What comes with those free speech hot dogs?
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2023 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Media advisory…
Today at 11 am CT the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression will give away 1,791 free Chicago dogs at Clark Street Dog to mark the year the First Amendment was ratified. The address is 3040 N. Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60657.
Media are welcome to attend the “Free Chicago Dogs for Free Speech” event and should reply directly to this email with their RSVP. FIRE staff will be on-site to give away swag and do interviews. We expect supplies to last just a few hours.
This is part of FIRE’s brand-new $3.2 million Chicago free speech campaign to raise awareness and support for the First Amendment. Full details are in this press release.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has been one of those groups which focused almost solely on things like “cancel culture” at college campuses. From 2016…
Its major grants come from the ultraconservative Earhart, John Templeton, and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundations; the Scaife family foundations; the Koch-linked Donors Trust, and funders that sustain a myriad of conservative campus-targeting organizations that include FIRE, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the David Horowitz Freedom Center (whose “Academic Bill of Rights” would mandate more hiring of conservative faculty and would monitor professors’ syllabi for “balance”), and Campus Watch (which tracks and condemns liberal professors’ comments on the Middle East).
* The group now claims it has changed focus. This is from March…
In Idaho, an art exhibit was censored and teens were told they couldn’t testify in some legislative hearings. In Washington state, a lawmaker proposed a hotline so the government could track offensively biased statements, as well as hate crimes. In Florida, bloggers are fighting a bill that would force them to register with the state if they write posts criticizing public officials.
Meanwhile, bans on books and drag performances are growing increasingly common nationwide.
“We are seeing tremendous attacks on First Amendment freedoms across the country right now, at all levels of government. Censorship is proliferating, and it’s deeply troubling,” said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
OK, but with numerous state governments enacting actual statutes outlawing public expression, FIRE’s Chicago press release highlights a video about a Boston college’s suspension of a student group for mildly criticizing China. Not trivial, but kinda small in comparison to the official governmental statutory actions happening right now across the country. Another video features a Black woman who rescued a Klansman from a beating during a protest. The rest of its videos are here. Nothing on government book bans that I saw.
* Doing what they do is fine by me. It’s a free country. I’m cool with it. But when you step forward and say you’ve broadened your portfolio and want to challenge the ACLU’s leadership in the First Amendment space, then, you know, maybe actually walk the walk.
* Semi-related…
* 2023’s Best Cities for Hot Dog Lovers: Foodie rivals New York (No. 1) and Chicago (No. 2) finish at the top alongside other big cities like Los Angeles (No. 3) and Cincinnati (No. 6).
- Roadrager - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 11:36 am:
==What comes with those free speech hot dogs?==
A big load of baloney, from the sound of it. I’d rather they used ketchup.
- SteveM - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 11:43 am:
Had been seeing this group everywhere the last couple of weeks: billboard on the Eisenhower, adds on WSCR. Just hadn’t gotten around to visiting the website to see what their angle was yet. Thanks Rich for the scoop
- ArchPundit - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 11:52 am:
In theory FIRE could be useful, but they just always happen to miss the majority of cases faculty face consequences for speech:
https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/
- Benjamin - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:01 pm:
I used to be friends with a guy who was a higher-up at FIRE, maybe 15 years ago. At the time, the group was still clearly right-leaning but seemed to take on causes from across the political spectrum. I imagine the conservative interest in on “cancel culture” has sharpened their business plan a little since then.
- 47th Ward - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:01 pm:
The Weiner Circle is just down the street a few blocks. If they want to see freedom of expression, they should stop by and ask for the $20 chocolate shake.
- Cubs in '16 - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:11 pm:
Anyone else see the irony in a group called FIRE promoting First Amendment rights?
- Homebody - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:17 pm:
FIRE has always spent more time chiding students for protesting against conservative speakers than defending student protestors’ rights to speak.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:17 pm:
It fells like, to me, a group looking to have “acceptable” whataboutism that might be based on alternative fact thinking as open free speech.
Maybe a hot dog is a solid metaphor?
- West Side the Best Side - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:32 pm:
Cubs in ‘16 - This looks like FIRE is yelling in a crowded hot dog joint.
- TheInvisibleMan - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 12:37 pm:
“Anyone else see the irony”
I only see the irony in your statement.
Bonus for it being actual literary verbal irony, and not just Alanis-irony.
- Jerry - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 1:24 pm:
Bad news for so-called “conservatives” in this country.
If by “conservative” you mean get the guv’mint out of my life.
The ONLY consistently Conservative organization in this country is the ACLU.
- Dan Johnson - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 1:56 pm:
They are advertising on WXRT pretty heavily.
- Proud Papa Bear - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 2:06 pm:
Heard their ads. With their vagueness, I assumed it was a conservative organization trying to sound reasonable.
- illini - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 2:39 pm:
@ Jerry - I consider myself to be a reliable liberal and progressive in most all facets of my life. And it all started in college, well over 50 years ago, when I was one of a handful of students who helped establish one of the first nationally recognized student chapters of the ACLU.
I do appreciate you pointing out that,in fact, the ACLU is a consistently conservative organization. That may explain why I have occasionally disagreed with some of their positions, but they still get an annual donation.
- Soccermom - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 3:12 pm:
Mind. Blown.
https://www.thefire.org/news/fires-president-wins-inaugural-freedom-expression-award
- Soccermom - Wednesday, Jul 19, 23 @ 3:12 pm:
The distinguished selection committee for the Freedom of Expression award included Nadine Strossen, former President of the American Civil Liberties Union; Geoffrey Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at University of Chicago Law School; and David M. Rubin, former Dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Greg was nominated for the award by David Rubenstein, the founder and executive director of EnvironMentors, an award-winning mentorship program for at-risk youth involved in environmental projects. Rubenstein is currently the Principal of the Thoughtful Action Group, a nonprofit consulting group.