Mrs. Instapundit writes about the terrible, awful story of poor Jeff Goldstein, who is a calm, rational person who was called one of the most terrible names imaginable just for stating his opinion!
I often feel bad for those on the right such as Jeff Goldstein who try to make sense of someone on the left who treats them with disdain and disgust. Goldstein received an email from an old creative writing professor recently saying that he was disturbed by Goldstein’s writings and wanted Goldstein to remove his name from his “about page.” When Goldstein called Brian Kiteley, the professor, up on the phone for clarification, Kiteley called him names:
So I dialed him up and he answered. When I told him who was calling, he let out a forced “laugh” — I presume to show his bemused exasperation with my gall at having contacted him — and, when pressed, he called me a “jerk”.
No. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Never mind that Jeff Goldstein is a grown ass man who actually does jerky things on a fairly regular basis. And never mind that “jerk” is about as milquetoast an insult as you can get without quoting Victorian-era riposte about family lineage. Our sobby man-child is hurt, and hurt because he would never say mean or bad things about a person he’d disagree with. And certainly would never keep someone on his site who ran pictures of Obama dressed as an African tribal king. Alas, I digress from the awful victimization of good-hearted conservatives.
Initially, Goldstein says he was hurt by his professor’s intolerant attitude, but then, his hurt rightly turned to anger. This professor tolerated free speech only for liberal ideas. But shouldn’t we all have the right to free speech? Apparently, only if it’s left-leaning. And one would think a creative writing professor might be above this. But the problem is, he may have a blind spot when it comes to those on the right.
Whaaaaaa? He asked Goldstein to remove his name from a page because he didn’t want to be associated with Goldstein. Free speech doesn’t mean mandatory approval of ideas. I personally think Jeff Goldstein writes the internet version of splattered pig feces on a wall, but it doesn’t mean I don’t tolerate his writing of his unremitting crap - it just means that I don’t like it. There is no justification, no constitutional background, no anything for saying that you should be protected from people disliking what you say. To argue otherwise is the ultimate form of narcissism.