A generation ago, we lived in a society that accepted free speech as a bedrock principle. This is not so much the case today as we in live a society that not only advocates against free speech but shuts it down unconstitutionally, as well. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), around 55 percent of college campuses across these great United States has some sort of restriction on free expression.
How has a country gone from valuing free thought to needing trigger warnings so that others will not become offended? Social Marxism and egalitarianism are the main culprits, as today many colleges require trigger warnings and safe spaces just so the delicate snowflakes on campus will not be exposed to new ideas that may hurt their feelings. How can we fight against this rampant disease spreading not only on college campuses but also into the daily lives of regular Americans?
One who is not familiar with these sorts of occurrences might become dumbfounded in finding out that college campuses have become a place where speech is easily censored. Where did all of this begin and how did this manage to spread so far? The problem has gotten significantly worse in recent years. It reached its boiling point at the University of Missouri last fall when race-obsessed campus Marxists pushed both the President and Chancellor to resign because they failed to appropriately satisfy their list of bizarre demands. Another prominent incident happened at Yale University where a professor sent an email saying students should not be offended by Halloween costumes that make use of other cultures. Victim cultists at that school led a witchhunt against the professor saying he was justifying cultural appropriation and making it unsafe for black students to engage in their education, eventually leading to his dismissal. Worse yet, this behavior is now leaking off campus and into public life for the rest of society.
The modern Black Lives Matter movement was arguably born at the University of Missouri as their ISIS-style methods of social terrorism were brought into the real world. The use of roadblocks to stop traffic has spread across this country, which has needlessly been both an annoyance and a danger to many motorists. Any sort of opinion that is deemed somewhat racist or sexist is immediately thrown out without any sensible inquiry. This part of history mirrors the Red Scare of the ’50s and ’60s where anyone suspected of being a communist was blacklisted. At least the bogeyman back then was real. Now leftists have to invent buzzwords such as “White Privilege” and “Rape Culture” and invent fake studies and statistics to justify their manufactured outrage. In these modern times, we have a free speech scare of sorts where anyone that acts outside the status quo is immediately deemed dangerous and muzzled.
As a libertarian who believes that everyone should exercise their freedom of speech and live their life how they see fit, it is extremely saddening to see libertarians come out in support of these leftist agitator groups, embracing the mob mentality. Jeffrey Tucker, a well-respected writer and speaker within the libertarian community, came out against freedom of speech – but only in the case of Donald Trump supporters. He compared the chalk on the sidewalk to “cross burnings” and said it was used as a point to intimidate the students on the campus. He even went on to say that the speech was weaponized due to it saying “Trump 2016”. This is an individual who does not represent the whole of the liberty movement, but he does influence people to view libertarians just as leftists who are too selfish to pay taxes.
Fortunately, this aforementioned man is not the only voice representing us. Others have not forgotten what it means to be a libertarian. For example, the Head MC of the rap group Back Wordz, Eric July, has come out against the culture that shouts racism at every turn. He stated very bluntly that statism is far worse than racism because a racist thought or statement is nothing without aggressive force or the state backing it up. These disingenuous cultural Marxists always default to state force anytime they hear something that they allege is racist.
However, resistance is forming against campus totalitarianism. A one man show that is taking the fight to the PC police and cultural Marxism on campus is the one and only Milo Yiannopoulos. He is on his self-described “Dangerous Faggot” tour in his fight to take campuses back from the PC police of mostly leftists. He has already triggered the likes of now viral hit Trigglypuff, and was also banned on Twitter for hurting the feelz of a Hollywood actress. College students across the country are receiving institutional backlash for hosting Milo.
Isaac Edikauskas, a chapter officer of Young Americans for Liberty at Michigan State University, will be hosting Milo in December on his campus. He had this to say, “I may not agree with everything he has to say, but I believe in his right to exercise his free speech and your right to disagree with it.” He also went on to say, “I welcome the controversial figure because he pushes against the cultural Marxism on campus and promotes free speech.” There is no question on the influence and impact Milo is having, regardless of if you agree with everything he says or not.
Young Americans for Liberty, an organization of which I am proud to serve as State Chair, rolled out a campaign to fight against this campus bias and cultural Marxism last spring in response to Draconian restrictions on campuses. I was involved in the forefront of this with my own experiences at Macomb Community College, where a campus student life employee said that our unpermitted action in passing out flyers and rolling around a free speech ball was dangerous to students, while additionally citing that the act of placing chalk on public sidewalks without permission can be harmful to campus. The campus decided that they must decide if what is going to be written will be offensive to the student basis. This sort of Orwellian “Truth Commission” is as un-American as it gets. I was proud that my activism helped force these control freaks to expose their true colors.
Blatant censorship is exactly what the social Marxist crave, and they will lie, cheat, and steal to get it. There is nothing even remotely comparable coming from the right that is as threatening to our freedoms. The left is practically taking ‘1984’ as a playbook. We must not cave to campus Marxism, and we must continue the fight regardless of what our peers may say because this, in fact, is the fight for our civilization, and it is literally life or death. Our forefathers bled and died for these liberties. It shouldn’t be too much for us to withstand a little social pressure to change the culture on these campuses and turn the dial toward freedom. I am dedicated to this fight and hope to see you by my side.
Cultural Marxism is a retsult of the Frankfurt School which basically wrote that a free and moral society is an oppressive one. Books included escape from freedom and the Athoritarian Personality.
lol. you’d have no one left on campus.