The End of the First Amendment

Townhall.com ^ | September 20, 2017 | Ben Shapiro

[Kaslin]

Last week, I visited the University of California, Berkeley.

The preparations for the visit were patently insane. First, the school charged the sponsor group, Young America's Foundation, a $15,000 security fee. Then, the school blocked off the upper level of the auditorium, fearful that radicals from the violent far-left-leaning group Antifa would infiltrate the speech and begin hurling objects from the balcony onto the crowd below. Finally, the school ended up spending some $600,000 on additional policing, including the creation of cement barriers and hiring of hundreds of armed police officers for a prospective riot.

All this so that I could deliver a speech about personal responsibility and individualism.

Good for Berkeley for doing its job. Bad for the students and outside agitators who made it necessary. Unfortunately, the bad actors are becoming more prominent and more popular. At The University of Utah, we're already hearing rumors of unrest. And, according to an astonishing new survey from Brookings Institution, such idiocy is set to multiply: A full 44 percent of students said that the First Amendment does not protect "hate speech"; a majority of students, 51 percent, said that they would be in favor of students shouting down a speaker "known for making offensive and hurtful statements"; 19 percent of students said the use of violence against controversial speakers would be acceptable.

This is full-scale fascism, and it's gaining ground.

Meanwhile, administrators are caving. At Middlebury College, administrators have adopted a policy that explicitly states, "Only in cases of imminent and credible threat to the community that cannot be mitigated by revisions to the event plan would the president and senior administration consider canceling the event." At DePaul University, I was pre-emptively banned from campus last year after students got violent with another speaker. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, police left students who decided to storm the stage while I was speaking to their own devices; administrators reportedly told the police not to remove the agitators and to cancel the event if they felt it necessary to do so. At California State University, Los Angeles, administrators allegedly told police to stand down rather than fight near-rioters getting violent with those who would attend one of my speeches.

Both students and administrators should take a lesson from Berkeley.

First, administrators: Security is necessary for the free exercise of the First Amendment. Right now, there's an expectation that police will be prevented from doing their jobs; that's why groups like Antifa roam free. At Berkeley, they knew better: The police were armed with pepper spray and told to arrest anyone in a mask or with a barred weapon. The result was 1,000 protesters and no serious violence. That was after months of actual brutal violence in the streets of Berkeley. Other campuses must take note.

Second, students: Get a grip. I spoke at Berkeley without incident, and we actually had productive discussions with a number of students on the left. Everybody left with more information than they had coming in. Discussion never hurt anyone. But both the heckler's veto and the fascistic worldview that fuels it do.

[Travis McGee]

[foreverfree]

all

[foreverfree]

correction: I meant bump

[DaveA37]

The day and time is drawing near when “We, The People” rise up against the “Antifa idiots” and the outcome will NOT BE PRETTY. There will certainly be blood in the streets. Letting such trouble makers have their way of disruption and chaos MUST come to an end.

[bert]

Any one with a mask or bandana should be shot on sight. Such a person is a treasonous criminal who has by wearing a mask forfeited rights.

Shoot now sort it out 4 or 5 years later in the court. Meanwhile the criminal is dead

[Travis McGee]

Won’t be pretty is right.
Rwanda X Bosnia.

[circlecity]

I think Berkley went massive overkill on the security for the Shapiro speech so they could charge massive security fees for any future conservative speakers if not deny them the right to speak altogether. They will point to the Shapiro event and say, “look how much security cost for him”

[rktman]

Didn’t someone post something yesterday about Princeton holding an “F#&k free speech” event/rally/gathering/coven on constitution day? Hopefully the word gets around and some of the alumni pull their support, but...........

[FreedomNotSafety]

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Maybe I missed the part were Congress passed a law prohibiting someone’s right to speak at Berkeley.

[LouAvul]

It is not the end of the First Amendment. That is why we have the Second Amendment. It is, however, the end of Higher Education. Higher education in America is a joke. A travesty.

And Berzerkely, Harvard, Yale, etc, all these formerly decent learning institutions, lead the pack into irrelevance.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

“When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself anti-Fascism. My own belief, more than once set afloat from this spot, is that it will take us, soon or late, into the stormy waters of Fascism. To be sure, that Fascism is not likely to be identical with the kinds on tap in Germany, Italy and Russia; indeed, it is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism.”
– H.L. Mencken (1938)

[JimRed]

Thanks. I had not seen that quote before, and have saved it for future use.

[Pollster1]

Any one with a mask or bandana should be shot on sight. Such a person is a treasonous criminal who has by wearing a mask forfeited rights.

Perhaps some thought should be given before shooting. Sometimes.

[bert]

most can distinguish between fact and fiction.