Tag: violence

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The Silence of Violence

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“The Free Speech Movement is dead.”

So said the Berkeley College Republicans after violence Wednesday night forced cancelation of a sold-out speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, the Greek-born British author, now a senior editor at Breitbart News. The reference, of course, is to the University of California’s history as a haven for free expression dating back to the 1960s.

Protests of the event gave way to

  • people beaten up on the streets,
  • rocks and bricks and Molotov cocktails hurled at police,
  • a young woman with a “Make America Great Again” parody hat pepper-sprayed in the face,
  • fires set, windows smashed at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, along with
  • an estimated $100,000 of property damage.

Yet only one arrest was made Wednesday night, and two on Thursday, when a man in a suit wearing a Trump hat apparently triggered two guys to jump out of their car and assault him.*

CNN dubbed the “inflammatory” Yiannopoulos a “professional provocateur.” He has also been labeled a racist, which he denies, and a homophobe, even though he’s gay. Pushing the envelope against political correctness, for his part, Milo calls “college campuses . . . cancerous and toxic to free expression.”

Regardless of label, Yiannopoulos’s right to speak and the right of others to listen are constitutionally protected. And violence to block a peacefully expressed point of view is never justified.

Asked about the tactics used, one unnamed young protestor** explained, “Although, you know, it could get violent or whatever, with the fire, that’s what caused Milo to leave. We succeeded.”

The young woman added, “And next is Trump.”

Either we defend civilization against speech-squelching violence, or inherit an ugly silence.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*More arrests may be forthcoming. The Washington Post reported that, “University police rescued many people in the crowd who were being attacked, trapped or injured . . . and are collecting video to try to identify suspects.”

** The woman was part of the ominously-named group By Any Means Necessary.

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Socialism’s Idealistic Youth

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When the protection of individual rights is replaced with vague and pious appeals to the “collective good”… things can get very ugly, very quickly.

The Cultural Revolution, was a social-political movement that took place in the People’s Republic of China from 1966 until 1976. Its stated goal was to purge all remnants of capitalism and traditional elements from Chinese society

In 1966, the Communist Party Central Committee passed its “Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” This decision defined the Cultural Revolution as “a great revolution that touches people to their very souls and constitutes a deeper and more extensive stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country.” China’s youth responded by forming Red Guard groups around the country.

Currently, our objective is to struggle against and crush those people in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic “authorities” and the ideology of the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system. —Excerpt from “Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.”

The revolution aimed to “sweep away all the monsters and demons”, that is, all the class enemy who promoted bourgeois (the “capitalist” class) idea within the party, the government, the army, among the intellectuals, as well as those from an exploitative family background or belonged to one of the “Five Black Categories.” Large number of people perceived to be “monsters and demons” (牛鬼蛇神, literally “cow ghosts snake spirits”) regardless of guilt or innocence were publicly denounced, humiliated, and beaten. In their revolutionary fervor, students denounced their teachers, and children denounced their parents. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were persecuted. Many died through their ill-treatment or committed suicide.

According to the documents for the prosecution of the Gang of Four, 142,000 cadres and teachers in the education circles were persecuted, and noted academics, scientists, and educators were sent to rural labor camps. Many survivors and observers suggest that almost anyone with skills over that of the average person was made the target of political “struggle” in some way. The entire generation of tormented and inadequately educated individuals is often referred to in the West as well as in China as the ‘lost generation’.

But doesn’t the success of Scandinavian “democratic socialism” prove that socialism can work? Doesn’t Denmark show that socialism doesn’t always lead to economic collapse, political oppression, poverty and starvation? Find the answer to that question here: Does Denmark Prove That Socialism Can Work?

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The Logic of Angry Crowds

“Inclusion in civil society” is an admirable goal, but what if we destroy civility in the process?

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Are Canada a Thug Nation?

Has Canada crossed the line? Was the post-hockey rioting in Vancouver the last straw? Should we toss Canada in a cell and throw away the key?

Al Capone once famously claimed he didn’t “even know what street Canada is on.” But I think we know that, kidding aside, Canada is a big and populous place, having somewhere around 34 or 35 million people, almost as many as Binghamton.

At any time, some of these millions are behaving well, others badly. With perhaps a few exceptions that we can debate in psychology class, every individual human being is responsible primarily for his own conduct, not that of anyone else.

So why does a New York Times story, “Hockey Hangover Turns Into Riot Embarrassment,” report that after Canadian thugs went on a rampage when their team lost a hockey game, “a nation that takes pride in its reputation for peaceful coexistence wrestled with questions about possible flaws in the national character”?

First of all, “the nation” didn’t fret about this. Certain people did.

Second, thugs who use sports and team rivalries — or trade agreements or any other grievance — to rationalize random destruction are nothing new in the world. Journalist Bill Buford published a visceral account of the British soccer-thug scene. Read Among the Thugs and you’ll know that the conduct of the rampaging rioters has nothing to do with the “national character” of either most fans or the little old lady down the street.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.