Our #FreedomOfSpeech is different from that of other countries, and we thank the Lord for that! We need to defend our freedom of speech against the left who would restrict it

What would happen to you if you tore up and burned a copy of the Holy Bible on the steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan? What would happen to you if you dropped a Crucifix into a jar of urine, and photographed it, claiming it to be art?

There would be people claiming that you were a religious bigot, who ought to be thrown in jail, but you’d actually face no legal charges. Some people might think you were headed straight to Hell, but no one would actually try to send you there.

What would happen to you if you participated in, or perhaps even led, a protest March in support of Hamas or the Palestinians in New York or Washington or foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia? As long as the protest march was peaceable, there might be some hecklers shouting from the sidewalks as the protest march passed, but you’d not be facing any charges. If you were in the country illegally, now that Donald Trump is President — it wouldn’t have happened under our previous President or Kamala Harris Emhoff, had she been elected — you might get sent back home, but that’s it. And if you are young and pretty, NBC News might even publish a celebratory glamour photo of you!

But, if you lived in Sweden, legally, you could be charged with a crime. Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee legally granted protection there, was charged with incitement against an ethnic group over the 2023 burning of a Quran, and was due to be sentenced Thursday morning. Continue reading

The Patriot Front March for Life The left wax apoplectic!

My Twitter feed was filled with images of the Patriot Front marching at Fridays March for Life in Washington, DC. Much of it was condemnatory, and a lot of conservatives were repeating the meme that these were “Feds,” by which they meant federal law enforcement officers, rather than real civilians. I can see, at least in appearance, why people might conclude that. Robert Stacy McCain addressed that issue in “Is the ‘Patriot Front’ a Fed PsyOp?” He cited the very liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, a group which hates all things conservative, normal, and moral, telling us:

Like other hate and extremist groups, the need to recruit and grow their members makes PF a target for antifascist activists who attempt to infiltrate white nationalist groups to expose and disrupt their activities. Since 2018, antifascist activists have infiltrated PF at least five times, which has led to journalist and activist networks obtaining thousands of documents, including internal chat logs, audio and video recordings, and photographs. The laxed operational security measures of PF that are responsible for these infiltrations led to the identification of more than 130 current and former members since 2019.

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When the Jew haters tell you who they are, believe them! "Students for Justice in Palestine" could have protested at Israeli consulate, but chose to protest at Jewish center

This poor site, along with literally hundreds of others, has covered the pro-‘Palestinian, really pro-Hamas ‘demonstrations’ on our college campuses last spring. I did note, with some pleasure, that at least at my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, the protests were carried out the way the First Amendment, which guarantees to all of us both the freedom of speech and the right of peaceable assembly, contemplated, peaceably.

Sadly, many of the pro-savages demonstrations at other schools were not entirely peaceable. But I did gloat report on those demonstrations fading away when school was out for the summer.

Well, it’s a new school year — though October seems like this article is a bit late — and the Usual Suspects have been up to their old tricks. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Temple suspends pro-Palestinian student group; Muslim advocates call to investigate police over alleged hijab removal during campus protest

CAIR is calling for an investigation after Temple University’s handling of a protest, where they say a Philadelphia police officer allegedly removed a Muslim protester’s hijab.

by Max Marin and Robert Moran | Wednesday, October 2, 2024 | 2:02 PM EDT | Updated: 6:37 PM EDT

Temple University has temporarily banned Students for Justice in Palestine from operating on campus, the latest in a wave of suspensions against pro-Palestinian student groups amid sustained protests against the war in Gaza.

The move comes after police detained four SJP members, including a Temple student, during a demonstration that interrupted an on-campus career fair last week.

So, the “Students for Justice in Palestine” demonstration was not peaceable in nature, but interrupted a meeting to help more sensible students at Temple who were looking to begin their professional careers after graduation. You know, the sensible thing to do after spending a boatload of money for a university education.

Muslim community leaders are calling for an investigation into the university’s handling of that protest after a Philadelphia police officer allegedly removed a Muslim protester’s hijab and detained the woman without access to her religious head covering.

If that happened, and I will never believe claims by “Muslim community leaders” without outside corroboration, it would have been because the woman was resisting arrest.

While Temple did not cite that specific incident, a university spokesperson said in a statement that the interim suspension stemmed from “recent conduct,” and the student activist group is now forbidden from holding on-campus activities, including “meetings, social and philanthropic events.” The suspension was first reported by the Temple News.

The spokesperson pointed to the university’s on-campus demonstration guidelines that are “in place to ensure the safety and well-being of community members while also encouraging and preserving freedom of expression.” . . . .

This is not the group’s first brush with university leaders. Temple president Richard Englert denounced an SJP-led demonstration in August after protesters chanted outside a Jewish student center on campus.

In a statement, Englert threatened disciplinary action against students who participated in the rally, which he described as a form of “intimidation and harassment.” The pro-Palestinian student group pushed back against Englert’s comments, arguing in a post on social media that the president “distorted our message to serve the false narrative that Temple SJP is a threat to Temple.”

No, I suppose that the pro-barbarian students wouldn’t see accosting Jewish students outside of a known Jewish student gathering place as “intimidation and harassment,” but the Jews on campus certainly would have, and did:

Temple University says it is investigating a student pro-Palestinian demonstration held outside a Jewish center on campus

“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Temple’s president said.

by Robert Moran | Thursday, August 29, 2024 | 10:40 PM EDT

Temple University said it is investigating for possible disciplinary action a pro-Palestinian march by students and nonstudents who demonstrated outside a Jewish center on campus Thursday.

The protest march began at the Charles Library, said Temple University president Richard Englert in a statement, then some demonstrators went to the Rosen Center, which is the home at Temple of Hillel, an international organization for Jewish students.

“While there, the demonstrators used megaphones to chant directly at the occupants within the building,” Englert said.

Emphasis mine. Using megaphones to chant directly at the people in the Hillel Center, the majority of who could be assumed to be Jewish, would constitute targeted ethnic and religious harassment.

“We are deeply saddened and concerned by these events,” Englert said. “Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated.”

This was clearly a protest against Jews in general, not just Israeli policy, as the “Students for Justice in Palestine” have conflated the two. Not all Jews are Israelis, and at an American college 5,774 miles away from Israel, it’s virtually certain that most of the Jews on campus at Temple are not from Israel.

There is an Israeli consulate in Philadelphia, at 1880 John F. Kennedy Blvd, which is just 2.6 miles away from the Hillel Center, at 1441 West Norris Street, pretty much of a straight march down Broad Street, though, admittedly, marching that way takes you partly into the Philadelphia Badlands. If the SJP wanted to protest Israeli government policies specifically, they could have been protesting outside the consulate; instead they were harassing people they knew to be Jooooos.

Temple’s actions won’t stop the SJP from existing; all it does is ban them as a student organization and deny them use of Temple’s facilities.

Our First Amendment was written by civilized men, with civilized behavior in mind; they cited “the right of the people peaceably to assemble”. It does not protect some right to harass others, or gather in mobs, or riot.

But the pro-‘Palestinian’ people in this country, and around the world, are not truly civilized men. They might think that they are, but they are supporting the barbarism of Hamas, they are supporting the antithesis of the Western civilization, the benefits of which they enjoy.  The “Students for Justice in Palestine” have a right to exist, and to protest peacefully; it’s only when the break the code of civilization that they become subject to arrest.

The one thing they do not have is any right to the respect of decent people, and for them, I have none. When the anti-Semites tell you who they really are, you should believe them!

Apparently your Freedom of Speech is dependent upon which side you support

Many on the left decried efforts to curtail anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas demonstrations, and backed the not-so-peaceful demonstrations by Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the 2020 Summer of Hate, shouting about freedom of speech. But now we have the amusing spectacle of The New York Times fretting about how cities can fight “hateful speech” when it comes from the right.

What Can a City Do When Neo-Nazis Start Marching Down Its Streets?

The brazen appearance of white supremacist groups in Nashville left the city grappling with how to confront hateful speech without violating First Amendment protections.

by Emily Cochrane | Thursday, August 1, 2024

They first arrived at the beginning of July: dozens of masked white supremacists, shuffling out of U-Hauls, to march through Nashville carrying upside-down American flags.

A week later, members of a separate neo-Nazi group, waving giant black flags with red swastikas, paraded along the city’s famed strip of honky-tonks and celebrity-owned bars. The neo-Nazis poured into the historic Metro courthouse to disrupt a City Council meeting, harassed descendants of Holocaust survivors and yelled racist slurs at young Black children performing on a downtown street.

The appearance of white nationalists on the streets of a major American city laid bare the growing brazenness of the two groups, the Patriot Front and the Goyim Defense League. Their provocations enraged and alarmed civic leaders and residents in Nashville, causing the city to grapple with how to confront the groups without violating free speech protections.

“I can’t imagine having a mimosa on Fifth and Broadway, and 400 Patriot Front members walk out of a U-Haul — it has to be one of the most jarring experiences as an American and as a tourist in the city,” said State Representative Aftyn Behn, who represents the city’s downtown. “Nashville is a microcosm of the greater country, and we are at a moment where we have to decide who we are.”

I’m not sure how 400 Patriot Front members would fit in “a U-Haul,” but whatever. But it seems to me that the best response to groups advocating things you hate is to ignore them, at least as long as they aren’t setting buildings on fire or physically assaulting people. These groups usually demonstrate with well-disciplined and orderly marches, then get back in their vehicles, and return to their homes.

Both of the groups that visited Nashville this summer have become more visible since the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va, and are now among the top sources of white supremacist propaganda. At the same time, the leadership of the other far-right groups like the Proud Boys has been disrupted by prosecutions over their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

White supremacists have appeared in Nashville before and have increasingly promoted racist and antisemitic messages across the country. Those include plotting to riot at a Pride event in Idaho, disrupting city council meetings in New England and protesting at the opening New York performances of “Parade,” a musical about the 1915 lynching of a Jewish man in the South.

Did you catch that? They were “plotting to riot,” not that they actually started a riot. According to the embedded Times story, police “received a tip that a group of people had jumped into a U-Haul van near a Pride event.”

Many of the men also had shields and wore shinguards, and the police recovered one smoke grenade, they said. They did not mention other weapons.

So, other than a “smoke grenade,” something which could be used to have a group of marchers emerge from a cloud of smoke, the 31 arrested men were unarmed. That Times story concluded with this gem:

The action in Coeur d’Alene was not the only threat that involved a far-right group and an L.G.B.T.Q. event on Saturday. In San Lorenzo, Calif., members of the Proud Boys disrupted the “Drag Queen Story Hour,” a reading event at the San Lorenzo Library that was attended by children, parents and other community members, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.

The men shouted homophobic and transphobic slurs at the event organizer and were described as having a violent demeanor, authorities said. Deputies arrived and de-escalated the situation, but a hate crime investigation is underway, the sheriff’s office said.

So, the men in that protest “shouted” mean things at the organizers of the event, and “were described as having a violent demeanor,” but the story does not say that they actually committed any violent acts.

Back to the article originally cited:

(Nashville) City officials said they were reviewing ordinances related to face coverings, littering and permit requirements for parades, as well as consulting a First Amendment expert to ensure that any crackdown would withstand a legal challenge.

The white supremacist groups, city officials said, strategically navigate city regulations to avoid arrest or police interference. Often, they are penalized with littering citations for distributing antisemitic pamphlets; in one instance, a leader of the Goyim Defense League spent a few weeks last fall in a Florida jail.

If you follow the last link, which is behind a paywall, you’ll see that the man listed as having spent a few weeks in jail was sentenced to thirty days for littering. From what little I could see before the paywall blocked everything, there were no charges against him of any violent crimes.

Today’s left in America very much support protests and rallies by the far left, cheering on the Black Lives Matter and Antifa demonstrations which caused multiple millions in damage in break-ins and arson, and they still call Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer for having defended himself against three previously convicted criminals assaulting him during that famous “Fiery but mostly peaceful protest” in Kenosha, Wisconsin. But when a group of men, in “which members generally wear masks and ‘khaki pants and a blue or white polo shirt,’ and sometimes employ smoke bombs,” for dramatic effect, and even have an operational plan consisting of marching in an orderly column until they reach barriers are encountered, and disengage and march back to a pre-arranged spot “once an appropriate amount of confrontational dynamic has been established.”

They might be confrontational, and they might be unpleasant, but they proceed without weapons to exercise their freedom of speech and peaceable assembly. Liberal urban governments really hate that, but let’s tell the truth here, American liberals really do hate the freedom of speech when it isn’t speech they like.

The pro #Hamas protests seem as though they are withering away

I do so love being proved right, I have said, both on this site and Twitter, it’s a bit pointless to use force to break up the protest encampments, because, with the semester ending, these encampments will just wither away.

Swarthmore College’s pro-Palestinian encampment disbands after 4 weeks and stalled negotiations

Student activists began voluntarily clearing the encampment on Parrish Lawn Thursday morning.

by Beatrice Forman | Friday, May 24, 2024 | 5:48 MP EDT

Swarthmore College’s pro-Palestinian encampment officially came down Friday morning, marking the end of the longest campus protest over the war in Gaza in the Philadelphia area.

About three dozen student activists began packing up their belongings from Parrish Lawn voluntarily Thursday, said organizer Ragad A., a sophomore, who declined to share their full name out of privacy concerns. Continue reading

What part of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” don’t they understand? Hamas are not peaceful, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that their collegiate supporters have not been either

Gaza Rally, May 1, 2024, photo by Abbey Cutrer, Kentucky Kernel. How many were there supporting the rally, and how many were just spectators?

No one has been more supportive of the right of the pro-Hamas demonstrators to exercise their freedom of speech and right to peaceably assemble to proclaim their positions than The First Street Journal has been. We have pointed out how the keffiyeh-wearing activists — and I regard wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh as qualitatively indistinguishable from wearing a Nazi swastika armband — had their demonstration at the University of Kentucky, made their points in a rally in front of the school’s main library, waved their Palestinian flags, and, when it was over, picked up their stuff and went home. I have supported the right of the Princeton University hunger strikers to starve themselves to make their point, even as I mocked them, because I unequivocally support Israel in their war against Hamas and I support freedom of speech. I have even said that it’s a bit pointless to use force to break up the protest encampments, because, with the semester ending, these encampments will just wither away.

As it happened, the powers that be at the University of Pennsylvania decided against just leaving the encampments alone, and the Philadelphia Police broke it up and arrested some of the campers. They were definitely the Usual Suspects, as Fox 29 News reported that only 7 of the 33 people arrested for ‘defiant trespassing’ were actually Penn students. Continue reading

We all have #FreedomOfSpeech, but that does not come with freedom from consequences The anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters are finding out that some people have listened to them, and don't like what they've said

I spotted this on my feed this morning, and the different reactions are humorous.

Conservative judges say they will boycott Columbia University students

The judges accused Columbia of becoming “ground zero for the explosion of student disruptions, anti-semitism, and hatred for diverse viewpoints on campuses.”

By Tobi Raji | Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | 6:42 PM EDT

More than a dozen conservative federal judges are threatening to not hire law clerks who attend Columbia University or its law school starting this fall — an attempt to show the judges’ displeasure over the institution’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests.

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Why are there so few pro-#Hamas demonstrations in conservative areas?

I have been checking the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Kentucky Kernel, the UK student newspaper for which I used to write back during the days of quill pens and inkwells, every day, and I have yet to see any reports of pro-Hamas, or pro-Israel, protests of demonstrations on campus or in the city. Yes, that shows that Kentucky students are just plain smarter than those elite and effete Ivy Leaguers, but then it occurred to me: there are very few Jewish students at UK, with Jews being a very small minority in the Bluegrass State as a whole, while the reports of demonstrations at Penn and Hahvahd and Columbia are occurring at schools with significant Jewish populations, and it leads me to think that these demonstrations really are just as much anti-Semitic as they are pro-Palestinian.