Berkeley was renowned as the home of the free speech movement. But those leftists who believed that free speech was an effective tactic for their cause have long since been upstaged by those who believe that dissent must be silenced by any means.
The latter always existed, but their views have become dominant and mainstream as I discussed in this week's article. There is little opposition among liberals to their rhetoric and even their tactics. And there is a great deal of support.
Once rhetoric is translated into reality, that means forcibly silencing people you disagree with. That is what we once again saw at Berkeley. As with BLM riots, the media describes violence as just "breaking out" as if it were a force of nature. It is hesitant to assign blame, which all but tells you who the perpetrators were. Hidden among the passive phrasing is the stench of complicity.
But this hasn't been new in a while. Violence has been "breaking" out at rallies in support of Trump by those who believe that anyone to the right of Obama should have no free speech.
That is the argument we saw this week in the Wellesley News. And it's gathering force. And that force translates into real force. And so another rally ends with bleeding people being scooped off the sidewalk. It's Berkeley. And it seems appropriate that the place where the free speech movement was born is where free speech would go to die in the darkness of mainstream media lies.