University of California - Irvine Stands Up for Free Speech

The following video is long but you can get the main point by watching just the first few minutes. The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was invited to speak by the Political Science Department. This is one of over a thousand such academic events held every year in the university. But it was disrupted systematically by Muslim students shouting and trying to prevent the speech from going ahead.

This kind of hateful attack on free speech takes place routinely on American and Canadian university campuses. It is carried out by Muslim student organizations such as the Muslim Student Association and the tactics are those of the hard Left. These Muslims are aided and abetted by left-wing professors, students and administrators, who are not liberal and not committed to free speech or the concept of the university as a place for the civil exchange of ideas.

What this video shows, however, is the university exhibiting (for a change) a bit of spine and standing up to the barbarians. Watch for yourself and compare the civilized and principled deportment of the organizers, the representatives of the university and the ambassador to the wild, fanatical, irrational and hate-fueled strong-arm tactics of the protesters.



These young students were born in the United States. Their anti-Semitism and hard-left attacks on free speech come as much from the American Left as from their Muslim culture. Both the Leftist ideology and the Islamist ideology constitute a clear and present danger to freedom, democracy, the rule of law, the protection of minority rights and freedom of speech. We must stand against those who would undermine our political system and our culture of freedom. We must understand who they are and what they stand for and we must not allow them to portray themselves as liberal for they are illiberal and fascistic.

If fascism comes to the US, it will not come from the Tea Party or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, but from people like these doing things like this. Remember, universities are where we are supposed to debate opposing ideas. When this is no longer possible, then universities no longer exist and a significant bulwark against barbarism has fallen.