Long May the Spirit of "Joliet" Jake E. Blues bless America

The Washington Post publishes a piece, When ‘free speech’ becomes a political weapon by Jennifer Delton who is the Douglas Family Chair in American culture, history, and literary and interdisciplinary studies at Skidmore College.

After reading the article:


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One more little hot house academic who is sick and tired of free speech fundamentalists who stand in the way of the platonic philosopher kings imposing their putrid postmodernist, critical theory infused totalitarian utopia on everyone else. Or, in her own words:

It was one thing to defend the Ku Klux Klan's right to march in Skokie, Ill. in 1977, when the liberal establishment and mainstream media were still intact and KKK was a marginal fringe group. The KKK was offensive, but neither its actions nor its ideas posed a threat to the political or social order, which was stable. The situation is different today, with an erratic President Trump in the White House, elites in disarray and white nationalism on the rise. In this situation, and against this foe, it may be worth remembering that our constitutional rights are not unchanging abstract principles, but, as Hook and Schlesinger argued, always evaluated in terms of their consequences for society at any given historical moment.

What ignorance on stilts.

If you are going to say something foolish, at least get your facts straight so that you don't also look stupid. The immortal Blues Brothers can teach the Douglas Family Chair in American culture, history, and literary and interdisciplinary studies at Skidmore College some real American history.


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Cost of an education at Skidmore College? $65,000 a year. Cost of a Blues Brothers DVD? $9.99. And at least with the DVD you get some laughs with the facts.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has since updated the article to correctly identify that it was the despicable Illinois Nazis who won their court case to march. Long may free speech escape the pearl-clutching grasp of petty campus tyrants. And Long May the Spirit of "Joliet" Jake E. Blues bless America.