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Berkeley City Council Delves Back into National Politics

The Marine Corps issue may have fizzled, but apparently the City of Berkeley's passion for national and foreign policy burns on.

Next week the Berkeley City Council will vote on a resolution demanding the United States charge Boalt Professor John Yoo with war crimes. The Council will also consider "whether to order Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo's courses, so no student is forced to take a class from him if they don't want to." (SF Gate article here.) Never mind that the truth is any student CAN avoid his classes, or that the City can't "order" the university to offer courses -- the Council couldn't order the Marines out of its recruiting office either, but was that a stumbling block?

While it is difficult to imagine a dumber idea than attempting to go head-to-head with the United States Marine Corps, at least the City's behavior in that fiasco was (relatively) harmless. As I recall, it mostly amounted to a lot of public kissing. This resolution, however, is actually dangerous. Freedom of speech and liberal ideals cannot be squared with the idea that a city government may publicly disapprove of a political point of view. The use of governmental power to suppress controversial (even dangerous) viewpoints is a neo-conservative tactic more befitting Karl Rove than a local municipality. The City is taking exactly the kind of reactionary moral-low ground that the "birthplace of the Free Speech Movement" should reject. It is cancerous, it is dangerous, it is abusive, and (from this liberal's point of view) it is embarrassing.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).