"I have my flights, so I thought I might stroll around the graveyard of the First Amendment," Coulter said in an emailed message when asked if she was still coming to Berkeley.
April 26, 2017
"Ann Coulter said Wednesday that she was forced to cancel her speaking event Thursday at the University of California, Berkeley amid concerns of violence..."
"... calling it 'a dark day for free speech in America.'"
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Speaking of pompous conservatives who are not bland.
Interesting that she gave a shout out to Bill Maher and Chris Matthews (of all people) for supporting her right to speak.
She would've shown up and spoke, if her sponsor, Young Americans For Freedom, hadn't cucked. She could stand the heat, but they couldn't.
Hopefully, she and Milo can get together and do an event at Berkeley.
"Hopefully, she and Milo can get together and do an event at Berkeley."
If they could add Alex Jones the libs there may even figure out who's playin who.
People mention Berkeley was the home of the "free speech movement"
Well, all I can do is quote Sontag:
"They don't need free speech in Russia, they have Socialism".
Though her advice following 9/11 (Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity) was a bit harsh, I bet it would have worked.
Brilliant tactically. The Berkeley Lefties get a figurative black eye. And if any of them have the guts to drive out to Modesto to protest there they may get some real ones. The worm has turned.
Good to know that threats of violence can silence Republicans.
I guess this just means we'll get more of it.
Imagine if African-Americans were told by a lawfully appointed police force, "Well, you can try to vote, but we can't guarantee your safety."
Imagine if a transgender were told by a lawfully appointed police force, "Sure, you can use the bathroom of your choice, but we can't guarantee your safety."
This has lunged so far beyond Ann Coulter.
Imagine the next conservative speaker being told, "We can't guarantee your safety" and responding, "That's quite all right. I brought my own security. They can."
Where would such an impasse leave a college or municipality?
I don't even like Coulter or Milo, but if people will use violence to silence them, how long before they decide that, hey, that moderate guy should ALSO be threatened to shut up.
How long before leftwing fascists go official brown-shirt?
Oddest thing about Coulter is the undercurrent of sexism in the Conservative movement toward her.
Basically, a lot Conservative talk show hosts and writers seem jealous of her. There complimentary of course, but it always seems forced or qualified.
Bottom line: Some dudes just can't handle that a chick is smarter, funnier, and is more courageous than they are.
Thatcher put up with the same crap. A lot of weak-kneed Tories couldn't stand that Thatcher would stand strong while they folded like cheap suits. Gutless men don't like to be shown up, but to be shown up by a women really pisses them off.
"How long before leftwing fascists go official brown-shirt?"
-- Frankly, when your group's biggest claim to fame is frightening an entire city into surrendering their rights, you're already there.
Also, Berkeley needs to fire people and expel people. If your campus is literally unsafe for people who think differently, you've failed as a university.
She might speak to Steve Hayward's class at Berkeley. Imagine she sneaks in wearing a full burka.
Hayward hinted at in on Power Line.
Yawn. People who slobber about the First Amendment are rarely productive in society.
Show me a Constitutional-condom wearer, and I'll show you a person who couldn't operate a fishing pole if their life depended on it.
The woman needs to get a job. She needs to stop letting illegal immigrants take her place in industry.
It is a dark day, led by university professors, the leaders of the new Brownshirts.
Her two co-sponsors both cucked out on her.
Losers. Cowards. Cucks. "Conservatives"
Etienne,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, too? "The woman needs to get a job." One that won't have her killed.
This is what corrupt lefting democrats bring to education:
UC President Janet Napolitano hid $175 million while raising tuition, paying excessive salaries
If you're afraid of Ann Coulter and the things she might say, you might be a ninny. Even Bernie Sanders, the socialist with 3 homes, thinks Ann should able to speak freely.
(be)
We believe in free speech, except for hate speech - which we define broadly to include anything we don't like!
Saying corrupt and democrat is redundant.
@rcocean,
Interesting that she gave a shout out to Bill Maher and Chris Matthews
I can't speak to the relationship between Coulter & Matthews, but Maher & Coulter are good friends in real life. As is Coulter & Mickey Kaus.
I note that a large fraction of these "protests" involve female or gay people. People who don't match what they are supposed to be doing. Ali, Coulter, MacDonald, Yiannopoulos. The only one who doesn't fit is Charles Murray, and that's only because none of the college kids have actually read The Bell Curve, let alone anything he's written in the two-plus decades since.
She should troll those fuckers! Say she is coming to the Plaza on Thursday night at 8PM. Let the thugs rally, bring their friends in from out of state, arm up and head for the Plaza. No, sorry, it will be tomorrow night, Friday and Milo will be coming to join me. And so on. Meanwhile she sits in the Four Seasons in SF and observes on TV. We are shit at trolling these animals.
Where are the principled adults on the Left?
This is a defeat. The whole point of the sort of manifestations that Milo was into, and the reason the left so consistently shuts down conservative speakers, is so that conservative kids (and defecting faculty) will not realize their numbers and so gain confidence.
The universities operate politically through creating a climate of fear, where conservatives shut up out of concern for, most of all, career consequences, that are implied in every communication the institutions can manage to stick it. Any faculty with non-standard opinions is thereby even more effectively silenced. The weaker students fear the lesser sanction of social ostracism, which we can laugh at, but for many kids it is a very real thing.
This is why this business, apparently trivial, is extremely important. Culture is upstream of politics as Instapundit likes to say, and its true. What goes on in universities, the habit of fear and suppression, is the precursor to the same in all of the upper reaches of society in 10 or 20 years.
This situation, if it cannot be relieved, is one reason, the biggest, why I am a pessimist about the future of the US. The kids are not all right. They are paralyzed, incurious rule-followers who automatically censor their thoughts.
The Young America's Foundation is a non-profit organization.
Headquarters: Reston, VA
Founded: 1969
President: Ron Robinson
Motto: The Conservative Movement Starts Here
They may need to work on that motto. Close, but ...
Etienne,
Do you hire kids out of college?
I do.
Idiot.
I wonder what will happen when some idiot on the right threatens political violence during the next Obama Clinton speech.
Suppose Coulter or Milo or whoever brings her/his own security? Like the Hell's Angels. Fifty or a hundred bikers. I detest violence. I predict that with that kind of security the antifa would stay home or behave. Of course, I could be wrong. They might show up and challenge the bikers. That could be entertaining. Win-win.
Public Civility is making its way down to Prison Yard Rules.
Some people are going to get fucked in the ass who don't want to be fucked in the ass.
I am Laslo.
"What goes on in universities, the habit of fear and suppression, is the precursor to the same in all of the upper reaches of society in 10 or 20 years."
Yes to this. Very worrying. Get ready for the Venezuela experiment to hit our shores.
I wonder what would have happened if the Germans "who they came for" had done something besides bitching to each other about the brown shirts (fuck Godwin).
Alas, I have bullets for sale again (damn Capitalism).
"If your campus is literally unsafe for people who think differently, you've failed as a university." Depends on your definition of success. No Berkeley administrator is worried: they keep the crazy cons out, satisfy the faculty and student majority, keep the town Coulter-frei, and attract more self-selecting SJW's in future cohorts. The only thing that will change them is money, specifically federal money. The National Guard could, but Jerry ain't no Ronnie.
So much for Berkeley's vaunted reputation for free speech. The best antidote is mockery and derision. That includes mocking and deriding the pusillanimous faculty who were cowed by threats into going along. Let another more deserving university take up the cause of Free Speech.
Milo will march in with his white supremacist stormtroopers, raping and pillaging Berkeley. That's what my local antifa told me.
According to one of the bloggers over at Ace of Spades antifa is getting cold feet after the Easter Weekend Rumble.
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=369453
It is Alynski at work. And it wins most of the time, because it is a war and most people want peace at all costs. Only the Orange haired clown has the courage to fight to win. Andy Jackson redux.
It seems that our intellectual elites have decided that freedom of expression and freedom of association are the enemies of 'justice'.
The YAF put out this statement explaining their side of the story:
https://t.co/xmWjyFpqKd
Wait. Berkeley wouldn't even promise to politely ask masked demonstrators not to be violent?
... Yeah, I can see why YAF would back out. Berkeley was all but throwing them to the lions.
Annie Coulter has spit in Trump's eye in her latest column. She is spot on again.
Little Paulie Ryan must be giggling himself to sleep tonight. He wants nothing more than to see Trump slowly destroyed.
Gavin McInnis says he is taking up the speaking slot and he's on his way out there to call up the Proud Boys.
And YAF should fucking tool up and handle their shit. You don't defend your rights by complaining to a provost.
"Bottom line: Some dudes just can't handle that a chick is smarter, funnier, and is more courageous than they are."
Exactly! And I hate hate hated Michelle Bachman only because she is a petite woman of hues lacking the abundance of hues I like.
Why didn't everyone listen to Coulter and designate Chris Christie, you know, the portly law school graduate government striver from Jersey, as our best hope? I agree it was bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, and ultra-hate of the Y chromosome.
And that is why I never comment at Althouse here too, because I can't handle any non-male human that is smarter, funnier, and more courageous (see for reference the Walker recall reporting) than I am now or might become.
Matthew Sablan said...
Also, Berkeley needs to fire people and expel people. If your campus is literally unsafe for people who think differently, you've failed as a university.
4/26/17, 8:05 PM
What would someone defending Berkeley consider an impotent comment on a blog compared to all that power they in this case theoretically represent?
Failure might be the highest-regarded label they would argue, knowing Osama was correct that the mass of population(s) favor the strong horse.
If they start shooting water guns filled with scarlet paint at you will you still appeal to their (the collective institution) non-tangible, non-material non-ideals? As the paint sullies your eyes?
I respectfully ask you to consider the following lyrics in terms of University and not girls:
"Girls don't like boys girls like cars and money."
People mention Berkeley was the home of the "free speech movement"
I guess movements, like people, tend to return to their place of birth when they die.
Good to know that threats of violence can silence Republicans.
I guess this just means we'll get more of it.
On both sides. It's only a question of time until the bombs and guns come out. Fucking commies - anything that ideology touches withers and dies.
Janet Napolitano is head of the UC system. Why isn't she out there condemning the protestors who forced Coulter to cancel her UC Berkeley talk? Jerry Brown hasn't spoken up either. I can't imagine either of them remaining silent if the alt-right forced a black progressive to cancel a speech.
I don't know what authority the federal government has in all this. Maybe they are waiting for U.C. Berkeley to dig itself a hole it can't get out of without federal help. But I can remember Eric Holder sending in about 50 FBI agents into Ferguson to investigate civil rights abuses. I remember the Justice Department mobilizing itself to prosecute the cops who beat up Rodney King. Ann Coulter's right to give a speech at a public university were obviously disregarded at Berkeley. Shouldn't the Justice Department Civil Rights Division weigh in here?
Berkeley isn't the only place this is going on. Portland, Oregon, has (had) a tradition stretching back 80+ years of an annual Avenue of Roses Parade, and the whole thing has been cancelled because of "anti-fa" threats against Republicans who planned to march in it, and businesses who support(ed) the parade.
A sample of the threats:
"we will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out as we will not give one inch to groups who espouse hatred toward lgbt, immigrants, people of color or others. In case the message was not clear to you this is a sanctuary city and state and we will not allow these people tospread their views in East Portland.
You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely."
Damn. Correction: Portland has a Rose Festival that has been going on for 100+ years. However, I think this particular parade, though part of the Festival, is much more recent. Too little coffee.
"Though her advice following 9/11 (Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity) was a bit harsh, I bet it would have worked."
No, it wouldn't have.
Welp.
The soap box failed.
The ballot box still works, barely.
I would suggest that white conservatives and Christians keep the cartridge box close and handy. It seems to be that some seriously stupid people need to be reminded of which side of the political spectrum owns all the guns.
""Though her advice following 9/11 (Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity) was a bit harsh, I bet it would have worked."
In a couple of centuries, yes, absolutely.
Ann Coulter forgot to mention that this program of the European colonialists in places like Africa lasted for centuries.
In fact, I remember some older, wiser British pundits gave America some advice on the Iraq War occupation: "Do it the way we did it: Keep promising that you're going to leave Iraq real soon--but stay there for 200 years."
"So much for Berkeley's vaunted reputation for free speech."
Mario Savio would be appalled, as well should everyone who champions free speech.
At the University of Washington during a protest against Milo Yiannopoulos, Joshua Dukes, a computer-security engineer, was shot and suffered life-threatening injuries. He was shot by two pro-Trump supporters (Elizabeth and Marc Hokoana) who prosecutors allege deliberately provoked violence by pepper spraying the crowd prior to the shooting. Both Hokoana's have been charged.
The university administrators are now in a hopeless position. If another shooting occurs by people like the Hokoanas, then the university can and should be sued for negligence, given that it is now common knowledge that some lunatics will deliberately incite violence at these events so that they can respond with gun fire in a claim of self-defense. Shooting someone is the ultimate hecklers veto.
The Coulter affair keeps getting talked about as a free speech issue, but it has really now become instead a private, armed militia issue, the Berkeley campus police and the Berkeley municipal police having become the private, state-sponsored armed militias in question.
Rather than serve the entire Berkeley student body at large or the entire Berkeley, CA public at large, these militias have just announced they will henceforth use their martial force selectively, not on the basis of law as equally applicable to all people, but rather on the basis of which factions of the ostensibly equal public they favor and which they don't.
Syria on the Bay - with a flavored venti latte and a heavy slobbering of caramel.
Is that from your "Daily Mail" link? lol - the love-hate source for news.
It's disappointing that far too many left of center folks are silent about this quashing of free speech at the universities. Kudos to those who have spoken out. But if, say, Bernie Sanders was being shouted down and his supporters threatened by masked right-wingers, at, say, Texas A&M, I'd be pretty embarrassed. Never happens though.
ARM: Don't you think it is irresponsible to lie about the shooting? Don't you think noting Dukes was a known protester, was part of an "altercation" and that the self-defense claim so far has not been thrown out might, somehow, be worth mentioning? Don't you think mentioning that the video reportedly shows Hokoana retreating and Dukes advancing might be important, or that we know that Marc Hokoana had already been sucker punched and robbed that day by the very same protesters Dukes was a part of?
Instead of lying and ginning up hate and fear, why not wait for the investigation to actually finish? Stop being irresponsible.
"If another shooting occurs by people like the Hokoanas,"
-- Note ARM doesn't care about the broken bones suffered by pro-Trump supporters, the violence inflicted on them, or even if they get shot. Only if people like the Hokoanas engage in violence does ARM seem to care.
"Shooting someone is the ultimate hecklers veto."
-- If the Hokoanas are telling the truth, Dukes was not engaged in free speech. He was engaged in assault. Judging by the fact that the investigation is ongoing, there's at least reason to not immediately disbelieve their assertions, so shouldn't we wait before making things up?
ARM does not care if leftwing fascists shout down Ann Coulter, or if leftists shut down free speech in general.
ARM does not care about truth if there is a narrative to pedal.
Pepper spraying a violent crowd before escalating to using lethal force is actually a point in their favor. If we take all the evidence we've been given, we know that: Violent protesters came to shut down an event. Marc was sucker punched previously and robbed. As the protesters became more violent, the couple used pepper spray to non-lethally disperse the crowd. When that failed, Dukes was shot while Marc was retreating and he was advancing.
Unless more evidence comes up (or one of the parties is lying so convincingly that no one has been able to prove it yet with countless video), it seems like it matters whether the couple thought that a violent group that had attacked them once already, at least, and was threatening them and had proudly proclaimed it was not a crime to kill Nazis, which they assumed the couple was, might actually carry out their threats as they advanced or not.
We won't know until the investigation is finished, but again, judging by how the police have just let the couple go free, their argument is clearly not baseless.
Matthew - please don't look too closely at the facts, ARM has a narrative to push. We should judge first, ask questions later.
Good! Another cowardly fake intellectual media slut bites the dust. If MLK can take a bullet, so can a glib blond airhead. She should wear a Kevlar vest when she gives hate speeches in public. She's mastered the right-wing-talking-point shtick, and it's tiresome by now.
The real issues now are Trump's heinous corporate tax cut proposal to loot the U.S. Treasury to benefit the top 1%, and the imminent ICBM's from North Korea to destroy the world. This Annie Coulter story is a meaningless distraction from limitless greed and the coming nuclear holocaust.
Be careful with those facts, Matthew, or ARM will call you a partisan liar.
Don't you know that leftist violence is justifiable and conservatives should just shut up or let themselves be beaten and pepper-sprayed?
Matthew Sablan said...
If the Hokoanas are telling the truth
That is a very slim reed that you are desperately clinging to there. Clearly neither the police nor the prosecutors believe their story and they have much more knowledge of the case than you do.
"We can't expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot." -- V. Lenin
"I honor Lenin as a man who completely sacrificed himself and devoted all his energy to the realization of social justice." -- A. Einstein.
The Hokoanas cases are going to be interesting. The allegation is that the couple went to the protests in order to goad the protesters into forcing them to use force, and, in her case, deadly force, to protect themselves. (And, note that leftist protesters apparently routinely use pepper spray and the like defensively, and even offensively). But calling them libtards and the like shouldn't preclude them from claiming self defense if the mob responds. Sure, they were trying to goad the mob, but so what? Sticks and stones, etc. Or, are "libtard" and "snowflake" fighting words now? Even if they were, there is no legal excuse for the mob to put the couple in reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury.
I need to get my head more into WA self defense law, esp if I apply for a CCW permit there this year (WA isn't good on reciprocity, but does issue out of state permits, and we fly out of Spokane a lot). I am waiting to see what Andrew Branca says about this incident (likely at Legal Insurrection). His "The Law of Self Defense" is probably the best reference out there on the law in this area and how it differs state by state across the country.
Leftists love to pretend Coulter hasn't added anything to the debate. The fact that she is the individual most responsible for making conservatives aware of the Venona Project (which the NY Times buried as much as it could) is the real reason they hate her, since they can't rebut the Venona Project itself. At all.
This is why they are so insistent that she not be allowed to speak. All their pretensions otherwise are just that.
If you don't know what the Venona Peoject was, it was an Army project during the 50s that successfully decrypted Soviet cables and proved beyond doubt that, if anything, Joe McCarthy underestimated
Soviet infiltration of our government.
Read her book 'Treason'. You really cannot understand the Left's behavior over the last 70 years withour it. I consider it the singlemost must-read book of the 20th century.
@ARM:Clearly neither the police nor the prosecutors believe their story and they have much more knowledge of the case than you do.
Our police and prosecutors should always be deferred to, because they know more about it than we do.
I have never seen a progressive fail to trot this out whenever they think the cops and prosecutors are on their side. Like in Berkeley, where the cops kindly offer in advance to arrange symbolic arrests of you and your leftist friends, but do nothing to stop you and your leftist friends from smashing windows and ATMs.
Hate speech = speech we hate.
I actually empathize a bit with the prosecutor in the Hokoanas cases. My initial feeling is that their use of force in self defense would normally, in most states, be justified, regardless of their taunts. The problem is that the leftist mobs are causing counter protesters to cone armed for possible need in self defense. If the prosecutor doesn't nip this in the bud, there are going to be some dead leftist protesters who had been participants in mob action that posed a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury (which typically includes broken bones). And if this couple gets away with it, then that may be a green light for others to act similarly.
Of course , the problem there is that the police aren't playing this even handedly. Leftist mobs have been routinely committing violent crimes, such as assault, on the people that they are attempting to intimidate, and are very rarely arrested for it (unless, in Berkeley, they request arrest, and specify the time and place to the cops there). And that too is likely to end up with dead libtard snowflakes, or their paid thug surrogates.
Paco,
"we will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out "
Every single rusher-and-dragger should die, and their deaths should all be viewed as justifiable self-defense. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once opined for the Supreme Court, "Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife", and when you've been rushed-and-dragged by a mob, a Reasonable Person™ would indeed be in justifiable fear for his/her life.
ARM,
The "deliberately inciting violence" part is very much in question.
My hope is that any legitimately randomly-selected King County jury will nullify this prosecutorial overreach.
Cookie,
It sure worked in places where it worked! That's why converged organizations like the worldwide Anglican church are being supplanted by Nigerian organizations that still subscribe to traditional Christian morality.
BAG @ 8:07am,
Why would anyone on the "right" need to silence Bernie, when the BLM folks are already on the job?
Bruce,
One of my closest friends (I've literally known him since kindergarten) is personal friends with the King County prosecutor and swears he's a standup guy. Certainly for the most part the prosecutor has followed in the tradition of his (moderate Republican) predecessor and has been very self-defense friendly (the Westlake Mall self-defense shooting in 2006 is a great case in point--the police briefly interviewed the shooter, concluded it was self-defense, and the prosecutor's office engage in exactly 0% second-guessing.)
So I'm hopeful that the office in this case will get to the truth of things, as best they can determine, and not issue an indictment unless they think there is decent evidence. We shall see...
At the University of Washington during a protest against Milo Yiannopoulos,..
U-Dub is not in Berkeley, you one-note thread-jacking dope.
That is a very slim reed that you are desperately clinging to there
That is a very one-note flute you are desperately blowing on, there
" the individual most responsible for making conservatives aware of the Venona Project"
This was well covered by the WSJ and the then-less-partisan press at the time it came out in 1995, and was the subject of an interesting article by Patrick Moynihan.
There are of course a lot of old Democrats that would not like that brought up again, but the reveal was over twenty years ago and the Democrats and their allied academics principal sins on this score were even older.
Coulter did bring it up again effectively in her polemic case "Treason" (2003).
" This Annie Coulter story is a meaningless distraction from limitless greed and the coming nuclear holocaust."
Trumpit needs an intervention. Badly.
ARM is taking one side, as he usually does.
My point is that leftist violence, if not treated appropriately by police, which it is not, is going to provoke reprisals by people like this.
I'm not defending them. The prosecutor may determine that they were the offenders. My point again is that this is going to get someone killed and probably a leftist rioter or more than one.
From "but I will defend to the death your right to say it" to "and I will fight to the death to keep you from being able to say it" in, what, a generation and a half?
Buwaya:
The BS story of Abu Ghraib was "well covered" by 31 straight days of above the fold headlines in the NY Times. The Valerie Plame BS was "well covered". The Venona Project, which deserved 10 times as much coverage as either of those stories got, received maybe 1/50th of the coverage, and until Treason came out, hardly anyone, even on the Right, ever heard of it. She deserves massive credit for bringing more attention to it than it had ever previously received, IMO.
The problem is that the leftist mobs are causing counter protesters to cone armed for possible need in self defense. If the prosecutor doesn't nip this in the bud, there are going to be some dead leftist protesters who had been participants in mob action that posed a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury (which typically includes broken bones). And if this couple gets away with it, then that may be a green light for others to act similarly.
I fail to see the problem.
The problem is that the leftist mobs are causing counter protesters to cone armed for possible need in self defense. If the prosecutor doesn't nip this in the bud, there are going to be some dead leftist protesters who had been participants in mob action that posed a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury (which typically includes broken bones). And if this couple gets away with it, then that may be a green light for others to act similarly.
I fail to see the problem.
The left will continue to push and encourage violence until someone on the right decides to push back. The left points out this as an example of how fascist and violent the right wing / conservatives, etc are.
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