Istook’s Insights: California Colleges threaten free speech, rise of the mavericks
Published: September 19th, 2015
Colleges are out to kill off free speech.
In the 1960’s, the University of California at Berkeley launched the Free Speech Movement, to assure that students could engage in on-campus protests.
Now California’s universities are about to ban free speech, under the pretense of protecting people from hate and intolerance.
Their regents are voting to declare a right to be “free from acts and expressions of intolerance.” If they decide that you display prejudice or promote stereotypes, you can be kicked out of school.
Also you can be punished if you infer that some group is lazy or dumb, even if you only quoted facts. Or if you support consequences for illegal immigration, or oppose letting transgenders pick the shower room of their choice.
The iron fist of political correctness is already used at too many colleges. Now California proposes a next step, which would virtually repeal the First Amendment.
Around the nation, the American people keep sending messages; Washington keeps ignoring them.
Political know-it-alls projected the Presidential race would be another Bush vs. Clinton matchup, with Jeb Bush against Hillary Clinton.
Now that would be a long shot.
Washington is dumbfounded by the continuing rise of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz—two non-office-holders and a pair of maverick Senators.
The message is that people are fed up–tired of political word games, tired of cronyism, tired of unenforced laws, especially on immigration.
Yet neither the President nor Congress are changing their ways. The White House wants to make its own laws. It battles to conceal information about what our government is actually doing. Congress tries to play both sides, like giving the okay to President Obama’s dangerous Iran deal even while most in Congress claim the oppose it.
So far, the political elite show no sign of learning their lesson.