Free Speech vs the Real Fascists on the Left

As usual, the Left is projecting and distracting.  They accuse Trump of trying to silence the free press by exercising his right to criticize it.  The real silencing has long been coming from the Left.  They are the real fascists who won’t tolerate any speech that doesn’t agree with them – in the media, on campuses, in the legislatures, in the public square & townhalls, etc..  Again, projection in calling Trump the fascist.  And they employ the thuggery that has always been associated with the worst fascist regimes of history.

Two books in my library on the subject have come out in the last year or two – one from a Democrat:

“The Silencing – How the Left is Killing Free Speech” by Kirsten Powers, who worked in the Clinton administration.  Charles Krauthammer called it "A searing and courageous indictment of the growing intolerance of the American Left -- written with passion and eloquence by one of the nation's most principled and fair-minded liberals.  An Important book on a subject many are simply too afraid to touch."

“The Intimidation Game – How the Left is Silencing Free Speech,” by Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal.  George Will said “This book is a fire bell in a darkening night.”

And here are 3 articles in The Daily Breeze just this past week.  

Torrance Daily Breeze
02/26/2017 - Page A21

FREE SPEECH Senate Democrats blunt free speech By Janet Nguyen When I spoke on the floor of the California state Senate on Thursday, little did I know that my efforts to provide my colleagues with a different historical perspective regarding former Sen. Tom Hayden would become a national news story. Two days earlier, the Senate honored Tom Hayden, who served in the Legislature but who also had a long history as an outspoken supporter of the communist North Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War.  [And don’t forget his wife, “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.] Some might ask why, over four decades after the war ended, there remains so much emotion surrounding Hayden’s actions. Let me explain. I was born in Vietnam and my father and uncle served in the South Vietnamese Army. My uncle was executed by the communists and my father was sought for a "re-education" camp. As a result, we fled on a 10-meter wooden boat across the South Asia Sea to find freedom and were fortunate to find refuge in the United States, a nation founded on the principles of freedom and democracy. It was in the interest of representing the residents of the 34th state Senate district, home to the largest community of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam, that I felt compelled to tell my colleagues what Sen. Hayden’s support of the communist regime meant to the Vietnamese-American community. Prior to my speech, I notified the Senate Pro Tem’s Office of my desire to speak on this subject matter and followed protocol. The majority party was well aware of my plans and out of respect to his family and to my colleagues, I chose to step out of the chamber on Tuesday during a ceremony in his honor and waited for another time to make m! y comments. Nevertheless, when I spoke on Thursday I was forc! ibly removed from the chamber by the Sergeant-at-Arms. I am deeply disappointed with the actions of the Democratic majority’s leadership because they didn’t just silence my voice, they silenced the voices of the more than 930,000 residents I represent. Their actions were not the result of some arcane Senate rule or the fact I didn’t follow protocol but because some senators did not like what I had to say. In Vietnam to this day, free speech does not exist and on Thursday, I caught a glimpse of what that must be like. The freedoms we enjoy in this country are worth defending and I am proud to have been a part of that fight. As an American, I am committed to continue to fight to protect first amendment rights for the residents of my district and for the residents of the great state of California. Janet Nguyen is! a state senator representing the 34th district which includes the communities of Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Los Alamitos, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Westminster, unincorporated communities of Midway City and Rossmoor and portions of Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Long Beach and Orange.

Torrance Daily Breeze
02/28/2017 - Page A08

Editorial Troubling times for free speech on campus Our nation’s institutions of higher learning are supposed to be repositories of knowledge, enriched by the free flow of information and competition of ideas, but they are increasingly failing in this mission. Sadly, college campuses, which tend to embrace liberal ideologies, including tolerance, oftentimes are among the most intolerant of opposing views, as evidenced by the imposition of speech codes and enforcement of "free speech zones," which limit what can be said and where it can be expressed. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes that it "has received an increasing number of reports that colleges and universities are inviting students to anonymously report offensive, yet constitutionally protected, speech to administrators and law enforcement through socalled ‘Bias Response Teams.’" More than 230 schools have formed such teams, which oftentimes operate under broad definitions of "bias," and create "a chilling effect on campus expression," FIRE reports. Tensions have reached a boiling point on many campuses, as illustrated by several recent examples he! re in California. Orange Coast College suspended a student for recording a professor’s anti-Trump rant, before backing down after a national outcry. At UCLA, conservative communications instructor Keith Fink is accusing his department of political discrimination after suffering reductions in his class size and the rejection of his permission-to-enroll forms, which allow students to enroll in a class with the instructor’s permission, under a new department head with reportedly very left-leaning ideals. Only 200 of the 241 students who attempted to enroll in Fink’s course were admitted, even though the classroom has a capacity of 293. Ironically, the subject of the argument is Fink’s popular "Sex, Politics and Race: Free Speech on Campus" course. Sometimes, attempts to stifle speech even get violent. A Cal State Fullerton instructor ! was suspended for allegedly striking a student from the Colleg! e Republicans, who were staging a counterprotest of students rallying against President Donald Trump’s policies. And then there was the violent protest that forced the cancellation of controversial conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned event at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago. But there is a bit of a silver lining as well. Just about a week prior to the UC Berkeley riot, a rowdy crowd forced the cancellation of another Yiannopoulos talk at UC Davis. In response, interim Chancellor Ralph Hextor announced that he is forming a work group of students, faculty and staff to recommend policies to ensure that even the most polemical speakers can have their voices heard on campus. "When we prevent words from being delivered or heard, we are trampling on the First Amendment," Hextor stated recently. "Even when a speaker’s message is deeply offensive to certain groups, ! the right to convey the message and the right to hear it are protected." Quite so. Moreover, there is no place for speech codes and free speech zones on college campuses — or anywhere else. After all, as FIRE senior program officer Adam Steinbaugh wrote in a recent Washington Examiner column, "How will students be able to defend their rights in the legislature or the courts if debating them in the classroom is to be discouraged?"

Torrance Daily Breeze
02/26/2017 - Page A22

FREE SPEECH It’s a college campus run by bullies When I was an undergraduate student studying political science at Cal State Fullerton, I once had a professor declare — in front of the entire class — that I would end up in prison, because Jesus gave her "the power of prophecy." And unless she was genuinely clairvoyant (and since I have not yet been incarcerated, I’m guessing not) she made this prediction knowing only that I was a student in her "American Political Behavior" class, a Republican, and lived in Orange County. From that point on, she used her professorial platform to spread left-wing conspiracy theories, which included blaming the Los Angeles riots on "the Jews," and punished her political enemies by giving them bad grades. Unfortunately, all this happened in the days before smartphones, or it would have been Tucker Carlson’s A-block on his Fox News show. Now, it happily turns out that learning American politics from a crazy person was an excellent primer for my career as a cable news pundit; but thanks to technology, screeching professorial meltdowns of this kind no longer happen in a vacuum — they occur on camera. That’s exactly what happened at Orange Coast College when human sexuality professor Olga Perez Stable Cox decided to ditch her post-election psychology lecture in favor of a full-on diatribe directed at President Donald Trump and any students who might support him. Cox called the election "an act of terrorism," said Trump was a "white supremacist" and insisted that "those leading the assault are among us." Additionally, the professor asked all of the Trump supporters in the room to stand up and be ! accounted for. In response, OCC announced that it was suspending the student who recorded the tirade, Caleb O’Neil, and wouldn’t say if it is reprimanding Cox, because college officials consider employment matters to be private. How convenient. In addition to the suspension, OCC required O’Neil to write a letter of apology and a threepage essay explaining his decision to record Cox, share it publicly and discuss "the impact of the video going ‘viral’ and the ensuing damage to Orange Coast College students, faculty and staff." If you want to get super technical about who violated the rules, Cox was hired to teach psychology — not drama. Make no mistake, Orange Coast College, its President Dennis Harkins and the entire Board of Trustees placed the interests of an out-of-co! ntrol professor above the well-being of their students. The OCC "brain" trust has proven that they’re better equipped to run a Soviet style re-education camp than a community college funded by the taxpayers. On Thursday, the Coast Community College District Board of Trustees decided to rescind O’Neil’s suspension and other sanctions "to bring closure." More should happen. Professor Cox should be fired for being a bully, thug and just bad at her job. And President Harkins should be fired for serving as Cox’s enabler and signing off on O’Neil’s outrageous punishment. A lot has changed since I was a student at CSUF, but the nutty professors are still the same. John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays! at 3 p.m. on "The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips" ! on KABC/AM 790. The OCC "brain" trust has proven that they’re better equipped to run a Soviet style re-education camp than a community college funded by the taxpayers. John Phillips Columnist