New York Times demonizes Young America’s Foundation for bringing alt-views to college campuses

The real story of my appearance at the University at Buffalo was how campus Left-fascists and Islamic supremacists screamed abuse at me for an hour and a half, such that I was able to say very little. The real story, in other words, is about how Left-fascists on campuses nationwide are increasingly authoritarian, unwilling to allow views that depart from the Leftist establishment agenda to be heard. The real story is about how campus Leftists and their Muslim allies are emulating the Nazi Brownshirts, shouting down and physically menacing campus speakers whose views they hate.

The real story of my appearance at the University at Buffalo is that university campuses today are radioactive wastelands of hard-Left indoctrination, in which any views that dissent from the Leftist line are stigmatized, demonized, and not allowed a fair hearing.

But the New York Times glosses over all that, not surprisingly, since the Times itself is a flagship of the Leftist establishment, and a cheerleader for any effort that marginalizes and silences dissenting voices. So for the Times, the real story is the wealth of and donors to the Young America’s Foundation, which labors tirelessly to try to bring some small measure of free inquiry to university campuses by sponsoring speakers who invite consideration of ideas that are usually forbidden at these Leftist indoctrination centers. For the Times, it’s some sinister and well-heeled effort to hurt the feelings of the poor fragile snowflakes by encouraging thoughtcrime.

The Times’ approach is laughably ironic in light of the massive amounts Soros lavishes upon groups such as the Center for American Progress that further the hard-Left agenda. YAF’s money is a pittance compared to the money Leftist organizations have, and Leftist speakers such as Reza Aslan command speaker fees exponentially larger than mine and Ann Coulter’s as well. Where is the Times article about the Leftist money machine sending hard-Left speakers to campuses to reinforce the propaganda students are being fed by their professors?

Of course, such a piece will never appear in the Times. Instead, we get this whiny, dreary piece: “‘It’s part of a larger systematic and extremely well-funded effort to disrupt public universities and create tension among student groups on campus,’ said Alexandra Prince, a doctoral student at Buffalo who circulated a petition to block Mr. Spencer.” Create tension? Yes: by making students think about uncomfortable truths, issues and perspectives they have been told to ignore and shun as evil.

The one good thing about this ridiculous article is that it features a wonderfully villainous photo of me. The University at Buffalo, not content to let the fascist Brownshirts scream at me unimpeded, also turned up the heat in the room; it was sweltering in there, and they refused requests to turn it down. So we get this marvelous photo of a sweaty, sneering, disheveled thought criminal, fiendishly poisoning snowflakes’ pure minds, and planning to stop on the way out of town to tie a few maidens to the railroad tracks.

More below.

Robert Spencer. Photo: New York Times.

“The Conservative Force Behind Speeches Roiling College Campuses,” by Stephanie Saul, New York Times, May 20, 2017:

BUFFALO — “Let’s give it up for the racists that are hosting this event!” someone yelled, and the crowd roared, foot-stomping in unison, then breaking into song: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” One member of the audience held up a sign, “Queers Against Islamaphobia.” Another unfurled a banner: “Muslims Welcome. Fascists Get Out.”

Close to 200 students kept up the noise for more than an hour in a University at Buffalo lecture hall on May 1, mostly drowning out the evening’s featured speaker, Robert Spencer, a conservative author and blogger who espouses a dark view of Islam.

The event appeared to follow a familiar script, in which a large contingent of liberals muzzles a provocative speaker invited by a small conservative student club. But the propelling force behind the event — and a number of recent heat-seeking speeches on college campuses — was a national conservative group that is well funded, highly organized and on a mission, in its words, to “restore sanity at your school.”

The group, the Young America’s Foundation, had paid Mr. Spencer’s $2,000 fee, trained the student leader who organized the event and provided literature for distribution. Other than the possibility of outside interference, little had been left to chance….

“It’s part of a larger systematic and extremely well-funded effort to disrupt public universities and create tension among student groups on campus,” said Alexandra Prince, a doctoral student at Buffalo who circulated a petition to block Mr. Spencer.

But Ron Robinson, who has served as Young America’s president for more than three decades, said the group’s goal is simply “to increase appreciation and support of conservative ideas, not to stir up leftists or Muslims.”…

In addition to its fiery speakers and marquee names like Newt Gingrich, the organization’s roster includes many low-fuss speakers like the publisher Steve Forbes and the author Ben Stein. It was not associated with the divisive campus appearances recently made by the right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos.

But it does sponsor Mr. Spencer, whose writings, including on his website Jihad Watch, are full of dire warnings about the global threat of radical Islam. His work was cited repeatedly in the 1,500-page manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.

Breivik again. If he didn’t exist, the Left would find it necessary to invent him. If the Times had any real journalistic standards, it might ask itself why, if my writings incite violence, Breivik remains the only example of this, and he was six years ago. It might wonder why no one else has been stirred up to kill by my books and articles. The answer is that Breivik wasn’t incited to violence by me either. He was a psychopath who cited a lot of people, including Barack Obama and Gandhi. Are they responsible for him? He counseled working with al-Qaeda and Hamas, so his ideas and mine are not the same, but even if they were, is every idea discredited because someone commits violence over it? Was abolitionism discredited by John Brown?

Given the current climate, Mr. Spencer’s Buffalo speech was virtually guaranteed to cause a commotion. Even so, Mr. Robinson said he was surprised by the reaction.

“If you disagree with Spencer to that extent, don’t come to his lecture, don’t call attention to him,” Mr. Robinson said in an interview at the group’s modern offices, where photos of the Reagan Ranch and of influential conservative leaders are on display.

“If you’re 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, do not say that a person doesn’t have the right to express their ideas, and other people to hear those ideas,” he said. “That’s not the United States I understand and it’s not what the American college education should be about.”…

Mr. Spencer was invited to the University at Buffalo by a Young Americans for Freedom chapter organized in the past year. It was no match for a much larger Muslim Student Association, which organized a 1960s-style sit-in at the lecture hall that began hours before Mr. Spencer arrived.

About 30 minutes before his speech, many members of the group, as well as non-Muslim sympathizers, had nearly filled the hall.

A small group of Young Americans for Freedom members gathered near the front, looking buttoned up in business attire and taking on expressions of disgust.

“It’s one of the most disrespectful displays I’ve seen in my life,” said one member, Patrick Weppner, a sophomore majoring in computer science.

When he was able to talk above the noise, Mr. Spencer cited excerpts from the Quran as evidence that the text is used as justification for violence.

During a question-and-answer session, Pasha Syed, an imam from a local mosque, cited a New Testament passage about killing one’s enemies. Mr. Spencer said the difference was that the Quran entreats followers to violence.

There is actually no passage in the New Testament about killing one’s enemies. Syed was misrepresenting a parable of Jesus regarding the divine judgment.

“Jihad is obligatory for everyone able to perform it, male and female, and it is definitely warfare that they are talking about,” Mr. Spencer said. An audience member yelled out, “You are not an intellectual, sir!” prompting a new round of heckling from the crowd.

Incisive, thought-provoking response! In any case, I wasn’t at that point citing the Qur’an, but an Al-Azhar-endorsed Islamic legal manual, which explains that defensive jihad is obligatory upon every Muslim when an Islamic land is attacked. This was garbled in the Times, but I have to give them some slack since the fascists were screaming so loud I was rarely given time to construct a rational argument.

Mr. Spencer warned that the audience would live to regret its behavior. “The forces you are enabling are going to come back to haunt you,” he said.

Indeed.

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