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October 6, 2006
Academic Free Speech In Free Fall At Columbia University; Minutemen Greeted With Fists Instead Of Dialogue
To really appreciate the degree of free fall, the Columbia College Republicans, who sponsored the speech, called the protest a "precoordinated attack," which it most likely was indeed, but the Chicano Marxists contend it was the Minuteman who became violent (the Minutemen were trying to give a talk). So before we go any further, just watch the video of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, an invited guest at Columbia, trying to give a speech on immigration:
The New York Sun describes the attack on Gilchrest:
On Wednesday evening, the gathering came to an untimely demise when, a minute into the remarks by the founder of the Minuteman Project, Jim Gilchrist, students stormed the stage, overturning tables and chairs and attacking Mr. Gilchrist and fellow Minutemen Marvin Stewart and Jerome Corsi. Having taken control of the stage, the students, led by the student chapter of the International Socialist Organization, unfurled a banner that read, in both Arabic and English, "Nobody is Illegal."Although the hired security did little to prevent the students from shouting down or physically intimidating the invited guests, they escorted the Minutemen out, unharmed, through a back door.The protesters savored their victory before security ushered the audience out of the auditorium. Students jumped from the stage, chanting in Spanish and pumping their fists triumphantly. "These are racist individuals heading a project that terrorizes immigrants on the U.S.-Mexican border," a Columbia junior who took part in the protest, Ryan Fukumori, said. "They have no right to be able to speak here."
Mary Katharine Ham writes at Townhall: "The little punks who stormed the stage two minutes into Gilchrist's speech are, of course, claiming that the Minutemen were the ones causing the problem. You know, 'cause we were just up here peacefully speaking truth to power and celebrating free speech by squelching opposing viewpoints with amateurish signage and rehashed 60s protest chants that don't rhyme, man."
TigerHawk point out that the stifling of free speech at colleges is not even remotely a new tactic and has been used reliably by the left at those institutions for decades.
Blue Crab Boulevard says of the event: "The words of a budding leftist storm trooper proud of storming a stage to silence someone else's right to free speech at Columbia University. In an appalling display of intolerance, students assaulted two speakers from the Minuteman group and forced them to cancel the speeches they were giving."
Atlas Shrugs "nails it":
Another bloody nail in the coffin for America's univerities. Good American men and woman protecting our borders are assaulted at a "veritable" ivy league university that thought nothing of inviting a mad, oppressive, America hating, Jew hating, despot like Ahmadinejad to speak. No security for the Minutemen? Though I am sure they would have protected the ahmadinnerjacket with their lives. Homeschooling is our future.Given all this, most reasonable folk should have little problem surmising with some degree of accuracy that the Left is indeed part of "the axis of evil"?
Who among us who live in the reality side of existence, a plane uninhabited by the members of the Left, are surprised at the rabid anti-free speech, anti-American, pro-Communist, pro-jihadist environment that ferments, encourages, condones, and perpetuates this "Columbia Syndrome" of Leftist attacks on American freedoms and on the legitimate and proper enforcement of the laws of our nation?
Last minute pre-post Update: "University Statement on Disruption of the "Minutemen Forum" Sponsored by the Columbia College Republicans."
Posted by Richard at October 6, 2006 2:03 PM
