California State Officials To Residents: If You Don’t Walk, And Talk And Think Like Us, We Will Hang You Out To Dry
[guest post by Dana]
In the aftermath of the recent rioting at UC Berkeley, where extremists physically attacked and injured individuals hoping to hear Milo Yiannopoulos speak, it was dismaying to see the casual response of California’s state officials toward the mayhem and toward the individuals committing acts of violence. Equally disturbing was the casual disregard of the First Amendment rights by these same state officials. As a resident of the state, and one who checks the box of several protected identity groups, I find this lack of concern particularly disturbing. We now know with certainty that a number of top state officials are not equal-opportunity defenders of all Californians. They are not committed to making a public stand against all acts of violence and bigotry, and are not equal-opportunity protectors of our right to speech and to peacefully assemble. Because, as they have clearly demonstrated, a vigorous condemnation of violence and an equally vigorous condemnation of speech being shut down is reserved for a select group. And that group is the one that espouses only the liberal company line. Understanding this, where does that leave Golden State residents who do not hold to the tenets of liberalism? Nowhere safe, that’s for sure. Because when my elected officials cannot even agree on the very basic principle that all acts of violence demand to be wholly condemned by anyone in state leadership, and that any efforts to shut down speech are likewise to be equally condemned, we are left with a unique form of state-sanctioned bigotry that endangers any who dare to think and speak differently.
Consider that California Gov. Jerry Brown, who took the time to promise immigrants, both legal and illegal, that the state “will defend everybody — every man, woman and child — who has come here for a better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state,” has remained silent in the face of the Berkeley rioting and its aftermath. How is his deafening silence not a tacit approval of the violent and oppressive acts of rioters? Shame on him.
Let’s consider some of the responses of other California officials. Leading the pack in fundraising for the 2018 state governor’s race, current Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom equates Milo Yiannopoulos with the violent rioters, and equates vitriol with violence, while conveniently ignoring that pesky issue of speech. Further, it is President Trump who is the target of his wrath:
Hatred has no home on California’s public university campuses in any form, from vitriol to violence. We witnessed both extremes at UC Berkeley’s campus last night, from the racism and misogyny of fly-by-night provocateur and white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos, to the excessive response of a *few protestors. Both create fear, neither embody freedom.
Freedom of speech lives in the fabric of UC Berkeley; Cal is everything Trump University is not. President Trump’s asinine threat to pull funding from Cal showed zero awareness of the real-world implications of a President’s words and actions. Stripping federal funds from UC would only create more innocent victims and more Trump carnage.
President Trump is quick to attack American students, immigrants, women, the LGBT community, journalists, and our international allies but he is either too weak or too ignorant to stand up to white supremacists and others who spew hatred. That’s why the President and his extremist acolytes like Yiannopoulos need to hear from the resistance, loudly and repeatedly. We must continue to step in and stand up to resist reckless rhetoric and actions in a peaceful and forceful manner.
Newsom’s claims of *a few protestors depends on how you define “few”. And clearly, the definitions of “peaceful” and “forceful” are up for debate as well…
But for Godsake, can we just not all agree, no matter our political preferences, that freedom of speech obviously no longer lives in the fabric of UC Berkeley? Weren’t we all just witness to that fact? Reality isn’t what we wish it to be, or need it to be. It simply is what it is. And sometimes that hurts our political side of the aisle. But it can also shine a spotlight on that which needs to be admitted to, and worked on to change.
This response is from California Senate Leader Kevin de Leon:
From Congresswoman Barbara Lee, whose district includes Berkeley:
From Congresswoman Karen Bass, representing California 37th US Federal Congressional District, who didn’t even mention the rioting and violence:
And, from the State of California’s executive branch, as well as state politicians who are being named as potential contenders for the governorship and/or have already officially announced they are running, including Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Kamala Harris (former state AG), state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Secty of State Alex Padilla, John Chiang, State Treasurer, former State Superintendent Delane Eastin, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti, and former Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa, no condemnation of the violence, no advocacy for speech, but instead, nothing but crickets.
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back)
–Dana
Democrats.
Dana (023079) — 2/5/2017 @ 10:58 amBorn in Hollywood, 1957. Watched my home state with some of the best schools in the nation turned into a union dominated and fiscally corrupt democratically-controlled sewer of partisanship, manufactured outrage and very real penalties for anyone who speaks outside the party line.
I’ve seen this coming for decades, and every year they get uglier and more vengeful.
Hope it’s not too late but CA may be beyond saving.
Harkin (afc7a6) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:11 amOh yeah, last time I looked our schools were rated in the mid-40s compared to other states.
Thank the dems and the teachers unions.
Harkin (afc7a6) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:13 amI would love to see Milo back on the Berkley campus, with the 101st Airborne making the area secure for him and his audience. Preferably with bayonets attached.
http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2014/01/50605897-P.jpeg
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:22 amDemocrats. Their leaders have no common sense, decency or backbone. They look to comedians and thesbians for their political principles and strategies. They divide people into tribes to be used, abused and discarded until the next cycle. Democrats.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:35 amSo now even an elected Republican congressmen cannot speak freely to his own constituents in Cali without police protection? Is he a provocateur and flamethrower, too?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/police-escort-congressman-rowdy-california-town-hall-45272942
elissa (1cada9) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:36 amWell, since Milo’s saying he wants to return to Berkely, basically everyone, including city, UC-Berkeley and state officials, may get a do-over, and then we’ll see if Berkeley tries to preemptively block a second on-campus event by Yiannopoulos, and/or if the city and state officials, knowing what happened last time, offer up the same type of tepid protection for him and those wanting to hear him speak.
Trump’s threat to either cut UC-Berkeley’s funding or send in the National Guard would have far more weight if the school refuses to allow him a second visit or the officials refuse to increase security the second time around.
John (08b2c8) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:41 amThe silence of the ACLU on this violence is not, I suppose, surprising due to their gradual change in focus to partisanship over defense of free speech. But it is still shocking to me that an ACLU which fought for avowed and upfront Nazis (i.e. real ones) to have the right to march in Skokie Il. apparently cannot see anything at all wrong with what is occurring on America’s college campuses to thwart free speech.
elissa (1cada9) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:57 amHow self-blind can these duly-elected Democrats *be*?
“We’re willing to stomp anybody/ anything into the ground at any time, laws be damned; we’ll turn a blind eye to our warrior-pets torching buildings and beating people up, and then proudly tweet that we’re ‘FIGHTING FASCISM’ !!!”
Oh, yeah, keep that up, dudes. Shamelessly announce your disdain for Rule-of-Law and pump up your bloated egos with Progressive virtue-signaling for another two years, … and be shocked when CA goes Republican.
Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah (6950d6) — 2/5/2017 @ 11:58 amI want to see the “Yiannocalypse” – systemwide (every UC and maybe other schools too, including some CSUs) have an event the same night, where they livestream Milo’s speech on cultural appropriation.
He should not say where he’s going to be to make the speech (does he show up at Berkeley? Davis? UCLA? Or some non-campus location and livestream to all events? Or at least an off-campus backup secure location he can broadcast from while riots rage if he’s forced off a campus). He could even tape the speech in advance, but tell people it’s live, and then at the end of the talk, reveal himself at one of the campuses for a live Q&A. Drama!
The anarchist thugs and their pathetic liberal hangers-on (who worship them for being violent but are too wussy to engage in it themselves) would be spread thin throughout the state.
That would sell a lot of books.
Also, he should have a back-up plan in case YouTube prevents his account from streaming – have some other streaming service in place
Frankly, I could see campuses around the country getting in on this act. A one-night frenzy that would grip the imagination of the entire nation… Imagine riots at a hundred different campuses, and the boys in blue stepping in to keep order, making a thousand arrests. We would look back and call it, “the night a thousand flowers bloomed” or something.
And it would be so much fun, we’d go back and do it again a week later.
Leftists are hysterical. Let’s use their hysteria against them. You can’t deal rationally with people like that. You can only troll them. Milo is prominent enough, especially with a little support from Trump, to troll every American college campus simultaneously. That would be a major victory in the war for free speech.
Daryl Herbert (7be116) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:06 pm“excessive response” . This guy gets the prize for best misleading euphemism. The left is clearly using Trump as an excuse to ramp up their suppression of speech they do not like. Still, it is hard to tell if this is centrally coordinated or a spontaneous outpouring of thuggery.
mackwolfe (ceee05) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:16 pmGavin Newsom has difficulty with that whole noun-verb agreement thing.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:25 pmUntil the street people attack the limousine liberals the way they attack the rest of US it seems unlikely to change. Cutting back the federal guarantees that enable them may be the most compassionate way to nudge them back to reality. Meanwhile their march to utopia continues – guns a-blazing.
crazy (d3b449) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:30 pmYou should see the security apparatus they have ringing the Capital in Sacramento.
They have private underground parking for their precious collector item vehicles, with anti-truck barricades that rise up from sockets in the ground hydraulically. Full steel fire and projectile proof grills over ground level walls and windows. No expense spared for these guys peace of mind and safety.
That’s at least part of why they feel so free to flick buggers at you and I.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:48 pmIt’s past time to let them live like the rest of US and experience the consequence(s) of their decisions. Federal guarantees is their achilles heel. The administration is pressing on the right spot.
crazy (d3b449) — 2/5/2017 @ 12:58 pmBanish all thought of reprisal. The only thing you’ll get is yourself arrested. They have a very stout jail (6 stories), and, when the politics are right, a justice apparatus that moves with machine like efficiency.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:02 pmProtest speeches are or were the only avenue to redress available, and as we see in Berkeley they have an army of goons to nip that in the bud as well.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:14 pmOver 100 face masked bomb throwing ninjas and zero arrests.
I think there is relevance in that.
You all want to worry over Putin instead of California?
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:18 pmI’m no expert on civil rights lawsuits, but why can’t Milo and other victims of the violence sue the public officials who were derelict in protecting the publicity? I’m aware of Deshaney v. Winnebago (489 U.S. 189), but still, this is willful failure to protect certain speakers from violent mobs.
SomeGuy (200c5e) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:35 pmWe’re quite neatly at the time of the crisis that provokes the running man gamr
narciso (d1f714) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:40 pmWhat comprises Newsom’s “peaceful and forceful” prescription for the continued resistance to Trump? Pretty clearly force is anything but “peaceful”. Force is used to change the momentum of an object, and the direction of motion is determined by those applying the force. In the absence of an opposing force, the aggressor chooses the destination. This is contrary to any conception of democracy. The victims may submit, but this is not “peace”.
The battle lines are being drawn. On the left we see commenters here calling the thugs “warriors” and praising their “backbone”. It seems to be taken for granted that bloody riots marked by the use of battering rams and fire bombs are just another aspect of American democracy. And the left’s leaders are not calling for a battle for the hearts and minds of the electorate, they are calling for force which precludes any form of peaceful contest. And in so doing, they eliminate the role of our constitutional republic.
I’m not sure those on the right are ready for what is coming. Too many find fault with the victims of this violence. The notion linking expressing a thought with the calculated violence of thugs is a fallacy of the first order. Such thoughts are simply rationalizations that allow one to imagine that the problem to go away if we just keep our eyes shut long enough. These appeasers know it is easier silence a few than to confront a mob. But this mob is daily getting more violent.
And the violence is the message. It is the forceful portion of the left’s prescription for the future. It is a force that can overturn our Republic if it is allowed to fester. The idea that local authorities would encourage such lawlessness with statements like those above hasn’t been seen on a large scale since the days of Jim Crow in the South. It is not a game.
BobStewartatHome (c24491) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:41 pm@BobStewartatHome (c24491) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:41 pm
==And the violence is the message. It is the forceful portion of the left’s prescription for the future. It is a force that can overturn our Republic if it is allowed to fester. The idea that local authorities would encourage such lawlessness with statements like those above hasn’t been seen on a large scale since the days of Jim Crow in the South. It is not a game.==
This. Very much this.
elissa (da292b) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:50 pmThat is a reasonable comment, BobStewartatHome. However, I do not appreciate your comment yesterday to the effect that “there is a very noticeable lack of concern by our host” concerning such violence, specifically including the Chicago riots in response to Trump during the campaign. I posted many, many posts about James O’Keefe’s expose of the leftists who instigated a lot of this violence. I have never, ever minimized the violence. I also did not appreciate your comment to the effect that “Cruz dismissed” the Chicago violence. As I posted yesterday, Cruz’s comments regarding that violence specifically put the blame on the protesters:
Cruz also made an entirely fair comment regarding the culture of Trump’s campaign and how it encouraged violence, and I am not interested in relitigating that, except to say that it’s false to claim that Cruz dismissed the Chicago violence.
If you want allies in the struggle against tactics like this, you need to be careful not to smear your potential allies. You did that yesterday, BobStewartatHome, and it was deeply disappointing to me.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/5/2017 @ 1:56 pmIn my opinion, too many overlook the negatives of the targets of the left, simply because they are targets of the left. We should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and I can criticize the left’s violence at Berkeley while still not engaging in a love affair with a cretin like Milo who posts stuff like this:
If you want to say that it is a waste of time for me to note that tweet in response to people who were actively praising Milo as a possible “awesome dinner party guest” or “a great conservative” then you are making the arguments that:
1) One may never use a tweet showing person x’s bad character in response to praise of person x, and
2) Citing tweets to make any argument is silly and off limits.
BobStewartatHome, I do not agree with those points, but if they are your assertion, you can bet I am going to hold you to them. The next time you cite a tweet from literally anyone, I will be there to remind you that it is your view that: “Anybody who spends their time protesting leftist tweets needs to rethink their priorities. Life is too short.”
It is, by the way, with all due respect, a silly argument. 90% of what we do here is talk about the significance of statements made by political types. Why would those statements be off limits simply because they are contained in a tweet? Or are you simply making up a rule for Milo that doesn’t apply to anyone else?
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/5/2017 @ 2:03 pmAlso, if we are truly concerned about violence, then we had best be concerned with a President who held rallies that encouraged an atmosphere of violence, and who draws a moral equivalence between the murderous violence of Vladimir Putin’s regime and the actions of the American government.
That is, if we are interested in being something besides laughable hypocrites.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/5/2017 @ 2:05 pmI remember Obama telling liberals to use a gun. I have my fears for safety.
AZ Bob (f7a491) — 2/5/2017 @ 2:13 pmWe had one of those for eight years, Pat. If not for the 22nd amendment I’m sure the Pa voting booths would have been patrolled by club wealding goon squads to make sure we had him still.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 2:41 pmAnd there is enough similarity between Putin’s path to leadership and California Democrats to at least warrant a comparison among honest brokers.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 2:44 pmHere in America we are still entitled to decide whom we’d be willing to entertain in our own homes, are we not?
“Hypocrisy” is a highly complex word and is ever more being used as a cudgel in ad hominem arguments rather than part of examining instructive and reasoned specific discourse. Hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder and has equally as much to do with beliefs and biases of the receiver(s) as it does with the beliefs and biases of the sender(s).
Over many years I have found BobStewartatHome to consistently be one of the most rational, enlightened, and both intellectually curious and honest posters who comments here and participates in discussions here. He and others have a different opinion than you do on a specific issue. So what. It’s an opinion. Nothing he said in his comment here or yesterday comes close to deserving the fire back you just gave him as far as I can see.
All politics aside I hope whichever football team you all are rooting for does well.
elissa (da292b) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:00 pmA bunch of people who want to divest from companies and countries they don’t like astonished to find former democrat using their tactics against them.
lee (55777a) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:03 pmBTW… thanks for this timely post, Dana.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:05 pmIt seems clear that lines are being drawn, especially in California.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:09 pmI thick the Falcons have the winning formula this year.
Have your bookie call my bookie.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:10 pmIt will be a tough four years, being surrounded on all sides.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:12 pmPatterico, we both supported Cruz. I still have 20 or 30 of his yard signs that I wasn’t able to place before the May primary in Washington. I was disappointed in his statement following the Chicago riots. Everything he said is correct, but by talking about the need not to be disagreeable, he lessened the impact of his later remarks. In fact, his condemnation of the rioters consisted of nothing more than assigning responsibility to the protesters for the violence, which hardly needed to be said. This seemed to be very wishy-washy at the time. One could even argue that his statement subtly equated being disagreeable with mob violence. Cruz is a masterful wordsmith, so I don’t think this was an accident.
That’s water under the bridge, but I fear we have a tendency to think that what is needed is for us to be ever more agreeable in the face of ever increasing partisanship. At some point we will find we have to say enough is enough. I lived through the student riots in the 60s. I got spat on in airports in my uniform, and was ordered take my hat off while riding the bus so that the rioters at American University wouldn’t target the bus for some sort of assault, and later I learned to deal with tear gas quaffing through the air conditioning when I returned to graduate school. Those students were misled, but they were protesting a life-and-death war of attrition that our best and brightest manned with draftees. Foreign adversaries may have lent a hand to some of the protesters, but this was a home grown, organic uprising. What we’re seeing today is much more cynical. We know one Professor was out screaming at the police, and one of the masked thugs turns out to be employed by the University. Our previous President was nothing more than a community organizer, an advocate of these sorts of activities. So just as Obama weaponized the federal bureaucracy, the progressives have weaponized “student protests”. Or BLM protests. And the organization is impressive. I expect that in every case where thousands of protesters are marching, there are many miles of city streets with commercial charter buses parked awaiting the marchers return. Someone chartered those buses in cities hundreds of miles away, and then induced people to spend their day participating. And when the riots start, there is never any mention of the army of protesters and the large scale organization that made it possible for them to descend on the target. We are left to conclude that they are residents of the city, but this is rarely the case, as is evident in the arrest records should the local police dare to detain some of the more belligerent rioters.
As much as I decried Trump’s behavior as a candidate, and as disagreeable as he can be, I find much to recommend his current policies and initiatives. And the asymmetry of our media coverage has been highlighted when they make an issue out of Trump’s continuation of an existing policy. A policy that drew no criticism under Obama. This needs to be hammered home, if only to get a few chuckles, which is one reason I participate in this blog.
I have no opinion of Milo. The first I ever heard of him was when he went to a Pizza shop to interview the owners who had been targeted for some gay-activist protest. And I saw him interviewed by Carlson on Fox following the Berkeley riot. He was at Berkeley legally and properly, and no one was forced to attend his event. Unlike students in the Seattle schools who are forced to attend special classes featuring Social Justice indoctrination. Milo was put in great danger by the Berkeley rioters. The police didn’t so much “protect” him as they extracted him. I’m on Milo’s team in this one, because our country won’t work if the progressives get away this. I don’t have to support Milo’s philosophy or policies to make this decision.
BobStewartatHome (c24491) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:12 pmI think. Not often, but sometimes.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:12 pmWatching the video of Cruz that Patterico posted, I was heartened to see more context around his remarks, but also noted that Cruz did use the words and spoke the sentences that were quoted and posted earlier that so incensed our host. I also saw a display of what so many unfortunately had perceived about Cruz… he’s well-spoken, but often uses a pause for dramatic effect that can come off as somewhat phony and a little smarmy. He’s still the guy I wanted to see in the White House, but that ship has sailed.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:21 pmNo. What incensed me was the omission of the portion of his remarks where he decried the violence and blamed those who perpetrated it.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:36 pmThis is not about whether Cruz should have been elected but treating him fairly with accurate quotes.
And I still think BobStewartatHome owes me an apology for claiming “there is a very noticeable lack of concern by our host” concerning violence.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:37 pm“ANALYSIS: TRUE. Super Bowl 51 Completes the Left’s Hyper-Politicization of Absolutely Everything.”
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/256521/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:44 pmWhat he basically said when you cut to the chase is that the Trump supporters shouldn’t have been surprised by violence, it should’ve been expected.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/5/2017 @ 3:47 pmhttp://www.lifezette.com/polizette/anti-trump-protesters-block-ambulance/
elissa (da292b) — 2/5/2017 @ 4:31 pmTea Parties – hundreds of gatherings of citizens assembling peaceably, with less than 10 total arrests, always cleaning up after themselves and yet almost universally described as racist, xenophobic and dangerous to society.
Occupy, BLM & Disrupt! – groupthink clowns who shout down anyone they disagree with, thousands of arrests for trespassing, property damage, assault, arson, rape, vandalism, looting and always leaving mountains of trash/debris to be cleaned up by property owners and taxpayers, yet almost universally described by the media as brave, progressive and tolerant.
Our work is cut for us and the deck is stacked. Infighting on petty Issues is detrimental and destructive to the cause of freedom, rule of law and truth.
Harkin (662f8d) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:27 pmIf gaga is politicizing the Superbowl, it’s real subtle.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:27 pmWent by me.
I liked it. My favorite part of the halftime show, it wasn’t a geriatric B ritish rock band.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:32 pmMy second favorite part of the halftime show, all the liberals holding their breathe dreading Gaga would politicize the Superbowl, giving them another black eye.
Welcome to the club Liberals.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:35 pmDid you hear them all start breathing again when Gaga dropped the mic?
lol
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:38 pmThroughout his life, Adolphus Busch referred to his beer as “dot schlop” and preferred to drink wine.
lol
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/5/2017 @ 5:58 pmPatterico, I don’t think what Milo has done in the past is so horrible that he no longer deserves to be considered a fellow citizen, endowed with our inalienable rights. I don’t think you need to invite him to dinner. I certainly wouldn’t. On the other hand, if my friends liked him, I wouldn’t hold that against them. It wouldn’t be of any significance based on what I’ve seen. The picture of Ben’s son that Milo tweeted (apparently?) that you have posted twice doesn’t offend me. We have some photos of our kids that are equally candid. In fact, I like the big eyes and I can imagine a good deal of curiosity in that focused gaze. Milo’s comment was not to my liking. So what?
But I don’t think these thoughts about Milo have any bearing on what happened in Berkeley. Our disapproval of the violence at Berkeley should be unqualified. The thugs want to silence us, and we shouldn’t compromise any aspect of our resistance to their “forcefulness”. The real target of the violence isn’t, after all, the speaker they drove away. It is the audience of the speaker. These are the victims of the neglect of the authorities. They are the ones we should be allied with. We know that they wanted to hear Milo, and they were willing to engage in the exchange of ideas. This should be enough.
My concern is that you seemed to be attaching conditions to those for whom you would support the right to free speech. I think we should be absolute in our support of this fundamental right. If we are to qualify it, it should be on the grounds that no one should be coerced to listen or obey, nor should opposing voices be censored, nor should the speaker incite violence. Public resources shouldn’t be used to favor one point of view or another. Basically, we need to ensure the existence of a free market for ideas, and then we need to support that market place. Given these conditions, we need to respect the working of that market, because the alternative is tyranny. As things stand, we have stumbled unwittingly into world where it is very dangerous to express any opinion that contravenes progressive dogma. It might be politically expedient to withhold support for some speakers in this environment, but this shouldn’t be our criteria. And this isn’t to say that we must support every speaker. Let them earn our support. However, when any speaker is denied his rights, we must recognize that our own rights are put at risk if ignore the abuse.
If you support free speech in this manner, then I have misunderstood the thrust of your remarks.
BobStewartatHome (c24491) — 2/5/2017 @ 9:12 pmThe people who do these things aren’t trying to convince anybody. They’re not even trying to demonstrate support.
Sammy Finkelman (2f3e32) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:01 pmOT: I just did a whole post misstating the time of the 9th Circuit argument because I misread a report as saying Pacific and not Eastern. I guess it happened at 3 Pacific. Did anyone watch it?
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:04 pmAnd I don’t think he needs to be crowned Emperor of the World.
Now that we have each established that we don’t think something should happen that the other side never even began to suggest should happen, we can have a discussion.
As for the rest of your comment, it’ll have to wait, as I have a post to write.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:06 pmThe oral argument is 3 PM Tuesday.
DRJ (15874d) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:15 pmIts tomorrow.
LOL
shipwreckedcrew (e90d7c) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:15 pmMilo Yiannopoulos is not a U.S. citizen.
nk (dbc370) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:16 pmTwo-fer! I misread the time AND the date.
Awesome.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:31 pmAlways trust content fr–
Ah, forget it
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:31 pmLink to video.
Patterico (115b1f) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:32 pmMilo Yiannopoulos is not a U.S. citizen.
Interesting.
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/6/2017 @ 6:55 pmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos
It says Milo is a British subject.
I make light of the difference between being an American citizen versus a British subject often enough, but there is a big difference, especially for politically provocative homosexuals.
There’s this movie about the computer genius Alan Turing where the guy was sentenced to chemical castration, which led directly to his death, back in the 50’s under dubious legal rulings. He was convicted of “freeing Willie” in a public restroom.
You’d like to think the situation has changed in the UK, but listen here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_castration#Europe
“Bloating of the physique” sticks out because of the more contemporary case of homosexual composer singer George Michael, who was also famously convicted of “freeing Willie” in a public restroom, and who also was conspicuously grossly boated at the time of his death.
Has Yiannopolos filed for assylum from anti-gay persecution by the British government?
papertiger (c8116c) — 2/6/2017 @ 7:29 pm