by Patricia Anthone, America Outloud:

Why can we not discern between political protest and forcible occupation? Seriously, how stupid are we?

The Leftist mobs benefit in both short and long-term ways from our unwillingness to discern political speech from illegal infringement on the rights of others.

In the short term, the agitators now assaulting Jewish and American students, forcibly occupying University property, and infringing the rights of other students benefit greatly from our incessant reference to terrorist actions as “protests.”

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Americans are so reluctant to infringe on legitimate political protest that labeling even violent and destructive behavior as “acts of political protest” can grant legitimacy, at least temporarily. This makes even earnest officials hesitant to take necessary action to protect the innocent. And it lends a thoroughly unjust advantage to the willful purveyors of chaos.

We so recently watched this entire scenario play out, didn’t we? Even those who’d established themselves as protectors of law and order felt the need to engage the prevailing fit of handwringing about the overdose death of a loathsome habitual criminal. The racial-Marxist accusation of “police murder” was accepted in near-universal fashion without the benefit of the autopsy that would later prove a lethal dose of narcotic and not the officer’s hold caused Floyd’s death. The destructive riots that swept the nation were treated as if they were political protests. Will this wave of vile Leftist haters also be permitted to BURN, LOOT, and MURDER before they’re stopped?

In the long term, the Leftist agenda benefits from our lack of moral clarity even more by substantiating an attack on free speech. 

Our own focus on the antisemitic hatred driving these riots tempts us to ban the hateful rhetoric rather than just the illicit actions of the rioters. Banning rhetoric itself, of promoted ideas no matter how vile, loathsome, or hateful, sets the stage for legitimizing the censorship of any other speech. Religion and political protest that oppose the ideology of the ruling party are thereby imperiled.

If we are provoked by justified outrage to add laws “against antisemitic rhetoric” in response to these riots, we will have played right into the totalitarian designs of our Marxist enemies. The same rationale used “against antisemitic rhetoric” will then be deployed against speech deemed “transphobic,” “climate denial,” “anti-vax,” and any other political dissent.

If human beings are to retain the right to learn, share, and reason with each other, in other words, if our society is to survive its own inevitable miss-steps (by virtue of a functional capacity for course correction), speech must be protected.

If speech is to be protected, all speech must be protected. Spoken ideas themselves can never be deemed dangerous. What is dangerous is behavior that infringes on the rights of others. Discerning the difference with conviction and clarity is of paramount importance at this tipping-point juncture in the story of Western Civilization.

Faced with obvious illegality and violence, we hear the pro-Hamas apologists claim that the violence erupting on campuses across the nation has, in its origin, a legitimate protest intent but that it “got out of hand.” I don’t believe that for a minute. The participants come equipped with commercially prepared signs, tents, and provisions. Even absent the illegal occupation, assault, and other crimes, it’s obviously not an organic protest emerging from the student body. It is being DEPLOYED by well-funded, anti-American, anti-Israel organizations who are infiltrating the student body of these institutions for the express purpose of gathering a mob among the ideologically indoctrinated students.

Only a few decades ago, such a campaign would have failed for an insufficient following among American students. But the Universities of today have successfully inculcated hatred of America and the West within enough of the students to make such a campaign successful. Terrorist organizations looking to gin up civil unrest have a ready-made mob of useful idiots through whom to work. Unfortunately, they can also count on a great many people – even those who are not ideologically aligned with their destructive agenda – to thoughtlessly parrot the frames in which ‘news’ is offered.   

“Safe and effective,”
“Mostly Peaceful,”
“Trans rights,”
“Climate crisis,”
“Free Palestine.”

All are examples of ideological packaging that successfully delivered destructive impediments to the decisive action needed to protect the rights of American citizens. In each case, the rights of Americans are infringed in the short term and permanently eroded in the long term.

So, how can we disarm this powerful deployment of propaganda-induced moral confusion?

We restore the timeless American practice of measuring all against a yardstick of fundamental respect for the natural rights of each person. No one, no matter his/her stated grievance, has a right to assault others, destroy others’ property, or deny others access to the facilities and programs for which they paid.

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