If you want your kids to go to a university that teaches tolerance for dissent, respect for free speech, and the ability to debate ideological opponents without screaming at them and waving ferrets in their faces, do not — I repeat, do not — send them to the University of Massachussetts....
Malkin is refering to a speech at The University of Massachusetts given by conservative pundit, writer, and blogger Don Feder.
His abreviated speech, specifically tailored to insight anger amongst many in attendance, focused primariy on the following:
Hate crime laws are fascism, fascism in the guise of protecting minorities.
Excepting laws against libel and slander, we have the freedom to spread lies and disinformation, the freedom to spread lies that are hurtful and even hateful, we have the freedom to say things that would enrage those who would suppress speech in the name of tolerance
Ah, the "fascism" bit. How original.
From the start, this event was doomed to end and be a nice little talking-point for people like Malkin.
Granted, there were verbal interuptions ( and someone was escorted away that had a ferret, but there was no mention of it being waved in someone's face ) but Feder seemed ready to end his speech before he even started.
While disrupting a speech is a rather poor way to show that you disagree with a speaker, it's almost expected when you have a someone like Feder who is doing the speaking. It's people like this - as well as Ann Coulter and David Horowitz - who provide nothing to advance the national dialogue on specific issue, but prefer to "shock".
So, the question to Malkin would be - are you advocating hate-speech?
When someone compares his audience to Nazis, I don't really see that there is anything to gain from their words.
Republican Club vice president Brad DeFlumeri, who organized the event, had this to say:
...the leftists who did attend made it quite clear quite early that they intended for the event to be shut down, that they intended to infringe upon Don Feder’s first amendment free speech rights.
Was there intent on their part?
It could easily be argued that Feder gave-up his free-speech rights because he realized that the audience had no desire to accept his hatred.
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