Poll: High Rates Of U.S. College Students Support Violence, Shouting To Stop Free Speech

The Federalist ^ | September 22, 2017 | Joy Pullmann

[Mafe]

It’s not just crazy places like the University of California at Berkeley where surprisingly large numbers of U.S. college students believe that violence and shouting are acceptable methods to prevent people from saying things. Fifty-one percent of all U.S. college students believe shouting is an acceptable response to free speech, and one in five (19 percent) believe violence is an acceptable response, according to results from a national survey of 1,500 students in 49 states and DC.

Fifty-three percent of survey respondents said colleges should “create a positive learning environment for all students by prohibiting certain speech or expression of viewpoints that are offensive or biased against certain groups of people” rather than “create an open learning environment where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints, even if it means allowing speech that is offensive or biased against certain groups of people.”

[Pollster1]

Shouting is sometimes a legally acceptable response to free speech, but it is at best amoral and completely lacking in dignity. It also eliminates the exchange of ideas and guarantees your side will not convince the other side. Bonus: the shouters may be removed or even arrested for disturbing the peace.

As for those who believe violence is an acceptable response, they should keep in mind that decent people are also capable of applying force, and we are immeasurably better at it. We hold back on violence not because we are afraid of it but because we are circumspect in taking an action that will be permanent for the other side if we cross that line.

[robroys woman]

So failure, as us oldsters know it, is no longer a viable teaching tool.

---

So they’ll learn the hard way when they get out of their formal education bubble.

[jimmygrace]

No need to worry. Students always make up the majority of the brown shirts- under Hitler, Mao, Castro, Chavez... They are usually harmless except for petty vandalism. If the leftists in this country start forming armed militias, that is when it is time to worry.

[353FMG]

Communism is gaining ground in the US.

Has done so since the 60’s

[familyop]

Not surprising. Most of their parents get their money directly or indirectly from government spending. They comprise the political/regulator class.

[Albion Wilde]

bump

[Political Junkie Too]

I wonder if these snowflakes realize that peaceable assembly goes along with free speech in the First Amendment.

-PJ

[chimera]

Hopefully so. But sometimes I wonder. You've got CEOs and other senior executives being granted million-dollar bonuses and other golden parachutes when they run companies into the ground, just so the Board can get rid of them. In the lower ranks, like myself for many years, if we failed at a major task we were usually given the gate. No participation trophies for the soldiers in the trenches who get the blame, rightly or wrongly, for failure.

[buffaloguy]

Little snowflakes haven’t been in a fight. They will have some rough times.

[rrrod]

Another valid reason not to employee these scumbags....and another reason to use worker visas.

[Dapper 26]

Help me understand this, college students - creampuffs - want “safe places” because of, what they consider, hate speech and yet they support VIOLENCE to stop it? I think they need to define what they call violence. Cowardly dressing in a sack and wearing a mask while attacking a window with a baseball bat is NOT violence. That is a temper tantrum.

[blueplum]

if one in five think violence is an appropriate response to free thought, they will probably beat their children to death the first time the child refuses to go to bed.