Posted on 11/22/2020 5:58:50 AM PST by WTanner1776
America has traditionally been known as a haven for free speech. Yes, you can’t scream “fire” in a crowded theater and cause a panic, but you can always stand up for what you believe in. Students, for better or worse, stood up against the government to protest the war in Vietnam. African-Americans marched for Civil Rights. Conservatives advocate for reduced taxes and less gun control. But the issue of free speech on college campuses never crossed their minds. They were free to say what they thought.
Our system has been strengthened by that free speech because it brings debates into the public sphere. Once a topic is debated by free people, it is hard to hide the truth. Americans have always believed in that and treasured their right to free speech.
Or at least that used to be the case. It used to be true that free speech on college campuses was truly free. Now, it’s not. A recent phenomenon is that many liberal students, professors, and administrators refuse to accept the concept of free speech. When presented with an idea that they disagree with, they don’t debate it.
Instead, they shut down all conversation. Students start crying and run off to their safe space without realizing or caring that safe spaces and free speech cannot coexist. Professors scream that you’re wrong, shut down all conversation, and harass you for expressing beliefs different than theirs. Those leftist professors are destroying the classroom experience. Meanwhile, administrators refuse to allow conservative speakers to come visit.
For a conservative student that supports free speech on college campuses, that atmosphere and environment can be extremely hard to navigate. We should be able to express our ideas openly and freely. But, we can’t. The radical leftists on campus freak out. So, instead of having thoughtful debates on pro-choice versus pro-life, or low taxes versus an increased welfare state, capitalism versus socialism or any other social or political issue, we are forced to just listen to the party line on a wide variety of subjects.
Because of the stifling of free speech on college campuses, there is little to no thoughtful debate of the important subjects currently bedeviling American society. Instead, there is just one line of thought expressed; the thoughts of the most radical edges of the Democratic party. On many college campuses, conservative students have no voice.
This has been going on for at least a decade. Here’s an item from 2012, for example:
Ann Coulter At Fordham University: School President Joseph M. McShane Blasts College Republicans For Inviting Her
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ann-coulter-fordham-university-mcshane_n_2115082?guccounter=1
“Hate speech” is speech a Leftist disagrees with. Convince me otherwise. They can’t defend many of their policy prescriptions any other way.
Not a free speech issue.
Tell us something we don’t know.
I was in a minor way involved with conservative activism as a college student in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Conservatives were a minority - most students were leftist or indifferent. You could have a polite or even a heated discussion and not feel threatened. I think things got markedly worse in the late 90’s, although I had graduated by then I could still see what was going on and it was more intolerant. Now it has gone beyond that to be violent.
I’m 52, and this has been going on since the 90’s easily.
I recall reading how students organized to slash tires of conservative paper delivery trucks, demonize anyone who dared violate their sensitivities, protest speakers who they labeled ‘hate peddlers’. Easily in the 90’s, and in the last 20 years adopted hatred and open violence for things they don’t like.
Research Evergreen and Berkley riots on Youtube to see these petulant children lash out like spoiled brats.
Free Speech fundamentally
Is the Right to a Free and
Fair Vote by
We The People.
I was a conservative activist in college in the early 1970s.
It was _very_ violent then.
The left took it easy for a while, but they are back to their old tricks now—calling everybody else Nazis while they act like Nazis.
Constitutional rights end at the government’s door.
Constitutional rights end at the government’s door.
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