Overreaching in the wake of campus chaos

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We’ve been treated to a close up look at how bad humans can treat each other these past few weeks. We’ve heard about antisemitism.  We’ve heard about racism.  We’ve heard about overall bigotry.  It’s natural to want to wipe that stuff out of our society.

But IS government the right tool for doing that?  I believe it’s pretty safe to say that it is impossible to legislate or governmentally-mandate that people like each other and treat people nice.  It IS pretty fair to say that government has a role to protect people and their property from physical harm by others.

A lot of the outrageous behavior we’ve seen on TV and on the Internet these past few weeks?  There are already laws on the books against it.  It’s already illegal to threaten someone with violence. It’s already illegal for a mob to chase an innocent bystander down the street.  Vandalism is already illegal.  Breaking & Entering is already illegal.  Disturbing the Peace and Illegal Assembly also already run afoul of the law. Assault is already illegal.  Government is failing at one of its legitimate, top roles: protecting us from physically harming other people and their property.  ENFORCE THE LAWS WE ALREADY HAVE.

You may notice that most of the trouble is happening in very specific, confined areas: college campuses.  Over the decades, we’ve allowed college campuses to be taken over by far-left Marxist-Leninist radicals who see violence as a legitimate means to an end.  They’re in administration  and in the faculty.  And they’re brainwashing whole new generations thanks to our hard-earned tax dollars and savings.

Campus security has been watered-down and neutered in response to complaints from these hardcore leftists. At GW, my alma mater, “student groups” fought long and hard to disarm campus police. No guns, no pepper spray, no nothing.  (Remember, GW is in DC — the longtime murder capital of the US of A.)   It’s much easier to riot and behave beastly when the police have so little to respond with.  These nuts confine their mayhem to college campuses because they’re protected there.  (Imagine trying this crap off-campus in your average small town against your average county sheriff’s department.)

The current mayhem is not about an outbreak of antisemitism.  

We are seeing a lot of the same riff-raff that has been tearing up Portland, Oregon and Berkeley, California for decades.  These are a lot of the same people who rioted during World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. These are a lot of the same people who have rioted under the name Antifa and Black Lives Matter. These are a lot of the same people who rioted in DC during Trump’s 2017 inauguration (and during many points afterward).

These are a lot of the same people who rioted in Chapel Hill over publicly-displayed statues (Silent Sam) they found objectionable.  Instead of hammering home the message that you can’t just tear down stuff on public display that you don’t like, UNC and Chapel Hill authorities coddled the little hoodlums.  They basically cleared a path for the current nonsense you see now.

Israel is a convenient bogeyman for these troublemakers.  There’s a conflict going on right now in Gaza for them to point at as they riot.  This is just the latest attack on capitalism and the American Way by the people who brought you Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest.  You could remove every single Jew from Israel, and these campus rabble-rousers would soon have a different excuse to riot over. The Gaza conflict is merely the latest cover for their true intentions.

Politicians are notorious for recognizing an opportunity to pander and seizing on it.  The Congress, this week, rammed through something called The AntiSemitism Awareness Act.   The bill sets the federal government’s definition of “anti-semitism” to whatever the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) says it is.  So, if the feds want to come after you or your organization for “anti-semitism,”  they’re going to rely on whatever the IHRA – a 35 member international nongovernmental organization (NGO) — says.   In other words, a foreign-based organization will have an amazing amount of influence over the execution and enforcement of US law.

Here’s Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire with a pretty good commentary on the matter:

 

To make matter worse, Republicans in Raleigh – led by the awful Tim Moore – are trying to replicate this travesty in state law. 

According to the IHRA,  criticizing the government of Israel is worthy of branding you an anti-semite. Making a joke based on a Jewish stereotype – like, say, “cheapness” – can get you branded an anti-semite.

Once again, government CANNOT force people to like each other.  Government can step in to ensure college campuses are no longer the controlled-with-an-iron-fist playground of the radical left.  Government can make sure that laws are enforced just as vigorously on college campuses as they are off-campus.

Placing restrictions on speech is a chilling move that actually gives the current crowd of troublemakers out there exactly what they want.  Expanding freedom, while protecting the ability of law-abiding people to conduct their lawful business without harassment or assault by radical goons, is the way to go.  Kill off these bills – and this awful idea – at the state and federal level.