“The casual conversational tone of a blog is what makes it particularly dangerous.” — Daniel B. Beaulieu
Recently I came to the defense of Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who has been imprisoned in his native country for the last two and half years supposedly for having defamed Islam, but in reality for having insulted Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. Fair is fair, however, and in my opinion a recent news event shows that bloggers are not always in the right.
Down in Ave Maria, Florida, not far from Naples on the Gulf Coast, there's a new Catholic institution called Ave Maria University that was founded by Tom Monaghan, the billionaire who founded Domino's Pizza. As the name suggests, Monaghan and his partners didn't just found the university, but also the town around it, on a large tract of previously undeveloped land deeded to them by Collier County, Florida.
The founders had a very specific vision about what they wanted in founding the university, specifically an institution that was completely faithful to conservative Catholic teachings. Their intention was to build a community there that supported those ideals, and they did so in an empty piece of land that displaced no one.
Now, knowing that much is enough for me to know for certain that Ave Maria, Florida is not the place for me. They own the property and they want to use it in a way that doesn't interest me. Live and let live. But others don't necessarily see it that way. Recently Ave Maria University had to enlist the help of the county Sheriff's department to bar a critical blogger name Marielena Montesino de Stuart from their campus.
The bit in that article that sort of got me was when after having been banned from campus she issued a statement saying, in part, “This is another way in which the university’s administration silences public opinion, which is a violation of our constitutional rights.” Now, I've read the constitution, and it's very clear on freedom of speech and of the press (if one considers bloggers to be journalists, which I guardedly do). Nowhere have I see it say that it's okay to go anywhere you want, even if the property owners don't want you there, nor to consider yourself invited to any event, even one that's billed as a press conference. So even though personally the Ave Maria folks strike me as being kind of out there, I'm with them on this issue — they have the right to stick to themselves and keep those whose mission is to criticize them off of their property. In fact, I'm a little irritated with Ms. De Stuart because when someone drops a bomb like “constitutional rights” card when it doesn't apply, it just weakens it for when real censorship rears its ugly head.
Next up, does the business world understand open source?
Image courtesy of Brett Lider