I recognized that look in their eyes. It was the same look I received several times throughout my service with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Judea and Samaria. A look that showed the trauma of years of anti-Semitic indoctrination. When I was a soldier, I understood that look. After all, these Palestinian teens in Judea and Samaria had been, throughout their entire lives, led to believe that Jews were European colonialists who had no connection to the land and had orchestrated the displacement of the Palestinian people in 1948. I could at least understand the logic behind that look.
Receiving it by nearly one hundred students in the University of Florida on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/958292104537679/">November 19th</a> completely disoriented me. A similar look, with the only difference being that it was driven by the adoption of false information about the conflict and not necessarily blatant anti-Semitism.
These students did not know me. They did not know my story, and they were definitely not interested in dialogue. Had they been interested in a discussion filled with opportunities to challenge my premises, perhaps they would have stayed and listen to my ultimate message:
We need to humanize Palestinians. The way we will humanize Palestinians is by making a very clear distinction between the people and the leadership. Then we can hold the leadership accountable for repressing its own population for decades and refusing to abandon the rejectionist attitudes towards peace with a Jewish state. An attitude that, if abandoned, could have granted the Palestinian people a state as far back as 1937 with the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-peel-commission">Peel Commission</a>. That is what my presentation, “Why There is No Palestinian State,” sought to discuss.
As the majority of students participated in the protest and walked out of the room, nearly thirty students stayed behind, eager to find out more. Among the students who stayed were two reporters for the school’s newspaper, The Independent Alligator, and I rejoiced. I thought perhaps those who decided to walk out of the room because the content of the presentation would challenge their preconceived notions would discover that my intentions were to use objective historical truths to engage in meaningful dialogue.
The protestors decided to hold a vigil for Palestinians who had died in Gaza after Israeli air attacks during armed escalation that was recently ended by a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Had the protestors stayed for the Q&amp;A session, they would have learned about how civilians in Gaza are used as human shields. They would have learned that Israeli airstrikes only served as a form of retaliation against a terrorist organization that was targeting Israeli civilians indiscriminately with a barrage of over 350 <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-hits-islamic-jihad-launchpads-as-over-200-rockets-fired-into-israel/">rockets</a>.
But the role of the Palestinian leadership as an obstacle to peace is an inconvenient truth.
I offered the reporters a full interview after my speaking engagement. I answered all their questions with the outmost transparency; after all, they were professional enough to stay throughout my entire presentation and listen to what I had come to say. I was questioned about my experience in the army and the message I sought to leave the audience with my presentation. After a long night, I returned to my hotel and woke up early the next morning to see the article: “Hundreds protest Israel Defense Forces speaker at Little Hall Tuesday night,” <a href="https://www.alligator.org/news/hundreds-protest-israel-defense-forces-speaker-at-little-hall-tuesday/article_c8698c78-0b4a-11ea-92d7-e7720dcad3b9.html">published</a>. The title, blatantly inaccurate, set the tone for a piece of writing that violated basic journalistic ethical norms. Not only were my quotes largely ignored or cut in half, but the article was dedicated to quoting the students who decided to storm out of the room without hearing a word out of my mouth.
Twelve thousand dollars. That is the average amount paid by students at the University of Florida for <a href="https://www.ufl.edu/">tuition</a> after financial aid is applied. Nearing $50,000 per bachelor’s degree, one has to wonder — what type of education are the students who walked out interested in receiving? Do they want to remain in a social bubble that will continue to serve as an echo chamber for all their preconceived notions — even if they are erroneous?
More importantly, did the newspaper achieve its purpose of shedding light unto a story or did it perpetuate darkness and ignorance by refusing to publish the content of the presentation they had come to hear? The authors of this horrendous article not only failed to uphold journalistic ethics, but they also failed their own student body.
Towards the end of my interview with The Independent Alligator, I was asked:
“What message would you like to give to all those students who walked out in the protest?”
Despite the clear attempts to silence my message, I will answer that question now.
My message to the nearly one hundred students — not hundreds, as it was inaccurately described by the paper — who walked out is simple:
If you are planning to go into debt for at least five to ten years after you complete your undergraduate education, at least have the courage to challenge your own positions. Your conviction was not proven by your decision to preemptively exit the room before I began speaking; rather, it would have been proven if your positions would have remained the same after hearing everything I came to say.
I would hope that the school’s administration might consider the negative implications of this protest and take this as an opportunity to encourage its students to accept the principal factor guiding all of academia: Open-mindedness.
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<a style="font-style: italic;" href="https://yonimichanie.org">Yoni Michanie</a> is a former IDF Paratrooper and has a MA in Diplomacy and International Security from IDC Hertzeliya. He is an Israel advocate, public speaker, Middle East analyst, and is campus advisor and strategic planner for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

Florida Gators logo

MICHANIE: I Was Just Protested At The University Of Florida For Being A Zionist

First Amendment

Florida

Free Speech

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Palestinians

Protest

Students for Justice in Palestine

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan spoke at the University of Central Florida. During his speech, which was sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), he spoke about the real cost of freedom.
Klavan first noted that in order for one person to be free, that person must allow the freedom of others – even if they don’t like it:
<blockquote>I want you to be free to speak your mind, even when your opinions are unpopular and seem hateful to other people. I want you to be free to choose your path in life, even if somebody else thinks it’s wrong. I want you to be free to decide how you spend your own money. This is a big part of freedom, how to spend your own money. Money is not just money, money is your time. You use your time to make money. When they take your money, they take your time. When they take your time, they take your life – your life is made of time – and when they take your money, they are taking control of your life.
The definition of slavery is that you do the work, and someone more powerful than you decides how to spend the money. That’s also the definition of socialism&#8230;
I want you to be enthusiastic, eager participants in this unique American experiment in limited government and personal liberty. And so, I want to be honest with you when I tell you that the kind of freedom I’m talking about is not easy. It’s hard. Everything good, as you must know already, in life is hard.
Love is hard; peace is hard; wealth is hard; staying in shape is hard. It’s all hard. You have to work at it. One hard thing about freedom &#8230; is that in order for you to be free, you have to allow other people to be free&#8230;
You can’t be free by stepping on another guy’s throat because one day, somebody&#8217;s gonna come along who’s bigger than you to step on your throat. It’s that simple, right? You have to have a system, an agreement, that everybody is going to be free. That has to be in place.
If you want to speak your mind, you have to let other people speak. You can’t define somebody else’s ideas as hate speech because eventually, the bigger guy’s gonna come along and define your ideas as hate speech. There’s only free speech, and speech governed by the powerful&#8230;
You want to go your way, other people have to go their way. You’re gay and you wanna get married, go ahead – but if somebody doesn’t want to cater your wedding, you’ve got to leave them be, even if it hurts your feelings. Freedom is hard on the feelings.</blockquote>
Klavan then spoke about how freedom is inherently “unsafe” because it requires risk and responsibility:
<blockquote>Another way freedom is hard is that it’s very unsafe. It’s risky; it’s frightening; it entails taking responsibility for yourself and paying your own way. If you can’t decide how other people spend your money, you can’t take their money to spend it on what you want to spend it on.
If you want to build a business &#8230; and it fails, you shouldn’t be able to bail it out with taxpayer money because that’s not your money. That’s somebody else’s money. Somebody else earned that. If you want to sleep around, knock yourself out, but when you get pregnant or get an STD, or when you’re miserable and enslaved in the drugs you took – it’s not my fault. You can’t take my money. I earned that money. That’s my time; that’s my life. You have to pay for yourself.
If you went in debt to go to school, you can’t suddenly turn around and say, “Pay my debt.” I didn’t take out the money. You took out the debt. Its dangerous. Every time that Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders says, “I happen to believe that everybody should have free health care” &#8230; he is taking somebody else’s freedom – and when he takes that freedom, he’s taking your freedom because if their money’s not safe, your money’s not safe. All this free stuff they’re giving you is not free. Conservatives are always saying, “How much is that gonna cost?” Never mind how much it’s gonna cost in money. What’s it gonna cost in freedom? You are handing over to the government the right to take your earnings away.</blockquote>
But Klavan’s final point about the difficulties of freedom was that, as humans, we often find it easier and more comfortable to be taken care of by someone more powerful than we are:
<blockquote>Maybe the hardest thing about freedom is that nobody really wants it. This is another founding story of the west, and they don’t tell it enough. It’s the founding story of Exodus in the Bible&#8230;
People don’t want to be free. They want to be fed; they want to be safe; they want to be taken care of; they want to be children forever – except for Pharoah. Except for the people who want power. And the people who want power know one thing. They know most people don’t want to be free. They know if they offer to feed you; they know if they offer to keep you safe; they know if they offer to treat you like children, you will give them power, and you will lose your freedom. And by the way, that’s the way it’s always been until folks got here. I lived in England – one of the freest counties on Earth – they’re nothing like as free as we are. There is nothing on Earth like the freedom we have here. It’s unique. It pops up only every now and again in history, and it dies fast, and it doesn’t come back for a long time.
So when you ask yourself what people want when they stir up your passions, and point at one another and say, “There a fascist! There’s a sexist! There’s a black person! There’s a Jew! There’s a homosexual! There’s a hater!,” what they’re doing is they’re pointing you away from the main thing you have, which is your freedom. They’re trying to get you angry, divided, passionate, and unthinking so that you will give them [your] freedom. And they do this sometimes sounding like it’s the best intentions&#8230;</blockquote>
Klavan concluded his speech with a rallying cry for freedom, kindness, and joy:
<blockquote>No matter what happens; no matter what new things come along, the old truths are going to remain exactly the same. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Judge not, lest you be judged. Love your neighbor as yourself. All your joy is going to be found in love and virtue – and there is no true love, and there is no true virtue unless you’re free to choose them.</blockquote>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7rm1nuqJ3SI?start=1105" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Andrew Klavan.

WATCH: Klavan On Why Freedom Is So Difficult And Fragile

Andrew Klavan

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer has the following piece today at <a href="https://dallasjewishmonthly.com/djm/">Dallas Jewish Monthly</a>.
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Many of the leading bastions of America’s progressive Jewish establishment cling to a fundamentally misbegotten conception of what religious liberty entails in our pluralistic, but historically Christian-centric, constitutional republic. Consider the leftist Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which <a href="https://www.adl.org/what-we-do/discrimination/religious-freedom">publicly declares its commitment</a> to “safeguard religious freedom for all Americans by protecting the separation of church and state mandated by the First Amendment.” Consider also the far-left Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism (RAC), which <a href="https://rac.org/jewish-values-and-church-and-state">similarly proclaims</a> that “the principle of separation of church and state is best for both church and state and is indispensable for the preservation of that spirit of religious liberty which is a unique blessing of American democracy.”
In placing such a clear and unmistakable emphasis on the notion of “separation of church and state,” the ADL and the RAC are summoning the long-dead spirit of Thomas Jefferson’s <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html">famous 1802 letter</a> to Connecticut’s Danbury Baptist association. In that letter, Jefferson opines that the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment combine to “build[] a wall of separation between Church &amp; State.” But Jefferson, as every high school civics student learns, was not even present during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Ever the Francophile, Jefferson was instead gallivanting off in pre-revolutionary France during that sweltering Philadelphia summer. Jefferson instead left it to his fellow Virginians — namely Convention president George Washington and leading visionary James Madison — to help draft a new governmental charter.
Furthermore, while the Bill of Rights was not proposed until two years following the end of the Convention, there is ample historical evidence that the Establishment Clause of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a>— that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — had an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43626/hammer-bladensburg-cross-memorial-case-supreme-josh-hammer">original public meaning that is inconsistent</a> with the views of the ADL and the RAC. Indeed, as the constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger has persuasively <a href="https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D87S7N7S">argued</a>, the Establishment Clause “say[s] nothing about separation of church and state, and therefore notwithstanding the claims made on behalf of separation, there is reason to believe it is not the religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.” On the contrary, public religiosity was never understood, at the time of the Founding, as inconsistent in any way with American ideals. Three days after the First Amendment was submitted to the states for ratification, Congress <a href="https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving">established a public day of Thanksgiving</a> which, a mere five days later, President Washington <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw8a.124/?q=1789+Thanksgiving&amp;sp=132&amp;st=text">explained</a> as a “public thanks-giving and prayer” based upon “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.”
But even on a deeper and more profound level, the innate hostility toward public and overt religiosity demonstrated by progressive “separation[ists]” such as the ADL and the RAC is ultimately a betrayal of even narrower Jewish religious liberty interests. The George Washington who helped push the ratification of the First Amendment and declared Thanksgiving as a day to “acknowledge … Almighty God” is the same man who wrote the following timeless and awe-inspiring <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135">1790 letter</a> to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island:
<blockquote>[H]appily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. … May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. </blockquote>
<a href="https://dallasjewishmonthly.com/djm/religious-liberty-for-all-is-good-for-jews/">Read the rest here</a>.

Stained glass window at synagogue

Hammer At ‘Dallas Jewish Monthly’: Religious Liberty For All Is Good For Jews

Anti-Semitism

Constitution

Judaism

Religion

It should come as no surprise to find religion mixed with sports in America. From Tim Tebow’s eye black to teams huddled in prayer at the 50-yard line after games, American athletes routinely exercise their religion — before, during, and after games. With these public displays comes needless, often intimidating complaints that are probably better ignored.
The latest complaint came just this week. A group known for making noisy, public complaints about religion in public life groused to the Cameron R-1 School District in Cameron, Missouri. In a letter bearing the rough semblance of a legal demand letter, the group makes several unsubstantiated claims upon the school’s superintendent. Ultimately, they demand an investigation and that he “take immediate action” to end any religious activity supposedly occurring in violation of the Constitution.
Surprisingly, when school districts receive letters like these, they too often take them seriously. Perhaps you would too if you didn’t know any better. After all, legal cases are cited, a lawyer signs it, and one assumes that a lawsuit could follow if what they say is actually true. But something always seems to be missing. An important something: A litigant.
Fundamentally, unless a lawyer, law firm, or legal organization identifies a plaintiff — a parent and/or student actually aggrieved by any of the alleged conduct attributable to the school district — the letter is meritless. It amounts to little more than a public gripe. In the age of web crawlers and Google Alerts, even the claim that a local resident may have complained about the situation should be suspect.
There are important reasons to ignore anonymous complaints. Federal courts were not established to serve roving bands of censors and scolds. Only those with legitimate, legal standing are permitted to challenge complained-of behavior. Phantom complaints should be ignored lest school officials be goaded into unlawful behavior that suppresses activity otherwise protected by the Constitution.
Earlier this year, in the context of monuments, memorials, and other public displays invoking religion, Justice Samuel Alito explained in The American Legion v. AHA that, “A government that roams the land, tearing down monuments with religious symbolism and scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion.”
History is replete with regimes that aggressively destroy public religious symbols and monuments. Modern governments, to this day, continue to assert control over the public expression of religion by their citizens. As President Trump recently observed in front of the United Nations, religious persecution is more the rule worldwide than America’s exception in protecting our core, national value of religious liberty.
This truth led Justice Alito to conclude in The American Legion: “Militantly secular regimes have carried out such projects in the past, and for those with a knowledge of history, the image of monuments being taken down will be evocative, disturbing, and divisive.”
Similarly divisive, and equally evocative of repressive regimes throughout history, and to this day, would be a school district catering to the interests of an organization that “roams the land” seeking to coerce school officials into taking unnecessary action that could very well lurch into the realm of hostility toward religion.
Courts require justiciable issues in order to access justice. Justiciable issues are presented by human beings actually aggrieved — what lawyers call having proper “standing.” Disembodied complainants rarely meet the rigid demands of civil procedure.
Government officials that receive such letters should wait until a plaintiff is identified. Assuming any and all religious expression is unconstitutional and taking action to put a stop to it — based on little more than an anonymous complaint — may actually increase liability.
Religious liberty is a hallmark of our nation’s brand of freedom. The free exercise of religion, protected by the First Amendment, guarantees the rights of all citizens to exercise their faith. That freedom should not be casually limited by mere complaints from unidentified sources voiced by those who fund national television advertisements that mock religion.
If folks at the nation’s athletic events are offended by the presence of religion, they would do well to follow the advice of Judge James Clinkscales Hill, writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Chandler v. Siegelman, that they are “free not to listen, and to express their disagreement by not participating in any way.”
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Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

U.S. Supreme Court building

DYS: Roaming Complainers Should Be Ignored

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) issued a formal apology to former Brooklyn Democratic State Assemblyman Dov Hikind on Monday as part of a settlement over a lawsuit regarding her decision to block him on Twitter.
&#8220;I have reconsidered my decision to block Dov Hikind from my Twitter account,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement obtained by <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/04/aoc-says-shes-sorry-for-trying-to-block-dov-hikind-on-twitter/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&amp;utm_medium=SocialFlow&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow">The New York Post</a>. &#8220;Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them.&#8221;
&#8220;In retrospect, it was wrong and improper and does not reflect the values I cherish. I sincerely apologize for blocking Mr. Hikind,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;Now and in the future, however, I reserve the right to block users who engage in actual harassment or exploit my personal/campaign account, @AOC, for commercial or other improper purposes.&#8221;
The apology comes only a day before the self-proclaimed &#8220;radical&#8221; congresswoman was set to testify in federal court. Hikind filed a lawsuit against Ocasio-Cortez for blocking him over the summer after a federal appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump had violated the First Amendment by blocking people on Twitter. The three-judge panel determined that the president&#8217;s action was in violation of the Constitution because he used his account to conduct official government business.
The lawsuit put forth that Ocasio-Cortez blocked Hikind after he criticized the freshman lawmaker for repeatedly comparing Nazi concentration camps to illegal immigrant detention facilities. The former Brooklyn assemblyman, who founded a nonprofit organization seeking to combat anti-Semitism, referred to her analogy as an &#8220;incredibly egregious, insensitive, uneducated, disrespectful comment.&#8221;
While Ocasio-Cortez has claimed in the past to have Sephardic Jewish ancestry, she has also made eyebrow-raising statements about the Jewish people — leading repeated allegations of anti-Semitism to swirl around the congresswoman. In addition to comparing detainment facilities to concentration camps, she has compared a migrant caravan trying to enter the United States illegally to Jews fleeing the Holocaust.
She has also vehemently defended her fellow Democratic colleagues, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), amid widespread backlash for promoting age-old anti-Semitic canards.
In addition, she has also come out in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to punish the Jewish state of Israel by politically and economically depriving the country for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinian-Arabs. The movement initially metastasized on American college campuses and is described by the Anti-Defamation League as &#8220;the most prominent effort to undermine Israel&#8217;s existence.&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez co-sponsored Omar&#8217;s bill defending BDS and was only one of 17 members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning BDS.
While Hikind expressed disappointment that he would not be able face Ocasio-Cortez in court, he extended an invitation to the New York lawmaker to meet Holocaust survivors in his community and learn what a concentration camp means to them.
&#8220;I also want to address to Ocasio-Cortez, to ask her, we have had an outbreak of anti-Semitism in New York that we have never had before — the numbers are unprecedented,&#8221; Hikind said during a press conference on Monday &#8220;[A]ttacks upon Jews, Jewish blood in the streets, Swastikas being painted on synagogues, hate speech all over the place in New York.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://t.co/979FD31ruV">https://t.co/979FD31ruV</a>
&mdash; Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) <a href="https://twitter.com/HikindDov/status/1191395529676050434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I want to challenge Ocasio-Cortez, who speaks out on everything that&#8217;s important for America, has not spoken out about anti-Semitism,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I challenge Ocasio-Cortez to speak up, to stand up, with me, with others, and speak out against the anti-Semitism that has invaded the streets of our city and our community.&#8221;

House Financial Services Committee Hearing On Administration&#8217;s Plans To Change Housing Finance

Ocasio-Cortez Issues Last-Minute Formal Apology For Blocking Twitter User

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Twitter

The very first political video I ever made was entitled “Shut Up.” That’s ten years ago, though it seems like more. The vid is still up on YouTube.
“The left here has been making the ‘shut up’ argument at least since the seventies, when it became clear that all their other arguments had failed,” says my younger and incredibly handsome self. “Since it was the only argument remaining to them, they had to invent different ways to say it. If you pointed out that their weakness allowed the murderous tyranny of Communism to expand, for instance, well, you were a McCarthyite. Shut up. If you proved their leniency toward criminals turned our cities into cesspools, you were a fascist. Shut up. When you pointed out that their welfare policies destroyed black families and created a social disaster of vast proportions, you were a racist, a sexist, uncivil, worse than Hitler, all just different ways of saying: shut up.”
It is sad to see how relentlessly the left has adhered to this approach. With the collapse of their utopia, the Soviet Union, with socialism a drag on life everywhere (yes, including Scandinavia), with leftist Europe sinking under the weight of unrestrained immigration and lack of assimilation and with the presidency of light worker savior Barack Obama an economic and foreign policy failure, leftists, rather than change their minds and their policies, have instead committed to creating a Big Silence meant to hide the truth from all of us, perhaps even from themselves.
This may have once seemed possible given the left’s near monopoly over the means of communication in this country. Hollywood, the news media, the academy — all are nearly wholly populated by leftists. But as the internet and social media began to eat holes in this firewall of disinformation, the left began to fear the truth might reach the people. It was then that their commitment to free speech waned to nothing.
“Free Speech is Killing Us,” headlines a recent story in the leftist New York Times by leftist New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz.
“In the early years of this decade, back when people associated social media with Barack Obama or the Arab Spring, Twitter executives referred to their company as ‘the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.’ Sticks and stones and assault rifles could hurt us, but the internet was surely only a force for progress. No one believes that anymore,” Marantz writes.
Translating that from Leftist into Truth, it means: “Free speech was okay when people said things we like, but not now that people are saying other things.” No one seems to have explained to Marantz that that’s the way freedom feels to everyone: great for you, horrific for anyone you disagree with.
Fearful of Donald Trump’s talent for communicating with Americans without the hate-filled filter of the press, the Left and their media have now launched wars on Facebook and Twitter, trying to cut off the flow of information they dislike. Democratic congressmen grilled Mark Zuckerberg on his failure to censor politicians while, suspiciously in concert, 22 separate news outlets launched attacks on Zuck and his site. Twitter, which was exposed by Project Veritas for shadow banning conservative speech, has announced it will no longer allow political or issue ads. Whose voice do you think they’re trying to silence?
Appallingly, journalists themselves have signed on to this assault on the most basic of American values. In an article in the latest City Journal entitled “Journalists Against Free Speech,” John Tierney describes how journalists from the Atlantic, the Times, Huffpo and other venues have endorsed the version of leftist shut-uppery known as Cancel Culture — though they are shocked when anyone tries to use it on them.
And, according to a recent survey by Campaign for Free Speech, these tactics may be working. Fifty-one percent of Americans want to rewrite the First Amendment to exclude “hate speech.”
Of course, you only have to think logically for half a minute to start asking yourself questions. 1) Who decides the definition of hate speech? 2) Why do they want to? 3) What are they trying to hide?
If you answered: 1) Leftists, 2) Because they want power and 3) The fact that leftism leads to slavery&#8230;
&#8230;shut up.

Protesters

KLAVAN: The Big Silence: The Left Wages War On Free Speech

Facebook

New York Times

Indiewire.com, like most entertainment sites, is hopelessly, consistently liberal.
That means progressive movies, themes and celebrities get the rock star treatment. And, as a result, Indiewire is part of the Social Justice Warrior Borg.
That’s true even when their hard-left positions diametrically oppose <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/woke-indiewire-readers/">their own readers’ views</a>. And Indiewire fans are hardly MAGA hat types.
The latest example comes as the site clutched some boulder-sized pearls over the most recent “Saturday Night Live” episode.
No, the site’s scribe didn’t fault “SNL” for <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/chrisstigall/2019/10/31/basket-of-deplorables-redux-n2555637">punching down at President Donald Trump’s base</a> in the cold open. Instead, the focus fell on a single joke told during the show’s “Weekend Update” segment. Here’s the headline:
<blockquote><a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/snl-michael-che-caitlyn-jenner-trans-joke-hate-speech-1202185707/">‘Saturday Night Live’: Michael Che’s Caitlyn Jenner Joke Wasn’t Funny, It Was Hate Speech</a></blockquote>
The “hate speech” canard is a critical part of the modern left, used as a cudgel against, well, anyone who doesn’t abide by its groupthink.
In this case, here’s the joke in question mocking Kanye West for daring to embrace his Christian faith and President Donald Trump:
<blockquote>“I mean, he used to be one of the coolest black dudes on earth. Now he’s showing up to events in sweatpants and orthopedic sneakers, listening to Kenny G, and trying to get black people to like Trump. It’s like, how long before this guy changes his name to Kathy?”</blockquote>
That part is A-OK with Team Indiewire. After all, it’s attacking a President Trump fan, albeit a very high-profile one. The next line, though, is all kinds of wrong, we’re told.
<blockquote>“Now, you might think that I’m crazy, but about five years ago, there was a fella named Bruce Jenner, and he moved to Calabasas…”</blockquote>
Che’s comments are the same as perpetrating violence, Indiewire says.
<blockquote>He misgenders her, dead-names her, and actively calls her a word that it’s safe to assume she would never use to describe herself. As a refresher, using a trans person’s birth name is referred to as “dead-naming,” and is considered an act of violence.</blockquote>
By whom? Was there a vote?
Only select, Indiewire-approved jokes can be leveled against Jenner now, even if Jenner herself is a good sport about it, as proven by her appearance at the recent Alec Baldwin roast.
It’s the same argument woke protestors use when trying to shut down voices they disagree with. You can’t say that … it’s violence! And you’re a Nazi, by the way. So … let’s start punching!
It’s a pose even mainstream media organizations are actively embracing. Both <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/29/why-america-needs-hate-speech-law/">The Washington Post</a> (where Democracy Dies in Darkness) and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/free-speech-social-media-violence.html">The New York Times</a>, AKA a “former newspaper,” uncorked op-eds against free speech.
Far-left screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/opinion/aaron-sorkin-mark-zuckerberg-facebook.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">Team Stifle Speech</a>, too.
Now, Indiewire leaps aboard said bandwagon.
It’s where much of the Left is these days, to be fair. Hard-left organs like The AV Club are aghast that a movie like “No Safe Spaces” would argue in favor of free speech. Hollywood, as politically active as any community, can’t spare a word in favor of open debate these days.
The media does its part to keep the suppression on the back cultural burner, leaving it up to documentaries like “No Safe Spaces” and “The Rise of Jordan Peterson” to fill the gaps.
It’s ironic that “SNL,” a show desperately trying to be woke, would share that Jenner joke in the first place. Perhaps a semblance of its old DNA, where it told unpredictable jokes that inched near the cultural boundaries, reared its head.
Indiewire’s own readers rebelled against the article, overwhelmingly siding against the site.
<blockquote>He said there ‘was’ a fella. That’s a fact. Bruce Jenner’s name is literally a part of Olympic history. Also, comedians make jokes, that’s what they do. It was funny. There’s no story here.
I call BS. Stop this attempt to censor people saying things that are true. Trying to erase the past doesn’t help your cause. What Michael Che said wasn’t even remotely hate speech.
I was just re-watching the roast of Alec Baldwin. Caitlyn Jenner herself uses her dead name of Bruce Jenner. So it’s safe to say at least one supposition of this article is incorrect.</blockquote>
Will this stop Indiewire? Unlikely. The progressive march to control speech continues, and the site is one of many cheering it on.

71st Emmy Awards SNL

TOTO: &#8216;Woke&#8217; Entertainment Site Accuses SNL Of &#8216;Hate Speech,&#8217; Gets Slapped By Its Own Readers

Hate Speech

Hollywood

Saturday Night Live (SNL)

Transgender

As Nicholas Sandmann&#8217;s lawsuit against The Washington Post was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-judge-reverses-course-on-covington-catholic-student-nick-sandmanns-lawsuit-against-the-washington-post">given anew</a> a green light to proceed, President Trump championed the cause on Twitter Wednesday morning.
“A Federal Judge is allowing the Nick Sandman [sic] libel suit to move forward against the thoroughly disgusting Washington Post (which is no longer available at the White House!),” Trump wrote on Twitter. “He could now have a good chance of winning. Go Nick!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A Federal Judge is allowing the Nick Sandman libel suit to move forward against the thoroughly disgusting Washington Post (which is no longer available at the White House!). He could now have a good chance of winning. Go Nick!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1189518901991923712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-judge-reverses-course-on-covington-catholic-student-nick-sandmanns-lawsuit-against-the-washington-post">reported</a> on Tuesday, Federal Judge William Bertelsman reversed his previous decision and allowed Sandmann&#8217;s libel lawsuit to proceed against the Washington Post, barring a few caveats:
<blockquote>A federal judge in Kentucky reopened Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann’s $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post on Monday after having previously dismissed it over the summer.
“After reviewing an amended complaint, Judge William Bertelsman ordered Monday that the case could enter the discovery phase and hence a portion of the lawsuit against the newspaper could continue,” the Cincinnati Enquirer <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/28/cov-cath-judge-rules-lawsuit-against-washington-post-can-continue/2489395001/">reported</a>.
The lawsuit is allowed to proceed but has been limited in scope after the judge said that 30 out of the 33 statements that Sandmann’s lawyers argued were libelous were not actually libelous.</blockquote>
Sandmann was thrust into the national spotlight earlier this year, when mainstream news outlets like the Post and CNN reported that he and several of his fellow students harassed a Native American man named Nathan Phillips while attending the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Phillips testified that “Make America Great Again” hat-wearing boys blocked his path and taunted him with racial slurs, which appeared somewhat credible at first when viral video revealed the boys standing around Phillips, cheering as he banged a drum in front of Sandmann’s face. However, the narrative took a dramatic turn when other videos showed that Phillips approached the boys, who were at the time being taunted with racial slurs by a fringe group known as the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Without fully investigating the matter, news outlets largely ran with Phillips’ account of what happened, smearing the boys as racists. Sandmann arguably bore the brunt of the smears due to his face being featured so prominently in the video. In fact, media figures, such as CNN contributor Reza Aslan, <a href="https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/01/20/reza-aslan-who-cried-at-the-gillette-commercial-thinks-covington-catholic-hs-student-has-a-punchable-face/">suggested</a> he’d like to punch the 16-year-old in the face. “Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?” Aslan tweeted at the time.
In response, Sandmann’s family sued several news outlets for defamation, targeting the Post first for $250 million and accusing the outlet of “using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles … to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president.” Originally, Judge Bertelsman (who was initially nominated to the bench by former President Jimmy Carter) dismissed the lawsuit, arguing that the Post did not commit defamation because it never mentioned Sandmann by name.
“The words used contain no reflection upon any particular individual,” the judge said in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-dismisses-nick-sandmanns-lawsuit-against-paul-bois">July ruling</a>, adding that the newspaper used “loose, figurative,” and “rhetorical hyperbole” — all of which are protected by the First Amendment.

President Trump Speaks At International Association Of Police Chiefs Annual Conference And Exposition

Trump Champions Nick Sandmann’s Lawsuit Against The Washington Post

Donald Trump

Nick Sandmann

Washington Post

Just days after Attorney General William Barr set off a firestorm among progressive elites for his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-america-is-better-off-for-having-bill-barr">remarkable comments</a> on the importance of morality to the preservation of freedom, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in a <a href="https://www.state.gov/being-a-christian-leader/">speech</a> that his own leadership is drawn from his Christian faith. Now some are calling for what every American ought to instinctively know is an unnecessary investigation by the inspector general of the United States.
Secretary Pompeo’s speech, delivered to the annual meeting of the American Association of Christian Counselors, made a clear distinction. The fourth in line to the presidency admitted to learning a great deal about leadership while at West Point, in his service in the Army and Congress, and as director of the CIA.  Yet Pompeo tailored his comments to focus on how his faith has also informed his leadership style.
He cited the wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs: “With the humble is wisdom.” Great leaders are humble, he noted, observing how critical such humility is to his work as America’s top diplomat. Looking to the New Testament Book of James, Secretary Pompeo made the point that how one speaks and deals with others says a lot about who one is as a leader. And he acknowledged our responsibility to be wise stewards “of whatever it is that we have been privileged to hold onto,” including the decisions we make in our areas of leadership.
Secretary Pompeo’s leadership — in disposition, dialogue, and decision-making — is informed by the Christian principles of humility, forgiveness, being slow to speak, and stewardship.
For this, Americans United for Separation of Church and State now <a href="https://www.au.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/AU%20Letter%20on%20Investigation%20of%20Sec.%20Pompeo%20%26%20Dept.%20of%20State%2010.18.19.pdf">demands</a> that the United States government officially investigate Secretary Pompeo and the department he leads. To them, Secretary Pompeo gave “a proselytizing religious speech,” thus violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. When the U.S. Department of State then promoted the speech online, Americans United for Separation of Church and State contends, it too broke the law.
Secretary Pompeo anticipated the pushback. As an anticipatory defense, he invoked President Abraham Lincoln’s famous admission: “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Had Americans United been established during his presidency, no doubt Lincoln would have received a similar complaint.
It may come as a surprise to some that presidents (and secretaries of state) often look to moral principles — their personal faith — in making leadership decisions.  When those leadership decisions align with calls for social justice and progressive calls for economic equality, the Left celebrates.
Yet, admit that a secretary of state relies upon his faith to be humbler, listen better, and make wiser decisions, and suddenly it crosses the line into a constitutionally dubious attempt to establish an official church of the United States.
The error in thinking by Secretary Pompeo’s critics is that anyone serving in government must relinquish or renounce his/her faith upon entering civil service. Americans United for Separation of Church and State believes that Secretary Pompeo must be converted from religion to secularism in order to be neutral in his office. The group erroneously equates neutrality with government-enforced secularism.
The missionary-like zeal with which these secularists act is damaging to freedom itself. What would they ask the inspector general to do in response to the secretary of state admitting in public that his leadership is informed by his Christian faith? Must he be removed from office? Should the United States fine him for referencing his faith in this speech? Must Secretary Pompeo spend a night and a day in the stocks under a sign declaring, “Thus always to religious civil servants?”
Civil servants are citizens, too. They are, and must be, free to rely upon their religious faith in their efforts and unafraid to admit that they do so. Such honesty contributes to the great diversity of our nation — including religious diversity.
The human right to religious freedom — a freedom, as Secretary Pompeo noted in his speech, denied to 80% of the world’s population — means more than the freedom to worship on Sunday and hum hymns in the recesses of one’s home. Rather, Americans of every walk of life — elected or not — are free to be known by their faith in both public and private life. More than that, they are free to rely upon that faith in their disposition, dialogue, and decisions.
Whether one’s leadership is informed by Jack Welch, Jim Collins, or Jesus Christ should be of little surprise to anyone — let alone cause for an official inquiry by the inspector general.
&nbsp;
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

Mike Pompeo

DYS: Response To Pompeo Speech Reveals Anti-Christian Hostility

Leftism

Progressivism

State Department

William Barr

A conservative student group attempting to promote an event at Stanford next week featuring Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro says they found themselves blocked and heckled by outraged progressive activists and their &#8220;Facts Don&#8217;t Care About Your Feelings&#8221; posters vandalized or removed.
Shapiro will be on Stanford&#8217;s campus on November 7 to tell the students there that &#8220;facts don&#8217;t care about [their] feelings&#8221; in an event sponsored by the Young America&#8217;s Foundation. While the conservative students helping host the event are clearly enthused about getting their peers to attend, they say some of their left-leaning counterparts took it upon themselves to literally strip away and physically block their free speech.
Some of the students helping organize the event told <a href="https://www.yaf.org/news/unhinged-stanford-leftists-vandalize-shapiro-posters-mob-conservative-students/">Young America&#8217;s Foundation</a> that soon after hanging up posters advertising the Shapiro speech, the posters &#8220;were vandalized, removed, or replaced with politically correct messages from the dormitory&#8217;s resident advisors.&#8221;
A few hours after hanging up some posters at Nordelfa dorm, the conservative students say they found that the posters had vanished. In their place was a highly suggestive note signed by the Nordelfa staff.
&#8220;We, the Nordelfa staff, care about you, your feelings, your physical and emotional health,&#8221; reads the notice, a photograph of which YAF published Monday. &#8220;We welcome and center the voices that some way wish to specifically marginalize and target in that we support black people, people of color, non-binary folks, LGBTQIA folks, Muslims and Jews.&#8221;
The note, which seems to imply that Shapiro and the conservative group hosting the event somehow do not similarly &#8220;welcome&#8221; these groups, continues on to underscore that &#8220;people from diverse backgrounds learning and flourishing together is what makes Nordelfa special&#8221; — a sentiment with which Shapiro has repeatedly said he agrees, though he adds &#8220;diversity of thought&#8221; into the equation as well.
According to the president of the student organization, when they attempted to enter a &#8220;Hispanic-focused&#8221; dorm, Casa Zapata, the group found themselves blocked from entering.
&#8220;A jeering mob assembled to block us from entering the dorm,&#8221; the conservative group&#8217;s president, Stephen Sills, told YAF. &#8220;We were turned away from the door exclusively because we were postering for the Ben Shapiro lecture.&#8221; Sills also notes that when he asked to speak to the resident fellow of the dorm, he was told to go &#8220;suck a d***.'&#8221;
When the group of conservatives headed for the next dorm, they found themselves accompanied by a group of eight heckling students, says Sills. &#8220;They shouted obscenities, heckling us and keeping us from entering the other dorms,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Never before have I ever feared as much for my safety on campus as I did then.&#8221;
To add some irony to the increasingly troubling situation, some of the protesting students allegedly later met with Stanford&#8217;s Provost Persis Drell and claimed the conservatives were &#8220;targeting&#8221; Casa Zapata for racial reasons, despite the group putting posters in multiple dorms.
Sills, a Hispanic-American, blasted the protesters&#8217; smears and &#8220;mob-like tactics&#8221; as &#8220;shameful.&#8221;
&#8220;It is shameful that the same mob of people who used mob-like tactics to target conservatives would then turn around and accuse us of deliberately targeting the dorm,” he said. “As a Hispanic-American conservative, I find it disgraceful that a minority of students within the residency were willing to engage in censorious behavior to prevent other students from hearing conservative ideas.&#8221;
YAF reports that despite all the pushback from campus left-wingers, tickets for Shapiro&#8217;s speech are sold out.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-student-activists-defend-transitioning-children-political-violence-anti-free-speech-actions">WATCH: Student Activists Endorse ‘Transitioning’ Young Children, ‘Political Violence,’ Anti-Free Speech Tactics</a>

Ben Shapiro

Stanford Conservatives &#8216;Mobbed&#8217; For Putting Up Ben Shapiro Posters, Student Org Says

Stanford

The Dennis Prager/Adam Carolla documentary “No Safe Spaces,” which chronicles the academic Left’s politically correct war to stifle free speech on college campuses, made an impressive $45,000 on just one screen in Phoenix during its opening weekend.
&#8220;The film raked in an estimated $45,000 on one screen in Phoenix, the production team said, adding that the only documentary that earned more from one screen on an opening weekend was Michael Moore&#8217;s &#8216;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/the-truth-about-michael-moores-movie-sicko" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sicko&#8217;</a> in 2007,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/no-safe-spaces-free-speech-documentary-box-office-1-screen">Fox News</a>.
Released on October 25, the new movie will expand this week in Phoenix and then move on to engagements in San Diego, Denver, Tampa Bay, and Greenville. The film will go nationwide on November 15.
Producer Adam Carolla said he appreciated the high fan turnout and hoped to see the same in subsequent cities. &#8220;I&#8217;m really proud of this movie and hope the rest of the country will love it as much as we and our fans in Phoenix do,&#8221; he said.
Earlier in the week, Carolla said that the documentary would hopefully “make people aware of how nuts it is on campuses and in the media when it comes to censorship based on feelings” rather than facts.
“It&#8217;s not a left or a right-wing thing,” Carolla told Fox News on Wednesday. “We have people across the political spectrum in the film, including [liberal CNN pundit] Van Jones, who says it doesn&#8217;t help his team to have young people who can&#8217;t defend their beliefs. This is hurting everyone.”
The push to make “No Safe Spaces” a film reality has been ongoing since 2017, when Prager and Carolla started an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the documentary. It <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-safe-spaces#/">raised $684,684</a>.
Much of the documentary focuses on Prager and Carolla traveling to various college campuses, exploring the systemic crackdown there on free speech.
“Entitled snowflakes on college campuses raging and screaming every time they encounter an idea they disagree with,” reads the film’s Indiegogo page. “These stories might be somewhat amusing if they weren’t such a dangerous indication of what’s to come. Trigger warnings, micro-aggressions, the suppression of free speech, and other illogical ideas born on campuses are proliferating and spreading out into the real world.”
“Today’s campus snowflake is tomorrow’s teacher, judge, or elected official,” it continues. “And if that doesn’t scare you, maybe you should reconsider. No matter where you live or what you do, if you don’t think they way they do, they will attempt to silence and punish you.”
Prior to the release, Prager challenged the MPAA for slapping the movie with a PG-13 rating from a single, 30-second animated clip in which a character meant to personify free speech named “Firsty” gets pummeled with bullet holes, causing it to bleed.
Prager sent a letter to the MPAA asking that it reconsider the decision. “Any kid who sees it will probably laugh,” Prager wrote to MPAA head Charles Rivkin.
Prager said he feared that the PG-13 rating will persuade certain parents to avoid showing the film to their children.
“When it comes to Firsty, we would ask that you reconsider and allow the scene to remain and still achieve a PG rating so that we can reach the widest possible audience. A PG-13 rating would not reinforce people’s faith in MPAA’s ratings,” Prager wrote in the letter.

Dennis Prager

Prager’s ‘No Safe Spaces’ Sees Impressive Sales On Just One Screen

Adam Carolla

Prager University

In a new man-on-the-street video (below), Austen Fletcher (&#8220;Fleccas&#8221;) went to a student protest against bestselling author and Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles over his speech titled &#8220;Men Are Not Women&#8221; at Kennesaw State University on Monday. Though Fletcher was repeatedly shut down by protest organizers, who told fellow activists not to &#8220;engage&#8221; with anyone who questioned their cause, he managed to talk with several.
Among the anti-Knowles/pro-trans activists&#8217; comments were defenses of &#8220;transitioning&#8221; young children using hormone therapy and irreversible surgery and an adamant defense of violence as a &#8220;useful political tool.&#8221; Some of the activists also admitted to not knowing much — at all — about Knowles.
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/michael-knowles-men-are-not-women-speech-protested-by-ksu-progressives">The Daily Wire</a> earlier this week, a pair of student activist groups, Kennesaw State United and Kennesaw Pride, organized a protest ahead of Knowles &#8220;transphobic&#8221; speech hosted by Young Americans for Freedom. In a Facebook post, the groups spelled out the rules of engagement, including &#8220;minimizing[ing] interactions&#8221; with &#8220;transphobes, white supremacists, and others&#8221; who might question their agenda:
<blockquote>There is a possibility that transphobes, white supremacists, and others may approach. If approached, please minimize your interactions with them for your own safety and everybody else’s. If you’re comfortable, however, you may engage in productive conversation away from others as to not disrupt the positive space.</blockquote>
Fletcher found a lot of anti-free speech sentiment among the protesters.
When Fletcher asked one student if he thinks Knowles should be allowed to speak on campus, he said, &#8220;No,&#8221; explaining, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think hate speech is free speech.&#8221; When Fletcher asked if he had ever watched one of Knowles&#8217; videos, the student admitted he had not.
Another male student explained, when asked by Fletcher, why he was protesting Knowles that while he &#8220;doesn&#8217;t know much&#8221; about Knowles, he &#8220;saw the line &#8216;Men Are Not Women'&#8221; and the tagline about &#8220;propaganda from the left&#8221; on a poster.
While the student was speaking with Fletcher, one of the apparent organizers of the event came up to remind him that they &#8220;are not encouraging engagement&#8221; with people who do not embrace their agenda. &#8220;I understand,&#8221; said the guy. &#8220;He&#8217;s an adult,&#8221; added Fleccas.
When Fletcher asked the male student, &#8220;Do you disavow Antifa?&#8221; he replied, &#8220;No, god no.&#8221; Fletcher responded by asking about &#8220;the violence they do.&#8221;
&#8220;I think that violence is a useful political tool,&#8221; the student said, adding &#8220;if wielded in the proper fashion.&#8221; He also admitted that &#8220;collateral damage happens,&#8221; calling it &#8220;a shame.&#8221;
When Fletcher got the student to admit he had never watched a video of Knowles and was responding entirely to a poster he saw, Fletcher asked how he could be &#8220;okay with political violence&#8221; to shut him down. &#8220;No, I&#8217;ve been okay with political violence before I knew who this guy was,&#8221; the activist said.
Fletcher also managed to get some of the activists to explain their stance on &#8220;transitioning&#8221; young children.
&#8220;Do you think when it comes to children transitioning there should be &#8230; an age limit when a child is able to receive hormone therapy or transition surgery?&#8221; Fletcher asked one female activist.
&#8220;No, I do not,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I feel like if they have a medical diagnosis and this is who they are then that&#8217;s what needs to happen for them.&#8221;
An older activist slammed Fletcher for even asking her a similar question, suggesting it was not an adult&#8217;s business what children decide to do.
Another student defended children going through transitional therapy and surgery by saying that they are being guided by doctors and social workers.
The guy who previously espoused violence as &#8220;useful&#8221; said that &#8220;studies&#8221; show children can form a gender identity as young as &#8220;3 or 4.&#8221; While he expressed sympathy for those who push back against permanent &#8220;transition&#8221; changes in kids, he added, &#8220;I mean, I&#8217;m not going to tell [the kids] what to do.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Trans Activists Protest Michael Knowles&#039; &quot;Men Are Not Women&quot; Lecture at at Kennesaw State" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R_UCMHPYvdk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<div>
Fleccas&#8217; video also highlights how frequently his attempts to talk with protesters was shut down by the protest organizers, who repeatedly tell their fellow activists that they should not engage with him. They also tell him that some of the space is their designated space and he&#8217;s not allowed there.
&#8220;You can interview people, you just can&#8217;t be here,&#8221; said one of the activists, to which Fleccas noted that he is simply going up to &#8220;adults&#8221; and asking if they want to talk. &#8220;You guys don&#8217;t speak for other people,&#8221; said Fletcher.
Not everyone there was anti-free speech, including one self-described libertarian trans student, who said he was against what the activists were doing.
&#8220;Being trans is pretty socially acceptable now, as it should be,&#8221; said the student. &#8220;But if you are a straight, white guy, you&#8217;re silenced. You&#8217;re not allowed to voice your opinion.&#8221;
</div>
<div>Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/professor-tells-students-theyre-expected-to-join-her-in-protesting-daily-wires-michael-knowles">Professor Tells Students They’re ‘Expected’ To Join Her In Protesting Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles</a></div>

Protest of Michael Knowles

WATCH: Student Activists Endorse ‘Transitioning’ Young Children, ‘Political Violence,’ Anti-Free Speech Tactics

Austen Fletcher

LGBT

Michael Knowles

As recently noted in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/16/conservative-activists-want-to-outlaw-antisemitism-in-public-education-why-is-that-a-bad-thing" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/16/conservative-activists-want-to-outlaw-antisemitism-in-public-education-why-is-that-a-bad-thing&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1571946079123000&amp;usg=AFQjCNELb6e0whaZ6VHG50pkn6n0FR0bDQ">The Guardian</a>, legislation regulating against anti-Semitism is likely to be enacted in various American states in response to the mounting persecution of Jews. The pieces of legislation address criminal and discriminatory conduct not protected as free speech; indeed, it includes specific provisions that the law shall “not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment.” Accordingly, laws such as this have now <a href="https://youtu.be/5EiWOebL85c" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/5EiWOebL85c&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1571946079123000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFpyci87uUi2XbvUyxCIjoiehsImA">passed with unanimous bipartisan votes</a> in both Florida and South Carolina. As the primary legal expert who helped develop such legislation, I believe the matter ought to be clarified so that the public can appreciate this important effort to combat hate and bigotry.
All current data indicate that anti-Semitic activity is on the rise. Three years ago, a Louis D. Brandeis Center study found that most Jewish students attending American colleges had personally experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism in 2015. An AMCHA Initiative survey found a 45% increase in anti-Semitic activity on college and university campuses between 2015 and 2016.  And last year, the Anti-Defamation League issued a report detailing a shocking 67% increase in anti-Semitic incidents from 2016 to 2017.
The unanimous bipartisan support for these bills demonstrates that an overwhelming majority of Americans agree that anti-Semitic incidents should be treated in the same manner as other incidents of crime and discrimination that are motivated by hate and bigotry. It is widely recognized that double standards, applied only to Jews and Israel, can be a primary indicator of anti-Semitism. Onlookers unaware of this fact might wonder why anyone would stand opposed to equal protection for Jews.
Critics of legislation addressing the problem of unlawful anti-Semitic activity wrongly argue that it somehow infringes upon free speech rights. However, the First Amendment does not protect criminal and discriminatory conduct — which is what these laws solely address. First Amendment advocates who worry about the anti-Semitism legislation at hand fail to express any concern over the suppression of pro-Israel speech by groups such as the Irvine 11. The truth is that, far from penalizing or restricting anyone’s private right to free expression, these laws will protect against the unlawful suppression of others’ free speech, a sad occurrence happening all too often at educational institutions these days.
Beyond the First Amendment pretense, the real reason why some oppose this legislation is because it is so effective in identifying anti-Semitism. The codified definition has been adopted by branches of the U.S. government and over thirty other countries because it makes it possible to identify when anti-Israel expressions are systematically used as a means of conveying anti-Jewish intent. As Justice Brandeis famously stated, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” The clarity provided by this definition means that anti-Semitic crime and discrimination can no longer be whitewashed by claims of mere political opposition to Israel.
In the course of promoting discrimination against Israel, <a href="https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/terrorists_in_suits" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/terrorists_in_suits&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1571946079123000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEq2ZJ0tO0iwEV4J3focaWSN0BlEw">terror-affiliated groups</a> within the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, deliberately propagate misinformation and baseless claims, as well as classic anti-Semitic themes such as the suggestion of Jewish subversion, conspiracy, dual loyalty, greed, economic control, and most insidiously, blood libels. <a href="https://4il.org.il/1396/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://4il.org.il/1396/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1571946079123000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEn1f3624AnKFdRRyDfObD4o8fCdg">The BDS Movement’s messaging strategy</a> helps to systematically facilitate the development of bigoted anti-Jewish perspectives that, as history repeatedly shows, will eventually give way to anti-Semitic discrimination and ultimately persecution. It is no coincidence that criminal statistics now indisputably show that Jews are by far one of the most likely of all minority groups to be victimized in incidents motivated by hate. Thankfully, Americans and their elected officials are taking a bold stand against hate and bigotry.
 
Joseph Sabag is the Executive Director of IAC for Action. He is an attorney who has provided legal and policy resources to more than half the American states as they have passed legislation regulating against anti-Semitism and BDS.

PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-HERITAGE-HISTORY

SABAG: Promoting Anti-Semitism By Perverting The Freedom Of Speech

With pro-democracy Hong Kong demonstrators both inside and outside the arena and Chinese state television blacking out the contest — as it did all the other league games — LeBron James&#8217; Los Angeles Lakers lost their much-hyped season opener against Kawhi Leonard&#8217;s L.A. Clippers in a game that felt more significant than just a single opening game.
As reported by <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27905614/chinese-state-tv-air-nba-opening-slate-protests-staples-center">ESPN</a>, Chinese state television did not air any of the NBA&#8217;s opening games as part of its continued punishment of the league after Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey posted a pro-democracy tweet on October 4 simply stating, &#8220;Fight For Freedom, Stand For Hong Kong.&#8221;
Morey deleted the post and apologized as the NBA scrambled to appease China, while also trying to express support for free speech amid backlash from fans. But the oppressive communist government has clearly not been satisfied with the league&#8217;s response.
While Chinese state television completely blacked out the opening games, the Chinese-based streaming platform Tencent, a media partner of the NBA and ESPN, only aired a single opener: the Lakers vs. the Clippers.
James became a central figure in the controversy when he infamously upbraided Morey for his &#8220;misinformed&#8221; tweet and spoke dismissively of free speech.
&#8220;I don’t want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke,&#8221; James told reporters on October 15.  &#8220;So many people could have been harmed, not only financially, but physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So, just be careful what we tweet and say and what we do even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, there can be a lot of negatives that comes with that too.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
LeBron James rips Daryl Morey, says Morey was uneducated. Says, “We do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negatives that come with that too.” Really. <a href="https://t.co/ZTw6a3FZ5n">pic.twitter.com/ZTw6a3FZ5n</a>
&mdash; Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1183921775647875072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Wearing &#8220;Fight For Freedom, Stand For Hong Kong&#8221; t-shirts bought with money from a GoFundMe drive, some 60-75 protesters, according to ESPN&#8217;s estimate, gathered outside the Staples Center Tuesday night.
The organizer of the protest, who felt compelled to refer to himself as only &#8220;MWG&#8221; and cover his face for &#8220;personal safety&#8221; and to protect his family in China, pointed to James&#8217; much-criticized response as emblematic of the NBA&#8217;s China dilemma.
&#8220;What LeBron James said, we&#8217;re not mad, we&#8217;re just disappointed,&#8221; the protest organizer told ESPN. James, he said, is &#8220;really out there (on issues) and then for him to say, &#8216;Oh, it was hard on us (during the China trip),&#8217; that was kind of a slap in the face.&#8221;
In a follow-up to his comments criticizing Morey, James tweeted, &#8220;My team and this league just went through a difficult week. I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others. And I believe nobody stopped and considered what would happen. Could have waited a week to send it.&#8221;
&#8220;To be LeBron James, so articulate and so meticulous about your words and how you say them and how you present yourself and all of the sudden when it comes to money, it takes a precedent over any sort of human rights — basic human rights?&#8221; MWG said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what our country was founded on. His home base is here. So you&#8217;re going to turn your back on your home base for money over there?&#8221;
<div id="attachment_57480" style="width: 1029px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-57480" class="wp-image-57480 size-full" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/LeBron-James-Protest.jpg" alt=" A pro-Hong Kong activist holds an image depicting LeBron James aboard a Chinese tank in Tiananmen Square before the Los Angeles Lakers season opening game against the LA Clippers outside Staples Center on October 22, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Activists also printed at least 10,000 pro-Hong Kong t-shirts to hand out to those attending the game and encouraged them to wear the free shirts as a form of peaceful protest against China amidst Chinese censorship of NBA games. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)" width="1019" height="638" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/LeBron-James-Protest.jpg 1019w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/LeBron-James-Protest-300x188.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/LeBron-James-Protest-768x481.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1019px) 100vw, 1019px" />Mario Tama/Getty Images</div>
&#8220;We want to stand with Morey, we want to stand with Hong Kong, but most of all, we want to fight foreign attempts to censor us,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;Our first amendment rights to free speech — so if you have a government that&#8217;s not the United States telling us we can&#8217;t talk, what&#8217;s the point of having a government? What&#8217;s the point of having a first amendment right? We&#8217;re not saying that we&#8217;re trying to do anything other than show solidarity. We&#8217;re not trying to protest. We just want to show the NBA and show foreign governments that they can&#8217;t censor us.&#8221;
Along with the protesters outside the arena, some people also showed support for Hong Kong inside, where fans watched the Clippers&#8217; newly acquired star Leonard lead his team to a 112-102 victory in a game that one sports analyst said &#8220;<a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27905616/why-clippers-lakers-felt-bigger-just-one-game">felt bigger than just one game</a>.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shaq-blasts-china-were-going-to-say-whatever-we-want-to-say-when-we-want-to-say-it">Shaq Blasts China: ‘We’re Going To Say Whatever We Want To Say, When We Want To Say It’</a>

Pro-Hong Kong Activists Protest Outside NBA Opening-Night Games

LeBron&#8217;s Opening Game Hit With Protests; China State TV Blacks Out NBA

China

Communism

LeBron James

The left is becoming more unapologetically totalitarian every day. Every freedom-loving American should be alarmed.
From hounding conservatives out of restaurants to spitting on Trump supporters at rallies, from firing employees for politically incorrect statements to fining people for &#8220;misgendering&#8221; a person, the left is on a path toward absolutism.
Even some former and current leftists have recognized this intolerant trend and broken from their colleagues, lamenting their intolerance of opposing ideas and disturbing mission to suppress dissenting opinion.
Just the other day, three incidents typifying the left&#8217;s authoritarianism popped out at me as I was surveying the morning news.
The Federalist reported that venues in three North American cities — Toronto, Brooklyn and Portland — canceled screenings of a movie about Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson because of leftist criticism. Peterson exploded onto the scene in recent years with his no-nonsense, brilliant and clear-eyed critique of insane cultural trends, especially those concerning gender.
Peterson&#8217;s book &#8220;12 Rules for Life&#8221; is wildly popular, and there are countless viral videos featuring his encounters with various leftist interviewers, panelists and audience members who have tried and failed to entrap him on a number of issues, and been reduced — in every case — to blundering, ineffectual bullies. If you haven&#8217;t partaken of these videos, you owe it to yourself to witness one arrogant leftist after another being gobsmacked by the simple weapon of unadulterated logic. These videos are irresistibly contagious and imminently satisfying for those longing to see intellectually defenseless, virtue-signaling finger waggers brought to their knees through the medium of polite debate.
Peterson, you see, won&#8217;t kowtow to the leftists&#8217; demand that we embrace the tenets of gender ideology, which teaches that gender is less about biology and more about personal identification. He refuses to support laws that criminalize one&#8217;s failure to use a person&#8217;s preferred pronouns, such as &#8220;they&#8221; instead of &#8220;she.&#8221;
Peterson has the temerity to say that men and women are biologically different, and that gender is not a fluid, human construct. That doesn&#8217;t sit well with the left, who not only insists that we accept its cockeyed ideas as normal but also advocates imposing them on us by force of law.
Can you get your mind around the irony of the left banning a movie about Peterson because he&#8217;s dangerous? Who is more dangerous: a person who peaceably expresses an opinion that happens to be supported by thousands of years of human experience and common sense, or those who try to ban his voice or even a movie about it? This is &#8220;1984&#8221;-level scary, and it&#8217;s getting worse by the hour.
On what possible grounds is the left arguing that Peterson&#8217;s views are dangerous? He doesn&#8217;t advocate violence; he isn&#8217;t a rabble-rouser or revolutionary. He simply states his opinion instead of genuflecting to the despotic left.
But they claim that if Peterson&#8217;s views are openly expressed, he might convince other people that he&#8217;s right, and that could lead to the proliferation of conservative thought. Peterson&#8217;s &#8220;conservative perspectives on feminism and gender,&#8221; according to an opinion piece in The New York Times, &#8220;are very popular among young men and often are a path to more extreme content and ideologies.&#8221; Think about this. Conservative speech is dangerous because it is a slippery slope to the adoption of conservative ideas? This must be satire. Do these clueless cranks know how ridiculous they sound?
Again, who is more extreme and dangerous: Jordan Peterson, who advocates the silencing of no one and expresses mainstream opinions, or leftists, who are actively trying to censor Peterson?
Please don&#8217;t make the reckless mistake of dismissing this crusade against Peterson as exceptional. This is the left&#8217;s pattern, and it is becoming more aggressive all the time.
The second and third incidents I came across are further proof that the left is increasingly Stalinist. In the most recent Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Kamala Harris pushed for the suspension of President Trump&#8217;s Twitter, speciously alleging that he is trying to obstruct justice and intimidate and threaten witnesses. You see, the left always has some urgent rationale to smother conservative speech — whether it&#8217;s to prevent the incitement of violence or obstruction of justice. But it just wants to shut us up.
Those who would silence the other side are the very definition of dangerous. Don&#8217;t take Harris&#8217; musings lightly, even if she is mostly posturing to gin up more support from the Trump-hating Democratic base. It is instructive that efforts to muzzle speech almost always come from the left, not the right, because the left is insecure about the popularity of its kooky ideas.
The third incident involved demagogue and former Rep. Beto O&#8217;Rourke, who said in a CNN forum on LGBT issues that churches and religious organizations should lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage. If I have to explain how outrageous this is, the country is in even greater danger than I imagined.
I found these examples in 15 minutes of reading this week. They are everywhere. America was founded on the idea of claiming and preserving our God-given liberties. The illiberal left, which believes our rights and freedoms come from government, is hell-bent on destroying our liberties and forcibly imposing its thoughts and ideas on all of us.
God save us.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is &#8220;Jesus Is Risen: Paul and the Early Church.&#8221; Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Dem donkey.

LIMBAUGH: The Totalitarian American Left

Beto O'Rourke

Jordan Peterson

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) scolded Democratic presidential candidate Beto O&#8217;Rourke on Wednesday for supporting a plan to strip religious institutions of their tax-exempt status if they do not officially recognize same-sex marriage.
&#8220;Last week, a former member of Congress didn&#8217;t blink an eye &#8212; a former member of Congress now running for President &#8212; didn&#8217;t blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious institutions &#8212; colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service organizations &#8212; he would strip them of their tax-exempt status if they don&#8217;t agree with his political positions,&#8221; Sasse said while speaking on the Senate floor. &#8220;That&#8217;s a pretty major departure from what America is and what we usually talk about in this body.&#8221;
&#8220;So, we should pause, and we should call that what it is. That is extreme intolerance, it is extreme bigotry, and it&#8217;s profoundly unAmerican,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole point of the First Amendment is that no matter who you love, and no matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone, everyone is created with dignity.&#8221;
<iframe title="Ben Sasse: &quot;Government Doesn’t Define True And False Religion&quot;" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CFJCwN2d-yg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
While Sasse refrained from directly naming the person he was referring to, O&#8217;Rourke notably received widespread backlash after he revealed during CNN’s LGBTQ town hall event earlier in October that he would penalize religious institutions that adhere to their own religious texts by denying them tax exemptions under federal law.
&#8220;There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America, that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,&#8221; O&#8217;Rourke said at the time. &#8220;So as president, we&#8217;re going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.&#8221;
Following the town hall, the Nebraska lawmaker swiftly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bigoted-nonsense-sen-ben-sasse-condemns-betos-call-to-strip-churches-of-tax-exempt-status-for-opposing-same-sex-marriage">issued a statement</a> condemning the &#8220;bigoted nonsense,&#8221; and called on leaders from both parties to do the same. Sasse took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to <a href="https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/d99566cc-0d90-4356-af2d-db257f298cd6/religiouslibertyresolution.pdf">introduce a resolution</a> in response to O&#8217;Rourke, which would put every member of Congress on record on whether or not they &#8220;affirm the First Amendment and, in particular, the free exercise of religion and the free assembly clauses.&#8221;
&#8220;This is a fundamental American tenet. It&#8217;s why this country was founded. And because we are all created with dignity, none of us have the right to dictate the conscience commitments of other people,&#8221; Sasse said. &#8220;The freedom of the conscience is a fundamental American belief and thankfully politicians have no business policing that.&#8221;
&#8220;At the end of the day, there are really just two kinds of societies: there are societies that are about force and power, and there are societies that are about persuasion, about assembly, and about love,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;For more than 230 years, we&#8217;ve decided in this country that we&#8217;re the latter. We&#8217;re a community of persuasion, not primarily a community of power and force. In America we don&#8217;t think the center of life is defined by government. We think the frame of life is defined by government.&#8221;
Sasse further explained that the First Amendment of the Constitution consists of five entwined freedoms &#8212; religion, speech, press, assembly, and protest &#8212; which serve as the foundation of America.
&#8220;The five freedoms are interconnected, interdependent, and all in that same amendment &#8212; the First Amendment &#8212; for a reason,&#8221; Sasse said. &#8220;These are the rights of conscience that belong together, and they cannot be taken or policed by government.&#8221;
&#8220;So that means that if a Texas politician pandering for a sound bite decides to make a bold-faced threat against Muslims, Jews, and Christians, all Americans from every faith and every walk of life, we have an obligation to come together and to defend our freedoms,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;So we should do that.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t care what some nitwit said on CNN last week to satisfy his fringy base and try to get a sound bite in a presidential debate,&#8221; Sasse added. &#8220;The American people ought to know that this body stands for the historic First Amendment. That&#8217;s what we all took an oath to uphold and to defend, and that&#8217;s what we ought to vote to affirm again.&#8221;

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee

WATCH: Ben Sasse Slams &#8216;Nitwit&#8217; Beto O&#8217;Rourke For Targeting Religious Institutions: &#8216;Extreme Bigotry&#8217;

Ben Sasse

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a defiant speech on Thursday in which he highlighted the importance of free speech in response to critics&#8217; demands for heightened content auditing amid the 2020 presidential election cycle.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve focused on building services to do two things: give people voice and bring people together,&#8221; Zuckerberg said while addressing a crowd at Georgetown University. &#8220;These two simple ideas — voice and inclusion — go hand in hand.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve seen this throughout history, even if it doesn&#8217;t feel that way today. More people being able to share their perspectives has always been necessary to build a more inclusive society,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;And our mutual commitment to each other — that we hold each others&#8217; right to express our views and be heard above our own desire to always get the outcomes we want — is how we make progress together.&#8221;
Zuckerberg&#8217;s remarks come as the tech executive has been facing blowback for how it handles falsehoods published on the social network. Facebook announced in late-September that the site would refrain from fact-checking or moderating politicians&#8217; speech.
Democrats have been especially vocal in their opposition to the approach; they have taken particular issue with Facebook&#8217;s decision not to censor an ad from President Donald Trump&#8217;s re-election campaign that accused former Vice President Joe Biden of using foreign aid as a bargaining chip to force the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating a company of which his son was a board member.
&#8220;People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures in our society,&#8221; Zuckerberg said. &#8220;People no longer have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard, and that has important consequences.&#8221;
&#8220;I understand the concerns that people have about how tech platforms have centralized power, but I actually believe the much bigger story is how much these platforms have decentralized power by putting it directly into people&#8217;s hands,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;It&#8217;s part of this amazing expansion of voice that we&#8217;ve experienced through law, culture and now technology as well.&#8221;
Zuckerberg noted that individuals are increasingly falling subject to the &#8220;dangerous&#8221; belief that accomplishing their own idealized political outcome is more important than allowing their fellow Americans to have their own voice.
Highlighting examples throughout history that illustrates both how the escalation in voices accelerates unification and the censorship of voices hinders progress, Zuckerberg invoked Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as events such as the American founding and Civil Rights movement, the worldwide spread of democracy, and the Vietnam War protests.
&#8220;So, giving people a voice and broader inclusion go hand in hand, and the trend has been towards greater voice over time,&#8221; the Facebook CEO said. &#8220;But there&#8217;s also a counter-trend, which is that in times of social turmoil, our impulse is often to pull back on free expression because we want the progress that comes from free expression, but we don&#8217;t want the tension.&#8221;
Set off by recent events such as the 2008 financial crisis, the boost in globalization, and even worldwide migration, Zuckerberg argued that Americans are again facing a social tension heightening impulses to pull back on free expression.
&#8220;In the face of these tensions, once again a popular impulse is to pull back from free expression. We&#8217;re at another cross-roads,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We can continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness, but believing that the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us or we can decide the cost is simply too great. I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.&#8221;
He further expressed his pride in representing a company which values the American tradition of free expression, but noted that free speech is also not absolute, especially when that freedom infringes on another individual&#8217;s rights. He also examined some of the difficulties in determining what should constitute acceptable speech on the social media platform.
&#8220;The future depends on all of us. Whether you like Facebook or not, we need to recognize what is at stake and come together to stand for free expression at this critical moment,&#8221; Zuckerberg said. &#8220;I believe in giving people a voice because, at the end of the day, I believe in people.&#8221;
&#8220;And as long as enough of us keep fighting for this, I believe that more people&#8217;s voices will eventually help us work through these issues together and write a new chapter in our history — where from all of our individual voices and perspectives, we can bring the world closer together,&#8221; he added.

Mark Zuckerberg Talks Free Expression At Georgetown University

Mark Zuckerberg Defends Free Speech Amid Political Blowback: &#8216;I Believe In People&#8217;

Mark Zuckerberg

Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro’s passionate defense of religious freedom during his podcast Friday has gone viral after Media Matters and other left-wing critics framed the comments as Shapiro threatening violence in response to a Democratic presidential candidate’s call to strip schools and churches of their tax-exempt status if they &#8220;oppose same-sex marriage.&#8221;
During a CNN-hosted town hall on LGBTQ rights on Thursday, Beto O’Rourke defended his campaign platform mandating the loss of tax exemption for entities that oppose gay marriage. “Freedom of religion is a fundamental right,” O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s LGBTQ plan reads, “but it should not be used to discriminate.”
“Do you think religious institutions — like colleges, churches, charities — should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” asked moderator Don Lemon.
“Yes,” said O’Rourke, a response met with raucous applause and cheers from the Democratic crowd. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. And so, as president, we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Beto O’Rourke on religious institutions losing tax-exempt status for opposing same-sex marriage: &#8220;There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone &#8230; that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EqualityTownHall?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EqualityTownHall</a> <a href="https://t.co/tjwVGqv5h0">pic.twitter.com/tjwVGqv5h0</a>
— CNN (@CNN) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1182484830044467200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
Shapiro responded on his podcast Friday by saying O’Rourke’s call for federally imposing a policy that infringes on people’s deeply held religious beliefs runs exactly counter to “the fundamental rights that the Constitution was created in order to protect.”
Shapiro asserted that if O’Rourke’s plan to impose such “indoctrination” is taken to the extreme — stripping parents of their rights to choose where their children attend school or church — it would make this country “come apart at the seams,” forcing people to either leave or “pick up a gun” to keep the government from taking their kids.
“Your mere existence is an infringement, according to Beto O’Rourke,” Shapiro said, referencing people of faith whose religious beliefs do not accept same-sex marriage. “The institutional existence is an infringement on liberty, according to Beto O’Rourke, and you must be shut down. You want a culture war in this country? You damn well have it, Beto O’Rourke. You want a culture war in this country? You want this country to come apart at the seams? This is how you do it.”
“Because, I promise you, if you come to tell me that you’re going to indoctrinate my kids into a particular policy and that I can’t pull my kid out of the school and send my kid to a school I want to send them to — that I can’t go to the church or synagogue that I want to go to. And if you make that national policy — not just California policy, where I can move, but national policy,” said Shapiro. “People are not going to stand for that. They’re not going to stand for that. And if you send a truant officer to remove my child, I have two choices at that point, right? If I have no place to move because you have now made this national, federal policy, I now have two choices: One is to leave the country utterly. Two is to pick up a gun. Those are the only choices you have left me.”
“And now people on the Left [will say] how can you say stuff like that? How you can be so extreme?” Shapiro continued. “It’s not extreme to defend the fundamental rights that the Constitution was created in order to protect. These rights pre-exist government. My right to raise my child in my faith is my right. That is a First Amendment right. There is only one reason the government exists: to protect those rights, not to invade those rights. It is my right to raise my child with the moral precepts that I find to be beneficial for my child. Beto O’Rourke does not to get to raise my child — and if he tries, I will meet him at the door with my gun. That is insane.”
In a tweet that has since made the rounds online, Media Matters’ researcher Jason Campbell posted a video clip of Shapiro’s comments, writing, “Ben Shapiro warns that if politicians try to mandate LGBTQ &#8216;indoctrination&#8217; at all schools, then he will ‘pick up a gun.’ Further adding ‘Beto O&#8217;Rourke does not get to raise my child. And if he tries, I will meet him at the door with a gun.’”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Ben Shapiro warns that if politicians try to mandate LGBTQ &#8216;indoctrination&#8217; at all schools, then he will &#8220;pick up a gun.&#8221; Further adding &#8220;Beto O&#8217;Rourke does not get to raise my child. And if he tries, I will meet him at the door with a gun&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/Hq7SyF7FeI">pic.twitter.com/Hq7SyF7FeI</a>
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1182694698659569664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
Others on the Left have taken Media Matters post and portrayed the comments in even more extreme and disingenuous ways, suggesting that Shapiro was calling for violence.
Amid the left-wing hysteria, conservatives have noted that all Shapiro said was what Americans have been saying since its founding.
“Yes. It is very normal in Amearica to say you will defend your most fundamental freedom – religious freedom – with force if required,” tweeted Shapiro’s “Backstage” co-host Jeremy Boreing. “Every generation of Americans from the founding to today has said the same.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Yes. It is very normal in America to say you will defend your most fundamental freedom &#8211; religious freedom &#8211; with force if required. Every generation of Americans from the founding to today has said the same. <a href="https://t.co/xxp2wk2smw">https://t.co/xxp2wk2smw</a>
— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeremyDBoreing/status/1182741289260814337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bigoted-nonsense-sen-ben-sasse-condemns-betos-call-to-strip-churches-of-tax-exempt-status-for-opposing-same-sex-marriage">‘Bigoted Nonsense’: Sen. Ben Sasse Condemns Beto’s Call To Strip Churches Of Tax Exempt Status For Opposing Same-Sex Marriage</a>

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Defends Religious Freedom; Media Matters, Leftists Lose It

At yet another CNN town hall event for Democratic Party presidential hopefuls, former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) once again peeled back the Democratic National Committee&#8217;s carefully crafted veneer of political centrism to reveal what the Left really thinks about bedrock American principles.
For weeks, O’Rourke has been touring the country to tell us all about his plan to take away America’s guns. Rather than embrace the importance of this Second Amendment freedom, O’Rourke continually doubles down, often invoking words you can’t say on television to emphasize his seriousness that, under his hypothetical administration, the American government will forcefully disarm its own citizens.
This has pushed some on the Left to turn their metaphorical guns on O’Rourke. These tepid rebukes of the erstwhile wunderkind who nearly toppled Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sound more like, “Hey, don’t tell everyone what we really think.”
Having staked his position on the Second Amendment Thursday night, Robert Francis O’Rourke turned his attention to the First Amendment. Sagging in the polls, O’Rourke stood opposite CNN’s Don Lemon as Lemon read from one of O’Rourke’s plans. All the longshot presidential hopefuls have a plan, it seems. And every plan is fine-tuned for a niche audience. This was a plan for the LGBTQ+ community.
Lemon noted that O’Rourke’s plan praised freedom of religion as a fundamental right, but one that “should not be used to discriminate.” With that setup, Lemon asked, “Do you think religious institutions, like colleges, churches, charities, should they lose their tax exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?”
At this point, everyone in the audience knew what O’Rourke’s answer really was. But they also knew what he had to say if he was going to turn the corner after the primary to gain traction in a general election. True to himself, O’Rourke wasted no time in casting off the shackles of centrism. He told the world what the Left really believes.
“Yes,” O’Rourke says, “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for any one or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.”
Perhaps O’Rourke came to that conclusion after a discussion with someone in a Buc-ee&#8217;s bathroom. Perhaps it is what he has always thought. Perhaps he tested the answer in focus groups and has plans to double down on his answer in the coming days on the campaign trail.
Whatever the reason, O’Rourke’s answer is revealing for its honesty. While the Obama administration prosecuted nuns over birth control, it at least spoke in platitudes about “freedom to worship.” Celibate nuns may have to pay for birth control, but at least they are afforded a modicum of freedom to practice the worshipful elements of their religion.
Not so for O’Rourke. If a religious entity — religious colleges, charities motivated by religion, and churches adhering to two millennia of doctrine — disagrees with O’Rourke, it forfeits its tax exemption.
That’s a far cry from former Justice Anthony Kennedy’s promise in Obergefell v. Hodges, which emphasized “that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost sincere conviction” their religious beliefs regarding human sexuality. Indeed, Kennedy promised that “[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.”
Yet under an O’Rourke administration, Kennedy’s promise is only fulfilled when organized religion pays its own freight. Thus, Catholic hospitals, Muslim charities, evangelical soup kitchens, and Orthodox Jewish synagogues might manage to continue their good deeds, but only at a taxable rate. They must hope that their former donors are motivated more by the mission than by the tax incentives that have fueled the billions of dollars of charity that Americans have spread around the globe through religious organizations — charity that has relieved the American government from having to address it on its own.
O’Rourke’s plan has the high hurdle of a body of case law that makes it illegal for the government to deprive citizens of a protected right based upon the viewpoint of the citizen — but that’s not his point. O&#8217;Rourke knows that. Everyone knows that. Just like everyone knows O’Rourke has no legitimate path to presidential victory.
Rather, O’Rourke’s purpose is to expand the borders of the increasingly far-left Democratic Party. If a “churches lose their tax exemption” O’Rourke plan is too much. Then Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) “use [of] the Department of Justice to go after schools” plan is made more palatable and a Warren “pass the Equality Act” plan is practically mainstream. And so the entire political machine lurches just a little further to the left — comfortably on the road to total government control.
O’Rourke will not win the presidency. But he is not supposed to. Laugh, if you must, about his trademark flapping arms and insatiable desire to address crowds while standing on tabletops, but take with deadly seriousness his ability to say what his party is increasingly thinking.
&nbsp;
Jeremy Dys (<a href="https://twitter.com/jeremydys">@JeremyDys</a>) is Special Counsel for Litigation and Communications for First Liberty Institute, a non-profit law firm dedicated to defending religious freedom for all Americans. Read more at <a href="https://firstliberty.org">FirstLiberty.org</a>.

Beto O&#8217;Rourke CNN town hall

DYS: Beto O&#8217;Rourke&#8217;s &#8216;Liberty&#8217; Is No Liberty At All

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On Monday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is also a <a href="https://firstliberty.org/team/josh-hammer/">constitutional attorney</a> by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEFIlHWRTr8">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss California&#8217;s recent <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902884/california-deepfake-political-ban-election-2020">passing</a> of a law banning so-called &#8220;deep fake&#8221; videos when those videos are aired close to an election. As <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/7/20902884/california-deepfake-political-ban-election-2020">explained</a> by The Verge, California&#8217;s law &#8220;makes it a crime to distribute [within 60 days of an election] audio or video that gives a false, damaging impression of a politician’s words or actions.&#8221; However, as The Verge continues to explain, &#8220;[p]otentially deceptive video or audio will also be allowed if it includes a disclaimer noting that it’s fake.&#8221;
The issue, as it appeared to Wheeler and Hammer, is the danger of politicians delegating power to judges to ban forms of audio or video that they, using their discretion, determine to be deceptive. Wheeler and Hammer both discussed the example of David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress, whose videos exposing systemic corruption at Planned Parenthood were decried for years by the Left as &#8220;deceptively edited&#8221; before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated, in a footnote earlier this year, that the videos were not deceptively edited. As Hammer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fifth-circuit-panel-center-medical-progress-josh-hammer">reported</a> at the time for The Daily Wire, the Fifth Circuit opinion&#8217;s sixth footnote reads:
<blockquote>In fact, the record reflects that [the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General] had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the plaintiffs did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage. Moreover, the district court also suggested that there was no evidence that any of [Planned Parenthood&#8217;s] research was federally funded, so the regulations relied on by OIG might be inapplicable. But the record actually establishes that the UTMB study was funded by the National Institute of Health.</blockquote>
With that context in mind, Wheeler began by asking Hammer whether California&#8217;s law could even withstand a First Amendment challenge. Hammer said that the issue is &#8220;probably right on the line&#8221; of unconstitutionality, and proceeded to explain why the law&#8217;s delegation of discretionary power to judges is problematic:
<blockquote>You know, it&#8217;s probably right on the line. I mean this is in California, so this would ultimately get appealed to the California Supreme Court and &#8230; if it&#8217;s a First Amendment challenge, [would] actually go to the Ninth Circuit because we need a federal court [for that]. These are liberal courts; traditionally, over the past 15-20 years, the Left has increasingly sided against free speech. So I could see the courts there upholding it.
But you know, here&#8217;s the thing, Liz. Anthony Kennedy — someone who I am NOT a fan of, I would be mortified to share on national television some of the things I&#8217;ve said in my private life about Anthony Kennedy — but if there&#8217;s one thing that Anthony Kennedy was wonderful on throughout his entire career, it was free speech. And he really said it best in the landmark case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">Citizens United v. FEC</a> in 2010. Kennedy said, quote: &#8220;It is our law and our tradition that more speech, not less, is the governing rule.&#8221; And that&#8217;s kind of the classic American axiom — that is how we have always comported ourselves in the public square and the realm of politics. &#8230; The way the combat speech is with more speech. It is not to attempt to write vaguely worded statutes that &#8230; take power away from the elected political branch and ultimately are just empowering federal judges to interpret these broadly worded statutes. That&#8217;s what this is doing — it&#8217;s empowering judges to decry it as right and wrong. It&#8217;s an anti-democratic movement it is a totalitarian power grab and really, people of all political stripes should not stand for this.</blockquote>
WATCH:
<iframe title="CA Passes Law Banning &quot;Deep Fake&quot; Videos Close To Elections" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YEFIlHWRTr8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Josh Hammer OANN screen grab 10.07.19

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: California Bans &#8216;Deep Fake&#8217; Videos Close To Elections

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WATCH: Ben Shapiro Defends Religious Freedom; Media Matters, Leftists Lose It

DYS: Beto O’Rourke’s ‘Liberty’ Is No Liberty At All

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: California Bans ‘Deep Fake’ Videos Close To Elections