers-that-be to suppress the expression of status quo ideas when they have the opportunity. (The status quo doesn't need that enablement because of their superior wealth and societal standing, you see.)

If that didn't go in well, here's my simplistic interpretation: Freedom of speech may be law, but if you're a rich white male, you don't need all your freedom of speech, because you're rich and powerful. On the other hand, the poor black woman needs all the freedom of speech the law provides, and then some, so she can compete with the rich white guy. In other words, you suppress the rights of the strong in order to give the disenfranchised equal time.

Make sense? Now, since the average person will see right through that racist and classist point of view, it has to be repackaged for public consumption - specifically, speaking in terms of restricting certain types speech on the grounds that it might "cause offense". In other words, what we now know as "political correctness."

Hope that helps. The scary part is that these types would love to see in the US "hate speech" laws as they've been implemented in Canada and some European cities. The specifics of these laws vary from place to place, but suffice to say that they've been used to prosecute Christian pastors for teaching what the Bible teaches on homosexuality, and revered journalists like Oriana Fallaci for writing what they felt and believed about Islam and the Muslim diaspora in Italy.

Here's your takeaway: The only kind of free speech worth having is the kind that offends someone. Even Stalin and Hitler permitted the other kind.