FROM THE ARTICLE:* Leftist students routinely intimidate and even
physically menace those who dissent from their views, especially pro-Israel
students. Conservative speakers are rarely invited to campuses, and when
they are, face legions of hostile and even violent protesters.*
PREFATORY COMMENTS BY THE DOG WHO SMOKES: As Eric Hoffer demonstrated in
his study of fanaticism titled *The True Believer*, all mass movements
share common elements.
*He who, like Pascal, finds precise reasons for the effectiveness of
Christian doctrine has also found the reasons for the effectiveness of
Communist, Nazi and nationalist doctrine. However different the holy causes
people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.*
However, like Douglas Rankine regularly does on this list, Hoffer warns
readers to think carefully...
*It is perhaps not superfluous to add a word of caution. When we speak of
the family likeness of mass movements, we use the word “family” in a
taxonomical sense. The tomato and the nightshade are of the same family,
the Solanaceae. Though the one is nutritious and the other poisonous, they
have many morphological, anatomical and physiological traits in common so
that even the non-botanist senses a family likeness. The assumption that
mass movements have many traits in common does not imply that all movements
are equally beneficent or poisonous. *
It's the *beneficent or poisonous* dichotomy that concerns me. More and
more, I can't see anything *beneficent *in groups to which I once devoted
my life (and money), and the individuals (often former friends) who're
active in these groups.
In current (2017) times, we're witnessing growing violence and 'heckler's
veto' activity from a group of people who base their ideology on something
they call 'Democracy". This ideology claims to champion tolerance but more
and more demonstrates everything except tolerance. They often call
themselves 'Progressives' and love to use the term 'Social Justice'.
'Progressives' and 'Social Justice Warriors' are trying to move America and
the world into a permanent state of violence. Their excuse is feeble...
they're 'fighting Fascism'.
Never mind that they're being extremely Fascist in their thinking and
acting. They, alone, create 'reality' and are in possession of 'truth'.
Disagree with them, present a different point of view (such as Classical
Age-of-Enlightenment Liberalism and Laissez-faire economics) and you just
might get lynched. Their alliance with Islam is understandable, once one
grasps the fact that chaos, destruction, and death are their primary
articles of faith.
I don't know Robert Spencer. Years ago, when first reading him, I
questioned his motives. But over the years, I've had to admit that the
things he says stand up to critical scrutiny... that is, he bases his ideas
on historical or current-event information almost anyone can access.
Spencer was one of the first in the post-9/11 world to look carefully into
the ideology and history of Islam. Most of what he says about this puzzling
ideology comes from Islamic sources... a fact that infuriates those who
want to silence him.
I would've suggested that Robert refer to 'Red Guards' instead of
'Brownshirts'... but both groups engaged in violence and put an enormous
amount of time and energy into marginalizing, demonising, and/or bashing
the brains of anyone who disagrees with them.
If there's a point to all this, it's a point hat ought to matter to those
who claim to want a free and open society.
As I see it, the world the 'Progressives' want to bring into existence is
atavistic... a regression to the primitive and savage state our distant
ancestors called life (survival of the fittest and all that nonsense). A
world where Humans like Lee Rigsby and Charlie Gard have no claim to any
rights other than to be murdered. After all, 'Democracy' means 'majority
rule'... and if the majority says you need to be beaten, sliced, chopped,
or starved to death because you're terminally ill according to 'the
regulations', then who's to disagree?
So, what's it going to be? Will the poisonous Nightshade defeat the
nutritious Tomato? It seems we're about to find out. I don't think the
Progressive Nightshades understand what they're about to experience. Even
if they manage to destabilize America, impeach or kill Trump, and silence
those of us who don't accept their premises, they have another force to
deal with. Their Muslim allies will prove to be far more determined and
violent than they (the Nightshades) are. As John Lennon famously sang "*Instant
karma's gonna' get you..." https://youtu.be/zekIGdWdOp0
<https://youtu.be/zekIGdWdOp0>*
The New Brownshirts: Thugs vs. Free Speech on Campus The future for free
expression in the West is looking bleak.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267387/new-brownshirts-
thugs-vs-free-speech-campus-robert-spencer
Leftist students routinely intimidate and even physically menace those who
dissent from their views, especially pro-Israel students. Conservative
speakers are rarely invited to campuses, and when they are, face legions of
hostile and even violent protesters. Universities are increasingly hostile
to conservative views, and are mostly indoctrination centers for the hard
Left. This is academia today, as I detail in my new book *The Complete
Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies)*
<https://www.amazon.com/dp/1621576272?tag=jwbooks06-20>.
On September 29, 2016, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel and former Congressman
Allen West was scheduled to speak
<https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/29261/> at Saint Louis University (SLU)
on what he termed “the threat of radical Islam.” A group of Leftist and
Muslim student protesters, led by the SLU Rainbow Alliance and the Muslim
Students’ Association, packed the hall and then walked out, leaving West to
speak to a nearly empty room.
That was the culmination of protests that had led SLU administrators to
forbid the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the organization sponsoring
West’s speech, to use the words “radical Islam” on posters and fliers
advertising it. West, not disposed to acquiesce to this censorship, had
written before the event, “I along with the YAF activists will not back
down from this challenge. And if this is just a case of ill-conceived
political correctness, we’ll rectify that. But, if this is a case of the
influence of stealth jihad radical Islamic campus organizations such as the
Muslim Student Association, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, then
you will be exposed. And I recommend to the President of St. Louis
University, you do not want it known that a radical Islamic organization is
dictating speakers on your campus—that is not the type of PR you really
want.”
But rather than affirming the importance of free discourse and the airing
of dissenting views (never mind rejecting jihad and Islamic supremacism),
SLU President Fred Pestello declared his “solidarity” with the protesters
against the “provocateur” West.
YAF national spokeswoman Emily Jashinsky noted that what happened to West
at SLU is common. “This is what happens when students attempt to bring one
conservative speaker to a liberal campus. Threatened leftists do everything
they can to erect obstacles.”
The whiff of a threat was unmistakable. And it was understandable that
Jewish groups would feel intimidated, as groups such as Students for
Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association have been growing
increasingly aggressive and even physically menacing toward those who dare
to question support for the Palestinian jihad against Israel.
Universities were much more solicitous about the sensibilities of Muslims.
The April 5, 2016 issue of *The Gleaner*, the student paper of Rutgers
University–Camden, published
<https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/04/rutgers-student-paper-complies-with-msas-demand-destroys-all-copies-of-issue-containing-muhammad-cartoon>
a cartoon of Muhammad, Buddha, and Jesus in a bar. Its content, however,
cannot be known at this point, because at the behest of Muslims on campus
the entire issue has been deep-sixed. This is an incident fraught with
implications for the health of the freedom of speech today.
Two weeks after the cartoon was published, the April 19 issue of *The
Gleaner* contained a letter from the Muslim Brotherhood campus group, the
Muslim Students Association, saying that it found the image offensive and
asking *The Gleaner* to remove the image from the April 5 issue and
circulate a new edition of that issue without it. The MSA letter claimed
that Christians and Jews on campus told MSA members that they, too, found
the image offensive.
The MSA letter stated, “Even though freedom of speech and press is
emphasized and is something all of us value as proud Americans, the
University prides itself on diversity of people of different faith and
backgrounds so we feel that it is necessary to respect those faiths and
backgrounds by honoring their beliefs.”
The April 19, 2016, *Gleaner* contained a response to the MSA letter
written by Christopher Church, the paper’s editor in chief. Church
apologized to the MSA and agreed to meet with it “so that we can rectify
this issue and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” He also agreed to
remove any copies of the offending April 5 issue from the Gleaner boxes
around campus and destroy them.
Neither Church nor anyone at Rutgers appeared to be aware of, or to care
about, the fact that the freedom of speech as a Constitutional right it is
not negated by anyone’s taking offense. This incident could and should have
been a chance for Rutgers and *The Gleaner* to explain why the freedom of
speech must be protected as our fundamental bulwark against tyranny, and
why that means that we must all learn to put up with material that offends
us.
And once a group’s feelings of offense are taken as decisive, that group
has a license to take offense at other aspects of campus life. What if
Muslim Student Association members declare themselves offended at men and
women sharing classrooms at Rutgers, or pork being served in the Rutgers
dining hall?
In light of the violent attacks on those who have depicted Muhammad, *The
Gleaner* was bowing to the implicit threat of violence—which in the long
run only encourages more violence. Around the same time the Rutgers
Muhammad cartoon incident played out, the Rutgers Art Library featured
<http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/04/25/what-hell-artist-crucifies-jesus-on-dartboard.html>
an “artwork” depicting Jesus on a dartboard. It was ultimately removed, but
not because it offended Christians. No one cared if Christians were
offended: Rutgers officials knew that offended Christians wouldn’t murder
them. Their solicitousness toward the MSA, by contrast, reveals that they
knew offended Muslims might very well kill them. Rather than stand up for
the freedom of speech and against this kind of bullying, they signaled
their willingness to surrender and fall into line, accepting Sharia
restrictions on speech.
The double standard was stark: Jesus crucified on a dartboard was art—and
what’s more, it was courageous – while a cartoon of Muhammad was beyond the
bounds of acceptable expression. One Rutgers student chortled on Facebook
that the dartboard “art” was “hilarious,” and crowed that “we don’t have to
cater to the wills of the Church or any denomination of Christianity or
religion.” A cartoon of Muhammad, on the other hand, was an outrage. No one
was crowing about not having to cater to the wills of the mosque.
This is the kind of respect being irrationally violent will win you. This
respect won at the point of a sword does not bode well for the future of
free expression in the West.
The brownshirts were back, and on American campuses. And administrators all
too often appeared anxious to placate them, rather than determined to
protect the freedom of speech and curb their influence.
