Photo courtesy of CSULA students
Free Speech as long as We approve of it
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Free speech was a founding principle for the United States. The founding fathers believed it was essential in a democratic society. In our present day society, free speech is under constant fire because of how sensitive people have become and how they can be offended by others’ opinions. There is no problem there, the problem is suppressing someone else’s opinion because you don’t like what they’re saying. Examples of this at California State University of Los Angeles (CSULA) and University of California, Berkeley (UCB). In these fairly left wing college campuses, the overbearing liberal-minded students have both recently protested speakers who have Republican or conservative views coming to give a lecture to interested students.
While Berkeley was condemned by President Donald Trump himself, CSULA did not reach breaking news but is facing a lawsuit for not allowing the speaker to give his speech. The YAF (Young America’s Foundation) along with the speaker, Ben Shapiro, were pressing charges on the college for the protest, and quite frankly the protesting students deserved it for a something like that.
Shapiro, a conservative editor in chief for the Daily Wire and editor for the conservative Breitbart News, stated that the protestors showed violent behavior towards all those trying to attend, like beating, kicking and blocking entry to his speech. Protesters pulled the fire alarm, making him difficult to hear, yet he continued his speech until police were forced to escort him off campus.
You would think the campus staff would be upset students had done something so rash and unnecessary as that, but they weren’t. Faculty was upset Shapiro had decided to come to give his speech after they cancelled it to allow a speaker with “different ideas.” He was eventually allowed to give his speech but then had to deal with the protesters entering the building and interrupting.
They, the protestors, blamed campus President William Covino for quote, “putting them into a tense confrontation with supporters of Shapiro and then showed a lack of support afterwards,” ABC7 reported. That is a weak attempt to brush the blame off their shoulders. Blaming him for making them have a stand-off with the attendees and not helping after that is pathetic. They expressed their free speech a little too loud and when they were told to quiet down they got louder. There’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinion or political viewpoint, but you can’t tell someone else to have that same viewpoint.
Shapiro’s speech was titled, “When Diversity Becomes A Problem” and it certainly seemed that way here. These protests, all around the nation have been because of the harshness the ‘far right’ conservatives who supposedly disagree with their policy of tolerance. They seem to have forgotten tolerance is the equal respect given to everyone. Everyone is including those you disagree with; “Do unto others what you want done unto you.” The reason guys like Shapiro and Trump are so rude and mean is because of that Golden rule. If we want tolerance back, we need to reevaluate that rule, and use it to unify our divided nation.
