Over the last two weeks two conservative speakers were invited to appear on the University of North Carolina campus at Chapel Hill. At both events the totalitarian enemies of the free exchange of ideas tried to shut the lectures down. The first week they were successful, the second they weren't. A report by Jay Schalin at The American Thinker explains why there was a difference in outcomes. Along the way Schalin gives us a glimpse of the ugly underside of the tactics employed by the American Left.
One thing that's plain, whatever else can be said about Lefties they're not lovers of freedom and other principles upon which this country was founded. People who do not let other points of view be heard are implicitly acknowledging that they have no case and that the only way they can hope to prevail is by stifling and suppressing the opposition. They can't hope to win a debate so they must prevent people from hearing the other side.
This is precisely the rationale of the Darwinist lobby whose mission it is to keep Intelligent Design out of schools so that students cannot hear the case against naturalistic evolution. It's also a tactic used by some on the Right who should know better. Conservative talk radio hosts like Sean Hannity are consistently rude to callers who disagree with them and the better the caller's argument the more Hannity interrupts in order to prevent the listening audience from hearing a case that might make sense to them.
No one, however, is less tolerant of contrary views, especially in public fora, as is the Left. Not even Sean Hannity would deny students the right to listen to a presentation by someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum. The Left's systematic suppression of views contrary to their own is not only rude, loutish and unjust, it's a tacit admission of intellectual impotence and impoverishment.
RLC
