Austen Fletcher of &#8220;Fleccas Talks&#8221; went to Stanford University last Thursday to check out the big left-wing protest of Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, who was speaking on campus that evening as part of the Young America’s Foundation’s Fred Allen Lecture Series.
Though Shapiro would ultimately spend a majority of his speech denouncing the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-shapiro-dismantles-the-alt-right-and-radical-lefts-dangerous-game">dangerous game</a>&#8221; being played by the Alt-Right, left-wing protesters were out en masse ahead of the speech to denounce Shapiro&#8217;s supposedly &#8220;hateful&#8221; rhetoric. But, as Fletcher&#8217;s footage of his interactions with protesters shows (below), when asked to give some specifics about things Shapiro has said that are worthy of such an emphatic response, many of the protesters struggled to come up with anything at all.
One of the people who joined the protest admits to Fletcher that he has no idea who Shapiro is. Another protester says vaguely that Shapiro says &#8220;some f***ed up sh**&#8221; and made &#8220;statements that I don&#8217;t really agree with.&#8221;
&#8220;Nothing he has to say is true,&#8221; says a more committed protester, who agrees with the notion that the mainstream conservative author and commentator is an &#8220;extremist.&#8221;
Asked specifically what Shapiro has said that he disagrees with, another protester only manages to answer, &#8220;Well, uh, there&#8217;s a whole slew of things. I think just generally what he stands for.&#8221;
&#8220;Because I identify as LatinX,&#8221; says another in response to the question. &#8220;And there are a bunch of marginalized people that Ben Shapiro is against,&#8221; he adds, offering no evidence for the broad accusation. &#8220;Before the talk, I didn&#8217;t know much about him,&#8221; the student admits. &#8220;&#8230;I knew that he was labeled as like this really bad person with the people I get along with, which are other people who identify as LatinX or African American.&#8221;
Asked why he&#8217;s protesting Shapiro, another participant of the rally struggles to answer, at which point one of the apparent organizers of the event, who is wearing giant hoop earrings, intervenes, telling the other protester that he doesn&#8217;t have to talk to Fletcher. &#8220;He&#8217;s an adult,&#8221; says Fletcher, who has experienced this same policing of speech by protest organizers in the past, as The Daily Wire has reported.
When Fletcher gets a chance to ask the &#8220;adult&#8221; protester what specifically Shapiro has said that &#8220;can be viewed as hate speech,&#8221; the guy says, &#8220;Nothing specifically, I just think he says a lot of stuff that obviously hurts communities. If it didn&#8217;t, people wouldn&#8217;t be out here.&#8221;
Given the chance to give a message directly to Shapiro, one protester who doesn&#8217;t want to show his face to the camera says only, &#8220;F*** Trump!&#8221; Shapiro, as anyone familiar with his work knows, has gotten flak from the Right for at times being critical of Trump.
The hoop earring-wearing protester who intervened eventually helps lead a chant that is presumably supposed to &#8220;resist&#8221; Shapiro: &#8220;The People United Will Never Be Divided!&#8221; Another chant that got going at the event: &#8220;No Cops! No KKK! Ben Shapiro, Go Away!&#8221;
Fletcher informed The Daily Wire that he was &#8220;borderline harassed&#8221; at many points in the evening by the very protesters who were claiming that they felt &#8220;attacked&#8221; by the rhetoric of Shapiro and the presence of his conservative supporters.
Fletcher&#8217;s video below:
<iframe title="Bitter Stanford Protesters Want to Shut Down Ben Shapiro for No Reason" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TF4fH9w5OSI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/see-it-stanford-activists-compare-ben-shapiro-to-insect-while-condemning-dehumanizing-speech">The Daily Wire</a> reported ahead of the event, the organizers behind what was billed as a &#8220;Silent Rally&#8221; in protest of Shapiro accused him of espousing &#8220;dehumanizing ideas,&#8221; yet those same organizers created a flyer promoting their rally that featured an insect spray bottle with Shapiro&#8217;s face between images of insects, suggesting that he is a bug in need of extermination.
The majority of Shapiro&#8217;s speech was dedicated to dismantling the racist and anti-conservative arguments of the Alt-Right. Despite Shapiro spending most of the night &#8220;bashing the living sh** out of Nazis,&#8221; however, left-wing protesters attempted to disrupt the event anyhow, at one point chanting “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Ben Shapiro Has Got To Go!”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-hecklers-disrupt-shapiro-speech-he-points-out-their-terrible-timing">WATCH: Protesters Disrupt Shapiro Speech; He Points Out Their Terrible Timing</a>

Ben Shapiro

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Protesters At Stanford Asked Why Exactly They&#8217;re Protesting Him

Free Speech

Political Correctness

Stanford

A new clip released from the Dennis Prager/Adam Carolla film &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; highlights the magnitude of the fight for free speech on college campuses.
When Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro visited UC-Berkeley in 2017, the threats of violence from far-left protesters were so intense that the school spent over $600,000 in security services just so he could speak. The montage sequence featured in &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; brings that harrowing reality closer to home, as Shapiro is shown traveling to campus amid interludes of riot police gearing up for his arrival.
&#8220;The University of California at Berkeley is said to be bracing, that&#8217;s the quote, bracing for conservative speaker Ben Shapiro&#8217;s upcoming appearance at their campus,&#8221; one reporter is heard saying in the clip.
&#8220;Many are comparing it to hurricane preparations,&#8221; says another reporter.
&#8220;A large swath of the campus will be closed off, including the plaza where the Free Speech Movement began in the 1960s,&#8221; says another.
At one point, the montage cuts to a clip of Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Fox News warning of the stakes at issue. &#8220;If Ben Shapiro is not allowed to speak, a tremendous battle will have been lost today — a very important event in the history of our rights,&#8221; Dershowitz says.
Berkeley students were seen chanting &#8220;Speech is violence!&#8221; upon Shapiro&#8217;s visit, suggesting that his disagreeing with their politics is an attack on their identity. Here&#8217;s what Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/5-things-i-learned-berkeley-last-night-ben-shapiro">wrote</a> of the experience, at the time:
<blockquote>We&#8217;ve watched Antifa fight free speech in cities ranging from Portland to Seattle to Sacramento to Dallas to Berkeley. We&#8217;ve watched them get violent. But the biggest problem, by far, has been the unwillingness of local authorities to allow the police to do what they need to do. Last night, hundreds of police were brought in to protect our event, at a cost of $600,000. That&#8217;s because of Black Bloc and Antifa. But neither held sway, because the police quickly arrested anyone with a weapon or a mask, and prevented violence in the crowd outside. Good. Law and order is a precondition to civil society. It’s just sad so much law enforcement was necessary for a college speech.</blockquote>
Check out the clip below:
<iframe title="Ben Shapiro in No Safe Spaces" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sibhctSqopM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The push to make &#8220;No Safe Spaces&#8221; a reality has been ongoing since 2017, when Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla started an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the documentary into motion. It <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-safe-spaces#/">raised $684,684</a>. Much of the documentary will focus on Prager and Carolla traveling to various college campuses, exploring the systematic crackdown on free speech.
&#8220;Entitled snowflakes on college campuses raging and screaming every time they encounter an idea they disagree with,&#8221; said the film’s Indiegogo page. &#8220;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.&#8221;
The film will go nationwide on November 15th. It has so far seen <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pragers-no-safe-spaces-sees-impressive-sales-on-just-one-screen">promising sales</a> at limited screenings in Phoenix, several weeks prior to its release.

US-POLITICS-UNREST-PROTEST

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Goes To Berkeley In ‘No Safe Spaces’

Alan Dershowitz

Dennis Prager

Safe Spaces

University of California Berkeley

This week I delivered a speech at Boston College. The subject was the way in which leftists manipulate people’s minds. They teach them that disagreement is hatred so that they will not listen to the opposition. Thus they transform those who follow them into raging idiots — raging because they see hate-filled enemies everywhere, idiots because they never have to test their ideas in honest discussion with those who see things differently.
As I spoke, a mob — the police told me there were over a hundred people — gathered outside, pounding on the walls and screaming slogans. When the protestors tried to storm the door, I caught glimpses of their faces, twisted in white-eyed rage. They were trying to disrupt my talk but in fact they were illustrating it, proving my point.
This is a terrible thing the academic left does to our young people: transforming them into the zombie enforcers of their fierce miscreed. And what the left does to them, it would do to all of us. They are using their virtual monopoly on the means of communication — the news, social and entertainment media along with the academies — to assault our minds. And their weapon of choice is words.
My trollish young friend and colleague Michael Knowles sometimes gives a speech called “A Man is Not A Woman.” The protestors show up for that too and rage at him too. But of course a man is not a woman. A man can never be a woman, because man is a word and woman is a word and the words refer to two different things. Different things can’t be the same because different is a word and same is a word and they have opposite meanings.
The mob at my speech was incited by a newspaper article that called me Islamophobic.  But phobic is a word meaning beset by irrational fear. I have no irrational fear of Islam. I have questions about whether some tenets of Islamic thought have led to the oppression and violence rampant in the Islamic world today. There is nothing irrational — or hateful — about that.
I believe it is a good thing that gay people can now live their lives unafraid of the law and I encourage them to engage in long-term, committed, faithful relationships. But do I think that’s marriage? No, because marriage is a word, it has a meaning, and that’s not what it is.
This may seem like some abstruse, obscure theoretical consideration, but is it? The Supreme Court is now considering a number of cases in which plaintiffs are seeking to redefine the word sex in anti-discrimination law to include homosexuality and transgenderism. But if the court can redefine words to mean something other than what they meant to the legislators who made the law, what power do the legislators have? If the court can change the meaning of so basic a word as sex, it can redefine anything to mean anything and no law is safe from being rewritten to suit elite prejudices.
Likewise, those who seek to force us through law or social shame or censorship to use the pronouns they prefer are really seeking to force us to describe reality as they wish it were, rather than as we see it to be. Anyone who has that power over you has turned you into his mental slave.
The freedom we have, the justice we seek, are based on concepts that were handed down to us by our founders — written down for us in words. In order to continue free, in order to become more just, we must continue to reason within those traditions. In order to reason and communicate our reasoning, we must use words — words with agreed-upon meanings.
And yet whenever we try to describe the world as it is, the left cries out that such language is violence. It’s not though — because language is a word and violence is a word and they do not mean the same thing.
The left’s war on the west is a war of words and a war on words. Our best weapon in such a war is the truth. We must speak it plainly.

Protest in City

KLAVAN: We Are In A War Of Words

Education

In a glaringly ironic moment that highlights the gap between the talking points of some activists and their own actions, &#8220;concerned&#8221; Stanford students advertised their planned protest against the supposedly &#8220;dehumanizing&#8221; ideas of Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro by comparing Shapiro to an insect in need of extermination.
Shapiro will be speaking on Stanford University&#8217;s campus on Thursday evening in a Young America’s Foundation’s Fred Allen Lecture Series event hosted by the Stanford College Republicans. The famous conservative&#8217;s appearance at Stanford has been met, as usual, with backlash from the social justice left, including attempts to erase promotions for the event, an open letter denouncing the administration for allowing Shapiro to speak, and a &#8220;silent rally&#8221; scheduled to take place before the event Thursday.
In a letter expressing their &#8220;disappointment&#8221; with the administration for letting the mainstream conservative author and political commentator voice his opinions on the campus, a self-styled &#8220;coalition of concerned students&#8221; sounded the alarm over the supposed &#8220;violence that Ben Shapiro’s hateful, dehumanizing ideas incite against members of our community.&#8221;
&#8220;We would like to express disappointment, but not surprise, with the Stanford administration for continuing to put the safety of Black, Brown, Trans, Queer, and Muslim students at risk by allowing this event to happen,&#8221; the protesters wrote in a letter first reported by<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/06/stanford-students-compare-ben-shapiro-cockroach-flyer/"> The Daily Caller&#8217;s</a> Betsy Rothstein. &#8220;Our protest is not about SCR’s right to free speech, it is about the violence that Ben Shapiro’s hateful, dehumanizing ideas incite against members of our community. This event has no place on this campus, much less in Stanford’s largest venue.&#8221;
&#8220;We have chosen to protest this event in silence because many of our bodies are the antithesis to Shapiro’s hateful speech,&#8221; they alleged. &#8220;Ben Shapiro’s bigotry tells him that Black Americans are disproportionately locked up because of their culture, that people of Arab descent &#8216;like to bomb crap and live in open sewage,&#8217; that Palestinians need to be subjected to forced population transfer, and that transgender people are inherently &#8216;mentally ill.&#8217; Our real-world experiences, rooted in both fact and feeling, teach us otherwise.&#8221;
Though the students organizing the &#8220;silent protest&#8221; specifically decry Shapiro&#8217;s &#8220;dehumanizing&#8221; ideas, the flyer they produced to advertise their protest portrays Shapiro as an insect that needs to be exterminated. Below is an image of the flyer, which features a bottle of insect spray labeled &#8220;Ben B Gon&#8221; and alternates headshots of Shapiro with various insects, including an ant, a flea and a beetle.
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<img class="alignnone wp-image-62049 size-large" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Shapiro-Protest-1024x627.png" alt="" width="1024" height="627" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Shapiro-Protest-1024x627.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Shapiro-Protest-300x184.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Shapiro-Protest-768x470.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/11/Shapiro-Protest.png 1496w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
&#8220;We are tired of of Stanford Administration’s complicity in putting Black, Brown, Trans, Queer, and Muslim students at risk by allowing SCR to bring Ben Shapiro to campus,&#8221; the flyer reads. &#8220;We do not protest because we are too sensitive to hear opinions we don&#8217;t like. We protest because we are strong enough to defend ourselves.&#8221; The flyer also asks protesters to &#8220;please wear black if possible.&#8221;
Shapiro spoke with Rothstein about the flyer and the protesting students&#8217; letter and underscored the irony of it all.
&#8220;They literally decry ‘hateful, dehumanizing ideas’ that ‘incite’ on a poster in which they compare me to an insect to be exterminated,&#8221; said Shapiro. &#8220;Nothing says tolerance and diversity quite like actively depicting your political opponent, whose views you deliberately mischaracterize, as a bug.&#8221;
The &#8220;silent rally&#8221; and the &#8220;Ben B Gon&#8221; flyer are not the only actions taken by activists to protest the event. As reported by <a href="https://www.yaf.org/news/video-stanford-leftists-dump-water-mop-over-shapiro-chalkings-in-middle-of-night/">Young America&#8217;s Foundation</a> Wednesday, some of the Stanford students really upset about Shapiro&#8217;s speech literally erased conservative students&#8217; free speech last night.
&#8220;In the cover of darkness, leftist students at Stanford destroyed a conservative group’s Ben Shapiro chalking, dumping water and using mops on the display,&#8221; YAF reported, along with a video of the protesters in the act:
<iframe title="Stanford Leftists Destroy Shapiro Chalking" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bXK_Ppncb-U?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-daily-wires-matt-walsh-slaps-down-alt-right-hecklers">WATCH: Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh Slaps Down Alt-Right Hecklers</a>
</div>
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SEE IT: Stanford Activists Compare Ben Shapiro To Insect While Condemning ‘Dehumanizing’ Speech

Oberlin College&#8217;s president is still saying that Gibson&#8217;s Bakery, which won a $44 million judgment against the Ohio school in a libel lawsuit back in June, has a history of racism, according to an interview she gave to CBS&#8217;s Ted Koppel.
<a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/11/ted-koppel-despite-verdict-oberlin-college-president-still-makes-allusions-to-a-pattern-of-racist-behavior-by-gibsons-bakery/#more-299344">Legal Insurrection</a>, which closely followed the case between Oberlin and Gibson&#8217;s Bakery reports that Carmen Twillie Ambar told Koppel that the school&#8217;s campaign against the bakery wasn&#8217;t necessarily the result of a single &#8220;racial&#8221; incident, but rather a &#8220;series of things that happened&#8221; before the incident that gave rise to the lawsuit.
In November of 2016, Gibson&#8217;s Bakery, which also sells sundries and alcohol, caught an African-American Oberlin student stealing two bottles of wine. A chase ensued between a bakery employee and the alleged shoplifter and ended with an altercation between Gibson&#8217;s Bakery employees and three students. The three students were arrested and one was later charged with theft and use of a false ID.
What should have been a straightfoward incident exploded when Oberlin students began protesting the bakery, accusing it of racism and discrimination. Worse, according to emails unearthed during the discovery phase of the trial, the College appeared to have encouraged the protests and reimbursed students who purchased materials for demonstrations.
Gibson&#8217;s sued Oberlin for libel and won. A jury awarded the bakery a staggering $11 million in their lawsuit and later, after a separate trial on punitive damages, an additional $33 million. A court later reduced the settlement to $25 million to come in line with Ohio&#8217;s tort caps, but Gibson&#8217;s was awarded $6.5 million in legal fees.
As Legal Insurrection&#8217;s Prof. William Jacobson points out, Oberlin may have lost in court, but they&#8217;re determined to win in the court of public opinion. They tried to get one of the bakery&#8217;s employee&#8217;s Facebook posts unsealed, ostensibly to prove that he was motivated by racial animus (it failed), they&#8217;ve appealed the jury verdict claiming their own &#8220;free speech&#8221; was violated when they lost the libel trial and were relieved of nearly $50 million. They agreed to the interview with CBS, perhaps believing the mainstream media network might take their side.
The school&#8217;s president ended up suggesting that Oberlin has done nothing wrong because the bakery has a history of discrimination (emphasis added).
<blockquote>KOPPEL: …. But to this day, the president of Oberlin makes allusions to a pattern of racist behavior, if not the specific incident that set things off three years ago.
AMBAR: Well, the students pled guilty to the shoplifting. Um, there has been some debate about whether it was shoplifting or  false ID.
KOPPEL: It was both.
AMBAR: Right. Well, I think that, that one of the things that the college has always said is that the college has not, doesn’t condone shoplifting, doesn’t condone bad behavior by its students in any way, shape or form. But what led up to the protest, and I think that’s sort of kind of the core issue here, was some series of things that happened before. Some perspectives about people’s experiences in the store.
KOPPEL: Tell me about, tell me about those then. And be specific. What specific incidents are you referring to that happened before?
AMBAR: Right, well, I think that the specific incidents would be, the perception by faculty and students and staff and other people in the town that there had been disparate treatment with respect to people of color in the store. The way I would phrase it, kind of different lived experiences.</blockquote>
Lived experiences are, of course, not concrete. And Ambar seems to tread perilously close to reiterating the sentiment that Oberlin was punished for: smearing the bakery with allegations of racism.
Oberlin College <a href="https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/lorain-county/oberlin-college-announces-it-will-appeal-verdict-in-gibsons-bakery-case/95-2dcde2a4-086d-4092-8640-a9aa74352f90">announced in early October</a> that it intends to appeal the jury verdict, citing the long-term financial health of the school (something that has, apparently, never bothered them before). The college also claims that the award &#8220;sets a troubling precedent for free speech.&#8221;
&#8220;The College and the town of Oberlin have been vital to one another since 1833, and we value our long-term relationships with the town’s citizens and businesses. We also have a mission to support free inquiry, allow faculty and students to ask difficult questions and to reach and express their own conclusions. The judgment in this case effectively punishes us for doing just that,&#8221; Oberlin said in a statement. &#8220;The verdict and judgment in this case set a precedent that endangers free speech on campuses and for all Americans. The jury was allowed to award substantial damages for speech that is protected by the Constitution. The case should absolutely be reviewed by an appellate court.&#8221;
Gibson&#8217;s, in turn, has filed a cross-appeal, challenging the court&#8217;s revision of the jury&#8217;s award, suggesting that the award cap violates their due process rights.

West Palm Beach, Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum

Despite $44M Libel Verdict, Oberlin College Still Saying Gibson&#8217;s Bakery Had A Pattern Of Racist Behavior

Ohio

In an op-ed for <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/468404-mark-zuckerberg-is-right-jack-dorsey-is-wrong">The Hill</a> published Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised Facebook&#8217;s Mark Zuckerberg and slammed Twitter&#8217;s Jack Dorsey for their diverging approaches to political speech following the social media giants&#8217; recent policy announcements.
&#8220;For those who care about free speech, the last couple weeks saw two major developments from two people who have enormous influence over our public discourse,&#8221; Cruz writes. &#8220;First, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whom I have previously criticized, gave an important address in defense of free speech. In it, he explained Facebook&#8217;s new policy that they would not censor political speech, but would instead allow the marketplace of ideas, the back-and-forth of political debate, to resolve public policy disputes.&#8221;
Cruz is referencing in part Zuckerberg&#8217;s widely covered <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-defends-free-speech-amid-political-blowback-i-believe-in-people">speech</a> at Georgetown University two weeks ago in which he came out strongly in defense of free speech. &#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,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.&#8221;
Zuckerberg also made clear in front of Congress the next week that his platform will not be policing political ads.
Dorsey, however, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-twitter-makes-major-move-regarding-speech-from-politicians">announced</a> on Twitter this week that his platform will take a far different approach: it will &#8220;stop all political advertising on Twitter.&#8221;
&#8220;We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally,&#8221; Dorsey announced Wednesday. &#8220;We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons a political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.&#8221;
The developments, Cruz writes, &#8220;come at a time when Big Tech companies, from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and Google, have established a pattern of arbitrarily silencing voices – overwhelming conservative voices – with whom they disagree.&#8221;
Cruz notes that leftwing politicians and media influencers have condemned Zuckerberg&#8217;s defense of free speech and praised Dorsey&#8217;s new political ad ban, &#8220;urging Facebook and Google to follow suit and jump on board the censorship train by banning political ads as well.&#8221;
Cruz goes on to lay out why banning ads would be &#8220;profoundly harmful,&#8221; including that doing so &#8220;only stands to benefit two groups: incumbent politicians and the mainstream media,&#8221; both of whom have &#8220;huge megaphone[s]&#8221; for spreading their messages.
Not only does a Twitter-like ban give incumbents and the media massive advantage, it effectively suppresses the voice of the average citizen by preventing groups like &#8220;the Sierra Club, the NRA, Planned Parenthood, AIPAC, or a totally new not-for-profit group trying to advocate for a particular idea&#8221; from reaching people.
Cruz additionally argues that Dorsey&#8217;s ban &#8220;only further empowers Silicon Valley billionaires, who already have a stronghold on defining what is truthful or acceptable speech, to now define what is and what is not &#8216;political.'&#8221;
&#8220;It’s up to them to determine where to draw the line – and they won’t stop here,&#8221; the Texas senator warns. &#8220;Banning ads is just the beginning.&#8221; (<a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/468404-mark-zuckerberg-is-right-jack-dorsey-is-wrong">Read Cruz&#8217;s op-ed here</a>.)
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/klavan-the-big-silence-the-left-wages-war-on-free-speech">KLAVAN: The Big Silence: The Left Wages War On Free Speech</a>

Zuckerberg Dorsey

Cruz: Facebook&#8217;s Zuckerberg Is Right, Twitter&#8217;s Dorsey Is Wrong

Facebook

Jack Dorsey

Mark Zuckerberg

Ted Cruz

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

First Amendment

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

On Thursday, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a unanimous 6-0 ruling in favor of a Lexington-based print shop owner who refused to print messages that violated his deeply held religious beliefs.
The case dates back to 2012, when the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO) filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission against print shop owner Blaine Adamson, who, citing his Christian beliefs, declined a request to print shirts promoting the Lexington Gay Pride Festival. Adamson reportedly declined politely and referred the organization to another printer who was willing to print the shirts. The GLSO complained that Adamson was discriminating against LGBT customers by refusing to promote the event.
In 2014, the commission ruled that Adamson must print messages conflicting with his religious convictions. The court system subsequently ruled repeatedly against the commission&#8217;s order, until the case eventually made its way to the state&#8217;s highest court.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who helped represent Adamson in the case, maintained that the business owner has demonstrated that he &#8220;serves all people, including LGBT customers,&#8221; as he did when his shop, Hands On Originals, printed promotional materials for an openly lesbian singer who performed at the Lexington&#8217;s 2012 Pride festival. Adamson also has taken a consistent stand on the issue of free speech, ADF underscored, refusing to print other messages that likewise conflict with his Christian beliefs, including shirts advertising a strip club, shirts containing violent messages, and &#8220;pens promoting a sexually explicit video.&#8221;
ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell, who argued on behalf of Adamson in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court, said in a statement released Thursday that the unanimous decision in the Christian shop owner&#8217;s favor &#8220;makes clear that this case never should have happened.&#8221;
&#8220;For more than seven years, government officials used this case to turn Blaine’s life upside down, even though we told them from the beginning that the lawsuit didn’t comply with the city’s own legal requirements,” said Campbell, in a statement included in an ADF <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/9254">news release</a> Thursday. &#8220;The First Amendment protects Blaine’s right to continue serving all people while declining to print messages that violate his faith. Justice David Buckingham recognized this in his concurring opinion, and no member of the court disagreed with that.&#8221;
The ruling by Kentucky&#8217;s highest court, ADF argues in the release, &#8220;highlights why the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the important First Amendment issue at the heart of the case and decide whether governments may force creative professionals who serve everyone to print messages or create art that violates their beliefs.&#8221;
The legal defense organization also notes that the valuing of free speech rights crosses the left-right divide. Adamson received &#8220;broad public support, including from lesbians who own a print shop in New Jersey and agree that promotional printers shouldn’t be forced to print messages they consider objectionable,&#8221; ADF highlights in the release.
Other states expressed support for Adamson&#8217;s First Amendment right to decline printing messages that violate his beliefs. Thirteen friend-of-the-court briefs were sent to the Supreme Court supporting Adamson, ADF notes, while only one was sent in support of the commission&#8217;s initial ruling.
In a statement, attorney Bryan Beauman, who worked with ADF on the case, chided the commission for having &#8220;wasted taxpayer dollars and judicial resources by pressing this complaint in the first place and then appealing it all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court.&#8221;

Constitution

KY Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Print Shop Owner Who Refused To Print Messages Violating His Beliefs

Christianity

Kentucky

LGBT

Religion

Sexuality

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>

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

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.

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

Adam Carolla

Prager University

Freedom of speech is in the First Amendment for a reason. Freedom begins with the ability to speak your opinion without fear of censorship or violent reprisal or imprisonment. This is a precious human right, not something that most countries in the world revere like we have. But here in America, free speech is most dangerously under attack in the one place you would not expect: the universities.
Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla have created a new documentary on the subject called &#8220;No Safe Spaces.&#8221; Prager announces near the outset that a Pew Research Center survey found 49% of college students do not support free speech if it&#8217;s designated as &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; He asked, &#8220;Do you know how moronic that is? The issue of free speech doesn&#8217;t apply to love speech. Nobody ever threatened love speech.&#8221;
Prager objects to people who say all humans yearn to be free. He said it&#8217;s more common for humans to yearn to be taken care of. &#8220;We have raised a generation to believe that to be taken care of is more important than liberty.&#8221;
The documentary includes Carolla testifying before Congress about the current generation on campus. &#8220;They grew up dipped in Purell, playing soccer games where they never kept score and watching &#8216;Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!&#8217; And we&#8217;re asking them to be mature.&#8221; He can&#8217;t stand the idea that radical students are running the campus, while the administrators surrender. &#8220;We need the adults to start being the adults.&#8221;
Then there are chilling examples of how the left wants to censor speech they don&#8217;t like. One white woman reads into a microphone: &#8220;There will be resistance, and it will not be peaceful. Resistance to violent hate speech is not another act of hate. It is an act of love.&#8221; Later in the film, her rant continues: &#8220;There is no free speech for fascists. Their words are violent, and for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.&#8221;
Obviously, the main targets of censorship at American colleges are the conservative speakers invited to campus. They may seem like rare external threats when the faculty doesn&#8217;t have any troublesome right-wingers to challenge them in the classroom. &#8220;When you are conservative, you are not wrong. You are evil,&#8221; Prager summarizes. &#8220;They have to think you&#8217;re evil. Otherwise, they have to debate us.&#8221;
But the film also explores liberal professors and teaching assistants being punished for crossing the speech police. We&#8217;re glad we&#8217;ve reported on some of these, such as Nicholas and Erika Christakis at Yale, who they crusaded to drive off campus for expressing the sentiment that children should be allowed to choose their own Halloween costumes.
The central exhibit is Bret Weinstein, who was forced out at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, after he, as a white male, dared to show up and teach during a &#8220;Day of Absence,&#8221; when all white people were supposed to avoid coming to campus.
And they bring in liberal and leftist voices, like Van Jones and Alan Dershowitz, to defend free speech. The most prominent one is former President Barack Obama. &#8220;Anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them,&#8221; Obama said at an education town hall in 2015. &#8220;But you shouldn&#8217;t silence them by saying, &#8216;You can&#8217;t come because I&#8217;m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.'&#8221;
By the film&#8217;s end, you can sense that the censorious excesses have been punished. But it certainly doesn&#8217;t mean this problem is over. Free speech on campus is an ongoing battle, so this movie needs to be seen — far and wide.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Tape over mouth.

BOZELL &#038; GRAHAM: Speech Police And &#8216;Safe Spaces&#8217;

Over the weekend, Chinese state-run media outlet, <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2019/10/21/china-criticizing-pro-communist-lebron-james-has-nasty-racial-connotations/">China Daily, published an opinion piece</a> by one of their regular writers blowing the lid off of critics&#8217; rationale for skewering LeBron James over his comments about Hong Kong: racism.
According to &#8220;Ian Goodrum,&#8221; a self-identified &#8220;writer for China Daily,&#8221; an arm of the Chinese government&#8217;s extensive state-run media machine, James&#8217; detractors, who take issue with James&#8217; support for the Chinese government in its dealings with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, and his support for the NBA&#8217;s crackdown on anti-China commentary, are driven by racial prejudice and accuses American authorities of &#8220;hypocrisy&#8221; in &#8220;silencing&#8221; James on the issue.
&#8220;Opinion elites were quick to condemn James for, irony of ironies, insufficient condemnation,” Goodrum writes. “They wanted James to come out strong against China, to mirror their perspective on a country they’ve designated as an enemy.”
James, of course, suggested that the NBA punish Houston Rockets&#8217; general manager Daryl Morey for a Tweet expressing solidarity with pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. James later spoke at length about the trouble with Morey&#8217;s social media missive, and seemed to suggest that the NBA should limit the speech of its players and administrators with regards to China.
&#8220;I think when we all sit back and learn from the situation that happened, understand that what you could tweet or could say [could affect people],” James said. “We all talk about this freedom of speech. Yes, we all do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others, and you’re only thinking about yourself.
“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, and so many people could have been harmed, not only financially, but physically,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Emotionally. Spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and what we say, and what we do. Even though yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that too.”
James, of course, had no problem with players&#8217; league-wide protests in support of Colin Kaepernick, the former-San Francisco 49er who knelt during the national anthem at NFL games in protest of institutionalized racism and police brutality. When it comes to China, however, James, who has a multi-million dollar contract with Nike, which sells to Chinese consumers, and a vested interest in the lucrative payday the NBA sees from its Chinese arm, seemed less thrilled when it appeared such &#8220;free speech&#8221; might impact his bottom line.
China Daily suggested that it is those calling for James to rethink his commentary, and not James himself, with the hypocritical view of free speech.
“A revolting hypocrisy is at work here. The same people who told James and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to ‘shut up and play’ when they took a stand against the killing of Black men by U.S. police are now demanding athletes speak out — but only if their opinions are the correct ones, of course,” the paper alleged.
&#8216;No matter what anyone says, this isn’t about freedom of speech. That’s just a fig leaf, a cover for policing discourse and narrowing the window of acceptable opinion so the only stances that fit are the ones in line with the US government,” China Daily&#8217;s columnist continued. “‘Free speech’ has never really been about the untrammeled right to say or do whatever one wants — the US created broad definitions of dissent to prosecute its critics throughout its history.”
They&#8217;re referring, specifically, to the 1789 Alien &amp; Sedition Acts, which limited immigration and acts of speech in wartime in the late eighteenth century. China, by contrast, has been rounding up detractors recently, is attempting to curb free speech in Hong Kong so that it may punish Chinese dissenters who seek refuge there, and has reportedly thrown more than a million ethnic Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, where they are &#8220;re-educated&#8221; through torture.
The piece ends with a call for James not to &#8220;buckle under pressure.&#8221;
“No one in the major US media, not even James’ few defenders, has entertained the notion he was speaking honestly. Besides the nasty racial connotations — think for a moment what a largely white media class devaluing a Black man’s subjectivity implies — it sets a precedent,” China Dailyclaimed. “If one of the most talented and popular athletes in the world has his statements dismissed when they don’t conform to Western consensus, what does that mean for the rest of us?”

Los Angeles Lakers v Brooklyn Nets &#8211; NBA China Games 2019

Chinese State Media: Criticism Of LeBron James Has &#8216;Nasty Racial Connotations&#8217;

China

LeBron James

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

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

Anti-Semitism

Judaism

Massachusetts lawmakers considered a state bill on Tuesday that would punish people for calling others a “bitch.”
State Rep. Daniel Hunt, a Democrat representing the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, introduced the bill in May on behalf of a constituent, something only the Bay State allows. The <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H3719/BillHistory">full text</a> of the bill reads as follows:
<blockquote>A person who uses the word “bitch” directed at another person to accost, annoy, degrade or demean the other person shall be considered to be a disorderly person in violation of this section, and shall be subject to the penalties provided in subsections (a) and (b). A violation of this subsection may be reported by the person to whom the offensive language was directed at or by any witness to such incident.</blockquote>
The subsections mentioned in the bill include possible punishments for the offense. Should the bill become a law, anyone in Massachusetts who calls someone else a “bitch” in anger could be subject to a fine of up to $200 or up to six months in jail.
Hunt <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/10/22/mass-bill-for-hearing-today-would-make-saying-word-fineable-offense/dqoucgmbWDSrprKc0JHyXJ/story.html">told The Boston Globe</a> that he filed the bill on behalf of a constituent, but forgot to check the box indicating that was the case, leading some to believe that it was he who wanted to criminalize the word.
“[The constituent] e-mailed me, and it was right around filing deadline,” Hunt told the Globe. “We’ll file it to get it in the process.”
Hunt also said he was roundly mocked for the bill by the State’s Republican Party in tweets and by people from across the country.
“I got at least 50 phone calls today calling me a ‘bitch’ or the ‘C’ word, and I’ve also gotten probably 50 e-mails,” he told the outlet.
The Globe asked if the emails and phone calls bothered Hunt, and he said it was “their right to express themselves to an elected official.”
The bill, however, would remove the right to express oneself to other citizens.
The bill, according to the Globe, was one of nearly 70 relating to criminal justice that was discussed by the Joint Judiciary Committee during a hearing. Other bills included changes in law regarding victims’ rights, juvenile offenders, and witness testimony. Hunt’s bill appears to be the only one suggesting an entirely new criminal act.
The bill is also “clearly unconstitutional,” according to Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield. He told the Globe that the “Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in a bunch of cases that very offensive, very hurtful speech is nevertheless protected.”
Because the word “bitch,” has certain gender connotations, the bill also appears discriminatory, as cruel words usually reserved for men were not included. Of course, that would mean opening the door to criminalizing so many additional forms of speech, which is obviously wrong.
Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, told The Boston Herald that she opposed the bill.
“While I detest the use of the B-word and the N-word and the word fag, etc., I love the Constitution more and question the constitutionality of bills like this,” she said. “The concern is specifically about the right to free speech, including speech that I hate.”

Golden Retriever

Massachusetts Bill Would Make Calling Someone A ‘B&#8212;’ A Criminal Offense, Including Jail Time

Massachusetts

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

Communism

Former NBA star Shaquille O&#8217;Neal slammed China on Tuesday while discussing the NBA&#8217;s controversial stance to cower to the Communist Party of China (CPC) by censoring criticisms around the league directed at China&#8217;s human rights abuses and clamp down on freedom.
Shaq made the remarks during TNT’s pre-game show on the opening night of the NBA season Tuesday, defending Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey&#8217;s decision to tweet support for the protesters in Hong Kong.
&#8220;As American people, we do a lot of business in China,&#8221; O’Neal said. &#8220;And they know and understand our values and we understand their values. And one of our best values in America is free speech. We’re allowed to say what we want to say and we’re allowed to speak up on injustices, and that’s just how it goes.&#8221;
A few weeks ago, Morey tweeted out a graphic that stated: “Fight For Freedom Stand With Hong Kong.”
“The Houston Rockets suddenly find themselves in the middle of a geopolitical controversy that could put their chief front-office executive’s job in jeopardy,” The Ringer <a href="https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/nba/2019/10/6/20901828/daryl-morey-hong-kong-china-houston-rockets-tweet-controversy">reported</a>. “After general manager Daryl Morey expressed support in a since-deleted tweet for pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, the Chinese government, the Chinese Basketball Association, and various Chinese businesses quickly denounced Morey and moved to sever ties with the Rockets. As a consequence, league sources told The Ringer that Rockets ownership has debated Morey’s employment status and whether to replace him.”
Shaq stood up for Morey, saying that he did the right thing by calling out injustices being committed by China.
&#8220;Daryl Morey was right,&#8221; O’Neal said. &#8220;Whenever you see something going on wrong anywhere in the world, you should have the right to say that’s not right, and that’s what he did.&#8221;
“Here, we have the right to speak,&#8221; O&#8217;Neal continued. &#8220;And especially with social media, we’re going to say whatever we want to say, when we want to say it.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
SHAQ on China: “They know and understand our values &#8230; and one of our best values in America is free speech. We’re allowed to say what we want to say and we’re allowed to speak up on injustices, and that’s just how it goes”
“Daryl Morey was right” <a href="https://t.co/CBQWHfszhp">pic.twitter.com/CBQWHfszhp</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1186798814339821568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
O&#8217;Neal&#8217;s words were in stark contrast to what his former teammate, Lebron James, said recently about China.
“We all talk about this freedom of speech, yes, we all do have freedom of speech but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you’re not thinking about others and you’re only thinking about yourself,” James said on October 15. “I don’t want to get into a … feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke. 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,” James concluded.
After facing intense backlash online, James played the victim, suggesting that people needed to sympathize with him.
&#8220;Let me clear up the confusion. I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet,&#8221; James tweeted. &#8220;I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk About that.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Let me clear up the confusion. I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk About that.
— LeBron James (@KingJames) <a href="https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1183934373671735296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#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,&#8221; James added. &#8220;And I believe nobody stopped and considered what would happen. Could have waited a week to send it.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
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.
— LeBron James (@KingJames) <a href="https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1183934569411530752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2019</a></blockquote>

Shaquille O&#8217;Neal

Shaq Blasts China: ‘We’re Going To Say Whatever We Want To Say, When We Want To Say It’

Shaquille O'Neal

If you need an accurate update on some of the madness at the nation&#8217;s institutions of higher learning, check out Minding the Campus, a nonprofit independent organization. John Leo, its editor in chief, says that <a href="https://tinyurl.com/yxww7gth">the organization&#8217;s</a> prime mission is dedicated to the revival of intellectual pluralism and the best traditions of liberal education at America&#8217;s colleges and universities. Leo&#8217;s most recent compilation of campus madness leaves one nearly breathless.
In a USA Today op-ed, Emily Walton, a sociology professor at Dartmouth University, said that all college students should take a mandatory course on black history and white privilege. She says that by taking her class, white students &#8220;come to understand that being a good person does not make them innocent but rather they, too, are implicated in a system of racial dominance.&#8221; Walton adds, &#8220;After spending their young lives in a condition of &#8216;white blindness,&#8217; that is, the inability to see their own racial privilege, they begin to awaken to the notion that racism has systematically kept others down while benefiting them and other white people.&#8221; This is inculcating guilt based on skin color. These young white kids had nothing to do with slavery, Jim Crow or other horrible racial discriminatory acts. If one believes in individual responsibility, he should find the indoctrination by Walton offensive. To top it off, she equates the meritocratic system of hard work with white discrimination against minorities.
If you thought integration was in, check out the University of Nevada. Based on a report in the College Fix, John Leo describes how integration on that campus is actively discouraged — and at taxpayer expense. The university provides separate dorms for different identities including Howell Town for black students, Stonewall Suites for LGBTQ students, the women-only housing of Tonopah community, the Healthy Living Floor for tofu and kale lovers and study-intensive floors for those who want to graduate.
According to a New York Post report, New York City school administrators have been taught that pillars of Western Civilization such as objectivity, individualism and belief in the written word all are examples of white supremacy. All school principals, district office administrators and superintendent teams were required to attend the anti-white supremacy training put on by the city Department of Education&#8217;s Office of Equity and Access. They learn that a belief in an &#8220;ultimate truth&#8221; (objectivity) leads to a dismissal of &#8220;alternate viewpoints or emotions&#8221; as &#8220;bad&#8221; and that an emphasis on the written word overlooks the &#8220;ability to relate to others&#8221; and leads to &#8220;teaching that there is only &#8216;one right way&#8217; to do something.&#8221; Administrators learn that other &#8220;hallmarks&#8221; of white supremacy include a &#8220;sense of urgency,&#8221; &#8220;quantity over quality&#8221; and &#8220;perfectionism.&#8221; Richard Carranza, New York City school superintendent, says the workshops are just about &#8220;what are our biases and how we work with them.&#8221;
Michael Bloomberg, former New York City mayor, says that political rage and increasingly polarized discourse are endangering our nation. Americans used to move forward productively after elections regardless of which side won. Now, we seem paralyzed by absolute schism and intolerance. Bloomberg pointed to colleges as a prime example of a rising level of intolerance for different ideas and free speech. Steven Gerrard, a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, serves as an example of campus intolerance. Students declared Gerrard &#8220;an enemy of the people&#8221; after he suggested that Williams College join other schools in signing onto what&#8217;s called <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y7hxrgf9">the Chicago Principles</a>. The statement, published by the Committee of Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago, calls for free speech to be central to college and university culture. Williams college students said free speech is a part of a right-wing agenda as a &#8220;cover for racism, xenophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism.&#8221; Bloomberg pointed out that fewer than 70 of America&#8217;s 4,000 colleges and universities have endorsed or adopted the Chicago statement.
State governors and legislators can learn something from their Alaskan counterparts, who slashed public spending on the University of Alaska by 41%. There&#8217;s nothing better than the sounds of pocketbooks snapping shut to bring a bit of sanity to college administrators.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Graduation cap.

WILLIAMS: Intolerance In Academia

Racism

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.

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Free Speech

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