Laurie Wastell has written an excellent piece in the Spectator about the ongoing investigations into Nathan Cofnas, a post-doc at Cambridge who wrote a controversial blog post last February that has already seen him lose an unpaid research associate position at Emmanuel College. I should declare an interest here – the Free Speech Union is defending Nathan. Here’s the nub of Laurie’s argument:
You don’t have to agree with what Cofnas wrote to see that the fact he might be fired for expressing his views violates fundamental principles of academic freedom. If people believe he is wrong, then they are perfectly within their rights to say why and how and to explain the flaws in his arguments. Instead, the principal claim levelled against Cofnas has been that some find his ideas ‘offensive’ and ‘distressing’. That may well be so, but if universities are to successfully fulfil their truth-seeking mission, academics’ right to explore offensive or controversial topics must come before considerations of hurt feelings. This vital principle must always be defended – especially when it comes to hard cases. Nathan Cofnas must be free to speak.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: This Substack post by Christopher Brunet about the Cofnas affair is also very good.
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In the drive to waste OPM Kneel’s Labour Party vandals have a lot of catching up to do but I am confident they will give it their best shot.
It used to be “the toilet papers too rough, out brothers”
Now it’s ” he called me he! Out comrades!”
The four ways of spending money, in descending order of preference:
1. Spending your own money on yourself.
2. Spending your own money on someone else.
3. Spending someone else’s money on yourself.
4. Spending someone else’s money on someone else.
Labour and the unions flip-flop between 3 and 4 (OPM) and denounce anyone who wants to do 1 and 2.
But then, what exactly has the Tory party been doing?
Folks, it’s all fucked! I don’t know what the solution is. But solutions tend to find themselves… when it’s too late.
They already have the solution. ———Print more money (Modern Monetary Theory)
Union bosses competing on which of them can circle closest to the drain…
All aided and abetted from on high by the politics of dependency and division.
Plus ça change…
Well I’m completely baffled.
”Data from Clalit Health Services (Israel’s largest healthcare organization representing more than 50% of the population)
CARDIAC ARREST Diagnoses per 1M population increased 225% from 2021 to 2022!
Up 431% from 2020!
What happened in 2021??”
https://twitter.com/_aussie17/status/1680580184603328512
Well I think on the trans issue I stand with Russia. It’s just a shame that will never happen over here. I think what the trans extremists have succeeded in doing is shooting themselves in the foot due to their disgusting behaviour and massive over-reach with their ideology. They always did have human rights but they wanted to trample on women’s rights and dominate by erasing us. The ominous as hell amount of energy put into targeting kids obviously crossed a line for many who were previously disinterested or ambivalent towards these people. Now I just swing between pity and hate. No wonder Putin is looking to many other countries and feeling the need to stamp it out, like a cancer that’s spreading. We must look like a complete and utter shitshow. ”Civilized society”? Show me what’s civilized when it comes to much of this trans movement because I only see societies disintegrating with a goal to reconfigure in a way which is so at odds with the world as I always knew it. And the worst thing being that this isn’t just some grassroots movement that will fade away, like some transient phase. Many powerful people are behind the scenes enabling and empowering all of it. No idea how it’ll all end, if it ever will.
”Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a new law banning gender reassignment surgery, in the latest attack on LGBT rights in the country.
The State Duma approved the bill, which will also ban people changing their genders on state documents, on Friday.
Speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said the bill would “protect our citizens and our children”.
In a telegram post on Friday, Mr Volodin also called gender-affirming surgery a “path to the degeneration of the nation”.
“We are the only European country that opposes all that is happening in the States, in Europe and does everything to save families and traditional values,” he said during the debate on Friday. “And we need to understand that there won’t be any future if we don’t adopt the law, if we don’t ban gender change.”
Fresh amendments added to the bill on Friday during its final reading included banning individuals who have undergone gender changes from adopting children, and annulling marriages where one party had undergone gender reassignment.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66200194?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_medium=social&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_link_type=web_link&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_id=132BD456-227F-11EE-9A69-3B5E3AE5AB7B&at_link_origin=BBCNews&at_campaign_type=owned&at_format=link
I have no problem with a trans person. I am infact happy for them. I hope they are live a full and happy life including a great sex life. ————I do though have a problem with biological males using the same dressing rooms, changing rooms and toilet facilities as my daughter or wife or any other WOMAN. How that situation can be resolved without redesigning every facility in every building in the country is unclear, but it cannot be solved by insisting women just shut up and accept it.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party should legislate to ban “Civil Servants” whose full time “jobs” are basically acting as a Trade Unionist (Labour-Party) activist.