\u00a0UC Riverside College Republicans<\/a>. They recently hosted a program that contrasted the sort of vile anti-Semitic slander that saturates the Muslim media, with the cartoons of Mohammed that sparked riots throughout with Muslim world. Of course this exercise in constitutionally protected free speech was noisily protested by the campus Muslim group, the same people who when they\u2019re not squealing about \u201chate speech\u201d are hosting speakers like Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who recycles the standard catalogue of anti-Semitic lunacy repackaged as \u201cpro-Palestinianism\u201d and\u00a0 \u201canti-Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\nYou know how that slight-of-hand works: instead of decrying the sinister Jewish control of the media, just substitute \u201cZionist.\u201d Rather than complain about Jewish control of U.S. foreign policy, mutter darkly about \u201cneocons.\u201d You don\u2019t have to advocate the destruction of Jews: just champion a \u201cone-state\u201d final solution and rationalize Arab murder of Jews as \u201cresistance\u201d to imperialist stooges. In the end, though, the goal is the same: the elimination of Israel and the reduction of Israelis to a beaten-down minority that will eventually disappear and leave the region what Hitler tried to leave Germany \u2014\u00a0Judenrein<\/i>, free of Jews.<\/p>\n
Hate speech indeed. But don\u2019t expect college administrators to do anything about it. Their loudly asserted devotion to free speech and \u201cdiversity\u201d ends at the borders of political correctness, the boundaries set by the left-wing faculty and students who know how to intimidate bureaucratic functionaries with guilt and threats of demonstrations. Nothing more terrifies a university administrator on the make than a mob of protestors \u201cof color\u201d accusing him of \u201cinsensitivity\u201d and a questionable commitment to \u201cdiversity,\u201d all in front of the evening news cameras summoned in advance. Just look at what happened to Harvard\u2019s Larry Summers, a presumably tough veteran of D.C. politics who was run whimpering out of Cambridge on a rail for unexceptional remarks deemed \u201csexist\u201d by the faculty feminist Brown Shirts. Even several groveling apologies and $50 million in guilt-money couldn\u2019t save Larry.<\/p>\n
Given the craven careerism of the typical college provost, dean, and president, then, and given the left-wing prejudices or lazy indifference of most of the faculty, it\u2019s up to students to make their university live up to its role as protected space for what Matthew Arnold called \u201cthe free play of the mind on all subjects.\u201d This doesn\u2019t mean that university officials should censor or limit any speech, but rather that they should encourage and insure through their control of facilities and funds that speech is\u00a0balanced,<\/i>\u00a0that as many points of view as possible are available, and that no point of view is allowed to be intimidated or in turn to silence others.<\/p>\n
T<\/span>his balance is what the Riverside College Republicans were trying to provide by offering a larger context for the cartoon controversy and pointing out the hypocritical double standard that many Muslims in the West take for granted. For here is an important lesson in political philosophy: if you are going to enjoy the right to free expression and expect that right to be protected, as the Muslim students do, then you must acknowledge and respect someone else\u2019s right to do the same. You cannot carve out an exception and call it \u201chate speech,\u201d a dishonest term created by the diversity commissars to criminalize and stigmatize whatever speech they find politically or ideologically distasteful. And you cannot be allowed to intimidate those others who are exercising their own free-speech rights.<\/p>\nMany Muslims living in the West, however, have blatantly asserted their right to this double standard, and many Westerners have docilely accepted this challenge to the integrity of a fundamental political good. After the cartoon scandal, many politicians in Europe and the United States countenanced a Muslim exception to free-speech rights, dressing this cowardice up in \u201csensitivity\u201d or\u00a0 \u201crespect\u201d \u2014 a transparent hypocrisy given the lack of respect for and sensitivity to Christian or Jewish belief that can be found on most college campuses, in the mainstream media, and in popular culture.<\/p>\n
Yet this hypocrisy is not the handiwork of Muslims, who have simply mastered the tools long used by the identity politics hacks to silence speech they deem unacceptable. We had an example of this technique not long ago on my campus of the California State University. A firebrand evangelical preacher, who used the \u201cfree-speech area\u201d (itself an illegal restriction of free speech, by the way) to hector students about the immorality of homosexuality, was run off campus by a flashy protest organized by the women\u2019s studies department. No one seemed bothered by the irony of one group using its right to free speech to make sure someone else stopped using his.<\/p>\n
This double standard has become standard operating procedure on college campuses, where unpopular speakers, if they manage to get invited in the first place, will be shouted down and protested while university officials sit on their hands and praise the \u201cdialogue.\u201d Having raised \u201csensitivity to diversity\u201d and\u00a0 \u201ctolerance of the other\u201d into a fetish, the university is incapable of acting in defense of its own beliefs.<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he willingness of our colleges to sacrifice their defining ideals of free speech on the altar of\u00a0 \u201csensitivity to diversity,\u201d however, has ramifications beyond the campus culture wars. To our jihadist enemies, these desperate assertions of \u201ctolerance\u201d and \u201crespect\u201d and \u201csensitivity\u201d in the face of jihadist aggressive intolerance are seen as nothing more than the cowering fear of the dhimmi, the conquered infidel whose behavior must daily acknowledge his inferiority. So even as we preach the value of freedom, in our own countries we shrink from actions that prove our commitment. We refuse to insist that Muslim immigrants who choose to live in the West, who accept social welfare payments, and who enjoy the benefits and freedom of our way of life embrace and respect the values that make all those goods possible in the first place.<\/p>\nTo a true believer willing to kill innocents for his belief, this fear is testimony to the fatal weakness of our beliefs and the divinely sanctioned superiority of his own. We may be richer, more technologically advanced, and militarily more powerful, but these material advantages mean nothing in the long run when a people no longer will fight for the values that have created these goods. It\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Academic “diversity” speak gives pass to jihad, anti-Semitism and censorship. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Hats off to the\u00a0UC Riverside College Republicans. They recently hosted a program that contrasted the sort of vile anti-Semitic slander that saturates the Muslim media, with the cartoons of Mohammed that sparked riots throughout with Muslim world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,776],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1lo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-legacy-of-islamic-totalitarianism\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":0},"title":"The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine The murder of four Americans in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9\/11, and the subsequent attempts by the Obama administration to blame the attacks on a YouTube video critical of Islam, exposed the delusional assumptions of Obama\u2019s foreign policy. This notion that Western bad behavior\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5509,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-truth-about-tolerance\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":1},"title":"The Truth about Tolerance","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"How our therapeutic thinkers threaten Western values by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Acceptance of a double standard has always been a sign of inferiority.To let someone behave according to one set of principles or values while demanding that you be subjected to others is to validate a claim of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1047,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-unlearned-lessons-of-daniel-pearls-murder\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":2},"title":"The Unlearned Lessons of Daniel Pearl’s Murder","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine Ten years ago this week,\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan, after he had been lured into what he thought was an interview with Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani about the links between al Qaeda and the \u201cshoe bomber\u201d Richard\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7787,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nothing-to-do-with-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":3},"title":"Nothing to Do With Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/QuranRifle3.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3362,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/running-scared-of-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":4},"title":"Running Scared of Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society One of Broadway\u2019s big hits this season is the musical\u00a0The Book of Mormon, a creation of the scatological geniuses behind the cartoon\u00a0South Park. As one would expect, the show is \u201cblasphemous, scurrilous and more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak,\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":176,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/democracy-promotion-or-islamist-promotion\/","url_meta":{"origin":5170,"position":5},"title":"Democracy Promotion or Islamist Promotion?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thronton Frontpage Magazine The hope that democracy would bloom in Egypt following our collusion in removing Hosni Mubarak looks more and more delusional every day. Even our foreign policy wishful thinkers are no longer peddling the canard that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is \u201csecular\u201d and \u201cmoderate,\u201d thus proving\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5172,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions\/5172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}