Idiocy Quotes
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Ironically, during the McCarthy period and the Red Scare of the 1950s, some of the right wingers charged that Mark Twain’s writing was “Communist Propaganda”. Most of the accusers had never read most of Train’s work. At the time, the Communists had condemned the racial segregation that was then legal in America and most of the staunch Southern segregationists accused anyone who attacked segregation as a communist. Twain was one of the leading voices against American racism. As for communism, the accusers of Train had probably never read this particular quotation. Twain was an early severe critic of communism and used his favorite weapon—humor—to attack it.
The Congressman was a rabid foe of immigration in general and possible illegal immigration in particular (See {614687}). As his colleagues were trying to improve the methods of identifying illegal workers at the job hiring stage, they were very concerned that law enforcment and some employers would make judgments about the likely criminal status of a person based on his/her ethnicity, race or other general superficial characteristics.
The reference was to the Royal Governor of New York, William Cosby. He was not mentioned by name but the context was very clear that it was he who was being lampooned. The Governor was furious, and had the New York Weekly Journal press burned to the ground. Then the crown prosecuted the publisher, Peter Zenger. This was one of the most famous trials in American history. Although it was clear that the existing law against defamation had been violated, the jury of New York colonists acquitted Zenger. To this day prosecutors in England and America are very worried about what has been called “jury nullification” of the law, and every state except Maryland has strung laws making it difficult if not impossible for a defense attorney to even suggest that the jury should quit because the law is wanting or unjust. The 1st Amendment was very much influences by the Zenger case.
Horowitz who preaches against tenure and academic freedom gives his opponents wonderful ammunition to support the concepts. His definition of “idiot” is people who have what he believes is a naïve liberal view of politics whom he argues should not be paid to speak, write and possibly indoctrinate students. So a mathematics professor, teaching algebraic topology, but supports Hezbollah for example should be purged from his job. It is just that point of view that was responsible for having tenure and academic freedom in universities in the first place.
It was his message about the possibilities about the atomic bomb that Albert Einstein transmitted to FDR, leading to American development of the bomb.
