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I have a feeling we could have a fine debate here, yet I sense a disconnect between what I am sayiing and what you seem to be hearing. I wonder if we are even talking about the same thing. Maybe I haven't been clear enough.

Depoliticized language is the deliberately misleading, agenda-masking language used by people who want their viewpoints to remain hidden behind a patina of objectivity. Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture is one example of this: the name would lead you to believe it is an objective foundation that studies, say, aspects of popular culture. A cursory glance at its contents tells you otherwise. Deliberately misleading, 'depoliticized' language. It makes me sick. Say what you are. Have the courage of your convictions.

Since you seem so intent on psychoanalyzing me (though you know virtually nothing about me), let me subject Mr. Horowitz to a little headshrinking. My impression of Horowitz is that he is stuck in a toxic love/hate relationship with the academy. He yearns to be accepted by it, yet he knows that his own simple-minded and mean-spirited analyses would be ridiculed by academics. He would probably not be published in reputable journals, not because he is being "persecuted" but because his ideas are so intellectually arid. He specializes in whiny, shrill screeds that are characterized more by a petulant rage than a reasoned response. Like many former liberals, he seems poisoned by a sense of betrayal, that the world has somehow let him down.

It is amazing to even have a discussion about the nonpartisan nature of the "Academic Bill of Rights." Horowitz himself lays out his agenda much more honestly and bluntly on the FrontPage website: "I’m eager to continue taking the pro-America message into the trenches to battle the leftists -- and give conservative students the courage to battle back!" Ok, Horry, now your cards are on the table. That's at least an honest response.

You ask, Do you require that the securing of rights to say things be tagged to a specified political identity of what might be said.

I never said anything like this. And no, I wouldn't. I think the problem is when someone refuses to admit the "political identity" of what they are saying. When they use de-fanged language to 'sell' their ideas.

Simple answer. Dont go to Cornell. There are tons of colleges out there.

Depoliticized language is the deliberately misleading, agenda-masking language used by people who want their viewpoints to remain hidden behind a patina of objectivity.

You mean like the American Civil Liberties Union, People For The American Way, and radio programs named Democracy Now and All Things Considered?

I don't have time this morning for an extended consideration, but you still seem to demand a political confession of motives [what I call "tagging"] as part of the proposal for basic academic rights. You avoid answering why this is necessary. Does a proponent of freedom of speech require a specific revelation of what threats to it, he especially fears? I do not want teachers of any stripe to be able to muzzle and intimidate students over whom they have considerable power. It should be enough to propose that we have that right.

It should be enough that we have the right to have consideration of faculty hrings without regard to political identity--which is exactly what leads to these departments where faculty are all committed marxists or feminists or what have you. Don't you see that you are demandig a political identity test before you consider the rights proposal just as the cadre demand a politicla identification tagging before they will consider a proposed faculty hire.

I would be glad to have a debate. But first you have to respond to why you think political "tagging" is necessary. Without that you have not made any essential response to any of my posts. What more do you have when you have the motive of the speaker or the political leanings of the speaker or candidate? Don't you see that your interest apparently seeks to shift the focus from the consideration of the rights proposal to the attempt to make ad hominem castgiations to confuse the issues?