What’s great about the Mizzou protests is that they really freaked out the administrators. Here is an excerpt from a long and rambling statement by our university’s president:

“Ibrought together our three chief diversity officers for amuch­ needed conversation to think about some big strategies that could help us be more effective in advancing diversity and inclusivity values.”

It’s the same university, by the way, that hired a token Native American for the crappiest teaching job on campus and sends out HR people with brochures on how to evaluate the job candidates’ race in a way that would be less noticeable. But hey, we had a much needed conversation about thinking about being more effective about advancing diversity. Yippee.

So here is the response to our question of which country was the only one that agreed to accept European Jews to save them from Hitler in 1938:

The Dominican Republic.

Congratulations to reader niedermen who provided the right answer.

Unfortunately, the reasons for the DR’s welcoming stance vis-à-vis Jews were not warm and fuzzy. The Dominicans were in the grip of their long-time obsession of needing to distinguish themselves from the “really black” Haitians who share the Hispaniola island with them. The Dominican authorities believed that the presence of white European Jews would civilize the country enough to distinguish it from the “barbaric” and “uncultured” “really black” Haitians. 

What a disgrace on all sides, really.

It seems like we haven’t yet done enough to humiliate and push around welfare recipients. Not that there is that much welfare to receive but those fuckers need to pay for every little crumb we deign to throw them.

Public housing will now be smoke-free. I know that many people will get stuck on their typically American need to police smokers and won’t be able to absorb any further information or consider that this measure will necessitate intruding into people’s homes because they don’t deserve privacy if they have accepted public assistance.

But hey, it stands to reason. We have already invaded the bodies of welfare recipients with drug tests, policing of their shopping carts, controlling their physical and leisure authority, so why not this? Haven’t we bought the right to condescend to them and control them with our charity? What’s the point of even having public assistance if we can’t use it to turn its recipients into our private property?

P.S. Can I please be spared the boring lecture on the evils of smoking in the comments? The subject of the post is completely different, and if you are not seeing that, please discuss this with your therapist.

By the summer of 1938, it was clear to everyone that European Jews were in great danger. Led by the United States, representatives of 32 countries gathered in Evian-les-Baines in France to discuss what to do with the Jews who needed to emigrate. Only one of these countries agreed to take in European Jews.

Which country was it?

I know about this because I once supervised a research project about it.

And if you want an example of an actual and grievous violation of actual freedom of actual speech at Mizzou, here it is.

But nobody is talking about it and, instead, we are witnessing all sorts of dumbass freaking out that is based on complete misunderstanding of what freedom of speech even is.

Hey, has anybody been able to figure out what people mean when they propose establishing a no-fly zone in Syria?

Surely it can’t be about shooting down the Russian planes that fly over Syria. There’s zero logic in escalating like this over Syria when two seconds ago you were so terrified of provoking Russians that sending a couple of first aid kits to Ukraine looked like an intolerable risk bound to provoke poor little Russians to start a nuclear Armageddon.

Or is the talk of no fly zones just a way to hide behind Obama from the need to say something valuable on the subject of Syria?

The stupid leader of independence – minded Catalonians Artur Mas is so obsessed with his unhealthy need to be president of a country that he might just push the Spanish voters to come out for the horrible Popular Party in the next elections.

Spain is the unluckiest country ever. It just can’t get a break. Maybe this is the cosmic payment for producing the best literature in the world.

And. . . drumroll. . . I got my very first flu shot ever today.

Not that I believe in them, to be honest, but it’s a new experience, so why not?

Thanks go to everyone who recommended it.

Hitler had a theory of why Jews had to be destroyed. He didn’t come up with it all on his own, of course, but relied on a poorly understood Darwinism and, later, on the ideas of the famous philosopher Carl Schmitt.

“Nature puts life forms on this planet and then sets them free in a struggle for power,” Hitler wrote. For him, everything that allowed humans to be closer to their “natural state” was good. Everything that distanced them from the state of “natural wildness” was bad. We should all jump at each other’s throats like wild beasts and allow the fittest to survive in this eternal struggle.

Why don’t we do this kind of thing, though? Why don’t we try to murder everybody we encounter in order to take away their possessions and resources? We don’t do that because we are organized in societies which are ruled not by “the law of the jungle” but by legal, ethical and moral norms. Even if I could kill my neighbor to take away his land and expand my own backyard as a result, I wouldn’t do it because I believe it’s wrong to kill people. 

These moral, legal and ethical limitations placed on our desire to slaughter the neighbors and take their land or resources were, according to Hitler, created by Jews. Jews had no land of their own. In order to live on somebody else’s land, they needed to break people’s animalistic attachment to their land, and that’s why Jews came up with complex ethical, ideological (such as Communism), religious (such as Judaism and Christianity), etc. systems that limited everybody else’s power to engage in the “survival of the fittest” contest.

The greatest sin of Jews, according to Hitler, was convincing humanity that people were better than animals. Jews, said Hitler, imposed the dominance of reason and abstract ideas over brute force and animal instincts. Only the complete destruction of Jews would remove the temptation of this seductive idea of human primacy over the world of the jungle.

P.S. In case people don’t know, the reason why Jews were associated with the world of reason and abstract ideas lies in the nature of Judaism and the relationship of Jews with the Torah that Judaism mandates.

Every once in a while, I visitor to this blog throws a tantrum and says, “You banned me from the blog! You deleted my comment! You don’t respect my free speech rights!”

Such people are idiots.

Free speech protections exist to prevent the government from persecuting you for your speech acts. They DO NOT, however, promise to force people to hear your speech. If people refuse to hear you out, that’s their right. Nobody is guaranteed an audience. Nobody should be forced to listen.

Free speech protections do not guarantee anybody a busload of willing listeners. If you decide not to read my blog, I will not have the recourse to chase you around and whine about how you infringe on my free speech by choosing not to listen to it.

This is why mentioning free speech in the context of protests at Yale and Mizzou is idiotic. Students are not a governmental agency. They are not vested with the power to guarantee anybody’s free speech rights. In their capacity of private citizens, they are not obligated to listen to anybody they don’t want to. If students don’t want to hear what the Master of their college or his wife have to say to them, then they are absolutely entitled not to listen. Just like you are entitled not to finish reading my post. And just like I’m entitled not to read your comment if you choose to leave it.

I believe that students at Yale are acting like obnoxious little brats. It’s my right to think that. And it’s their right to keep being bratty. When students ban speakers from their campus or shout down an administrator, that’s idiotic, ridiculous behavior that makes me cringe. It is not, however, an assault on free speech simply because there is a bizillion and one other venues where this speaker or administrator can express everything that this particular audience refused to hear.