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November 19, 2022

[F]or intelligent people, “the proper measure of listening to such arguments [about the good and just life for human beings] is a whole life.

–Plato, Republic (450b)

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Recently, writer Ann Coulter (J.D., Michigan) gave a talk on freedom of speech at her undergraduate alma mater, Cornell University. 

Unfortunately, some students and faculty there claimed, apparently quite delicately, that her previous talks at Cornell had been “harmful” and tried to stop her from speaking on the grounds that she engages in “hate speech.” 

She did manage to speak, but protestors eventually shouted her down and she left. 

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As Jonathan Turley described it:

One man screamed “we don’t want you to be here, your words are violence. … They are threats, you cannot be speaking here. Leave! Two students chanted “no KKK no fascist USA” as they are escorted out by security. Others blared circus music and blew whistles. The Cornell Review reported that [they] employed “a chain tactic, beginning just as soon as the last heckler was removed, so as to continuously speak over Coulter.”

This kind of childish behavior demonstrates that these people do not understand what freedom of speech and hate speech really are, apparently not realizing, or caring, that they are themselves illustrating what harmful hate speech is.

Indeed, such fascistic behavior shows that these students, and, sadly, some faculty, are lacking in self-knowledge of their own limitations.  The issues involved may not seem difficult to children but one does not know how to solve such large problems after taking a few college courses and attending some protests.  As Plato knew, achieving the required wisdom requires an entire life of dedicated thought that these children cannot even understand.

One might get some perspective on the current crop of all-knowing student activists by examining the histories of some of the most famous young “revolutionaries” of the past like the Chicago 8: Rennie DavisAbbie HoffmanJerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, David DellingerJohn Froines and Black Panther Bobby Seale.  Many had socialist or communist associations and their posters often displayed a clenched fist threatening violence.  The Chicago 8 were charged by the federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and 1960s counterculture protests during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago

All these self-styled “revolutionaries” were well educated: Davis (Oberlin, B.A.; University of Illinois, M.A.), Hoffman (Brandeis, B.A.; University of California, Berkeley, M.A.), Rubin (University of Cincinnati, B.A.; studied at Brandeis, Oberlin and the Hebrew University Jerusalem), Hayden (studied at University of Michigan, taught at several major universities), Weiner (University of Illinois, B.A.; Northwestern University, Ph.D.), Dellinger (Yale, B.A.; studied at Oxford and Columbia), Froines (University of California, Berkeley, B.S.; Yale M.S. and Ph.D.).  Seale studied engineering and politics at a Merritt Community College, in Oakland. 

During the trial, Seale was sentenced to 4 years in prison for contempt of court for continual outbursts during the trial but this was overturned on appeal and he was released from prison.  Seale was soon in the dock again in 1970 as part of the New Haven Black Panther trials after several Panther officers murdered 19-year-old fellow Panther Alex Rackley after he confessed to being a police informant under torture. The leader of the murder plan testified that Seale ordered him to kill Rackley. The jury could not reach a verdict and the charges against Seale were dropped.  Seale was released from prison but while he was in prison, his wife became pregnant, allegedly to fellow Panther Fred Bennett.  Bennett’s mutilated remains were later found in a suspected Panther hideout in the spring of 1971.  Police suspected Seale ordered the murder to retaliate for the affair, but no charges were filed.