The Left's Message to the Right: No Speech for You!

Most people I know and with whom I associate embrace free speech, even when they disagree with its message.  It’s a founding value on which the country is based.  People are free to verbally bash the president, praise socialism or communism, and basically say whatever they want with limited exceptions.  I would never dream of trying to shut down such speech, even when I think it’s nonsensical. 

Yet that’s not the view of the Left.  The Left loves to suppress speech that doesn’t conform precisely to today’s “woke” messaging, and they’re doing it in corporations, on sports teams, at universities, and, perhaps most alarmingly, even in government.  (And you might even be punished for someone else’s speech.)  Let’s take a look across our land to see what’s happening at a couple of colleges and in one west coast city. 

Starting on the east coast, a division of Penn State University called Penn State Liberal Arts (PSLA) tweeted out a well-intended, but childish message that everyone is welcome at PSLA.  It then breaks down the specific groups that are welcome by their race, sex, sexual practices, and other identifying factors.  (Remember the day when these kids would have simply been “Penn State students” or even “Nittany Lions”?)  To its credit, the tweet even included a line that read “Dear conservative students: Your viewpoints are important.”  Well, that set off a firestorm.  The mob was not happy about it, and responded with all sorts of absurd nonsense that you can read about in this article.  (My favorite: because the list did not also include rape victims among those welcome at the school, PSLA was elevating conservatives over “survivors.”  My choice for runner-up: allowing conservatives to speak threatens the “physical safety” of others.) 

PSLA’s response?  Instead of debunking these claims and citing the importance of free speech—for everyone, not just for the unpopular speaker—PSLA caved to the mob.  Because of “the sensitivities of the matter,” it removed “conservative students” from their list of those who are welcome.  It explained that it removed “conservative students” because its original tweet “was not being received well.”  And that’s exactly how it works at colleges: only speech that is “received well” by the mob is permitted.  And if conservative students still dare to attend PSLA, and, braver still, attempt to speak out when there, the mob will literally shout them down and possibly even physically attack them.  You can find countless examples of that behavior, including here, here, and here. Professors even get circled and verbally attacked merely for suggesting that speech should be allowed.  (You can watch the monsters at Yale go on offense in this shocking video.)

As we make our way from the east coast to the Midwest, things get more interesting at my alma matter, Marquette University (MU).  MU made the mistake of somehow admitting a conservative student to its incoming class.  And when she posted a picture of herself with a Trump sign, the mob went nuts.  There were the usual calls, of course, for violence, such as “I hope you get shot.”  (Not very Jesuit or "inclusive," is it, MU “community”?)  And even though she already paid for housing and got her class schedule for the fall, MU is now deciding whether to revoke her admission based on her support for Trump.  As the student reports in this article, the MU bureaucrats are investigating:

“They also asked me hypothetical questions regarding Dreamers,” she said. “How would I respond if a Dreamer who lived down the hall from me came up to me and told me she didn’t feel safe or comfortable with my views and me being on campus.”

Let me help this would-be MU student out.  How about this for a possible answer?  “I would tell the Dreamer that I pose no threat to their safety.  Further, I would tell the Dreamer that the world does not revolve around him or her, and that he or she needs to be more tolerant of viewpoints with which he or she disagrees.  Being exposed to differing views is, or at least used to be, one of the benefits of college.”

One person then offers his/her help on “social media” to ensure that MU rescinds this young woman’s offer of admission.  The little helper put it this way (with the typical incorrect capitalization and lack of punctuation that has become acceptable today): “i love love LOVE conservatives getting their school offers revoked”

Finally, let’s jump to the west coast and the Seattle city government.  It is going one (or two or three) steps further than merely suppressing speech.  It is even telling you what to say, what to think, and with whom you should associate!  White city employees only were “invited” to anti-whiteness training.  Here’s a taste:

In conceptual terms, the city frames the discussion around the idea that black Americans are reducible to the essential quality of “blackness” and white Americans are reducible to the essential quality of “whiteness” . . .

Once the diversity trainers have established this basic conceptual framework, they encourage white employees to “practice self-talk that affirms [their] complicity in racism” and work on “undoing [their] own whiteness.” As part of this process, white employees must abandon their “white normative behavior” and learn to let go of their “comfort,” “physical safety,” “social status,” and “relationships with some other white people.” 

Well, the city should be telling the African-Americans of Seattle to get ready to “let go of their comfort [and] physical safety,” as the Seattle City Counsel has agreed to defund the police by 50 percent—all based on what some cop in Minnesota did to George Floyd.  I guess they didn’t learn from the chaos, crime, shootings, and death that occurred in the short-lived CHAZ / CHOP autonomous zone takeover of downtown Seattle.  (Which, I’m sure, was lovely for the residents and business owners in that part of town.)

But back to free speech.  The question is whether PSLA, Yale, MU, and the city of Seattle are just anomalies?  I think not.  How many examples from major colleges, universities, corporations, and even governments does it take before people have had enough?  How long before they breakaway from the Left in order to better ensure their own free speech rights in the future?  Or do people want their schools, employers, and governments to control them and tell them what to do and think and say, and tell them with whom they should associate? 

We should have an answer to these questions in November.