A conservative flamethrower is silenced

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Ann Coulter is no shrinking violet when it comes to speaking her mind or sharing her convictions. She is a conservative social and political commentator, writer, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. Her books and speeches are provocative, sometimes controversial, and occasionally inflammatory. I would call them lively and impassioned.

Coulter apparently was planning to speak at the University of California at Berkeley on Thursday, but a significant contingent of students protested the idea of Coulter speaking on campus because they cannot bear to hear opinions that do not emanate from the left.

I am sure Berkeley has earned its reputation as a prestigious university with many serious students who respect a variety of viewpoints, but there obviously are a number of hypersensitive snowflakes who refuse to tolerate ideas they don’t like.

Those students rant and rave, wear masks and helmets to protect their identity and destroy property in order to accomplish their objectives. In February they railed against Milo Yiannopoulos, a British media personality associated with the political right, and protested his visit to the campus, causing $100,000 in damages, and got his speech cancelled.

Earlier this month, almost two-dozen people were arrested near the university campus when opposing groups clashed over President Trump’s policies.

A campus conservative group, Young American’s Foundation, had invited Coulter to speak at Berkley and cancelled her speech, saying that campus police were given a “stand down” order in case violence broke out at the event.

Coulter stated, “I’m very sad about Berkley’s cancellation, but my sadness is greater than that. It is a dark day for free speech in America.”

Berkley officials indicated that they wanted Coulter to come, but wanted her to come in May when they could have adequate time to plan a safe event.

Nicholas Kirks, Cal chancellor, was quoted as saying, “This is a university, not a battlefield. We must make every effort to hold events at a time and location that maximizes the chances that First Amendment rights can be successfully exercised and that community members can be protected.”

Perry Stein and William Wan of The Washington Post wrote, “Known for decades as a bastion of free speech, Berkeley has become an ideological – and actual – battleground, where even proposals to bring a polarizing speaker to campus are creating a wrenching dilemma. Now, the university – known as the birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement – has been forced to weigh the values of free expression that it has long championed against the safety of its students and community.”

One news agency called Coulter a “conservative flamethrower,” and that may be an accurate description.

In her book The Church of Liberalism – Godless she dissects the theory of evolution by saying, “Darwiniacs do not have a single observable example of one species evolving into another by the Darwinian mechanism of variation and selection. All they have is a story. It is a story that inspires fanatical devotion from the cult simply because their story excludes a creator.

“Evolutionists act as if they were the first people on Earth to notice similarities among various species, but this wasn’t a new concept. Biologists had always grouped animals by what they looked like. No one disputes that a monkey looks like a human, especially in the case of Al Franken.”

On the issue of abortion, Coulter writes, “No liberal cause is defended with more dishonesty than abortion. No matter what else they pretend to care about from time to time – undermining national security, aiding terrorists, oppressing the middle class, freeing violent criminals – the single most important item on agenda is abortion. To a liberal 2,200 military deaths in the entire course of a war in Iraq is unconscionable, but 1.3 million aborted babies in America every year is something to celebrate.”

Yes, I guess Ann Coulter is a conservative flamethrower, but she is aiming her flame in the right direction and she should be given the right to speak her mind. If she is silenced, it may not be too long until you are as well.

We must fight for our First Amendment rights and religious liberty in particular.

Ann Coulter, Berkeley, free speech, liberty, protest, Republicans