Berkeley Mayor Is So Into Free Speech That He Asks College To Cancel Free Speech Week

The heckler’s veto in action

(San Francisco Chronicle) In the aftermath of a right-wing rally Sunday that ended with anarchists chasing attendees from a downtown park, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged UC Berkeley on Monday to cancel conservatives’ plans for a Free Speech Week next month to avoid making the city the center of more violent unrest.

“I don’t want Berkeley being used as a punching bag,” said Arreguin, whose city has been the site of several showdowns this year between, on the one hand, the left and its fringe anarchist wing, and on the other, supporters of President Trump who at times have included white nationalists.

“I am concerned about these groups using large protests to create mayhem,” Arreguin said. “It’s something we have seen in Oakland and in Berkeley.”

For the most part, the only people present on Sunday were…..Democratic Party voters. There were very few “right wing” protesters, and, really, should they have to worry about major violence and assault from people wearing masks while the police stand idly by and watch crimes occur? Furthermore, if the mayor is so worried about violence, perhaps he should work to protect those engaged in something that is guaranteed by both the federal and California Constitutions.

The mayor wants UC Berkeley to halt plans by a conservative campus group, the Berkeley Patriot, to host right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos during its scheduled Free Speech Week from Sept. 24-27. Berkeley’s right-vs.-left cage matches began with an appearance that Yiannopoulos was to have made in February at a campus hall, an event that was aborted when black-clad anarchists like those who broke up Sunday’s downtown rally stormed into Sproul Plaza, smashed windows and set bonfires.

Have you ever noticed that when a left wing speaker shows up on campus, there are no riots by large groups of right wingers wearing masks, carrying baseball bats, making threats, and so forth? It’s only when someone on the right shows up, because it’s the mayor’s voters who are violent. And he lets his police officers stand down. Every officer should be ashamed.

“I’m very concerned about Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and some of these other right-wing speakers coming to the Berkeley campus, because it’s just a target for black bloc to come out and commit mayhem on the Berkeley campus and have that potentially spill out on the street,” Arreguin said, referring to militants who have also been called anti-fascists or antifa.

You have a police force, sir. Why not use them to protect people engaged in their Constitutionally protected Right to Free Speech? Instead of giving in to the violence from the Left that you just admitted to?

“I obviously believe in freedom of speech, but there is a line between freedom of speech and then posing a risk to public safety,” the mayor said. “That is where we have to really be very careful — that while protecting people’s free-speech rights, we are not putting our citizens in a potentially dangerous situation and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the windows of businesses.”

Heckler’s Veto. Due to Democratic Party voter violence and threats.

Perhaps we should rename this the Democrat’s Veto.

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20 Responses to “Berkeley Mayor Is So Into Free Speech That He Asks College To Cancel Free Speech Week”

  1. Jeffery says:

    Thanks, “Mr. fake president”. tRump could have stopped neo-Nazis, the Klan and white supremacists by telling the nation in no uncertain terms that their racist messages were unAmerican and would not be tolerated. Instead, tRump slammed the counterprotesters, and the white supremacists took this, correctly, as a sing of affirmation from the most powerful person on Earth.

    The Anti-Defamation League is concerned that the large display of hatred in Charlottesville “could inspire copycat incidents or acts of hate against Jews or Jewish institutions in other parts of the country,” the group said in a statement.
     
    The ADL provided a lengthy list to HuffPost of anti-Semitic incidents over the past two weeks. A spokesman for the group says the number of incidents is “higher than usual” when compared with other recent two-week periods. 

    On Aug. 13, someone drew a swastika on the door of a woman’s home in Manistee County, Michigan. 
    On Aug. 14, a 17-year-old boy allegedly threw a rock at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, shattering one of the memorial’s glass panels. (In June, a 21-year-old man was arrested for doing the same thing.) 
    On Aug. 15, a 37-year-old man was arrested for damaging flowers that had been left at the memorial. 
    On Aug. 15, the anti-Semitic slur “KIKE” was spray-painted on a building in Washington, D.C. 
    On Aug. 15, a swastika and the words “WAR IS COMING!” were spray-painted on a wooden neighborhood fence in Bakersfield, California. 
    On Aug. 15, a swastika was found painted on a high school in Santa Rosa, California. 
    On Aug. 15 or 16, someone spray-painted swastikas on the driveway of a home in Lakewood, Ohio. Earlier that week, someone smashed in the windows of that family’s car. 
    On Aug. 15, someone shattered the glass doors at a synagogue in Queens. 
    On Aug. 16, a swastika and the initials “SS” were spray-painted on palm trees in Miami. 
    On Aug. 16, a large swastika and the word “Trump” were spray-painted near Goleta, California.
    On Aug. 16, a swastika was painted on a restaurant in New Milford, Connecticut. 
    On Aug. 17, an unidentified vandal threw rocks at the glass windows of a synagogue in Alameda, California, shattering them. 
    On Aug. 18, a swastika was discovered on a sign in a park in Conejo Valley, California. 
    On Aug. 18, a neo-Nazi hung banners reading “UnJew Humanity” and “Jewish Financing Available” from a highway overpass near Springfield, Oregon.
    On Aug. 18, 15 swastikas and messages including “Jews die” were found spray-painted at a skate park in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 
    On Aug. 18, swastikas were spray-painted on a sidewalk near a bus stop in Bellevue, Washington. 
    On Aug. 19, swastikas and the word “Trump” were spray-painted on a street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 
    On Aug. 19 or 20, someone spray-painted a swastika on a sidewalk outside an Orthodox synagogue in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 
    On Aug. 19 or 20, anti-Semitic flyers bearing the name of the white supremacist group American Vanguard were posted at multiple locations in Asbury Park, New Jersey. 
    On Aug. 20, a family in Westerville, Ohio, discovered the word “Jew” written in shaving cream near their driveway. Their neighbors also found Nazi flyers in their front lawns. 
    On Aug. 21, a swastika was found carved into the green at a golf course in Lakeville, Minnesota. 
    On Aug. 21, a swastika was painted on a sidewalk near an elementary school in Las Vegas. 
    On Aug. 21, swastikas and a bomb threat were discovered carved into the walls of a Washington State University dormitory in Pullman, Washington, prompting an evacuation. 
    On Aug. 22, a 24-year-old man was arrested for spray-painting swastikas, “Heil Hitler” and other messages specifically targeting Jews and blacks at multiple locations in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. The man claimed to be associated with white supremacist groups.

  2. Dana says:

    President Trump filled his Administration with players from Goldman-Sachs, a heavily Jewish firm. The Secretary of the Treasury is Jewish, his daughter and son-in-law are Jewish, a significant part of his Administration is Jewish.

    This is what the left have forgotten: the things that conservatives admire most, the personality and behavior traits we say are most admirable, are found in great quantities in the Jewish community. Conservatives say that people should work hard in school, to get the best grades, and win admission to the best schools, then work hard in those colleges and strive for the best positions they can in professional life; that is very much the ethos of the American Jewish community. The white supremacists, as Robert Stacey Stacy McCain said, tend to be the more inferior white men, the ones who are losing out in competition with other people, white or black, Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Gentile.

    Your now-standard tactic to to try to conflate all conservatives with the KKK, but we aren’t buying it.

  3. Tuesday morning links

     How to Whistle With Your Fingers Cool old photos  The most interesting pictures are of ordinary things   These are the names no one’s using for their babies anymore Why America Still Hasn’t Learned the Lessons of Katrina -…

  4. Jeffery says:

    It was conservative marchers in Charlottesville chanting “Blood and Soil” and “Jews Won’t Replace Us”, not the coutnerprotesters. And it was these white supremacists marchers carrying swastika flags. And almost-president tRump equated these horrible men with the counterprotesters, calling some of them “fine people”,

    We’ve yet to hear tEACH or his minions unequivocally state that neo-Nazism, the Klan and white supremacy is unacceptable in the US.

  5. Rotterdam says:

    The idea of there being a spectrum from left wing to right wing originates from the French Revolution, where those who supported the establishment sat on the right, and those who sought to overturn it sat on the left of the assembly room.

    Now if we look closely at that array of criteria for assigning the labels ‘left’ and ‘right’, the common threads that appear are that leftist traits tend to be opposed to the establishment, concerned with change and ‘progress’, where as the traits associated with the right wing tend to support the establishment, and are concerned with opposing change and maintaining existing (or reverting to historical) arrangements of social relationships.

    Accordingly, anarchism is broadly speaking a left wing grouping of philosophies, as opposition to hierarchal authority (which is the common thread uniting all anarchists) can’t be reconciled with supporting the establishment or conserving existing social arrangements. Anarchism is inherently opposed to the reality we live in.

    So in response to Jeffery’s cut and paste expose of White Supremacy, the counter to this is the lefts anarachism which almost nothing is spoken of in the Nations press as they burn buildings, cars and property in an effort to bring chaos where there is none.

    So each side has their groups that are by their nature counter productive to the main stream that is America. That does not mean Trump is a Nazi nor does it mean Obama or Clinton is an Anarchist. Yet using Mr. Jeffery’s continuing obsession with labels then one must by default assign all Leftists as anarchists if all those on the right are ascribed as White supremes or KKK or Neo-Nazis.

    By default the argument put forth by the left is not a sound argument but it does have traction if no one dares to push back against the narrative with a simple fact. Equal amounts of Murder, death and chaos are created by both sides.

  6. Jl says:

    Iowahawk had a good one- “there are 347 genders but politics boils down to people who agree with me and Nazis.” Or something of the sort. Such is J’s infantile view of the world

  7. Jl says:

    Even funnier-“a swastika was found here, a swastica was found there, and there, and there….. “. Calm down, J, they’re just symbols. Remember what libs would say when someone would burn an American flag? “It’s just a symbol…..”

  8. Jeffery says:

    Defending the Nazis…

  9. Jeffery says:

    White supremacy is a racist ideology based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore white people should be dominant over other races.

    This is what neo-Nazis, the Klan and white supremacists/nationalists believe.

    The other side disagrees with that. Which side are you on?

    We all wish that the anti-KKK, anti-Nazi, anti-supremacists had the discipline and peaceful intentions of the swastika waving, racist chanting, semi-auto toting Nazis and Klansmen, who in Charlottesville, only shot at one counterprotester and only ran over 20, killing only one. But people being people, sometimes symbols such as swastikas, confederate flags and racist chants evoke, perhaps even provoke, reactions.

  10. Jeffery says:

    The far-right (and their useful idiot of the moment, tRump) wants to normalize white supremaicsts, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as just another set of voices with a viewpoint to be considered.

    Decent America rejects that notion. You want to equate white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan with other protest groups. Note that the groups you defend support establishing a white christian nation, excluding Blacks, Mexicans, gays, Jews and Muslims. You equate the groups you defend with BLM, a movement that demands that police stop shooting Black people.

  11. Jeffery says:

    What “left-wing speakers” preach destroying the core of America like the white supremacists do? Name the “left-wing speakers” who are provocateurs for pay like Coulter and Yianopoulis?

    We actually believe that the white supremacists, Coulter and Yianaopoulis be allowed to speak at universities, to spew their venom, and that police protect them from those that respond with violence. The best approach is to ignore the provocateurs and let their “ideas” die with them.

    Question: How do you feel about Islamist imams radicalizing teenage Muslims in mosques in the US?

    • Rotterdam says:

      What is the difference between Imams radicalizing teens in USA Mosques to the rise of White supremacy or the KKK?

      They both have the same goal. To destroy that which they disagree with. The right in your country wishes to clamp down on people who would kill any American. The difference largely remains one of perception. Yes the groups that you mention as evil are indeed hate filled collectives of individuals who have warped the idea of ideology of Nationalism to mean something that it is not nor was ever intended to be.

      Nationalism is the strength of a nation combined. The collective of citizens, its economic, social and military power projected in a way that makes the citizens of such a nation proud.

      Neither Anarchists nor Radial Muslims or Radical drug dealers or La Raza who believe in force to take back America, Nor Neo-Nazis or KKK, or White Supremes with the same force agenda, accurately express the true meaning of nationalism.

      Again you conflate groups to make a point. You label one group bad then assign all people on the right as bad because that group supports Trump. Something the right does not do. They specifically target Illegals who are here illegally. Not all Hispanics. They target radical islam and not Islam itself(the classic example of this would be why not ban all Muslim countries from entering the USA rather then just a select few because of the overwhelming violence of radicals in those nations?) or the millions upon millions who practice the religion.

      The lefts argument is weak. It is a lie. 95 percent of all Conservatives do not endorse or support the KKK, Neo-Nazis or White Supremes. Where as I would argue based upon the extreme out pouring of support from not only your media but hollywood and public institutions of higher learning that the number that supports the leftist violent agenda is much greater then 5 percent.

      This is because of one simple cause. The left is infiltrated by communist agents of not only Russia, but Cuba, China as well as inciters to violence discovered to be from Venezuela as well as Muslim agitators from many Muslim countries around the world.

      TL:DR Both sides have their demons. It is just one side embraces their demons driven by outside forces while the other side with an equal amount of demons does not embrace them, they simply tolerate them as they believe the constitution allows for it.

      • Jeffery says:

        You label one group bad then assign all people on the right as bad

        No need to lie to make your point. We’ve said repeatedly that not all conservatives are neo-Nazis, Klansmen or white supremacists, but the inverse is certainly true. Unfortunately, the current occupier of our White House made matters worse as he refused to denounce the neo-Nazis, Klansmen or white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, giving their movement oxygen. He made the same argument you make: equating neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists with those who oppose Nazism, the KKK and white supremacy. That’s just not true.

        Your contention that both sides are equally bad is not supported by evidence.

        America defeated the confederate traitors and the KKK before. The greatest generation defeated the Nazis. Why are we having to do it again? Were both sides equally at fault in WWII?

        • Rotterdam says:

          Once again you conflate arguments. Which is what you leftist are remarkable at. We are discussing the KKK vs anarchists yet you then bait and switch the argument to the Axis vs the allies to equate the two.

          This is poor form. It is also a debate killer because the debate cannot happen if both sides are not willing to address the matter before them.

          The Truth is simple. The left has its fair share of violent, hate filled anarchists who want to bring America down. They literally want the government to collapse and be replaced with an anarchist government. This movement is driven by Russia, China, cuba, Venezuela and Muslim extremists from many countries.

          On the right you have KKK, White Supremes and Neo-Nazis who are equally evil and who want the government to crush anyone who is of ethnic minority.

          Which is the greater evil? That is subjective. Your equivalence that one side is more evil then the other cannot stand the light of scrutiny. Unless you are the one scrutinizing.

          Both sides of the political isle need to clean house and then civil discourse can begin again in America. The world depends on a stable America and right now the only thing we see from America is a bunch of stupid Americans racing towards another civil war goaded by outside elements who are laughing at you with everything that consumes them.

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