Jonathan Falwell earned JD from William Howard Taft

I don't think that's true. I'm pretty sure that there's no unanimity on what is and what isn't 'hate speech'. This rather stupid flame-thread is good evidence of that.

Personally, I'm hesitant to define 'hate speech' based on its content. Doing so would imply that any speech whose content runs the risk of drawing an angry response is out of line. And that in turn would make it very difficult to say anything that's unpopular.

I'm more inclined to consider unpopular speech's motivation. I think that I would label an unpopular utterance as 'hate speech' if its purpose is less to communicate ideas than to inflame passions.

Applied to cases, I think that saying 'homosexuality is a sin' isn't necessarily 'hate speech', unless it was said to simply provoke anger. Similarly, saying that 'America is racist' isn't necessarily 'hate speech' unless it's just an insult.

Sometimes it's going to be hard to understand the motivations or the context. That's why I think that your 'res ipsa loquitur' idea fails. It isn't always going to be obvious. Falwell's remarks about sin and 9-11 probably fall in that category.

I suspect that he wasn't saying that abortion and homosexuality had angered God who unleashed 9-11 as judgement on America just in an attempt to piss people off. I think that Falwell was probably stating what he really believes and was expressing the implications of his theology.

To me, that's even scarier than if it was just intended as emotional provocation. But nevertheless it does seem to be a serious statement of an unpopular point of view. As such it probably should be addressed with serious counterargument and not just lazily dismissed.

Labeling ideas 'hate' is often just a lame excuse not to engage them with anything more taxing than insults.

Clear unambiguous examples of 'hate speech' do exist. If somebody were to address a black man as 'fucking nigger', that would be a clear provocation and wouldn't really communicate much of anything beyond that. So I wouldn't have much objection to simply dismissing the insult as an expression of 'hate'.

Maybe my bottom line is that 'hate speech' has a hostile affective purpose, while unpopular speech has real cognitive content and a serious (though perhaps a false and even dangerous) communicative purpose.

But the affective and cognitive aspects can and often do overlap and inevitably an awful lot of this is going to remain in the eye of the beholder.

 

Sorry, AV8R. I should've given you more credit for knowing how to spell (i.e., possibly the "mizspeeling" was "deliburt"). But since I was already the "Walking Dictionary" in Grade 1 (promoted to "Walking Encyclopedia" in Grade 2), I sometimes get that "spelling police" streak in me. Didn't mean to appear too juvenile or whiny.

 

Actually, DesElms, that's not entirely true. Perhaps in order to make my point more clear, I should have reversed my word order slightly by saying "the definition of a classical liberal ..." instead of "the classic definition of a liberal ..." In other words, I think we are getting hung up on the distinction between classical liberalism and neo-liberalism. From my recollection of Paul A. Lowdenslager's (BA, St. John's College; MA, University of Dallas; PhD, University of Illinois) PS 110: Modern Political Theory class at Western State College in Spring 1984, classical liberalism is the belief in natural rights, especially the rights of life, liberty, and property (which got transmogrified into the natural rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness on this side of the puddle). Neo-liberalism is the change-oriented liberalism that one so often associates with the 1960s and 1970s New Left. The thing is that things have become so liberal since the time of Hobbes (1651) and Locke (1689) that the entire political spectrum has moved to the left. Hence, if there were such a thing as a by now 400-year-old person who staked out a political position in the time of Hobbes and Locke and never deviated therefrom, though he/she may have been a liberal by seventeenth century standards, he/she would by now be a conservative (or even a reactionary). Hence, if you can believe it, Adam Smith, he of _Wealth of Nations_ (1776) fame, was considered a liberal in his own times as was Edmund Burke, he of _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (1791) fame. Both, I dare say, would be considered icons of conservative thought by today's standards. Thus arose the need for a new term, libertarianism, to describe seventeenth- and eighteenth-century liberalism in order to juxtapose it to twentieth- and twentyfirst-century liberalism.

 

Let's get with the PROGRAM, people!

ALRIGHT ALREADY!!

The purpose of THIS thread was to note the younger Falwell's accomplishment in finishing his J.D. from Taft.

I was HOPING for some catty remarks about the newspaper calling him "Doctor" Falwell based on his J.D. and some really fun but wild speculation on why he chose Taft over OakBrook or even over his father's own LU.

Sheesh!!

 

Re: Let's get with the PROGRAM, people!

Okay!

 

Damn! And I was just gettin' ramped-up to debate Ted regarding Hobbes and Locke and Smith and Burke and the alleged transformation of 17th and 18th century liberalism into 20th century libertarianism; and the equally-alleged leftward political shift that Ted seems to think has spawned neo-liberalism as something classic liberals wouldn't even recognize today.

As to Nosborne's comments: Hmm. Why did he choose a California DL JD over Liberty's law school? Choosing Taft over Oak Brook I think we can intuit. I think the DETC accreditation won out there. But why not LU? Good question.

As for calling him "Doctor" by virtue of his having a JD, I think I'm on record around here saying that that's probably not cool. Most lawyers don't think it's cool... unless maybe they're teaching... and even then most don't buy in.

Truth is, I wouldn't call him "Doctor" even if he had an RA PhD... just to piss him off!

There. Are we back on topic now?

 

"Primarily populated by liberal ideology..."

You're kidding, my china, you simply must be kidding.

If this is so, why don't I have a problem?

 

Darn! I was hoping to hear back from my dear friend DesElms about classical liberalism, neo-liberalism, and libertarianism. Plus, I was hoping to hear from that avuncular preacher about the zebras!

 

Oy, Ted!

 

Aw, Uncle Janko! Do you not like your little nephew? I thought I was your esteemed colleague.

 

Everyone, please watch the name-calling.

 

Re: Let's get with the PROGRAM, people!

Maybe, like many other DL students, he simply had other commitments in life that did not allow him to set aside three years of his life strictly for school.

Sorry - not too wild of a speculation.

 

It might also be that the younger Falwell felt that getting his law degree at LU might have a pall of nepotism cast over the authenticity of his accomplishments. After all, degreeinfo posters have often remarked upon less-than-wonderful schools that were clearly family businessses and where the various relatives mostly had their degrees from the operation they ran.

I am no fan of the Falwells, but I don't see any problem here at all.

 

Whatever his reasons, a Taft degree is a solid accomplishment.

 

Re: Let's get with the PROGRAM, people!

Correct me if I'm wrong someone, but I was of the impression that Liberty University School of Law is still a relatively new thing. So it might not have even been around three or four or five years ago when young Mr. Fallwell was busy choosing a law school.

Also, entrepreneurs often have a succession plan in which the younger generation is to gain experience elsewhere before joining the family firm (perhaps so that the heirs can spy on the competition and/or learn alternate ways of doing things).

 

I think that LU is now finishing up its first set of 2Ls which means it should be receiving provisional ABA accreditation soon.

But Falwell the Younger surely knew about his father's intent to start the school at least two years before LU Law opened its doors.

If Jonathan passes the California Bar exam, any ABA school, including LU, could give him up to 44 hours of credit toward its own J.D. That'd be about half of the total credit hour requirements.

 

Is that just for the California Bar, or anyone who passes any state bar exam?

 

Okay. My UNDERSTANDING is that an ABA school may give a licensed attorney from any common law jurisdiction up to 44 s.h. of advanced standing.

I saw it done once with a barrister and solicitor from Alberta. He had an LL.B. from Alberta. The University of New Mexico required something like three semesters in residence and around 45 s.h. to grant him a J.D.

Interesting note: Since he already had a first professional degree in law, he was required to maintain a higher overall GPA in his J.D. studies than the rest of the class. The University apparently treated his J.D. as a graduate degree.

Second interesting note: IIUC, he could have opted to take the Bar in any of several other states that would have required NO further education, such as my home State of Washington. But New Mexico wouldn't go for it; it was "ABA or the Highway" here.

 

So, if one has a graduate degree, your law school requires a higher GPA than from someone with just an undergrad degree?