I did my taxes this weekend using an online tax program, but I discovered this set of instructions on page 13 of the Massachusetts income tax return instructions.

That’s right. In the state known as “Tax-a-chusetts,” living in the American city with the highest cost of living, I’m being asked if I want to opt in to pay more taxes, at what would mean a surprising increase of money even for this graduate student.

Nevertheless, a number of voters did sign the petition, including BU School of Management Dean Louis Lataif, as BU’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, reports. Lataif had no comment, but the paper’s reporter had no trouble finding students willing to describe the current state of campus free speech:

“I’m surprised,” SMG sophomore Natalya Kamenetsky said. “You wouldn’t expect that from a dean from any school because BU is so diverse.”

Who would ever expect diversity of thought at a “diverse” university?

Now, you might think that only a reactionary conservative would oppose making website lists of one’s political opponents. Consider this: recently the conservative “Bruin Alumni Association” of UCLA published website lists of UCLA professors it considers liberal proselytizers. What do liberal academics think of that?

Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of UCLA’s academic senate, agreed that the university could do little more at this point. She said she found the profiles on the alumni group’s website “inflammatory” and “not a positive way to address the concerns that Mr. Jones has expressed.”

. . .

On one of its websites, the Bruin Alumni Group names education professor Peter McLaren as No. 1 on its “The Dirty Thirty: Ranking the Worst of the Worst.” It says “this Canadian native teaches the next generation of teachers and professors how to properly indoctrinate students.”

McLaren, in a telephone interview, called the alumni group’s tactics “beneath contempt.”

“Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism. Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility,” he said.

The website also lists history professor Ellen DuBois, saying she “is in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory, and radical — very radical.” In response, DuBois said: “This is a totally abhorrent invitation to students to participate in a witch hunt & against their professors.”

What of KnowThyNeighbor.org? Is it “inflammatory” and “not a positive way to address the concerns”? Is it true that “any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism [and that] any decent American is going to see through this kind of [left]-wing propaganda”? Perhaps it’s “beneath contempt” as “a totally abhorrent invitation to [citizens] to participate in a witch hunt against their [neighbors].” You decide.

Now, the question’s supporters must collect 65,825 signatures from registered voters, and approval from 25 percent of state lawmakers to get the question on the 2008 ballot.

Lang, 42, said the name, street address, hometown and ZIP code of everyone who signs the petition will be posted on the Web site KnowThyNeighbor.org.

“Everyone’s scrambling to know who in their town would sign this,” Lang told the Boston Herald. “And this Web site will give gay people the tools to know, to defend themselves and their families, to let them go neighbor-to-neighbor and say, ‘I don’t appreciate your signing this.’”

“I’m going to be aggressive personally,” he said. “I want to know that the people I do business with are not against (gay marriage). This is going to be won by economics.”

The parallel to the Nuremberg Files, that website listing abortion doctors, is obvious, as are the equally insidious motives hidden behind the “right to know.”

Note what Lang and Westerhoff want to stop so much that they’re willing to harass private citizens: not abolishing gay marriage but putting it up to a vote.

Their website, KnowThyNeighbor.org, alludes to the Golden Rule, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Is the irony lost on them? What would they think if “extremists” published a website with lists of homosexuals?

It seems as though their attack is against more than just the issue of the referendum; it’s an attack on the democratic process: they want to replace the civic goods of neighborly “love” and free elections with the intimidation of “knowledge” and judicial fiat.

Man hurt in fall from balcony in Brighton
By O’Ryan Johnson
Sunday, July 31, 2005 – Updated: 12:34 AM EST

A 22-year-old Connecticut man visiting friends took an accidental fall from the fourth-floor balcony of a Brighton apartment building last night, police said.

He is in critical condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, police said.

Police said it appears the man lost his balance on the balcony and fell. Officer Neva Grice said drinking was not involved.

The victim, whose name was not released, was inside the apartment with three other friends prior to the accident, police said.

A man who lives on the first floor said he walked outside of his apartment about 8 p.m. to find the man laying on his back in a grassy stretch between the brick building and the sidewalk. He said the man was breathing, but was not moving. He said the man had no visible injuries and was not bleeding.

Deputy Superintendent Joseph Driscoll said it did not appear as though the men were partying.

“It looked like more of a get-together,” he said.

A man who was in the apartment with the victim at the time of the fall said there was “no partying, nothing like that going on.” He declined to be interviewed.

The ambulances seemed to take a long time to leave (there were two ambulances, a paramedics’ vehicle, several police cars, and a firetruck). After they loaded him up they must have sat in the street for fifteen or twenty minutes, with the police interviewing friends and witnesses. We thought he must either be okay or dead. But since he was in “critical condition,” why wouldn’t they go to the hospital as quickly as possible?

UPDATE Aug 1 2005 11:15 AM: It sounds like the man’s condition has improved:

Man stable after fall from balcony

A Connecticut man who fell four stories from the balcony of a Brighton apartment on Saturday night remained hospitalized yesterday but is expected to make a full recovery, authorities said. Matthew Pruett, 22, of Newington, Conn., was initially listed in critical condition at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but authorities said his condition has stabilized. Pruett had been having dinner with friends at about 8 p.m. in an apartment on Sutherland Road when he fell from the balcony and landed on a patch of grass. The apartment’s tenant, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday that there had been no excessive use of alcohol prior to the incident and that Pruett’s fall was an accident.