FRUITS OF COLLEGE INDOCTRINATION

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)-
Much of today’s incivility and contempt for personal liberty has its
roots on college campuses, and most of the uncivil and contemptuous are
people with college backgrounds. Let’s look at a few highly publicized
recent examples of incivility and attacks on free speech.
Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary
Elaine Chao, were accosted and harassed by a deranged left-wing mob as
they were leaving a dinner at Georgetown University. Sen. McConnell was
harassed by protesters at Reagan National Airport, as well as at several
venues in Kentucky. Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife were harassed at a
Washington, D.C., restaurant. Afterward, a group called Smash Racism DC
wrote: “No — you can’t eat in peace — your politics are an attack on all
of us. You’re (sic) votes are a death wish. Your votes are hate
crimes.” Other members of Congress — such as Andy Harris, Susan Collins
and Rand Paul — have been physically attacked or harassed by leftists.
Most recent is the case of Fox News political commentator Tucker
Carlson. A leftist group showed up at his house at night, damaging his
front door and chanting, “Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where
you sleep at night!” “Racist scumbag, leave town!”
Mayhem against
people with different points of view is excused as just deserts for what
is seen as hate speech. Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray
discovered this when he was shouted down at Middlebury College and the
professor escorting him was sent to the hospital with injuries. Students
at the University of California, Berkeley shut down a controversial
speaker and caused riot damage estimated at $100,000. Protesters at both
UCLA and Claremont McKenna College disrupted scheduled lectures by
Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald.
The Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education has discovered so-called bias response
teams on hundreds of American college campuses. Bias response teams
report to campus officials — and sometimes to law enforcement officers —
speech that may cause “alarm, anger, or fear” or that might otherwise
offend. Drawing pictures or cartoons that belittle people because of
their beliefs or political affiliation can be reported as hate speech.
Universities expressly set their sights on prohibiting constitutionally
protected speech. As FIRE
reported in 2017, hundreds of universities nationwide now maintain
Orwellian systems that ask students to report — often anonymously —
their neighbors, friends and professors for any instances of supposed
biased speech and expression.
A recent Brookings Institution poll
found that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is
not protected by the First Amendment. That’s nonsense; it is. Fifty-one
percent of college students think they have a right to shout down a
speaker with whom they disagree. Nineteen percent of students think that
it’s acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking.
Over 50 percent
agree that colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might
offend certain people. One shouldn’t be surprised at all if these
visions are taught and held by many of their professors. Colleges once
taught and promoted an understanding of Western culture. Today many
professors and the college bureaucracy teach students that they’re
victims of Western culture and values.
Benjamin Franklin wrote,
“Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing
the Freeness of Speech.” Much later, Supreme Court Justice Potter
Stewart said, “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in
itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” From the Nazis to
Stalinists to Maoists, tyrants have always started out supporting free
speech, just as American leftists did during the 1960s. Their support
for free speech is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the
realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. The
right to say what they please is their tool for indoctrination,
propagandizing and proselytization. Once the leftists gain control, as
they have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must
be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses.
Much of the off-campus incivility we see today is the fruit of what a
college education has done to our youth.

About Walter E.Williams
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Williams is also the author of several books. Among these are The State Against Blacks, later made into a television documentary, America:
A Minority Viewpoint, All It Takes Is Guts, South Africa’s War Against
Capitalism, More Liberty Means Less Government, Liberty Versus The
Tyranny of Socialism, and recently his autobiography, Up From The Projects.