The tactics of Students for a Democratic Society that resulted in the shutdown of Tom Tancredo's speech at UNC Chapel Hill caused shockwaves all across the political spectrum. Critics from the Right and Left decried the actions of the ragtag gang of would-be brownshirts who thought it proper not only to unfurl a banner in front of Tancredo while he was speaking, but also to break windows and pull the fire alarm all in the name of stopping "hate." The North Carolina executive director of the ACLU called the video of the shutdown "chilling" and said the protestors' actions amounted to "de facto censorship."

In all the debate and chatter that followed, two irreconcilable lines of argument emerged. The first came from sensible proponents of free speech who believe that any speech should be permitted, save the usual caveats about yelling "fire" in a movie theater and the rest. The critiques of the student protestors which came from the Right and from principled liberals were made from this angle. The ACLU director above qualified her statement by saying: "Censorship is not the answer to hate speech. Hate speech is protected by the Constitution." Though this is clearly a not-so-subtle smear against Congressman Tancredo and YWC, the underlying logic is clear: no matter the substance of the speech, the First Amendment grants it protection.

The second, more cultivated (bankrupt?) argument came from those on the hard philosophical Left whose egalitarian inclinations extend much further than those who believe everyone should have equal rights under the law. According to this second line of argument, for free speech to exist in the truest sense, designated "hate speech" must not be tolerated. In an open letter to UNC Chancellor Holden Thorpe, Billie Murray, a graduate student at UNC, wrote on behalf of Students for a Democratic Society (the main group responsible for shutting down the event):

It has been argued in the past couple of days that supporters of free speech should be tolerant of all speech. While I am of the view that as a democratic society we must be tolerant of dissenting views, in no way does this mean that all speech promotes democratic ends or should be tolerated. Put simply, some stories are better than others. The litmus test for these "better stories" include those that promote tolerance, acceptance, social justice, equality, and yes, free speech. The rhetoric espoused by YWC and Mr. Tancredo does not promote tolerance of difference and silences those who are "different." Why then should we be tolerant of a rhetoric [sic] that in no way promotes the goals of a democracy and that creates a culture of fear and hate? Hate speech silences free speech.

According to Mr. Murray, the right of free speech should not be neutral to content. It should be denied to those who he believes create "a culture of fear and hate" and do not promote what he feels are "democratic ends."

Bryan McCann, a writer for SocialistWorker.org, echoed this sentiment in his piece on the UNC fiasco, concluding that "activists have a compelling interest in abandoning romantic notions of dialogue with those that hate, choosing instead to confront speakers like… Tancredo precisely because we long for a more just society in which free expression is not only a lofty ideal, but a reality."

In other words, in order to have true free expression, we must stifle free expression. How do these Leftists get away with such bastardized logic? What is the intellectual backing for such nonsense? Like much of the philosophical drivel hardcore Leftists espouse today, the source can be found in the self-identified Marxist and socialist philosopher Herbert Marcuse.

For those not aware, Marcuse was a part of what began as the Institute for Social Research at Frankfurt University in Germany. Later, the Institute would come to be known simply as the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School was established in 1923 in the aftermath of the First World War. Marxist economic theory had predicted that if a great war were to break out in Europe, the working classes would rise up against the hated bourgeoisie and Communism would reign. Of course, this never happened, and when it came time to raise arms, Europeans rallied to their national flags rather than their respective classes. As a result, the founders of the Frankfurt School determined that it was Western, Christian culture which blinded the proletariat to their true class interests. And so these intellectuals made it their mission to undermine this culture. Thus, "cultural Marxism" was born.

When Hitler rose to power in 1933, the predominately Jewish intellectuals of the Frankfurt School fled to New York City where they continued their work at Columbia University. After WWII, many of the intellectuals returned to Germany, but Marcuse opted to stay in the United States where he eventually became a pop icon for the New Left and the 60's hippie generation. Of particular interest to us is Marcuse's 1965 essay "Repressive Tolerance" which is, I argue, the basis for the second line of argument presented above.

In the essay, Marcuse argues that tolerance of free thought and expression should not be viewed as valuable in itself, but should be considered in the context of the society in which it is upheld. For him, "the function and value of tolerance depend on the equality prevalent in the society in which tolerance is practiced." He writes that, in a society such as ours, "the conditions of tolerance are 'loaded': they are determined and defined by the institutionalized inequality (which is certainly compatible with constitutional equality), i.e., by the class structure of society." He goes on to explain that, in a society marked by inequality, access to the means of communication, and hence the instruments of interpretation, is dominated by the forces of the status quo. The media, who Marcuse characterizes as "themselves the mere instruments of economic and political power" are exemplary in this respect.

For Marcuse, free speech is not problematic in itself, if it takes place among rational and autonomous actors, but in a society marked by inequality and what he characterizes as "indoctrination," free speech, in the aggregate, serves the interests and furtherance of those in power at the expense of the "oppressed." To counter this effect, Marcuse proposes we shed the content-neutral "repressive tolerance" and adopt a discriminatory "liberating tolerance." In order to adopt liberating tolerance in a society marked by indoctrination, Marcuse states that "apparently undemocratic means" must be employed, including "the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc." In other words, Marcuse asserts that "liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left."

While Marcuse admits that this marks an "extreme suspension of the right of free speech and free assembly," he feels that it "is indeed justified only if the whole of society is in extreme danger. [And] I maintain that our society is in such an emergency situation, and that it has become the normal state of affairs."

While this essay was written in 1965, one can only assume that, if Marcuse were around today, he would still consider his plea for the adoption of liberating tolerance just as applicable. But even if this is not the case, it is clear that his line of argument is readily adopted and employed by those seeking to stifle the expression of conservative ideals. If it existed solely in the minds of those on the marginal Left, it would not be dangerous in itself. However, this thinking, which is anathema to the First Amendment's protection of free speech, is widely held and put into practice by university administrators throughout our country in the form of "hate speech" codes.

A 2010 report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) which examined the speech policies at 375 of America's largest and prestigious colleges and universities revealed that, of those schools surveyed, 71% of the public schools and 70% of the private schools unconstitutionally restricted student speech.

In the aftermath of the UNC debacle last year, one of the many unsuccessful attempts by Leftists on campus to flip the script and declare themselves victims was to push for the adoption of such a "hate speech" code on campus which would effectively censor groups like YWC who support the enforcement of our nation's immigration laws and the priority of American citizens over foreign nationals (Congressman Tancredo's speech was to be against the "DREAM Act" which would provide in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants, but not American citizens who aren't residents of the given state).

Clearly, ideas do not exist in a vacuum, and given the state of today's universities, the petition of a radical, Marxist intellectual to openly violate our nation's First Amendment rights has become entrenched policy. The good news is there is some precedent for such codes being overturned and civil liberties groups like FIRE have led the charge in defense of free speech. Any students interested in combating their university's Marcusian logic should contact FIRE and consider starting a YWC chapter to turn up the heat on the corrupt administrators who revel as they shove "liberating tolerance" down our throats.

Marcuse claimed that his “liberating tolerance” was necessary in order to protect the oppressed and confront the powerful. As the tenured radicals, left-wing administrations, and pampered student groups like SDS all try to censor commonsense conservative speech, Marcuse’s ideas now serve the establishment itself. The only real rebels fighting against oppression on a college campus wear the black shirt and the war hammer.

When we made our new website, we lost some of the stuff on the old Western Youth website.  I found this in the archives.  This is from April 2009, in the aftermath of the first Tom Tancredo event at the University of North Carolina.  This is me on the Mark and Jim show in Los Angeles. 

Obviously, we are in a much different place now than where we were then.  However, as the Tea Party movement and the Arizona controversy has grown since then, I think my point is even more relevant.  Has any conservative group, ever, even in the midst of the supposedly terrifying rise of right wing populism, ever shouted down a liberal speaker?  (Ok, besides Congressman Joe "You Lie" Wilson.)  Any conservatives throwing bricks through windows while leftists try to talk?

Here's a tip for every conservative -- no matter what you do, you are the bad guy.  Leftists can protest, use extreme rhetoric, flaunt radical connections, and even use violence.  No one will care.  The double standard is there because leftists are the establishment.  The establishment actively favors what is happening to this nation.  They are in power -- we are occupied.  Recognize that, and you'll be ready to start mobilizing for real change in this country.

In this week's installment of YWC Radio, I discuss the Tancredo speech at UNC, the situation of YWC at Providence College, and what Saul Alinsky can teach us.

YWC president Kevin DeAnna has summed up pretty much everything I had to say about Tom Tancredo's appearance at UNC Chapel Hill. The media exaggerated the number of walkouts, Tancredo's speech was well received by the audience, and the action taken by SDS didn't live up to the hype. When the event was over, I was amazed that it had went off without incident. I hadn't expected such a cakewalk.

A few dirty leftists showed up to protest our event. These crazy people exist on every college campus. According to Wikipedia, UNC Chapel Hill has 28,135 active students. I saw anywhere from 14 to 20 communist agitators outside the Student Union and maybe 100 gathered around in a semi-circle watching their little circus. The vast majority of students - in particular, natives of North Carolina - could not be persuaded to support their sanctimonious grandstanding.

YWC received messages of support from across the Tar Heel state. Locals repeatedly called to thank us for standing up to the Left's radical agenda on North Carolina campuses. Lots of good folks from North Carolina sent us inquiries asking what they could do to help. Like Virginia and Florida, North Carolina is another Southern state that trended blue in 2008, but has since dramatically reversed course in 2010. President Obama and the Democratic Party have lost a lot of their credibility there.

Outside the bastions of liberalism, North Carolina is still a relatively conservative Southern state. I've been told the Tea Party movement is especially active in the mountainous areas of Western North Carolina. These people look upon the communist scum of SDS with utter contempt. They don't represent North Carolina or its values. The typical voter in North Carolina rejects the SDS message that "no human being is illegal."

While Kevin was inside with Tancredo, I spent a fair amount of time outside watching the small protest. A lot of people stopped to watch for the same reason they look at car accidents. I took some photos and shot a few minutes of video with my digital camera. It was mostly uneventful bile about how YWC is a "white supremacist" organization and Tom Tancredo is a "racist." I laughed out loud at the dire warning that Arizona is now an apartheid state. Do mainstream voters in North Carolina believe that nonsense? I don't think so.

Inside the building, Tom Tancredo patiently explained over and over again that anyone can assimilate and become an American. I lost count of how many times emphasized that their was no racial barrier to American citizenship, but that Americans should at least share a common culture and set of political principles, which is more or less the mainstream view. His actual message was lost on the morons assembled outside in their ignorance convention.

Here are the facts:

1.) Tom Tancredo and YWC are not calling for the restoration of Jim Crow or anything resembling "white supremacy."

2.) Tom Tancredo and YWC do not support racial discrimination. As Tancredo pointed out, there is no racial barrier to becoming an American.

3.) Tom Tancredo and YWC do not believe that some races are "superior" and others are "inferior." There is literally nothing on this website about any of that.

Pretty simple, right? So simple a caveman could understand it. The charges of "racism" and "white supremacy" are spurious and false. Which opens up a whole new can of worms.

I can say without a shadow of doubt that "racist" and "fascist" are the most abused words in the English language. Originally, they had a discernible and objective meaning, but now they are just crude epithets that people use to attack and shout down groups they don't like.

The radical Left has been pushing the envelope: "racism," which used to be mean racial discrimination or the belief in the superiority and inferiority of races, has been broadened to include all angry white people, in particular those who support America and Western civilization, and who are suspicious of concentrations of power. The Tea Party movement has been tarred for over a year now with the racism brush.

The good news is that the Left has exhausted all the capital and good will it accumulated under George W. Bush in less than two years. Patriotic Americans are furious and pushing back against their maligners. YWC pushed back the radical Left at UNC Chapel Hill. They were unsuccessful in their attempt to disrupt our event this year.

I came away from UNC Chapel Hill with the impression that SDS and these other crazy groups are a small vocal minority - a mouse that roared - and that we could bury them if we only got our act together. YWC will be holding more of these events in the future.

Update: The photos we shot of the SDS protest are on Flickr. My two videos above are on YouTube. A longer video we shot will be uploaded to YouTube some time this afternoon or evening.

I just returned from our event at the University of North Carolina where Congressman Tom Tancredo spoke to a supportive audience.  Conservatives from around the state -- and even outside the state -- attended to hear Congressman Tancredo's common sense message about border security, conservative resistance to big government, and pride in our shared Western Civilization.  Thanks to both the Patrick Henry Center and CampusReform.org for their help in funding and promoting this event. 

The media is reporting that 100 protesters walked out of the speech. I think they added a zero to that estimate.  The fact is, after all the talk, and all the posturing, and all the militant rhetoric about shutting us down, all we had to deal with tonight is a tiny group of little kids who couldn't even summon the numbers to form a halfway decent drum circle.  We barely noticed when they left and were laughing hysterically.  This is it?  This is the great left wing vanguard?  I've seen more leftists at half price day at Starbucks. 

Tom's speech was well received by the audience.  During the question and answer period, Tom was able to speak on a wide range of topics and mingle with audience members afterward for more discussion.  A number of people approached me afterwards and asked, "What exactly is controversial about this?"  I've been asking the same question for a year now. 

This is a great victory for Youth for Western Civilization.  In the year since our last visit, even with the loss of some major grant programs that we used to fund speeches last year, we've built a full time staff, formed new chapters around the country, and gained increasing legitimacy within the conservative movement.  We are immeasurably stronger than last year.  We are poised for a strong finish to this school year and will shock the country with our presence next fall. 

Special thanks to Daryl Ann Dunigan, chairman of UNC YWC, for making this possible.   

We will have pictures, video, and more reports about this event tomorrow.  This is a big week for us so stay tuned to WesternYouth.org for more updates about events from around the country.

Conservatives, YWC is the campus resistance.  We are growing, and we will win.  Join us today!

News report on the violent leftist protest of former congressman Tom Tancredo at a University of North Carolina YWC sponsored event.

A rally was held today in defense of those who stifled free speech at UNC during both the Virgil Goode and Tom Tancredo events. One protester held a sign that said "Dissolve YWC" while others held signs advocating the enactment of "hate speech" codes at UNC. This, in effort to fully realize Marcuse's dream of liberating tolerance.

One protester, Ben Carroll, is the president of UNC's chapter of the radical left-wing Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Ben was responsible for organizing the protests gainst former Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode. See him here at 1:16 protesting Virgil Goode. Ben is also the go-to guy for the students who denounced the police upholding the rule of law and was one of the first to sign a formal complaint against police action.

What's not so surprising about the president of UNC SDS and the organizer of these protests is that he self-identifies his political views on Facebook as "Marxist" and lists "radical politics" as an interest.

Also true to form, another SDS member at today's protest, Kosta Harlan, self-identifies his political views as "Communist".

The irony is that students of the same political persuasion as those banned from speaking at UNC during the 60's are now openly urging UNC to adopt a similar policy to ban those who advocate the enforcement of America's immigration laws.

Kids hate to hear "My, how you've changed!"

No kid ever hated that more than I hated watching the hard evidence of change in the way my beloved University of North Carolina treats visiting speakers on controversial topics. The video showed former Rep. Tom Tancredo being given the kind of welcome our crowd used to give only to visiting football teams in Kenan Stadium.

I refuse to vent the feelings of a University of North Carolina (UNC) grad (class of '52) watching that scandalous stomping, chanting, marching, banner-unfurling, vulgar, insulting, and humiliating disruption of Tancredo's speech. The best boxers never show their pain.

Tancredo was there to speak in favor of immigration; the legal kind. Early in the proceedings activists of the Dream Act Amnesty movement, a kind of "Who-needs-borders? Y'all come!" physically shut him up, shut him down, and shut him out.

Somebody heaved a brick through a window and security personnel declared the proceedings at an end. Tancredo's appearance was sponsored by the UNC chapter of Youth for Western Civilization and videotaped by the president of ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration), William Gheen.

We saw and heard a Tancredo-supporter shouting, "You mean, all you have to do in America today if you don't like what somebody's saying is throw a brick through a five-dollar pane of glass? And that's it? The evening is over?" And that was it. The evening was over.

Rather than thrill the barbarians with my bourgeois outrage, let me spend a few words recalling the way things were then. My days in Chapel Hill, N.C., were during the Sen. Joe McCarthy era, the Cold War worldwide and a hot war against communism in Korea. Appearances by controversial political figures proliferated across the campus in venues large and small. But nobody, absolutely nobody, was subjected to rudeness or disruption of any kind.

The hottest show in town was a bona-fide card-carrying communist on the faculty named Hans Freistadt. Every fraternity and sorority fought to be next to invite Freistadt to dinner followed by his pro-communist speech and questions from the crowd. Sometimes this hottest attraction in town was varied by having Freistadt debate a Protestant minister named Charlie Jones.

Here we were, saying goodbye to classmates going off to war. Like the managing editor of our daily newspaper, the "Daily Tar Heel," Chuck Hauser, who became a severely wounded war hero in Korea, and then running off to hear what the enemy-sympathizing Freistadt had to say. When Herman Talmadge, segregationist governor of Georgia, appeared in Memorial Hall, a student dressed as a Ku Klux Klansman stood in a window outside the hall waving a cross and a torch. Light laughter. No disruption.

What do you do when you're taught in one class (journalism) to avoid cliches and all of a sudden you feel obliged to commit the most gigantic cliché of college life? I choose to surrender to the latter, which goes, "Isn't the exposure to alternative and even unwelcome views what a university is all about?

The closest thing to a disruption in my entire four years came in 1952 when the University of North Carolina became the first Southern university to admit black students without a court order. Tepid. Timid. But a major first step!!

Four black students were gingerly admitted to the Law School at Carolina in 1952. The university administration feared the combustibility of football, alcohol, hundreds of white fraternity men and their dates, rural white boys from a strict segregationist culture — and four black students sitting there amongst them. The university quietly asked the four black students to turn in their passbooks, which would have allowed them to sit in the student section of the stadium, in exchange for tickets in Section K, the Jim-Crow section set aside for black townspeople way off in one corner of the end zone.

Thirty-two student organizations including the Student Legislature and the Monogram Club — the athletes themselves — rose up and demanded our new black classmates be allowed to sit with us in the student section of home football games. "There shall be no second-class students," was our slogan.

We didn't march. We didn't chant. We didn't smash windows. We didn't disrupt.

We did something better.

We prevailed.

Original article can be found here.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got another chance last week to demonstrate how to handle controversial speakers, and this time the speaker did not have to be escorted out without speaking.

That's what happened two weeks ago with a former Colorado congressman and onetime presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, known for his anti-immigration views. Students protested that there should be "no dialogue with hate" and put on a pretty hateful show themselves. Between the shouting, demonstrating and breaking glass, campus police decided the safest course was to escort Tancredo out.

Last week, police led out protesters instead and put them under arrest.

The speaker this time was another former congressman, Virgil Goode of Virginia. He is known for his stands against affirmative action and immigration. The crowd that showed up to oppose Goode heckled and harassed him, but once the most disruptive ones were arrested, Goode was able to talk for about 20 minutes and take questions.

Chancellor Holden Thorpe said he regretted that arrests were necessary, but the audience for Goode's speech had been warned. "I want everyone to know that these six people do not represent what Carolina stands for when it comes to freedom of expression.

That's as it should be. There's plenty of room for disagreement on issues like immigration and affirmative action, but people with strong opinions sometimes have to agree to disagree. Everyone has a right to express their opinion.

Both speakers came to UNC at the invitation of Youth for Western Civilization, a campus group trying to make right-wing politics as at-home on the campus as left-wing groups are. Whether the group will reach that goal before running out of former congressmen remains to be seen. But it certainly has given the university and the rest of the state a teaching moment concerning free speech.

Original article can be found here.