OK, time to guess the source of this fine quote:<\/p>\n

\nLife in America shows that liberty, paired with law is not to be feared. In a free society, diversity is not disorder. Debate is not strife. And dissent is not revolution. A free society trusts its citizens to seek greatness in themselves and their country.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Think, think, think…<\/p>\n

Nope, not one of those radical pinko wackos that we’re all so worried about…<\/p>\n

It’s … <drum roll> … Our President! That’s right, Our Fearless Leader uttered these fine words at Tsinghua University in Beijing in February of 2002. (Read the full text on WhiteHouse.gov<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Wow.<\/p>\n

A cynic could take this as further evidence that GWB is in fact a robot<\/a>, but I’m not going there.<\/p>\n

My current task in life is to acquire a shirt emblazoned with these excellent sentiments. Luckily American Apology<\/a> will cater to that whim nicely (and it is through them that we discovered the quote). SorryEverybody<\/a> also has some cool shirts that I covet. With a little luck I can get thrown out of an event<\/a> by Our Fearless Leader’s thugs<\/strike> minions<\/strike> associates, who also presumably don’t understand the import of these words.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’m also going to change my university home page<\/a> to feature that quote instead of the info on John Peel’s passing<\/a>. John was amazing and great and dearly missed, but it’s been five months and the time has come for something new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, time to guess the source of this fine quote: Life in America shows that liberty, paired with law is not to be feared. In a free society, diversity is not disorder. Debate is not strife. And dissent is not revolution. A free society trusts its citizens to seek greatness in themselves and their country. … Continue reading “I just wish Ashcroft had gotten the memo”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-1B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":258,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/11\/15\/share-the-bill-of-rights-over-your-thanksgiving-dinner\/","url_meta":{"origin":99,"position":0},"title":"Share the Bill of Rights over your Thanksgiving dinner","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"15 Nov 05","format":false,"excerpt":"This is old news, but it's new to me (which just shows how out of it I am!). Back in January the Knight Foundation published a study of over 100,000 US high school students which found that these kids (who will be in my classes over the next several years)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":592,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/27\/fine-photographs-fine-discussion\/","url_meta":{"origin":99,"position":1},"title":"Fine photographs; fine discussion","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"27 Jun 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Magnum has an excellent retrospective of Elliott Erwitt's work. The whole photoessay takes something like half an hour to go through, but is definitely worth the time. I'm not thrilled by all the photos they've chosen (some seem a bit too clever), but there are some wonderfully evocative, insightful images\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/08\/07\/sub-evil-boy-does-another-fine-job-in-peter-pan\/","url_meta":{"origin":99,"position":2},"title":"Sub-Evil Boy does another fine job in Peter Pan","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"7 Aug 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Sub-Evil Boy (and about 80 other kids) just finished another crazy week at the Prairie Fire summer theater camp in Barrett, Minnesota. This summer's play was their adaptation of Peter Pan, which was a bit odd since Sub-Evil had played the part of John in the high school production of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":370,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/08\/15\/anyone-know-where-i-can-buy-louis-youngblood\/","url_meta":{"origin":99,"position":3},"title":"Anyone know where I can buy Louis Youngblood?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"15 Aug 06","format":false,"excerpt":"I discovered the song \"Big road blues\" from the album Gearshifter on Pandora (which I've grown way attached to recently - kudos to Brian for the tip). This song is way cool, and I suspect I'd really dig the whole album, but I can't seem to find it for sale\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hot licks","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/73\/212895181_69f34010ea.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":433,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/01\/31\/hard-candy-is-some-fine-stuff\/","url_meta":{"origin":99,"position":4},"title":"Hard Candy is some fine stuff","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"31 Jan 07","format":false,"excerpt":"WeatherGirl has written one of her wonderful mini-reviews of the film Hard Candy, which we saw over the weekend. I just want to echo the positive sentiments. It's a remarkable example of the power of quality writing and acting, of creativity and talent over special effects and flash. 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