While polling data shows that college kids like the idea of free speech, surveys also show that as soon as that speech infringes on their "values," students become more supportive of authoritarian policies that place limits on speech, such as "free speech zones" and laws against "hate speech." Some 47 percent of students think that simply handing out literature on controversial subjects isn't even acceptable.
Under the radical Left's authoritarian, self-flagellating dogma, being American in and of itself is practically a crime.
"Thought police" in training
Writing for End of the American Dream, Michael Snyder contends that the wave of censorship overtaking Big Tech mirrors what is happening on college campuses across the United States. This national movement, Snyder writes, is bent on one goal, "to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense."
With even the display of the American flag now coming under scrutiny as a possible "microaggression," Snyder cautions that the college students of today are poised to become the "thought police" of the future (if not today). He notes that while it's easy to laugh at them now, one day, these students will have entered the real world. Some, he warns, will make it into positions of power, where they can then try to grow and enforce their "politically correct" agenda. Snyder writes:
The “social media purge” is a perfect example of this, and the censorship of speech is only going to become more widespread as time goes on. The next generation of “America’s thought police” is rising, and they intend to make sure that the future belongs to the politically correct.
We are quickly entering an age where people are afraid of saying anything that might be controversial or could possibly "offend" someone -- and where virtually everything is offensive to someone. This is a real danger to our society for an array of reasons but perhaps most notably: A world where people are afraid to speak up is a world where tyranny is not far away. Regardless of the reason for thought suppression, it cannot and will not lead us, as a nation, anywhere worth going.
The war on freedom
The Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to limit the power of government -- not to limit the power of the people. Unfortunately, it seems a growing number of college students are unaware of this fact. As New York Post reports, the editors of the Wellesly College newspaper recently declared:
The founding fathers put free speech into the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of government.
The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.
They go on to state that they do believe "hostility may be warranted" towards those who have been given "a chance to learn" and "refuse to adapt their beliefs."
The students write further:
If people continue to support racist politicians or pay for speakers that prop up speech that will lead to the harm of others, then it is critical to take the appropriate measures to hold them accountable for their actions. It is important to note that our preference for education over beration regards students who may have not been given the chance to learn. Rather, we are not referring to those who have already had the incentive to learn and should have taken the opportunities to do so. Paid professional lecturers and politicians are among those who should know better.
In other words, these liberal students feel that if you are "given a chance" to adopt their preferred political ideals, and refuse, any "beration" you receive from them is deserved. And of course, only liberals get to decide what speech is "hateful," and that generally means conservative speech of any sort.
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