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

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.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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