Hamas started this part of the war.. Israel has been fighting different countries for centuries. Time for it to stop. But Hamas (Palestinians) brought this on themselves.
First, I know Michael and was there when they blocked Goldie and Federal Donuts. These restaurants were targeted specifically because Michael is Jewish and because they are Jewish themed. It was intimidation.
Foreign students in the U.S. have the right to free speech and peaceful protest under the First Amendment. But getting arrested or facing discipline—even during a protest—can affect your immigration status lead up to and include deportation. If a tourist traveled to American for the purpose of attending protests and rallies, peaceful or otherwise, they would never be granted a visa, nor the F1 visa. It need not be property damage or a violent crime. A DUI gets an F1 visa holder deported. They are here for an education. Writing a dissenting argument against Israel is fair game. Not attending class to attend protests should result in disciplinary action at the school level, which should flag them to the state department.
You collectivism argument is silly. A some human rights, though inalienable, are not protected by law unless you are American. A F1 visa holder has the right to defend themselves, but does not have the right to secure a firearm to do it.
Finally, a foreign national who overstayed his visa attacked Jewish people in Colorado shouting, "Free Palestine". Two Jewish foreign nationals attending and event is DC were murdered on the street, again with shouts of "Free Palestine". Replace Jew with Russian, "insurance for all" and my position is the same. I am cold to the arguments of America's past involvement in nation building. I'm not interested in nation building Ukraine or Israel. Or Palestine.
On this, I am comfortable with the American Government, pushing as hard as the Judiciary will permit. While a heavy handed Israeli government is true, so is rampant and unopposed antisemitism on our college campuses. Further, foreign nationals are welcome to study in the USA, but are not welcome to bring there sectarian conflicts with them. As far as I am concerned, they are violating the rules of there F1 visa, a contract, which supersedes speech. Rubio, as the holder of that contract, has broad discretion on giving and taking them. If the court believes otherwise, great, game on. Settle it in court.
It's exasperating that you still subscribe to the myth of "rampant and unopposed antisemitism on our college campuses." After all, it was a personal conversation with you about the veracity of that claim as it related to the University of Pennsylvania that prompted me to spend a week painstakingly combing through the 84-page complaint filed by Penn students making that allegation in a civil suit, researching the particulars, and then writing a 5,000-word article (link below*) showing that nearly every alleged antisemitic incident in the complaint was merely an instance in which Penn students, professors and guest speakers engaged in political expression that proponents of the State of Israel strongly disagree with. Yet here you are, 17 months later, not only embracing that false premise but using it to rationalize mass political censorship that's contrary to your usual embrace of human rights under natural law.
Next, we come to the towering irony of you bemoaning foreign students "bringing their sectarian conflicts" to the United States, when the United States government -- casting aside its founders admonitions against foreign entanglements -- is choosing to involve itself in those conflicts, most notably by enabling Israel's absolutely horrific and amoral rampage in Gaza through the provision of bombs, money and diplomatic cover. The US government's elective participation in that "sectarian conflict" is the principal animator of the protests across our country.
The case in my article above focuses on a Turkish student opining about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Are you really endorsing a blanket prohibition on foreign students peacefully expressing political opinions, from op-eds to marches and demonstrations? Would you be agitated if a political science student from Italy wrote an op-ed about US policy on Taiwan? Is a British grad student in international tax accounting allowed to condemn Elizabeth Warren's proposal for a US wealth tax? Or, as I suspect, do you only insist on banning foreign students' speech that condemns Israel and hurts the feelings of that single country's proponents?
Your claim that writing an opinion piece or peacefully engaging in demonstrations violates the provisions of US student visas is entirely fictional. Perhaps you'd like to establish such a provision banning political expression by foreign students, and I'd love to see how you'd articulate it. Indeed, it would probably be a good exercise for you: I like to imagine that, as you read the words you've drafted, you'd suddenly exclaim, "My God, what am I saying?!"
Thank you, Scott, for your truly energizing comments!
* Penn Students' Lawsuit Shows Campus Antisemitism Uproar is a Manufactured Crisis
** BONUS READING on how a completely unwarranted penchant for the State of Israel leads patriots like Scott far astray from America's founding principles, to the enormous detriment of our republic:
George Washington Warned Against A "Passionate Attachment" To Israel
I’m not a Zionist. My first responsibility is to American citizens. The nuanced argument that you make isn’t lost on me, however it is lost on the many many protestors, who align themselves with Jewish hate while rightfully critical of Israel. But it is the actions that follow, here in the United States, that I I object to. I am neither impassioned by the death of Gaza citizens, nor am I impassioned about the sovereignty of Israel. I am however, sick and tired of grifters living off the generosity of the American taxpayer. I resent the funding of fat cat universities and the Marxist idealism and indoctrination. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of rabble rousers on F1 visas. I’m sick of the flaccid judicial system that seek to block the executive at every turn but did nothing about the 10-15 million illegals that entered the country during the Biden administration. I’m sick of the media that takes contrary position after position simple to put eyeball on their screens. How people have used the constitution to operate outside of the interest of Americans needs to stop; including the bastardization of birth right citizenship.
Should F1 visa holder enjoy the rights of the American citizen? No. Because they are foreign nationals governed by their home country that would not extend that the very right you freely give them. They are entitled to protection offered by the US government, but not equal to Citizens rights. Sorry. The care you wish to offer is a luxury when the others, like the Biden administration, destroys the immigration laws that would afford such nuance.
And btw; I witnessed Jewish hate (the blocking of students, boycotting restaurants, threatening patrons of the restaurants) here in Philadelphia. It’s a problem. The destruction of Gaza is a problem too, it’s just not an American one.
Thanks for sharing that link, John. The top chart shows Egypt as the second-largest cumulative aid recipient, however, as you may know, US aid to Egypt is effectively aid to Israel too -- since it springs from commitments made pursuant to the 1979 Camp David Accords peace treaty between the two countries.
Lots there. I'll respond to several of your points:
"I am...sick and tired of grifters living off the generosity of the American taxpayer."
--Where America's international relationships are concerned, there's no greater grifter than the State of Israel. Billions of dollars of US wealth redistributed every year to one of the world's most well-off countries... double the aid given to all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It's worse than a waste of money, because it also incites terrorism against innocent Americans. (If you tell me that you'd like to cut off US aid to Israel -- and maybe, like me, every other country -- contemplate the fact that you're cheering on the federal government imprisoning people for simply saying the same thing.)
"The destruction of Gaza is a problem too, it’s just not an American one."
--If you were a stranger to me, I'd be certain you're just trolling me at this point. The war on Gaza is an Israeli-American war. Israel has received 940 US weapons shipments during the Gaza war, including 2,000-pound bombs the IDF has employed in a civilian-slaughtering way that has shocked military experts. It's bad enough you want to ignore all that, but it's supremely aggravating that you also want to punish foreign students who peacefully call attention to it. (Note I'm all for deporting anyone who's committed property and other crimes during protests.)
"Should F1 visa holder enjoy the rights of the American citizen? No. Because they are foreign nationals governed by their home country that would not extend that the very right you freely give them."
--You've slipped into a terrible collectivism. Every individual has the right to speak their mind; the policies that apply in their home countries are irrelevant. I'd have expected you to understand that rights are not privileges granted by governments, but my repeated emphasis of that point continues to bounce off you.
Because a small minority of both American and foreign students have acted badly during protests, you want to take away every foreign student's inalienable right to express themselves. You're like gun control advocates who say that, because some people misuse AR-15's, nobody should be allowed to have one. Your stance may be even worse -- I can't get over my shock that you think Ozturk shouldn't be allowed to write an opinion piece about her own university's investments in Israel, and that the government is right to suddenly revoke her visa and put her in a Louisiana prison pending deportation because she did. Jaw-dropping.
"I witnessed Jewish hate (the blocking of students, boycotting restaurants, threatening patrons of the restaurants) here in Philadelphia."
--I'm not sure which restaurants you're talking about, but here's how I addressed, (in my article* on Penn students' bogus antisemitism lawsuit) the Philly restaurant incident that received the most press:
Generating headlines and a social media firestorm, a Penn student protest march on Dec. 3 proceeded into Center City Philadelphia and a restaurant called Goldie, where students put pro-Palestinian stickers on the door and chanted “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
Either out of ignorance or an attempt to mislead, the complaint falsely says they did so “solely because it is owned by an Israeli Jew.” That was the narrative that prevailed in the protest’s aftermath, with politicians like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro carelessly racing to call it a “blatant act of antisemitism…reminiscent of a dark time in history.”
However, Goldie and other restaurants owned by the same man, Michael Solomonov, had already been the subject of calls for boycotts, due to his pro-Israel political involvements.
Earlier in October, Solomonov announced he would donate all the store’s profits for a day to a non-profit that outfits the Israel Defense Forces with protective and medical gear. He also hosted a political fundraiser attended by various pro-Israel lobbyists and officials, and is affiliated with the Israel Ministry of Tourism.
Freedom of speech does not apply to non-citizens in many countries - it is not a fundamental right. I am an resident in Mexico and we are prohibited from participating in politics, demonstrations, etc.
While I agree with you on Israel, I do not like non citizens trying to influence US policy. This is particularly true of the Cuban community. If one wants to change their country then act like a Mandela and go and do it.
It is ironic that the Cuban community in south Florida has given full-throated approval to Marco Rubio, who has ridden their "right to speech" into the highest echelons of power and is now attempting to shut down that right.
Human rights, including speech, existed before government and continue to exist independent of government. You have the human right to express your political opinion in Mexico and everywhere else on the planet. What you are actually telling us is that the government of Mexico *infringes* on your right. That doesn't justify other governments doing the same thing in varying degrees, whether it's Marco Rubio in the United States or Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
I suspect that the right to speech has truly never existed. Even within simple relationships between spouses or family members, one learns to suppress speech to prevent arguments. .
Where do you believe it existed prior to governance?
In the human community, there are rights which are inherent and there are privileges which are granted. These should not be confused. Some things are ours solely due to the fact that we are human and were born with them--the right to our own opinion, the right to defend ourselves, the right to live, the right to love, the right to associate with certain people and to avoid others, the right to decide what to believe, the right to work, the right to own property, among many others unmentioned.
The right to speak (communicate) falls within this category, and has been in existence from the very beginning. Newborn infants, in response to a slap on the bare rump, will express their indignation at the assault and no one can take that away from them. Over time, they learn to moderate their speech in order to, as you say, prevent arguments, but they always have the right to say whatever they wish, understanding that there is the risk of creating conflict which might have devastating consequences.
Personal moderation of speech is an acquired trait called self-control, exercised voluntarily to enhance and build relationships between people, but learning to control what you say to someone else has nothing to do with the principle that we are all born with the right to speak and to make our voices known, whether for good or evil. Brian is absolutely right about this.
You mention governance, by which I am going to assume you mean government. Without ever getting into the difference (substantial) between governance and government, your argument falls flat due to the fact that government could have never come about without two or more people talking about it. Without prior discussion, government would have never originated nor been implemented. It did not just spring into being but came about because people, through their speech, agreed that 'thus and so' ought to be the law of the land, the way things should be run. It is simply NOT possible that government and governance predate speech, rather the other way around. Speech ALWAYS comes before any form of government, applied in a voluntary fashion (self-control) or imposed forcibly from without (law).
As I said in the article, rights are not government-granted privileges; they spring from our humanity. That's why I say they predate government.
As to your other comment, the choice to voluntarily moderate your own speech, whether in your kitchen, a movie theater or the town square, has nothing to do with the principle of freedom of expression.
She has no business being in the country anyway, no matter her politics
Hamas (Palestinians) started the war. Hamas. Was stealing their aid. I call B S on her..
How can anyone still believe that Hamas started the war? History started on October 7th??
Hamas started this part of the war.. Israel has been fighting different countries for centuries. Time for it to stop. But Hamas (Palestinians) brought this on themselves.
What a crock from anti-semitic muslim enemies of the planet!
Deport Marxist Rubio! (To an appropriate, harsh prison)
First, I know Michael and was there when they blocked Goldie and Federal Donuts. These restaurants were targeted specifically because Michael is Jewish and because they are Jewish themed. It was intimidation.
Foreign students in the U.S. have the right to free speech and peaceful protest under the First Amendment. But getting arrested or facing discipline—even during a protest—can affect your immigration status lead up to and include deportation. If a tourist traveled to American for the purpose of attending protests and rallies, peaceful or otherwise, they would never be granted a visa, nor the F1 visa. It need not be property damage or a violent crime. A DUI gets an F1 visa holder deported. They are here for an education. Writing a dissenting argument against Israel is fair game. Not attending class to attend protests should result in disciplinary action at the school level, which should flag them to the state department.
You collectivism argument is silly. A some human rights, though inalienable, are not protected by law unless you are American. A F1 visa holder has the right to defend themselves, but does not have the right to secure a firearm to do it.
Finally, a foreign national who overstayed his visa attacked Jewish people in Colorado shouting, "Free Palestine". Two Jewish foreign nationals attending and event is DC were murdered on the street, again with shouts of "Free Palestine". Replace Jew with Russian, "insurance for all" and my position is the same. I am cold to the arguments of America's past involvement in nation building. I'm not interested in nation building Ukraine or Israel. Or Palestine.
Excellent presentation. People who want to purge America of views they don't like reveal their own cowardice: they are frightened of words.
On this, I am comfortable with the American Government, pushing as hard as the Judiciary will permit. While a heavy handed Israeli government is true, so is rampant and unopposed antisemitism on our college campuses. Further, foreign nationals are welcome to study in the USA, but are not welcome to bring there sectarian conflicts with them. As far as I am concerned, they are violating the rules of there F1 visa, a contract, which supersedes speech. Rubio, as the holder of that contract, has broad discretion on giving and taking them. If the court believes otherwise, great, game on. Settle it in court.
They are conflating anti Israel policies with antisemitism. An old trick.
Ok Boomer
It's exasperating that you still subscribe to the myth of "rampant and unopposed antisemitism on our college campuses." After all, it was a personal conversation with you about the veracity of that claim as it related to the University of Pennsylvania that prompted me to spend a week painstakingly combing through the 84-page complaint filed by Penn students making that allegation in a civil suit, researching the particulars, and then writing a 5,000-word article (link below*) showing that nearly every alleged antisemitic incident in the complaint was merely an instance in which Penn students, professors and guest speakers engaged in political expression that proponents of the State of Israel strongly disagree with. Yet here you are, 17 months later, not only embracing that false premise but using it to rationalize mass political censorship that's contrary to your usual embrace of human rights under natural law.
Next, we come to the towering irony of you bemoaning foreign students "bringing their sectarian conflicts" to the United States, when the United States government -- casting aside its founders admonitions against foreign entanglements -- is choosing to involve itself in those conflicts, most notably by enabling Israel's absolutely horrific and amoral rampage in Gaza through the provision of bombs, money and diplomatic cover. The US government's elective participation in that "sectarian conflict" is the principal animator of the protests across our country.
The case in my article above focuses on a Turkish student opining about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Are you really endorsing a blanket prohibition on foreign students peacefully expressing political opinions, from op-eds to marches and demonstrations? Would you be agitated if a political science student from Italy wrote an op-ed about US policy on Taiwan? Is a British grad student in international tax accounting allowed to condemn Elizabeth Warren's proposal for a US wealth tax? Or, as I suspect, do you only insist on banning foreign students' speech that condemns Israel and hurts the feelings of that single country's proponents?
Your claim that writing an opinion piece or peacefully engaging in demonstrations violates the provisions of US student visas is entirely fictional. Perhaps you'd like to establish such a provision banning political expression by foreign students, and I'd love to see how you'd articulate it. Indeed, it would probably be a good exercise for you: I like to imagine that, as you read the words you've drafted, you'd suddenly exclaim, "My God, what am I saying?!"
Thank you, Scott, for your truly energizing comments!
* Penn Students' Lawsuit Shows Campus Antisemitism Uproar is a Manufactured Crisis
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/penn-students-lawsuit-shows-campus
** BONUS READING on how a completely unwarranted penchant for the State of Israel leads patriots like Scott far astray from America's founding principles, to the enormous detriment of our republic:
George Washington Warned Against A "Passionate Attachment" To Israel
https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/george-washington-warned-against
I’m not a Zionist. My first responsibility is to American citizens. The nuanced argument that you make isn’t lost on me, however it is lost on the many many protestors, who align themselves with Jewish hate while rightfully critical of Israel. But it is the actions that follow, here in the United States, that I I object to. I am neither impassioned by the death of Gaza citizens, nor am I impassioned about the sovereignty of Israel. I am however, sick and tired of grifters living off the generosity of the American taxpayer. I resent the funding of fat cat universities and the Marxist idealism and indoctrination. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of rabble rousers on F1 visas. I’m sick of the flaccid judicial system that seek to block the executive at every turn but did nothing about the 10-15 million illegals that entered the country during the Biden administration. I’m sick of the media that takes contrary position after position simple to put eyeball on their screens. How people have used the constitution to operate outside of the interest of Americans needs to stop; including the bastardization of birth right citizenship.
Should F1 visa holder enjoy the rights of the American citizen? No. Because they are foreign nationals governed by their home country that would not extend that the very right you freely give them. They are entitled to protection offered by the US government, but not equal to Citizens rights. Sorry. The care you wish to offer is a luxury when the others, like the Biden administration, destroys the immigration laws that would afford such nuance.
And btw; I witnessed Jewish hate (the blocking of students, boycotting restaurants, threatening patrons of the restaurants) here in Philadelphia. It’s a problem. The destruction of Gaza is a problem too, it’s just not an American one.
hey jew boy you never complained about 50 years of total anti white teachings taught to college kids. go back to hell you miserable demon jew bastard
I'm sick of the grifters in Tel Aviv living off US largess https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts
Thanks for sharing that link, John. The top chart shows Egypt as the second-largest cumulative aid recipient, however, as you may know, US aid to Egypt is effectively aid to Israel too -- since it springs from commitments made pursuant to the 1979 Camp David Accords peace treaty between the two countries.
Lots there. I'll respond to several of your points:
"I am...sick and tired of grifters living off the generosity of the American taxpayer."
--Where America's international relationships are concerned, there's no greater grifter than the State of Israel. Billions of dollars of US wealth redistributed every year to one of the world's most well-off countries... double the aid given to all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It's worse than a waste of money, because it also incites terrorism against innocent Americans. (If you tell me that you'd like to cut off US aid to Israel -- and maybe, like me, every other country -- contemplate the fact that you're cheering on the federal government imprisoning people for simply saying the same thing.)
"The destruction of Gaza is a problem too, it’s just not an American one."
--If you were a stranger to me, I'd be certain you're just trolling me at this point. The war on Gaza is an Israeli-American war. Israel has received 940 US weapons shipments during the Gaza war, including 2,000-pound bombs the IDF has employed in a civilian-slaughtering way that has shocked military experts. It's bad enough you want to ignore all that, but it's supremely aggravating that you also want to punish foreign students who peacefully call attention to it. (Note I'm all for deporting anyone who's committed property and other crimes during protests.)
"Should F1 visa holder enjoy the rights of the American citizen? No. Because they are foreign nationals governed by their home country that would not extend that the very right you freely give them."
--You've slipped into a terrible collectivism. Every individual has the right to speak their mind; the policies that apply in their home countries are irrelevant. I'd have expected you to understand that rights are not privileges granted by governments, but my repeated emphasis of that point continues to bounce off you.
Because a small minority of both American and foreign students have acted badly during protests, you want to take away every foreign student's inalienable right to express themselves. You're like gun control advocates who say that, because some people misuse AR-15's, nobody should be allowed to have one. Your stance may be even worse -- I can't get over my shock that you think Ozturk shouldn't be allowed to write an opinion piece about her own university's investments in Israel, and that the government is right to suddenly revoke her visa and put her in a Louisiana prison pending deportation because she did. Jaw-dropping.
"I witnessed Jewish hate (the blocking of students, boycotting restaurants, threatening patrons of the restaurants) here in Philadelphia."
--I'm not sure which restaurants you're talking about, but here's how I addressed, (in my article* on Penn students' bogus antisemitism lawsuit) the Philly restaurant incident that received the most press:
Generating headlines and a social media firestorm, a Penn student protest march on Dec. 3 proceeded into Center City Philadelphia and a restaurant called Goldie, where students put pro-Palestinian stickers on the door and chanted “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
Either out of ignorance or an attempt to mislead, the complaint falsely says they did so “solely because it is owned by an Israeli Jew.” That was the narrative that prevailed in the protest’s aftermath, with politicians like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro carelessly racing to call it a “blatant act of antisemitism…reminiscent of a dark time in history.”
However, Goldie and other restaurants owned by the same man, Michael Solomonov, had already been the subject of calls for boycotts, due to his pro-Israel political involvements.
Earlier in October, Solomonov announced he would donate all the store’s profits for a day to a non-profit that outfits the Israel Defense Forces with protective and medical gear. He also hosted a political fundraiser attended by various pro-Israel lobbyists and officials, and is affiliated with the Israel Ministry of Tourism.
* https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/penn-students-lawsuit-shows-campus
Freedom of speech does not apply to non-citizens in many countries - it is not a fundamental right. I am an resident in Mexico and we are prohibited from participating in politics, demonstrations, etc.
While I agree with you on Israel, I do not like non citizens trying to influence US policy. This is particularly true of the Cuban community. If one wants to change their country then act like a Mandela and go and do it.
Many countries also have hate speech laws on their own citizens and outright censorship of views government officials dislike.
Those countries are not America, and I see no reason to emulate them.
It is ironic that the Cuban community in south Florida has given full-throated approval to Marco Rubio, who has ridden their "right to speech" into the highest echelons of power and is now attempting to shut down that right.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
Human rights, including speech, existed before government and continue to exist independent of government. You have the human right to express your political opinion in Mexico and everywhere else on the planet. What you are actually telling us is that the government of Mexico *infringes* on your right. That doesn't justify other governments doing the same thing in varying degrees, whether it's Marco Rubio in the United States or Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
Sign an NDA and you voluntarily limit your speech.
I suspect that the right to speech has truly never existed. Even within simple relationships between spouses or family members, one learns to suppress speech to prevent arguments. .
Where do you believe it existed prior to governance?
In the human community, there are rights which are inherent and there are privileges which are granted. These should not be confused. Some things are ours solely due to the fact that we are human and were born with them--the right to our own opinion, the right to defend ourselves, the right to live, the right to love, the right to associate with certain people and to avoid others, the right to decide what to believe, the right to work, the right to own property, among many others unmentioned.
The right to speak (communicate) falls within this category, and has been in existence from the very beginning. Newborn infants, in response to a slap on the bare rump, will express their indignation at the assault and no one can take that away from them. Over time, they learn to moderate their speech in order to, as you say, prevent arguments, but they always have the right to say whatever they wish, understanding that there is the risk of creating conflict which might have devastating consequences.
Personal moderation of speech is an acquired trait called self-control, exercised voluntarily to enhance and build relationships between people, but learning to control what you say to someone else has nothing to do with the principle that we are all born with the right to speak and to make our voices known, whether for good or evil. Brian is absolutely right about this.
You mention governance, by which I am going to assume you mean government. Without ever getting into the difference (substantial) between governance and government, your argument falls flat due to the fact that government could have never come about without two or more people talking about it. Without prior discussion, government would have never originated nor been implemented. It did not just spring into being but came about because people, through their speech, agreed that 'thus and so' ought to be the law of the land, the way things should be run. It is simply NOT possible that government and governance predate speech, rather the other way around. Speech ALWAYS comes before any form of government, applied in a voluntary fashion (self-control) or imposed forcibly from without (law).
Extremely well-articulated, Roger. Thank you for joining the discussion.
As I said in the article, rights are not government-granted privileges; they spring from our humanity. That's why I say they predate government.
As to your other comment, the choice to voluntarily moderate your own speech, whether in your kitchen, a movie theater or the town square, has nothing to do with the principle of freedom of expression.
Psalm 1:1a "Fortunate is the man who does not walk in the council of the ungodly."
Rights do not spring from humanity, they are God (YVH) given!