Issue I: The Banned Subreddit. Above you see a posted photo of some sick fan-girls’s shrine to University of Idaho student massacre suspect Bryan Kohberger. On the massive social media site Reddit, a “subreddit” titled “Brynation” emerged after Kohberger’s arrest late last year for the murders of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. The Reddit group, which included women professing to be infatuated with the accused killer as well as amateur sleuths who maintained that he was innocent, had grown to more than 500 members before it was banned from the platform for allegedly violating Reddit’s Moderator Code of Conduct. As is typical with such social media bans, Reddit didn’t specify the exact offense.

Reddit can ban whatever and whoever it chooses; the question is when it is ethical to do so. There are too many arguably sick subreddits to list, including many involving fetishes, which the common phenomenon of women being smitten by murderers certainly is. At this point, Bryan Kohberger is presumed innocent in the eyes of the law. I just heard an “expert” opine that social media outlets have an “obligation” to control and minimize “hate speech” on their platforms, which he defined as speech that could provoke violence or “harm” individuals, and cited Reddit’s action as an example of responsible social media management. The Fox News interviewer just nodded like one of those plastic dogs people used to put in the rear windows of their cars.

How is chatting online about an accused murderer “hate speech”? The expert’s fatuous (but popular!) position demonstrates exactly what’s unethical about the anti-“hate speech” movement on the Left: the term literally can mean any speech the censors don’t like, disagree with, or find “icky.” The participants in the banned subreddit were not doing anything likely to result in violence: has anyone ever become a serial killer to be more attractive to women? Thinking isn’t dangerous; talking on line about one’s thoughts isn’t dangerous either, or unethical.

In a purported democracy, the culture should lean hard in the direction of free expression, with all expression given a strong presumption of legitimacy. People like Fox’s “expert” do the opposite, and are working to shift our culture toward concepts of GoodThink and BadThink, with the distinctions being dictated by powerful corporations, Big Tech, social media, the news media, educational institutions and, of course, the government.

Weird people have rights too.

Issue I (a): The First Amendment Deniers. Professor Turley posted a fairly indignant essay (for him) condemning the politicians, academics and others who continue to spread the misinformation that “hate speech” isn’t protected under the Constitution. “For those who often rail against “disinformation,” the law professor writes, “this is a particularly dangerous false narrative meant to support expanded censorship and speech controls.” Bingo! Read all of “Yes, Hate Speech Is Protected Under the First Amendment,” but what was especially disturbing in the essay was Turley’s revelation that even some dictionaries are spreading the false propaganda that “hate speech” (whatever it is) isn’t protected by the Bill of Rights. For example, here’s Webster’s New World Law Dictionary, to name one horrible example, which defines “hate speech”as :

“Speech not protected by the First Amendment, because it is intended to foster hatred against individuals or groups based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, place of national origin, or other improper classification.”

That is false.

Nobody should trust or use any Webster’s dictionary until the company retracts it.

Issue II: ‘Bad house! Bad!’

The University of Idaho announced last week that it has acquired the off-campus house in Moscow where the murder of the four students too place, and  plans to demolish the home as “an important ‘healing step.'” How learned, unemotional, responsible and rational of the school! That makes as much sense as Rhett Butler shooting the pony his daughter died riding when she fell off and broke her neck.

Carl Sagan wrote a best-seller about how scientists and scholars had an obligation to enlighten society and guide them away from superstition and irrational fears: “The Demon-Haunted World“. Why is an institution of higher learning behaving as if the house were haunted, and encouraging irrational  those prone to believe in curses, “bad houses” and the lingering auras of tragic events? Why would any parents entrust their children to a school whose administrators have the sensibilities of mystics?

The least the school could do before destroying the house would be to hold a seance, or call the Ghostbusters….