You won’t find a more militant group of anti-free speech individuals than young college students and the organizations they start on university campuses all across the United States. This, of course, is the result of having their brains bathed in progressive thinking from the moment of they are old enough to attend indoctrination centers public schools. Rather than teach children how to become full-fledged individuals who are capable of engaging with a variety of ideas and challenges to their own view of the world or values, they are taught there is only one right way to think — which is left-wing ideology — and those who disagree with them and that system of belief is a villain to be silenced.
Why silenced?
Because the left believes that ideas other than their own are dangerous and might cause folks to engage with the world around them in a way that threatens the utopia they want to build. You see, progressives actually believe they can perfect mankind and create a perfect, utopian society without scarcity (just get rid of private ownership of property) inequality (make everyone think the same way) and so on. All that’s needed are elite leaders calling the shots for everyone, a set of beliefs everyone is forced to agree with, and total hive mind mentality.
None of that is possible in the real world. It has been tried over and over again. It fails every time.
That said, can you guess which conservative speaker was targeted more than any other by progressive groups on college campuses last year? According to a database put together by the Foundation for Individuals Rights and Expression, FIRE, that individual was none other than the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles. Probably not who you were expecting, right?
Here’s more from the Daily Wire:
Knowles appeared three times in the free speech organization’s “Campus Disinvitation Database” last year as students and faculty at the University of Buffalo, the University of Pittsburgh, and Purdue University all tried to get the Daily Wire host’s speaking events canceled. The three cancel campaigns against Knowles were all in reaction to his views on transgender ideology.
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk each appeared twice in FIRE’s “Campus Disinvitation Database” for 2023. None of the censorship attempts against Walsh, Gaines, or Kirk were successful either.
Honestly, I would have thought the most opposed speaker would have been Walsh, given how brutally honest he is and the fact he made a documentary film exposing the absurdity of transgenderism, “What Is a Woman?” Kind of surprised he doesn’t hold the title. It gives him something to shoot for this year, right?
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Knowles’ speech at Buffalo in March caused a stir as he came to the campus for the event shortly after stating that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.” LGBTQ activists took Knowles’ comment — where he simply called for the culture to reject trans “ideology” — as a genocidal threat.
“No even mildly reasonable person could have interpreted my words as insinuating any sort of violence,” he remarked at that time.
Knowles is right about transgenderism needing to be removed from public life. It’s a deadly idea that is causing considerable harm to folks who are suffering from a mental illness that needs to be treated.
The speech took place despite the calls for the University of Buffalo to cancel it after the university’s president said it couldn’t stop the student group from inviting Knowles since the group was abiding by university guidelines and state laws.
Here’s the list so you can see who is on it and where they landed:
FIRE recorded 27 attempted (and sometimes successful) campus disinvitations last year.
All but one came from the Left. pic.twitter.com/NKIYF7tL2t
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) January 17, 2024