Liberal College Students Dream Of A Nation Without Free Speech | Bobby Burack

I generally try to avoid using the phrases "the left" and "the right" when writing a column. Those terms are so broad, with such fragments amongst them, that describing them as any type of monolithic entity just sounds like pandering.

That said, there is a clear chasm between college students in terms of their tolerance for speech which can be broken down into the two groups.

So, for this exercise, I made an exception.

A recent College Pulse/FIRE survey, covered by Nate Silver on his Substack, asked currently enrolled college students about which topics a controversial speaker should be allowed on campus to discuss.

The question read as follows:

Student groups often invite speakers to campus to express their views on a range of topics. Regardless of your own views of the topic, should your school ALLOW or NOT ALLOW a speaker on campus who previously expressed the following idea: __

The survey presented students with six examples. Silver separated the examples as conservative ideas (labeled C1, C2, C3, etc) and liberal ideas (L1, L2, L3), as seen below:

C1. Transgender people have a mental disorder.

C2. Abortion should be completely illegal.

C3. Black Lives Matter is a hate group.

L1. The Second Amendment should be repealed so that guns can be confiscated.

L2. Religious liberty is used an excuse to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

L3. Structural racism maintains inequality by protecting White privilege.

The following table shows the percentage of students who would allow a speaker to discuss the above topics on campus:

Per the results, students on the right have a 59% tolerance rate for liberal speech (L1, L2, L3). Yet students on the left have only a 21% tolerance for conservative speech (C1, C2, C3).

Moreover, intolerance vastly outpaces tolerance when you consider that just 25% of college students consider themselves "conservative" and over 50% consider themselves "liberal."

Liberal students don't believe their conservative counterparts should have the freedom to be wrong. But they do.

Or they should, to put it more accurately.

Everyone should. We can't have freedom without the freedom to be wrong. In past eras, liberals agreed.

A society cannot function properly if thought-policing becomes standardized. Freedom to speak is our most basic fundamental right as Americans. Without that right, we are less than Americans.

We are not a free country if half of the country is not free to voice their political opinions on college campuses and beyond.

The College Pulse/FIRE didn't provide a study on what's behind the increasing degree of moral superiority amongst liberals, particularly college liberals, to the point they believe other opinions are unworthy of being heard.

But the answer is clear.

The left controls the message in America. That has never been more true than it is today. Liberals control higher education. That's obvious. They also control the media, entertainment sphere, culture, and Big Tech.

Those who control the message subsequently control the outrage. And with control of the outrage, our handlers have convinced those who listen that the other side is not just wrong, but morally wrong.

Liberals are told those who wonder about the safety and logic behind transgenderism are transphobic and evil.

They are told those who disagree with Black Lives Matter (the fundraising movement) are racist and must be canceled.

And those who are pro-life are religious zealots advocating for incestuous children.

Liberals are not told to reject conservative ideas. They are told to reject conservative people.

Therefore a majority of liberal students, the majority of students, do not want conservative speakers anywhere near their safe spaces.

That exact type of indignation has led students down some dark paths, turning them more susceptible to a form of psychosis.

Last month, we referenced how modern progressive academics have come to lean on the Marxian concept that wealth is the result of exploitation, and we are all either guilty or victims.

That purview is why liberal students at elite colleges have advocated so loudly for Hamas' efforts in Israel: they believe because the Jews stole land and deserve to pay, violently.

It is their right to say that. I even defended their right to say it, understanding the answer to hate speech is more speech. As journalist Walter Kirn says, speakers of truly destructive thoughts convict themselves. And we should let them.

The concern is, however, that those same students -- slated as our future -- so openly, and shamelessly believe others don't share that same right.