The Campus Leftists’ Continued Assault on Logic and Speech

By Mr. Fool

Why should colleges exist if its students lose the ability to think?

That is the only question I find myself asking after reviewing the waste land college campuses have become. This post highlights two examples of this toxic landscape.

Violence as self-defense

To begin, there is the case of some … curious op-ed articles written in the Daily California, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper, in response to the cancellation of Milo Yiannopolis’s appearance on that campus. (h/t Rod Dreher)

The following pieces were published under the heading, Violence as Self-Defense:

I would like to highlight one article to reflect the American Maoism permeating current leftist thought.

In “Violence helped ensure safety of students”, Juan Prieto, a UC Berkeley student who is also an illegal alien, writes:

I’m here to thank the radical measures the AntiFas took to ensure my safety. It has been reported by numerous sources that Breitbart’s mascot planned on launching a campaign against undocumented students and sanctuary campuses. More disturbing was the possibility of him outing and targeting specific undocumented students on campus, much like he did to a trans student at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

As repellant as it is to thank AntiFas for the rioting, on the surface one can see where he is coming from. After all, while speaking at UC Milwaukee, Milo did out a transsexual student.

However, there is no evidence that Milo planned to “out” undocumented students. Such a story, however, serves as a convenient cover for justifying pepper spraying a woman wearing a red hat, beating a man unconscious, and destroying school property.

Furthermore, Prieto can’t have his cake and eat it too. On the one hand, he identifies himself in the article as “an outspoken undocumented student at UC Berkeley”. On the other hand, he is outraged when he is “doxed” (or maliciously “outed”) by sites that don’t like him.

(Perhaps he is upset because the doxing article referred to an opinion piece in which he proclaims “no, I’m not registered to vote. I’m registered to fuck shit up.”)

Well, which is it? Are you outspoken, or are you minding your own business? You can’t be both.

Regardless, the violence was acceptable because Milo is a white supremacist:

The doxing the Breitbart editor attempted to do was a malicious outing of some of my peers to a physical and online audience of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and alternative right fascists. Though he has attempted to keep his name away from these gangs of extremists, it’s not difficult to associate him with them given that they utilize his events to recruit and organize the most hateful group of white men they can gather. Given that a radicalized white man had recently committed acts of terrorism against the Muslim community at a Mosque in Quebec, and another shot an anti-Fascist protester at the University of Washington, placing our private information on their hands shook me to my core.

Notice how uncleverly he attempts to demonize Milo by associating him with white supremacists et. al. while acknowledging that Milo has stated repeatedly he doesn’t belong to them. Again, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Unless, of course, you’re an American Maoist, in which case all that matters is that your enemy is annhilated, by hook or by crook.

Shhhhh !

I have the right to tell you to tell remain silent

Meanwhile, Reason’s Hit and Run blog points to a disturbing Foundation for Individual Rights in Education report on the use “Bias Response Teams” (BRTs) on college campuses:

BRTs encourage students to formally report on one another and on faculty members whenever they subjectively perceive that someone’s speech is “biased.” FIRE’s 2017 Bias Response Team Reportidentified 232 public and private American colleges and universities that publicly maintained bias response programs during the course of 2016, affecting an estimated 2.8 million students.

In fact, FIRE learned that of the 167 BRTs it studied, 42 percent of them include police officers as part of their team!

 

The presence of these teams have led to effects that can only be characterized as childish and silly:

At the University of Oregon, someone reported a cafeteria poster asking students to clean up after themselves to the BRT because it was “sexist”. (The poster presumably said something like, your mother isn’t here to do your dishes for you.) A staff member who made “gender-based comments” was referred to Sexual Violence Support services. And the student newspaper’s insufficient commitment to transgender issues earned it a talking-to from university officials.

I fight because I can’t argue

These two examples illuminate a simple yet shocking fact: the left shuts shut down speech, either through bureaucracy or the mob, because it has nothing else to maintain its power. Its arguments don’t work anymore. All it has left is force.

The left threw everything it could at Trump, yet he won anyways. The more they flail, the more everyday Americans are repulsed by them.

Regardless of what people may think of Trump or Milo, the left’s overreaction to them have merely made those two more popular. That merely feeds into a vicious cycle that could lead to the left becoming increasingly violent.

Whether that will actually take place remains to be seen. However, one thing is for sure. The election of Trump has led to the left slowly lifting the veil that has covered the movement for decades.

And it ain’t pretty.


This article originally appeared at A Simple Fool

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