Survey Says Nearly Half Of College Students Think "Hate Speech" Should Be Met By Violence

 

I must confess, I increasingly often think the majority of people are bleeping idiots. (AT readers excepted, of course!)

Case in point, a recent poll purported to show that 45% of college students think it is justified to confront hate speech with violence. Think about that. How does one come up with a “code of ethics” that stipulates that saying “mean” things is worse than looting and burning a store, or assaulting or murdering someone who has allegedly said “mean” things? Mind-boggling. Only a progressive, or someone who has spent years in therapy, could possibly be that mentally ill. In essence, the same people who don’t care for the First Amendment—or the Second—also disdain the Fourth Amendment’s assertion that people have the right to be secure in their persons or property. (Yes, I know that this was primarily aimed at preventing unwarranted search and seizures by the government, but you get my point.) These are neither rational nor decent folks. Period.

Thought experiment: would I myself rather be called a “honkey” or be stabbed? Labeled a “wop” (an old slur for an Italian) or have my car fire-bombed? Stupid questions, easy answers. Sticks and stones, right? I can’t be offended by labels, because I know who I am and I wouldn’t give anyone else that power over me.

But let’s take this absurdity further. Would it have been worse if Hitler had “mis-gendered” Czechoslovakia instead of annexing the Sudetenland? If he had incessantly rained down the words “limey poofters” on the English rather than bombs and rockets? Or, had Hitler only verbally insulted the English (hate speech!), would it then have been proper if England’s response was to indiscriminately bomb German cities and residential areas?

People who are so afraid of free speech that they are willing to resort to violence to “fight” it are self-loathing, misguided, hypocritical fools. They are wannabe tyrants, though pathetically weak.