Tag Archive for: free speech

Tell Me Who You Are and I Will Tell You What Is At Stake For You

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“The more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, the more loudly I hear their chains rattling” – GEORGE ORWELL

ARE YOU A MAN?

If you are a man, your entire being, the appreciation of it, and the idea of your importance are at stake. Hillary takes any opportunity she can to eviscerate and emasculate men. I mean, we shouldn’t blame her, look who she married. Nonetheless, under a Hillary administration, affirmative action will be set up to target men. She will, without a doubt, come after you with a vengeance. Do not be surprised if men began to abandon their country in response to the persecution that she will unleash upon you for nothing else other than your gender. A globalist president would seek out to emasculate the country as a way to bring us down a notch, or two, or three in order to put us on an even playing field rather than the rest of the world, so why not begin with the men at home?

With Hillary, we will live in a nation that will have gone from “no means no” to even “yes means no” and every man guilty of having consensual sex with a woman will also potentially be guilty of rape as well for no other reason than that he is a man and men are rapists in Hillary’s America. Think I am being dramatic? Don’t risk it. This election has come down to self-defense and preservation of your rights and treatment as a man; do not let go of that just because society has been programmed to make you feel bad about it. Fight for yourselves. Take this country back. As a man, to cast a vote for her would be to vote to wage a war against yourself.

ARE YOU A WOMAN?

If you are a woman, you are a pawn to Hillary in her game of lies and deceit. She is using you. She is using you because you’re the easier target against her opponent. Although she wants you to think that you need her, she would be nothing without her ability to manipulate your support. She knows that Obama was the race president and she wants, very desperately, to be the gender president. Compare race relations and what is happening to the African-American population under Barack “The Race President Obama. Look at the beginning of Obama’s time in office to now, do you want to see the same thing happen to you as a woman just because Hillary wants to use you as a platform?

She wants to go down in history and a feminist trailblazer at any cost; even if that means women have to pay the price without even realizing it. She wants you to think that abortion is liberation, that the “wage gap” is strictly due to sexism, and that you’re a walking victim no matter where you go or what you do—which immediately puts you at a disadvantage at all times. How can you say you are empowering someone if you are always making that person the victim? Think about it.

ARE YOU AFRICAN-AMERICAN?

If you are an African-American, let me ask you, what do you have to lose? I mean that in the most respectful way possible but really, what has the current administration done or has Hillary promised to help heal the race relations in this country? Hillary Clinton has expressed her profound admiration for Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger was a leader in the eugenics movement in which she promoted the reduction of sexual reproduction and the sterilization of those individuals that she believed had “undesirable traits”. She fervently, yet discreetly, worked to place most of her clinics in primarily African-American neighborhoods. She undoubtedly believed in white supremacy and once wrote, “It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets.” It is important to know the origins of the people and the things we are supporting before we do so. Planned Parenthood was born out of the idea of white supremacy; do you want to support the candidate who admires the woman responsible for that?

I know that the media has instilled the idea that a white male president couldn’t possibly unify the country, but look what one of color has done in just eight years. People are worried that Donald Trump is going to take us back to a 1960’s America but, racially, we are already there, or at least on our way there, aren’t we? Agitating this race war is getting African-American people killed in the streets on what seems to be a daily basis.

Donald Trump has not only promised to work to heal the unruly situation between cops and the African-American community, but all crime against blacks—including black on black crime, which is the number one killer of black people in the united states. If black lives matter then they have to matter all across the board, not just the black lives taken by different races, but the black lives taken. Period. We can all agree that race relations in this country need to be healed, but protests and violence are not the ways to do it.

You are being crippled by the welfare state, making it possible for fathers to be taken out of your homes, for providers to be essentially useless and replaced by the government so that you’re forced to depend upon them rather than yourselves—the opposite of empowerment. FDR once said, about welfare, “The lessons of history, confirmed by evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.  To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.  It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy.  It is a violation of the traditions of America.” Donald Trump wants to take you off the narcotic that is welfare and has said repeatedly that he will work tirelessly to bring jobs to the inner cities as well as give you and your children the option to go to the best schools in the area you live.

Vote to heal this country, vote for unity.

ARE YOU A LEGAL IMMIGRANT?

I may be preaching to the choir here because you know what it means to abide by the laws and to work for what you get, but voting for Hillary means voting for open borders. Voting to open the borders and flooding the country with immigrants just invalidates the work and dedication that it took you to become a proud citizen of this country. It also makes it extremely difficult for you and your fellow immigrants to assimilate into the America you have a right live in.

ARE YOU A HOMOSEXUAL, BISEXUAL, OR TRANSGENDER?

Let’s face it; the LGBT community has been told, for much too long, that they had to vote democrat for in order to vote for equality. Things are different for you in this election. You are now in a post-Marriage Equality era, which means you no longer need to feel pressed to vote for all of the other damaging policies that fall under the umbrella of the liberal “equality” train. There are so many more important issues facing you today and there is a lot at stake for you in what may come next. You fought so hard for you rights but you can’t have rights if you don’t have a life. Hillary wants to bring in 550% more unvetted Muslim refugees into this country. Many of who are practicing a 9th century form of Islam that believes homosexuality is a sin. However, this is different than the Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin. What you have to remember with the Islamic faith is that it is not only a set of beliefs and teaching, it is a legal system as well. What does that mean? It means that, under their legal system of Sharia Law, it goes from a sin to a crime.

Now, let me preface what I am about to say by saying, I do not think all Muslims engage in the type of Islamic practice I am about to describe. There is such a thing as a moderate Muslim, one who follows a civilized form of their faith. However, there are many Muslims who don’t follow a civilized form, but a radical one. This is why Donald Trump has called for extreme vetting of refugees in order to keep us safe as well as protect law abiding Muslims in this country. With that being said, as a homosexual, bisexual, or transgender you need to understand that those who believe in the most extreme teachings of their Islamic faith believe that you should be thrown from rooftops, stoned, or even have “a wall toppled upon you as an evil-doer” according to the teachings of Abu Bakr.

Remember, just because the LGBT community has primarily voted democrat doesn’t mean that you can’t be the change in this election. Do not be shackled by the past. Embrace the candidate whose first priority is national security in order to preserve your safety to preserve your rights—your future depends on it.

ARE YOU A POLICE OFFICER?

Just for fun, I decided to Google “Cops for Clinton” and “Cops for Trump” and not surprisingly, I found nothing for the former and plenty for the latter. Maybe I am, again, preaching to the choir but humor me for a moment. Voting for Hillary will continue the disarmament of you and your fellow brothers and sisters in blue. If you value your lives and your jobs, do not give the most powerful position this country has to offer to a woman who has repeatedly vilified you for nothing more than doing your job. Recently, in Chicago, a female officer responded to a call for a car crash when she was savagely and ferociously beaten by a man under the influence of drugs, yet refused to use her weapon for fear of public backlash. This is a direct result of the war that the Obama administration has waged against police officers in America—the same war Hillary Clinton has begun to fight and will continue to fight if she wins on November 8th. Vote to protect yourself and your brothers and sisters.

ARE YOU IN THE MILITARY?

If you are in the military, most likely you, more than anyone else, do not wish to go into World War III. You probably understand, better than anyone else, that over the last eight years, our military has been depleted and weakened. Putting the Benghazi situation aside, it is as simple as voting for war or voting for peace.

Hillary Clinton’s gross inaction as Secretary of State should be enough to disqualify her for the presidency altogether but since there can be no way you haven’t already thought of that, think of this: Do you want war? Or do you want peace? It’s as simple as that. Donald Trump, on Monday, said he would meet with Vladimir Putin as soon as November if he were to be elected. This shows leadership that would be unfathomable to the Clinton campaign. She relentlessly insults Putin and is salivating at the thought of sending you and your comrades off to war. We are not ready for a nuclear war with Russia, nor do we want that. You get to decide who will command you and who will fight for you rather than who will only ask you to fight for her. What will you choose?

ARE YOU A STUDENT?

Are you a college student working hard to educate yourself and acquire an education that will better your future? What if I told you that soon, there would be students who don’t have to work for what you are working to give yourself? What if I told you that the free tuition that Hillary Clinton is promising would nullify the degree you’re working towards? How would that make you feel?

Everything you have worked for or are working toward will be much nearly useless if it’s handed out like candy under another Clinton administration. Vote to preserve the work you’ve put in and the pride that comes with knowing that you created that opportunity for yourself out of hard work and dedication.

ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

Christian values are traditional values. Although Donald Trump has had a rocky past as far as marriage goes, the man he is now represents traditional values. He will fight for religious liberty rather than persecution of the values we’ve held tight to since the birth of the nation. Hillary Clinton has proven herself to be a lying, murderous thief who has no respect for the sanctity of life. She ridicules Trump for denying that global warming is a problem, citing that he must not understand science. How could a woman who denies that there is life inside the womb, according to science, claim superiority in the subject?

If you vote for nothing else but this one issue, you still have at least done your job as a Christian to fight for the unborn and the right, that every human shares, to life.

ARE YOU A LAW ABIDING CITIZEN?

If you are a law aiding citizen, you not only value the law but you respect it as well. If you elect the criminal that is Hillary Clinton, you are sending a message. You are sending a message that not only are you okay with her previous crimes but that no matter what she does as president, you condone. If she commits criminal acts as the commander-in-cheif, you will have no ground to stand on in opposing her. You’ll have known who she is and, even worse, you’ll have put the power in her hands to commit these crimes. She has been a criminal her entire life. Lying, cheating, stealing, and murder have been instrumental in getting her where she is today. Just this week, we found out that officials under her in the State Department attempted to bribe FBI agents to unlawfully change documents AFTER they had been subpoenaed and accumulated as evidence in a criminal investigation.

In the legal system, legal precedent is a legal case or incident that establishes a rule. That rule is later taken in other cases to determine the case at hand with similar issues or actions. If we let Hillary Clinton’s past crimes go unpunished, it will set the precedence of the Clinton administration if she is elected.

Hillary Clinton, herself, has been repeating the words, “America is great, because America is good.” Well folks, Hillary Clinton is not good. She doesn’t do good, she doesn’t represent goodness, nor have her actions shown any interest in the common good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Vote for goodness. Vote for greatness. Vote for America.

Censorship Is an ‘Unjustifiable Privilege’ by Chris Marchese

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Free Speech Is about the Power to Challenge the Status Quo!

Free speech is the great equalizer in our society. It doesn’t matter about your race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, class — you get the point — the First Amendment protects your right to speak freely. Despite this, some student activists — perceiving unequal social conditions, including at institutions of higher education — are fighting for social change at the expense of free speech. The sad irony, however, is that free speech only becomes privileged when it’s restricted, which is why free speech must remain a right equally applicable to all.

To understand why, consider Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s commencement speech at Wellesley College in 2015. In it, she said, “You, because of your beautiful Wellesley degree, have become privileged, no matter your background.” But, she added, “Sometimes you will need to push [this privilege] aside in order to see clearly,” because “privilege blinds” you to those who are different.

Students calling for speech restrictions are particularly blinded by their privilege, which leaves them unable to see the unjust privilege that restricting speech would further confer upon them. This is dangerous and counterproductive to their cause.

Restricting Speech Is an Unjust Privilege

First, to support restrictions on certain kinds of speech, activists must have (or at least project) unwavering confidence in both themselves and the system in which they are operating — the university in this case — to discern what’s offensive. Even if they see gray areas in expression, they are forced to present issues in absolutist terms if they are to have the perceived moral authority to police and punish those who offend.

Turning again to Adichie’s speech, we can see why this is wrong. As she said, “I knew from … the class privilege I had of growing up in an educated family, that it sometimes blinded me, that I was not always as alert to the nuances of people who were different from me.”

Sometimes, people are genuinely racist (though what’s considered racist varies widely from place to place) and their speech is identifiable as such. But what about the student who isn’t aware of the offense he or she may cause by wearing a sombrero at a party, which some consider cultural appropriation? How about the student who is aware but disagrees that it’s offensive? Should he or she be censored and punished based upon some activists’ standards of right and wrong? Different people have different experiences and different views. Because of this, nuance matters.

Second, while it can be tempting to argue that free speech maintains inequality because it protects offensive speech, this argument fails to distinguish between people and their views. That is, when you censor people — even for offensive speech — you are denying them equal access to, and protection of, the First Amendment and you are doing so from a position of privilege.  The right to free speech gives everyone an equal right to voice his or her opinions — but it does not mean that such opinions will win or even register in any given forum.

Restrictions on free speech, on the other hand, make both people and ideas unequal by subjugating them to someone else’s understanding of what’s right and therefore allowable. Indeed, to assume one’s views are so infallible as to warrant imposition on others and to assume there is no legitimate debate left to be had on certain topics — and the language used in discussing those topics — is a privilege that oppresses not only the hated racist, but the honest dissenter and everyone in between.

Lastly, some students claim that free speech is about power — that it enables and sustains privilege for some but not all. Let’s be clear: free speech is about power. It’s about having the power to challenge the status quo, question society’s deeply held beliefs, and call others to task. But free speech only becomes privileged when it’s restricted.

Understanding the Would-Be Censors

Of course words can have consequences. (If they couldn’t, nobody would bother speaking.) It would be hypocritical to argue that offensive speech will never cause harm, at least to feelings or interests, while also maintaining that speech is so vital it requires robust protection. One could also argue that the marketplace of ideas — like all markets — has negative externalities. The most evident, as campus activists assert, is that offensive speech is protected and those it’s directed at — typically thought to be minorities — are disproportionately burdened by it.

Moreover, restricting or punishing speech provides instant gratification. It’s an immediate and swift response to views one finds abhorrent. It gives the impression that justice has been served. For those who believe society is stacked against them, it’s a small beacon of hope. Restricting speech, then, isn’t seen as infringing upon someone else’s liberty, but rather righting a wrong. The emotional appeal is understandably strong.

But this is not right.

A Just Alternative

The best way to counter hateful, offensive speech is with more speech. Think of it this way: restricting speech treats the symptoms of bigotry by making its manifestations less visible. Conversely, more speech acts as a cure by attacking the underlying disease. The former method may seem effective in the short term, but it’s dangerous in the long run.

As FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff has argued, when offensive speech is banned, it drives those with potentially dangerous views (however determined) underground, making them harder to identify, while also potentially making them more extreme. It also gives a false sense of social progress. And who ultimately pays the price? The people the bans were meant to help, when it turns out society wasn’t as friendly as they believed.

Countering hateful speech with more speech is not seamless. It’s hard work, and it’s not instant. It doesn’t guarantee the flushing of all bigoted and hateful opinions from society, and it often works slowly. Nevertheless, it is the only method that is both just and that makes progress last. Engaging with people who express views different from one’s own moves beyond the superficial to challenge core beliefs, assumptions, and biases — and can help a person identify and recognize his or her own. Consider the case of Megan and Grace Phelps, granddaughters of the pastor who founded the Westboro Baptist Church. After interacting with a Jewish man by email and on Twitter, the sisters decided their views were wrong and decided to leave the WBC, which also meant being excommunicated by their family.

The marketplace of ideas won’t always work this way, and not everyone is destined to see the light. But restricting speech is a privileged response that neither makes society more equal nor has any tangible benefit other than providing a false sense of justice, which, in the long term, only fuels underlying problems. We cannot afford to be blind to this reality.

None of this should be construed as a plea to accept the status quo or to disengage. Rather, it’s a call for college students who support restricting speech to recognize their own privilege. Education is a gift, and college students should use the privilege it confers to advocate for change. But this means realizing free speech is not the enemy of progress, and that restricting it will not make society more equal. To do otherwise — to restrict and punish speech — is to be so willfully blind to privilege as to become the oppressors.

This article first appeared at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Chris Marchese

Chris Marchese is a communications assistant at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

How Mark Steyn Skillfully Out-smarted ‘Open Borders’ Advocates

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Everyone has been sending me the below video of the debate in Toronto on Friday on the issue of mass migration going on literally around the world, but most visibly now in Europe.

Yesterday, I finally watched the debate and it was all everyone said it was!

Here at World Net Daily, reporter Leo Hohmann gives us the highlights.  You may watch the video of the full debate below. He begins:

Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn delivered a stinging rebuke of the progressive stance on mass migration of mostly male Muslim refugees into Europe at a recent debate in Toronto.

Steyn faced off April 1 with opponents in the Spring Munk Debates on the issue of refugee resettlement and whether Western countries should welcome thousands of Muslims from the Middle East and Africa.

The Munk Debates, founded by Peter Munk, allow the audience to pick the winners based on online voting. When the dust had settled, Steyn’s team was declared the winner. The scores are based on how many viewers report their positions being changed on the issue from pro to con or vice versa.

When the debate started, 77 percent of viewers reported being in favor of refugee resettlement as put forth by the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty: “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

By the end of the debate, only 55 percent agreed with that position and the “cons” moved from 23 percent to 45 percent.

Steyn, and his debating partner Brit Nigel Farage, won by changing the minds of 22% of the debate audience which came in stacked against them with 77% in favor of supporting those lines in the d*** Emma Lazarus poem, which by the way, I said here should be removed from the Statue of Liberty for its role in perpetuating a historical inaccuracy.

Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour

Continue Hohmann’s summary and then near the end note this mention from Pro-refugee debater, Louise Arbour former UN Commissioner for Human Rights.

Arbour said her definition of a “refugee,” based on the current state of armed conflict, should include “virtually every civilian who is not a combatant unless he is a war criminal.”

I can’t impress upon you enough how important it is to stop this campaign to change the definition of what defines a “refugee.”

Every chance they get the one-worlders are promoting this idea that any unhappy person on the move is a legitimate refugee entitled to special treatment wherever he or she wants to go.  A legitimate refugee must be able to prove that he/she is persecuted for his religion, race, political persuasion and so forth.

Someone migrating to get a job, or healthcare, or running from crime or war is NOT a legitimate refugee! 

If you have never read Mark Steyn’s “America Alone: The End of the World as we Know It,” you must.  Here at Amazon. When first published a decade ago, Steyn, in analyzing the demographic time bomb Europe was facing, could not have imagined the size and scope of the present invasion and how it would speed up the inevitable end of Europe as we know it.

By the way, most “refugee” advocates in the US are also attempting to expand the definition of ‘refugee’ to include the Unaccompanied Alien Children flooding our borders in recent years.

VIDEO: Global Refugee Crisis Debate: Louise Arbour + Simon Schama vs Nigel Farage + Mark Steyn:

Does the Islamic State have the Right to Recruit on U.S. College Campuses?

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A Tennessee lawmaker proposed the Islamic State be granted the right to recruit on campus during a debate on a new law to defend free speech on campus.

Representative Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville) was speaking in favor of the “Tennessee Student Free Speech Protection Act” (which he sponsored) when he was asked by Rep John DeBerry, Jr. (D-Memphis) whether he supported the right of ISIS to recruit on campus.

“Yes,” Daniel replied. “So long as it doesn’t disrupt the proceedings on that campus. Yes sir. They can recruit people for any other organization or any other cause. I think it’s just part of being exposed to differing viewpoints.”

Representative Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville)

Representative Martin Daniel (R-Knoxville)

DeBerry challenged Daniel, arguing that students are not ready to handle such dangerous ideas.

“There are young people who are not ready yet,” he said “they’re half-baked, half-cooked — who are recruited to work against their own parents, their own nation, and I would be concerned as a parent and as a citizen.”

The bill was brought forward to challenge a wave of restrictions on free speech which have come into being on campuses across America and which are the subject of much controversy in the media.

Free-speech advocates hold that free speech is only meaningful if it applies to one’s political enemies as well as one’s friends.

This is not to downplay the problem of Islamist extremism. It is vitally important to challenge the Islamist ideology wherever possible and act to prevent radicalization. Yet free speech is one of the cornerstones of a flourishing democracy. To give it up in order to combat Islamism – an ideology that wishes to dismantle our way of life – would be to forget what we are fighting for.

Daniel’s stance that even ISIS should be allowed to speak may be in breach of existing laws, which prohibit incitement to violence, although such laws are very tightly defined. Since ISIS is a group which carries out violent attacks against Americans around the world, it can be considered to be a security risk to allow it to openly recruit on college campuses.

Nevertheless, the ideology of Islamism is shared by ISIS and non-violent groups such as Hizb-ut Tahrir or the Muslim Brotherhood. They too wish to establish a global Islamic caliphate and implement sharia law as state law, they just don’t support the use of violent means to do so.

Those people must be allowed to speak.

Clarion Project has opposed blasphemy codes that prevent criticism of religion and we have supported the campaign to free the blogger Raif Badawi who is a prisoner of conscience in Saudi Arabia. But we have also interviewed UK-based Islamist Anjem Choudary, in order to show our readers the truth about Islamism. For the same reason we provide our readers with an opportunity to read the Islamic State’s propaganda magazine Dabiq on our website.

In denying free speech to Islamists, we would not only betray our own values, but also undermine our struggle.  Preventing Islamists from speaking would allow them to claim the mantle of victimhood, while preventing those who are attracted to the ideology from accessing all the counter-arguments against it. We also open ourselves up to accusations of hypocrisy, which would be deserved.

It is only in allowing them to air their views and robustly countering them, in speech, in print, in media and in debates, that the Islamist ideology will be shown up for the regressive and totalitarian worldview that it is and confined to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

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Defending Free Speech in an Islamic Europe

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“Keep the Faith. Don’t be intimidated. You might as well be killed standing than crawling on your knees.” – Lars Hedegaard

LISTEN to this interview with Lars Hedegaard Founder of the Danish and International Free Press Societies that aired on the Lisa Benson show, Sunday, March 13, 2016:

Hedegaard discusses his struggle and survival fighting a Palestinian émigré shooter disguised as a Danish postman in an attempted assassination in February 2013 by who fled Denmark. Today he lives under 24/7 protection of the Danish security police in what he calls “a near Fort Knox-like complex.” He addresses Denmark’s inundation in the current massive wave of Muslim immigration, desperate assertion of border control and repression of free speech concerning the Islamization of Europe.  See our original interview with Hedegaard published in the New English Review Press collection, The West Speaks. 

Hedegaard was forthright, honest about his experience in the face of the attempt on his life in February 2013 by a Palestinian émigré, a well educated engineer who had become radicalized.  The perpetrator, “BH”, as Lars discussed on the program fled Denmark only to be arrested in Turkey in April 2014, later traded to release Turkish diplomats in Mosul, Iraq in October, despite Danish extradition requests. “BH” could have ended up in Syria with the Islamic State, as did a colleague who Hedegaard said had been killed by the Americans recently. Almost Kafkaesque  was Hedegaard’s discussions of the fines levied recently on him and others in the Danish Free Press Society publishing group, other Danish  media and Pegida.dk for revealing “BH’s” true identity.

His discussion of the political and social environment in neighboring Sweden, that we heard from Kent Ekeroth, Sweden Democrat and Riksdag parliament deputy in our interviews with him, is appalling. Hedegaard spoke of Geert Wilders being denied speaking in Sweden by hordes of protesters, persecuted Jews of Malmo fleeing Sweden for safety and the rapine misogyny of Muslim migrant males inflicted on unwary Swedish girls and women.  In Sweden, today, “it is nearly impossible to hold an open meeting.”

Hedegaard gave to truth to power about the ineptness of the current center right ruling coalition government in Denmark.  He suggests that the public outrage in his country presages a move to the right politically in the hopes that might stanch Islamic immigration and bolstering free speech from intimidation by the EU and sharia Islamic blasphemy.

While Denmark’s Jews may not be as threatened as our Sweden’s; nevertheless, Hedegaard cited the recent occurrence of a 16 year girl Islamic convert from Kundby, Denmark and her 24 year old boyfriend, an ISIS returning fighter ‘mentor’, caught attempting to bomb a Jewish Day school in Copenhagen. More of that, as Hedegaard opined, might spur sending Denmark’s 6,400 Jews to Israel, Canada or the US which as he pointed the Jewish community made many contributions to the Scandinavian country.

Hedegaard readily admitted that he is not a man of the right by virtue of his former Marxist political background that he now rejects. Nevertheless, he believes that background has enabled him to analyze the dangers of Islamization to his country, Europe and the West.  His response to a final question about what message he wanted to send to the Lisa Benson Show program listeners, “Keep the Faith. Don’t be intimidated. You might as well be killed standing than crawling on your knees.”  Brought a rejoinder from host Benson about a General saying, “keep up the fire.” That reminded this writer of how Danish editorial cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, responded to a similar question in a 2009 interview , “free speech, use it!!”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

VIDEO: Hillary Clinton’s war against freedom of speech

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This video is from April 14, 2015, when I was the featured speaker at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Wednesday Morning Club. I discussed Hillary Clinton’s war against the freedom of speech, explaining how Clinton as Secretary of State, along with others in the Obama Administration and Barack Obama himself, knowingly and actively aided the advance of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s campaign to restrict the freedom of speech and stigmatize counter-terror efforts as “hate speech.”

In light of the very real possibility that Hillary Clinton could be the next President of the United States, I thought it would be a good time to repost this video.

And here is Paul Schnee’s introduction:

Today we will have the great pleasure of listening to Robert Spencer talk about, “Is the Islamic State Islamic and why does it matter?” To ask this question is to answer it unless, of course, you happen to be president of the United States. Mr. Spencer is a scholar who has become a sovereign figure in the fight against the Islamization of America and the West. Indeed, he has been so successful in making the country aware of Islam’s true meaning and intentions that he now has to live in an undisclosed location in order to avoid the threats of violence of which he is a regular recipient from the votaries of the “Religion of Peace”.

At 5ft. 4ins. tall it was said of James Madison that there had never been a greater ratio of mind to mass. At 5ft. 6ins. tall, of Robert Spencer it can be said that there has seldom been a greater ratio of courage to mass.

He was telling me earlier that he is always gratified to see how many people come to hear him speak but, like Winston Churchill, he suspects that if he were instead being hanged, the crowd would be 100 times larger.

Robert is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of some 13 books, available at fine book shops everywhere. These include two New York Times bestsellers, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and The Truth about Muhammad. His latest book is Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In, and his next book, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS, will be released on August 17th. The number 13 is significant not only because it is a great many books to have written, but also because this number exceeds by 3 the combined I.Q’s of John Kerry and Wendy Sherman, who have recently, in Switzerland, concocted one of the most potentially lethal agreements with the messianic ayatollahs of Iran whose apocalyptic vision remains undiminished.

Mr. Spencer has conducted seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, the United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Assymetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Intelligence community. To our detriment, these activities have been curtailed by an American president whose insatiable appetite for historical revision anxiously tries to convince us that Islam has always been a part of the rich mosaic of American life. Nothing could farther from the truth, and only demonstrates Barack Obama’s faculty for realizing hallucinations.

As well as having spoken on literally hundreds of university campuses across America, we are pleased to have seen Mr. Spencer appear on a variety of Fox News programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span and France 24, but you will not, alas, be seeing him on the BBC any time soon.

In June of 2013, along with Pamela Geller he was due to speak at an English Defense League march in Woolwich, where Private Lee Rigby had been brutally murdered by two Islamic jihadists. He was banned from entering Britain.

A British government spokesman said individuals whose presence “is not conducive to the public good” could be excluded by the home secretary.

He added: “We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form.”

Yet, just days before Robert Spencer was banned, the British government admitted Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe. Al-Arefe has said: “Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.”

Thomas Mann’s observation that tolerance is a crime when applied to evil must have escaped the notice of Britain’s Home Secretary.

This incident shows, at least in this instance, that if it were not for double standards, the British government would not have any standards at all. It also demonstrates just how far the termites have travelled, how well they have feasted, and that these two decisions by the British government could not possibly have been made without the benefit of alcohol.

Will you please give a warm California welcome to a man whose knowledge and analysis so accurately informs us all but terrifies the British government, Ladies & Gentlemen: Mr. Robert Spencer.

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What You Can (and Can’t) Say in Europe Today

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The decline of free speech in Europe today pits blasphemy laws and political correctness against freedom of expression.

Chalk Up a Victory for Violent Islamists

The editor of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo announced the magazine will no longer publish cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed. Six months earlier, IslamistA victim of the Charlie Hebdo attack (Photo: © Reuters) A victim of the Charlie Hebdo attack (Photo: © Reuters) gunmen slaughtered 12 people in the magazine’s offices, including the magazine’s editor, senior staff and cartoonists.

The magazine’s most prominent cartoonist, Rénald “Luz” Luzier, said earlier he would no longer draw the Prophet Mohammed since it “no longer interests me.” He quit the magazine altogether.

Denmark Drags Out Its Blasphemy Laws to Prosecute Speech Against Islam

Unlike Norway and Iceland, Denmark decided to not to cancel old laws against blasphemy, despite the fact the European Union published guidelines protecting freedom of religion and belief. The guidelines state the “right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in relevant international standards, does not include the right to have a religion or a belief that is free from criticism or ridicule.”

A year after the February 14-15, 2015 shooting attacks in Copenhagen by Islamists — one at an event called “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression” — the Danish government convicted and fined Danish citizen Flemming Nielsen, for a November 2013 Facebook post critical of Islam.

The Gates of Vienna Investigating “Denigration of Religion”

Geert WildersGeert Wilders Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders in under investigation by Austrian authorities for a speech he made in Vienna recently that compared the Quran with Hitler’s Mein Kampf and suggesting the former be banned as is the later.

Wilders, whose party is has been at the top or nearly at the top of the polls in Netherlands for many years, made the comments in the context of arguing that members of parliaments of a nation that are accepting immigrants should have a say in the immigration policies.

In 2007, Wilders was acquitted of an accusation of hate speech for remarks he made that were critical of Islam.

 A “Grossly Offensive Message”

James-McConnell-InsideIn Ireland, evangelical Pastor James McConnell, 78, is being prosecuted for a sermon he gave Pastor James McConnell criticizing Islam. McConnell has been charged on two counts: improper use of a public electronic communications network (the sermon was live-streamed on the internet) and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network.

His lawyers have argued the sermon was legal under the statues of freedom of expression. The judge declined to throw the case out of court saying that he was not convinced there were not any circumstances under which the pastor could be found guilty.

Sharia Patrol? Germany Gov’t Says It’s “Halal”

A German court decided that nine Salafist Muslims who were arrested in Germany for setting up asharia patrol will not be prosecuted. The group wasThe sharia patrol of WuppertalThe sharia patrol of Wuppertal patrolling the streets of Wuppertal in western Germany telling passersby that the area was a “Sharia-Controlled Zone,” which meant alcohol, drugs, gambling, music and concerts, pornography and prostitution were prohibited. Despite the fact that the group was dressed in in bright orange vests labelled “Sharia Patrol” and intimidating the public, the court announced that the group had not violated any German law.

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New York’s Chilling Global Warming Witch Hunt by Walter Olson

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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is pursuing an investigation of the Exxon Corporation in part for making donations to think tanks and associations like the American Enterprise Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council, which mostly work on issues unrelated to the environment but have also published some views flayed by opponents as “climate change denial.”

Assuming the First Amendment protects a right to engage in scholarship, advocacy, and other forms of supposed denial, it is by no means clear that information about such donations would yield a viable prosecution. Which means, notes Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, that the New York probe raises an issue of constitutional dimensions not just at some point down the road, but right now:

A prolonged investigation in response to someone’s speech can violate the First Amendment even when it never leads to a fine. For example, a federal appeals court ruled in White v. Lee, 227 F.3d 1214 (9th Cir. 2000) that lengthy, speech-chilling civil rights investigations by government officials can violate the First Amendment even when they are eventually dropped without imposing any fine or disciplinary action.

It found this principle was so plain and obvious that it denied individual civil rights officials qualified immunity for investigating citizens for speaking out against a housing project for people protected by the Fair Housing Act.

In another case, in which a company had been sued seeking damages over its participation in trade-association-related speech, a federal appeals court found that the pendency of the lawsuit all by itself caused enough of a burden on the firm’s speech rights that the court used its mandamus power to order the trial judge to dismiss the claims, a remarkable step.

Moreover, Bader writes, a string of federal precedents indicate that the constitutional rights Schneiderman is trampling here are not just Exxon’s but those of the organizations it gave to, which have a right to challenge his action whether or not the oil company chooses to do so:

These groups themselves can sue Schneiderman under the First Amendment, if Schneiderman’s pressure causes them to lose donations they would otherwise receive. Government officials cannot pressure a private party to take adverse action against a speaker.

Meanwhile, writing at Liberty and Law, Prof. Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School takes a different tack: the subpoenas imperil due process and separation of powers because they issue at the whim of Schneiderman’s office.

Earlier ideas of constitutional government “traditionally left government no power to demand testimony, papers, or other information, except under the authority of a judge or a legislative committee.” In more recent years executive subpoena power has proliferated; so has the parallel power of lawyers in private litigation to demand discovery, but the latter at least in theory goes on under judicial supervision that can check some of its abuse and invasiveness.

Extrajudicial subpoenas by AG offices are particularly dangerous, Hamburger argues, because of their crossover civil/criminal potential: the targets do not enjoy a high level of procedural protection when “attorneys general claim to be acting merely in a civil rather than a criminal capacity,” yet the same offices can and do threaten criminal charges. Especially dangerous is New York’s Martin Act, a charter for general invasion of the private papers of anyone and anything with a connection to New York financial transactions.

An attorney general’s concern about fraud or the “public interest” is no justification for allowing him to rifle through private papers.

When he thereby extracts the basis for a criminal prosecution, he evades the grand jury process. When he thereby lays the groundwork for a civil enforcement proceeding, he evades the due process of law, for there ordinarily is no discovery for a plaintiff until he commences a civil action.

Even worse, when a prosecutor uses a subpoena to get a remunerative settlement, it is akin to extortion — this being the most complete end run around the courts.

Previously on the probe here and here (and earlier here and here), and on the New York attorney general’s office here and here.

Cross-posted from Overlawyered.

Walter OlsonWalter Olson
Walter Olson is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies.

Two-Thirds of Americans Believe Money Buys Elections by Daniel Bier

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Everybody knows that money buys elections. That’s what opponents of theCitizens United decision have been ominously warning us for six years, and their message resonates. A CNN poll found that 67 percent of Americans think that “elections are generally for sale to the candidate who can raise the most money.”

The trouble is that there is very little evidence for this. Even though the candidate with the most money usually wins, the general rule is that moneychases winners rather than creates winners. People give to candidates they think are likely to win, and incumbents (who almost always win) and candidates in safe districts still raise money, even if they’re not challenged. On the flip side, donors and parties don’t waste support on long-shot races.

More importantly, money never guarantees any election. For instance, billionaire Meg Whitman spent $144 million of her own money on the California governor’s race; Jerry Brown spent just $36 million but crushed Whitman, 53 percent to 40 percent.

Mitt Romney, the GOP, and their PACs outspent Barack Obama and friends by over $120 million, and we know what came of that. Anthony Brown (D) outspent Larry Hogan (R) almost five to one in the 2014 Maryland governor’s race and lost, in a state that is two to one Democrat.

We can likely add Jeb Bush’s candidacy to this list. The Jeb! campaign and pro-Jeb groups have collectively raised $155 million. Only Hillary Clinton has raised more. According to the New York Times, he’s dominating “the money race” among Republicans.

But in the actual race, he got a dismal sixth place in Iowa, with 2.8 percent of the vote. Polls put Jeb fifth in New Hampshire and fifth nationally. Currently, Betfair places his odds of winning the nomination at 5.2 percent.

In fact, the whole Republican race shows that money can’t simply buy votes. Scott Walker raised $34 million in three months, spent all of it — and then dropped out, five months before Iowa. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has dominated news coverage and polls for months with only $19 million.

When you plot money vs. poll numbers, what jumps out is how little correlation there is:

… And money vs. Iowa caucus votes:

… And money vs. odds of winning the nomination:

Jeb and Jeb-PACs have spent $89.1 million so far and received 5,238 votes — over $17,000 per vote received. Trump has spent just $300 per vote.

This is not to say that money doesn’t matter — you can’t run a campaign without it, and campaign finance laws are designed to make it difficult for upstart challengers to become competitive. But after a certain amount (about $500,000 for a typical congressional race), there are rapidly diminishing returns, and dumping more money on a failing campaign will not save it.

There’s a lot of baseless fears about free speech, but the idea that the people with the most expensive microphone will always get their way is one of the easiest to disprove. More speech, more discussion, and more competition in the field of ideas is not what’s wrong with American politics — but they might be part of the solution to it.

Daniel Bier

Daniel Bier

Daniel Bier is the editor of Anything Peaceful. He writes on issues relating to science, civil liberties, and economic freedom.

VIDEO: The Democrat’s ‘War Against Free Speech’

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This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents The Robert Spencer Moment with Robert Spencer, the Director of JihadWatch.org and the author of the new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS.

I discussed: House Democrats Go to War Against Free Speech, unveiling why H. Res. 569 is so dangerous.

And make sure to watch the very special Robert Spencer Moment: The Criminalization of Dissent, in which Robert reveals how those who reject establishment views are coming under increased law enforcement scrutiny: Click Here.

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EDITORS NOTE: The Glazov Gang is a fan-generated program. Readers my donate through their Pay Pal account, subscribe to their YouTube Channel and LIKE them on Facebook.

Democrats Move to Criminalize Criticism of Islam

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In FrontPage today I explain how lumping together violence with “hateful rhetoric” is a call to destroy the freedom of speech:

clinton-oic

December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment. Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.” The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

That’s right: “violence, bigotry and hateful rhetoric.” The implications of those five words will fly by most people who read them, and the mainstream media, of course, will do nothing to elucidate them. But what H. Res. 569 does is conflate violence — attacks on innocent civilians, which have no justification under any circumstances – with “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric,” which are identified on the basis of subjective judgments. The inclusion of condemnations of “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric” in this Resolution, while appearing to be high-minded, take on an ominous character when one recalls the fact that for years, Ellison, Carson, and his allies (including groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR) have been smearing any and all honest examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to incite hatred and violence as “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” This Resolution is using the specter of violence against Muslims to try to quash legitimate research into the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy us, which will have the effect of allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded and unopposed.

That’s not what this H. Res. 569 would do, you say? It’s just about condemning “hate speech,” not free speech? That kind of sloppy reasoning may pass for thought on most campuses today, but there is really no excuse for it. Take, for example, the wife of Paris jihad murderer Samy Amimour – please. It was recently revealed that she happily boasted about his role in the murder of 130 Paris infidels: “I encouraged my husband to leave in order to terrorize the people of France who have so much blood on their hands […] I’m so proud of my husband and to boast about his virtue, ah la la, I am so happy.” Proud wifey added: “As long as you continue to offend Islam and Muslims, you will be potential targets, and not just cops and Jews but everyone.”

Now Samy Amimour’s wife sounds as if she would be very happy with H. Res. 569, and its sponsors would no doubt gladly avow that we should stop offending Islam and Muslims – that is, cut out the “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” If we are going to be “potential targets” even if we’re not “cops” or “Jews,” as long as we “continue to offend Islam and Muslims,” then the obvious solution, according to the Western intelligentsia, is to stop doing anything that might offend Islam and Muslims – oh, and stop being cops and Jews. Barack “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” says it. Hillary “We’re going to have that filmmaker arrested” Clinton says it. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, certain that anyone who speaks honestly about Islam and jihad is a continuing danger to the Church, says it.

And it should be easy. What offends Islam and Muslims? It ought to be a simple matter to cross those things off our list, right? Making a few sacrifices for the sake of our future of glorious diversity should be a no-brainer for every millennial, and everyone of every age who is concerned about “hate,” right? So let’s see. Drawing Muhammad – that’s right out. And of course, Christmas celebrations, officially banned this year in three Muslim countries and frowned upon (at best) in many others, will have to go as well. Alcohol and pork? Not in public, at least. Conversion from Islam to Christianity? No more of that. Building churches? Come on, you’ve got to be more multicultural!

Everyone agrees. The leaders of free societies are eagerly lining up to relinquish those freedoms. The glorious diversity of our multicultural future demands it. And that future will be grand indeed, a gorgeous mosaic, as everyone assures us, once those horrible “Islamophobes” are forcibly silenced. Everyone will applaud that. Most won’t even remember, once the jihad agenda becomes clear and undeniable to everyone in the U.S. on a daily basis and no one is able to say a single thing about it, that there used to be some people around who tried to warn them.

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VIDEO: The Criminalization of Dissent

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I filmed this “Robert Spencer Moment” for Jamie Glazov’s Glazov Gang on some recent experiences that I have had, showing how those who reject establishment views are coming under increased law enforcement scrutiny.

Jamie Glazov adds:

Don’t miss it!

And make sure to watch Robert on the Glazov Gang discuss To Flood America With Muslim Refugees, where he exposes the real meaning of the Islamic State threatening to flood Europe with 500,000 refugees in February, 2015: CLICK HERE.

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EDITORS NOTE: The Glazov Gang is a fan-generated program. Please donate through their Pay Pal account, subscribe to their YouTube Channel and LIKE them on Facebook.

Ideas in Exile: The Bullies Win at Yale by Diana Furchtgott-Roth

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The student speech bullies have won at Yale. Erika Christakis, Assistant Master of Yale’s Silliman College, who had the temerity to suggest that college students should choose their own Halloween costumes, has resigned from teaching. Her husband, sociology professor Nicholas Christakis, Master of Silliman College, will take a sabbatical next semester.

One of the bullies’ demands to Yale President Salovey was that the couple be dismissed, and a resignation and sabbatical are a close second.

As had been widely reported, Erika Christakis said,

Is there no room any more for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.

At issue are costumes such as wearing a sombrero, which might be offensive to Mexicans; wearing a feathered headdress, which might offend Native Americans, previously termed Red Indians; and wearing blackface to dress up as an African American.

Dr. Christakis’s comment is so obvious that it hardly needs to be said. Students who are admitted to Yale are some of the brightest in the country, and it should not be the role of the University to tell them how, or whether, to dress up at Halloween.

The speech bullies want mandatory diversity training, rules against hate speech, the dismissal of Nicholas and Erika Christakis, and the renaming of Calhoun College because its namesake, John Calhoun, defended slavery.

If America is to be whitewashed of the names of individuals from prior centuries who fall short of the political standards of the 21st century, we will be a nation not only without names but also without a past. The names of our states, our municipalities, and even our universities would disappear. Elihu Yale was a governor of the East India Company, which may have occasionally engaged in the slavery trade. It is easy to condemn the dead who cannot defend themselves. But if we curse the past, what fate awaits us from our progeny?

Not all Yale students agree with the tactics employed by the bullies. Freshman Connor Wood said,

The acceptance or rejection of coercive tactics is a choice that will literally decide the fate of our democracy. Our republic will not survive without a culture of robust public debate. And the far more immediate threat is to academia: how can we expect to learn when people are afraid to speak out?

The Committee for the Defense of Freedom at Yale has organized a petition in the form of a letter to President to express concern with the bullies’ demands. Over 800 members of the Yale community have signed. Zachary Young, a junior at Yale and one of the organizers of the petition, told me in an email, “We want to promote free speech and free minds at Yale, and don’t think the loudest voices should set the agenda.”

Nevertheless, it appears that the loudest voices are indeed influencing President Salovey. He has given in to protesters by announcing a new center for the study of race, ethnicity, and social identity; creating four new faculty positions to study “unrepresented and under-represented communities;” launching “a five-year series of conferences on issues of race, gender, inequality, and inclusion;” spending $50 million over the next five years to enhance faculty diversity; doubling the budgets of cultural centers (Western culture not included); and increasing financial aid for low-income students.

In addition, President Salovey volunteered, along with other members of the faculty and administration, to “receive training on recognizing and combating racism and other forms of discrimination.”

With an endowment of $24 billion, these expenses are a proverbial drop in the bucket for Yale. But it doesn’t mean that the administration should cave. Isaac Cohen, a Yale senior, wrote in the student newspaper,

Our administrators, who ought to act with prudence and foresight, appear helpless in the face of these indictments. Consider President Salovey’s email to the Yale community this week. Without any fight or pushback — indeed, with no thoughts as to burdens versus benefits — he capitulated in most respects to the demands of a small faction of theatrically aggrieved students.

Yale’s protests, and others around the country, including Claremont-McKenna, the University of Missouri, and Princeton, stem from the efforts of a small group of students to shield themselves from difficult situations. Students want to get rid of speech that might be offensive to someone that they term a “micro-aggressions.” This limits what can be said because everything can be interpreted as offensive if looked at in a particular context.

For instance, when I write (as I have done) that the wage gap between men and women is due to the sexes choosing different university majors, different hours of work, and different professions, this potentially represents a micro-aggression, even though it is true. Even the term “the sexes” is potentially offensive, because it implies two sexes, male and female, and leaves out gays, lesbians, and transgenders. The term “gender” is preferred to “sex.”

What about a discussion of the contribution of affirmative action to the alienation of some groups on campuses today? Under affirmative action, students are admitted who otherwise might not qualify. In Supreme Court hearings on Wednesday, Justice Antonin Scalia said, “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to — to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less — a slower-track school where they do well.”

The majority of students at Yale want an open discussion of all subjects, but the attack on the Christakises have frightened them into silence. Zach Young told me,

If the accusers’ intent was to enlighten and persuade, their result was to silence and instill fear. I worry that because of this backlash, fewer students or faculty — including people of color and those of liberal persuasions — will feel comfortable expressing views that dissent from the campus norms. Why risk getting so much hate, disgust, calls against your firing, just for the sake of expressing an opinion?

Why indeed? The answer is that arguing about opinions is the only way to get a real education. Let’s hope that another university stands up for freedom of speech and offers the Christakises teaching positions next semester.

This article first appeared at CapX.

Diana Furchtgott-RothDiana Furchtgott-Roth

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, is director of Economics21 and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Loretta Lynch Must Go

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lorettalynchgraphicOn Thursday, Dec. 5, 2015, Attorney General Loretta Lynch threw down the gauntlet in a speech before the Muslim Advocate’s 10th Anniversary dinner in Arlington, Virginia.  Speaking just one day after Muslim terrorists, Sayed Rizwan Farook and his Saudi wife, Tashfeen Malik, murdered fourteen innocent people in an unprovoked terror attack on the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, Lynch said, “On behalf of our nation’s Justice Department, I am grateful to count you as partners in our work to promote tolerance, to ensure public safety, and to protect civil rights (emphasis added)…”

She went on to say, “Since becoming Attorney General last February, I have heard from Arab Americans and Muslims who say they feel uneasy about their relationship with the United States government.  Some feel that they have not been afforded the full rights of citizenship.  Others are worried about the safety of their families, communities, and places of worship.  And, too often, Muslims and Arab Americans have told me that they feel as though they are treated by their fellow citizens, by their government, and especially by those of us in law enforcement as though it were ‘us versus them.’  That is unacceptable, and it is inconsistent with what America is all about.”

So if a few Muslims are worried about the safety of their families, their communities, and their places of worship, what is that compared to the fear and dread that radical Islamists have spread among the hundreds of millions of peace-loving people of Europe and North America?  And if Muslims and Arab-Americans feel as if they are the victims of an “us versus them” political and social environment, just who do they think created that atmosphere?  It is not Christians and Jews and other non-Muslims who have rejected Muslims, it s Muslims who have come to our country and have refused to assimilate into our culture.  Not only have they not assimilated into our culture, they have let it be known that it is their intention to obliterate our culture and our form of government from the face of the Earth.

Lynch went on to say, “Muslims and Arab Americans have helped to build and strengthen our nation.  They have served as police officers, teachers, civic leaders and soldiers – strengthening their local communities and safeguarding their country.  And the cooperation of Muslim and Arab-American communities has been absolutely essential in identifying, and preventing, terrorist threats.  We must never lose sight of this.  And, as we work to create a brighter and more prosperous future, we must not fail to heed the lessons of our past.”

No one but an Obama administration toady could ever stand up in public and say with a straight face that Muslims and Arab-Americans have helped to “build and strengthen” our nation, have played a vital role in “identifying and preventing terrorist threats,” and have worked to “build a brighter and more prosperous future” for all Americans.

When asked to comment on the Obama administration’s attitude toward anti-Muslim rhetoric in the days since the Paris attacks, she said, “My message to the Muslim community is that we

stand with you in this.  Where we do see anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions turning into violence, we do take action… We have charged 225 defendants with hate crimes over the last six years… most of those in the last three years.  Since 9/11 we’ve had over 1,000 investigations into anti-Muslim hatred, including rhetoric and bigoted actions, with over forty-five prosecutions…”

She went on to say, “I think it’s important, however, that as we again talk about the importance of free speech, we make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not American.  They are not who we are, they’re not what we do, and they will be prosecuted.

Looking directly into the camera, she said, “My greatest fear as a prosecutor, as someone who is sworn to the protection of all the American people, is that the rhetoric will be accompanied by acts of violence…  When it comes to combating these heinous crimes, our message is simple: If you engage in violence fueled by bigotry – no matter the object or nature of your hate – we will bring you to justice.

Lynch challenged her Muslim audience, saying, “Often, you learn of incidents before law enforcement and I encourage you to report these incidents to the Justice Department.  I assure you: each and every report of a potential hate crime is taken seriously and, as our record of recent activity makes clear, we will investigate and prosecute violations of federal law whenever we can.  Last year, two Tennessee men were sentenced to more than 14 years in prison after pleading guilty to spray painting swastikas and the words ‘white power’ on a mosque – and then starting a fire that destroyed the mosque.  And last month, an Illinois man was sentenced to one year in prison after he pleaded guilty to sending a threatening e-mail to a mosque.”

Either the attorney general has failed to notice that, in recent years, nearly every act of violence stemming from hateful rhetoric has originated in the Muslim community, or she was delivering a stern message to the Muslim community that, unless they behave themselves, they would find themselves praying to Allah five times a day from behind prison walls.  However, being Barack Obama’s principal legal henchman, it’s pretty obvious to all concerned, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, that her thinly-veiled threats were directed toward non-Muslims.

Reaction to the attorney general’s threat was swift and predictable.  Radio talk show host Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois’ 8th Congressional District (suburban Chicago) produced the below YouTube video describing exactly how he feels about Muslims and challenging the attorney general to have him arrested.

In his video, he said, “You come out today and you say you’re going to prosecute Americans who use anti-Muslim speech.  That doesn’t happen in this country.   I can say what I want about Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  I think Islam has a real “fricking” problem, alright?  There’s a cancer in Islam.  And if they’re not gonna’ learn to assimilate, I don’t want them in this country.

“You got a problem, Loretta Lynch, with me saying that?  Then throw me in jail.  Here… I’ll give you a perfect opportunity.  I think Islam is evil.  I think Islam’s got a huge problem.  I think most Muslims around the world are not compatible with American values.  I don’t want ‘em here.  So, what?… you’re worried about a backlash against Muslims?”

“Fourteen Americans were killed three days ago and you come up the next day and say you’re greatest fear is anti-Muslim backlash.  Well, you know what?  I hope there is a backlash.  There should be a backlash.  I’m going to encourage a backlash.  And you know what, Loretta Lynch?  If that bothers you, prosecute me.  Throw me in jail.”

In a written follow-up, Walsh argued that “most Muslims around the world are (either) terrorists, support terrorism, and/or support Sharia Law.”  He went on to say, “Any Muslim that is a terrorist or supports terrorism should be killed.  If ‘moderate’ Muslims don’t speak out against terrorism, they are our enemy and we should call them out and kick them out of this country.”

Directing his final words to Loretta Lynch, he said, “Is that ‘anti-Muslim rhetoric’ that edges toward violence?  Go ahead and prosecute me.  I dare you.”

As sharply divided as liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, are on these issues, one wonders how those liberals and Democrats who support the Obama administration’s policies on Muslim immigration would react when posed with a problem that brings the question of life-or-death a bit closer to home.

Since the San Bernardino attack, conservatives have attempted to put the Muslim immigration question into a context that even liberals can understand.  For example, on June 13, 2014, CNN reported that more than 4,000 pounds of rib-eye and other fresh beef, produced by the Fruitland American Meat Company in Jackson, Missouri, were subject to recall because of a fear that the meats could contain mad cow disease.  The meat in question was distributed by the Whole Foods distribution center in Connecticut, which services all of New England, one restaurant in New York, and one restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri.

With the understanding that northeastern liberals and Democrats appear quite willing to go along with Obama’s plan to import more than 100,000 Muslims each year because of the belief that only five out of every 100 (5%) of the world’s Muslim population are radicalized, how much of the suspect meat would New Englanders purchase if they were assured that no more than 5% of the meat was contaminated with mad cow disease?  If, as an inducement, Whole Foods reduced the price of prime filet mignon and rib-eye steaks to 50ȼ per pound, would New Englanders and New Yorkers be willing to take a chance?

For the Obama base, the low information voters of America, conservatives have restated the question in terms that even they might understand.  They were asked, “If you were presented with a bowl of 100 M&Ms and told that five of the 100 pieces were toxic (poisonous), how many pieces of candy would you eat?”  Even they, accustomed as they are to accepting “freebies,” would have sense enough to decline.

When Loretta Lynch was before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation in April 2015, most conservatives held high hopes that she would be a welcome change from her lawless predecessor, Eric Holder.  However, all hope were dashed when Lynch refused to assure senators that, under her leadership, even the president of the United States would be required to obey the law and to uphold the U.S. Constitution.  What a disappointment she has been.  She must go.

And as for me, I’m with Joe Walsh.  If I can’t criticize radical Islamists, then come get me.

Poll: 40 percent of Millennials want Speech Censored

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This Daily Caller report is all about how a large percentage of young people favor restrictions on speech deemed offensive to minorities, and while it discusses only racial minorities, there is no doubt that its findings apply to Muslims as well, and that many young people would want speech offensive to Muslims restricted as well. In 2014 I spoke at Cal Poly (video here) and took a question from an angry young woman who told me that there was a difference between “free speech” and “hate speech,” and that the latter should be restricted.

This is an increasingly common idea, taken for granted by large numbers of young people who don’t realize what a sleight-of-hand it is. They think “hate speech” is an easily recognized and universally accepted category of thought, when actually it is a subjective judgment used by those who are in power to discredit and marginalize their opponents. At Cal Poly I asked the questioner who should be entrusted with the momentous responsibility of determining what is hate speech and what isn’t, and pointed out that that person would have tyrannical powers over the rest of society. That didn’t trouble her at all, and that was the problem.

And meanwhile, while college students are indoctrinated into this taste for authoritarian government, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) continues to work to compel Western governments to criminalize all criticism of Islam, which would allow jihad terror to advance unopposed and unimpeded.

“Poll: 40 Percent Of Millennials Want Speech Censored,” by Kerry Picket, Daily Caller, November 21, 2015:

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 40 percent of American Millennials (ages 18-34) are likely to support government prevention of public statements offensive to minorities.

It should be noted that vastly different numbers resulted for older generations in the Pew poll on the issue of offensive speech and the government’s role.

Around 27 percent of Generation X’ers (ages 35-50) support such an idea, while 24 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) agree that censoring offensive speech about minorities should be a government issue. Only 12 percent of the Silent Generation (ages 70-87) thinks that government should prevent offensive speech toward minorities.

The poll comes at a time when college activists, such as the group “Black Lives Matter,” are making demands in the name of racial and ethnic equality at over 20 universities across the nation….

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RELATED VIDEO: Robert Spencer speaking at Cal-Poly: