Pun Salad

Many details offered at the link, but I want to concentrate on this point of controversy:

Now remember: we are talking about students at a law school.

Speculation about the Nashville killer's motive is understandable, but speculation in the absence of actual evidence is a bad look for wannabe lawyers.

And, generally, it's an equally bad look to characterize activities of your fellow students as "dangerous". (In the absence of any actual danger, wouldn't "stupid" be more accurate?)

But it gets worse. Much worse [bold added]:

Yes, other students are claiming that statements are not just dangerous, but "violent." Law students.

What the heck are they teaching these kids at UNH Law? Anything at all about the First Amendment and how it applies to public universities?

Also quoted in the Concord Monitor story linked above is "AhLana Ames, student and member of the queer community."

In other words: How dare CLS "hijack" this senseless tragedy to talk about the shooter, when I want to hijack this senseless tragedy to talk about gun control?

Briefly noted:

• Bryan Caplan shares something he often thinks, but doesn't actually say: "I Can’t Help but Feel Like You’re Trying to Intimidate Me Into Pretending to Agree with You."

  It’s what I think whenever I hear about “mandatory training.”

  It’s what I think when K-12 schools announce their “teaching philosophy.”

  It’s what I think when universities comment on what does and does not “align with their values.”

  It’s what I think when someone continues an argument after angrily refusing to bet.

  And it's pretty much something I never think, because I never find myself in those situations. But in case it helps you…

• Ilya Somin has a language issue: Libertarianism vs. Classical Liberalism: Is there a Difference?.

  I've [long] thought that these are different terms for essentially the same thing (the branch of liberalism advocating very tight limits on government power across the board), and that the difference between them is primarily aesthetic. Thus, I've always preferred "libertarian" because it's easier to say and remember, sounds better, and is more widely known. But there are a wide range of theories about the difference between the two. And it's hard for me to say for sure which (if any) are correct.

  Somin goes on to offer six different possible distinguishing tests.

  I'm going with "libertarian" on even-numbered days, "classical liberal" on odd days. But what about plain old "conservative"? OK, so "conservative" on days divisible by three, …

  Maybe I should sign up with No Labels?

  We are a national movement of commonsense Americans pushing our leaders together to solve our country's biggest problems.

  Eeeesh. They may be "No Labels", but they are an emphatic "Yes!" to anodyne clichés. So no thank you.

• Peter Suderman calls a technical foul: Blue States Are Trying To Impose Wealth Taxes. They Won't Work..

  Back in the pre-COVID days of 2019, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) proposed an annual "wealth tax" of 2 percent on assets for households worth more than $50 million, plus additional surtaxes on households worth $1 billion or more. There were several problems with the idea.

  Such a tax would be incredibly difficult to administer, requiring tax authorities to regularly assess and value unusual assets like art collections. It might drive wealthy individuals and households to move their holdings to other countries with more favorable tax policies, as has happened in multiple countries. Most wealthy Western democracies that have experimented with wealth taxes eventually ended them.

  Warren pitched her plan as a way to make the "tippy top 0.1% of U.S. households" pay "their fair share," providing revenue to "accelerate badly needed investments in the middle class." But a wealth tax was not a novel way to tax the rich; it was a dodgy policy that had been repeatedly tried and repeatedly failed.

  But it appealz-to-the-feelz of a certain mindset.

• In our "Bad Quote" Department, Scott Drylie reveals How Progressives Transformed Edmund Burke into a Supporter of Public Education.

  ‘Education is the cheap defense of nations.” This statement graces old books of aphorisms and is engraved on more than one public-school building. It is a kind of creed for public education.

  It intends to say that a nation need not focus on robust police forces, standing armies, and heavy-handed judicial systems for peace and security. A simple investment in public education will protect the nation from faction, enthusiasm, and violence.

  Edmund Burke, Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher, is given attribution for these words, for example, here and here. Burke is best known for his Reflections on the Revolution in France, where he disapproved of radical reform, triggering debates with Thomas Paine and others.

  A plain old Google search confirms Drylie's observation.

  But, no, not something that Eddie ever said, as it happens.