I really like this trend (if it is indeed a trend):
The Kansas State Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill named in honor of assassinated political commentator Charlie Kirk that strengthens free speech protections on college campuses.
House Bill 2333 received two-thirds support in both chambers this month, overruling the governor’s objection.
Part of the bill, known as the Kansas Intellectual Rights and Knowledge Act or KIRK Act, protects “expressive activities.” It deems outdoor areas “public forums for the campus community.”
“Any individual who wishes to engage in non-commercial expressive activity on campus shall be permitted to do so freely, so long as the individual’s conduct is lawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the postsecondary educational institution,” the act states.
Here’s the reason for the veto:
Gov. Kelly argued the bill was unnecessary as free speech is already protected.
Yeah, just like the right to own guns is “already” protected by the Second Amendment — except where it isn’t, in states like California, New York, Illinois and other Blue shitholes.
I hate the fact that we need additional laws to underline the freedoms already supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution (like this KIRK law and the USSC’s Gruen decision); but these are the times we live in, sadly.
And it’s safe to say that it should be so unlikely that the KIRK law should be necessary on, of all places, college campuses — except that it’s in these very institutions where free speech is most threatened, whether at the hands of radical Left students’ “counter-protests” or at the hands of radical Left college administrations.
Let’s have more KIRK laws, then, and more veto overrides of this nature.
“Gov. Kelly argued the bill was unnecessary as free speech is already protected.”
Yeah, sure, as in all those university campuses where the are minuscule *spit*Free Speech Zones*spit*, and getting on a soapbox anywhere else to talk conservative values is prosecuted as *spit*hate speech*spit*, a bullshit bit of law if there ever was one. If I’m ever on a jury that is deciding on hate crime or hate speech, campus administrators and other racist do-gooders will have to prove to me they can read minds to make that legitimate.
As Mine Humble Host is (I think) aware, I’m a life-long Kansan — which is otherwise a solidly Red state, and have seen this play out over and over. The Kansas Stupid Party, which is in the vast majority other than the three major metro areas, northern Sedgwick County (Wichita), Wyandotte County (north Kansas City) and Douglas County (Lawrence, our Austin or Madison) has two distinct factions — the Moderates (squishes) and the Conservatives (hard-core hardliners). The Kansas Democrat party has always exploited that split to get Democrat governors elected. Before Laura Kelly it was “Queen” Kathleen Sebelius. And both were and have been unalloyed disasters.
Both did and have used completely specious arguments in their various veto proclamations, obviously expecting national attention therein. Sebelius was so transparently in the tank for TelePromTer Jesus that she wound up with a role in his Cabinet, which she of course failed at miserably.
It’s the playbook; We Will Protect (Some) Free Speech. If we don’t like your speech, we’ll do what we can to suppress it. It happens even in Red states.
Applause to the houses in the legislature for cutting this crap off in the neck.