A brief guide to freedom of speech according to the left.
Criticism of Bush/Trump = Patriotism
Criticism of Obama = Racism
Piss Christ = Art
Mohammed Cartoon = Hate crime
Speech that offends conservatives = protected by the Bill of Rights
Speech that offends leftists = a violent attack on our existence that must be violently stamped out
And now here's a little more of that civil rights mask coming off.
Christina Hoff Sommers tried to speak at a Portland law school and was shut down by the usual diversity Nazis. Before she arrived, the usual campus groups signed a letter declaring that she had no right to speak because her ideas were offensive. (And this is at a law school.) Beyond the usual campus identity politics suspects, the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild also signed on.
Here's what the letter, in part, said. “Free speech is certainly an important tenet to a free, healthy society, but that freedom stops when it has a negative and violent impact on other individuals."
Free speech is certainly an important tenet? Once upon a time, it was the essence. Now it's just an important of something bigger. But that bigger thing is a healthy society. And sometimes a healthy society requires silencing everyone who disagrees with its ideological leaders.
The National Lawyers Guild doesn't believe in freedom of speech. It believes in deciding who gets to speak.