Black Lives Matter Against the ACLU

Fascist thuggery was recently on display at the College of William and Mary. A group of thugs broke up a meeting about the First Amendment featuring a speaker representing the ACLU-- not a notably right-wing organization. The thugs did not just protest or critique the speaker. They simply shut her down, silenced her.

They wanted the world to know that when the Revolution comes, there will be no more free speech or First Amendment protections. Who was this group? You guessed it: Black Lives Matter.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the story, from Reason (via Maggie’s Farm):

Students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement crashed an event at the College of William & Mary, rushed the stage, and prevented the invited guest—the American Civil Liberties Union's Claire Gastañaga, a W & M alum—from speaking.

Ironically, Gastañaga had intended to speak on the subject, "Students and the First Amendment."

The disruption was livestreamed on BLM at W&M's Facebook page. Students took to the stage just a few moments after Gastañaga began her remarks. At first, she attempted to spin the demonstration as a welcome example of the kind of thing she had come to campus to discuss, commenting "Good, I like this," as they lined up and raised their signs. "I'm going to talk to you about knowing your rights, and protests and demonstrations, which this illustrates very well. Then I'm going to respond to questions from the moderators, and then questions from the audience."

It was the last remark she was able to make before protesters drowned her out with cries of, "ACLU, you protect Hitler, too." They also chanted, "the oppressed are not impressed," "shame, shame, shame, shame," (an ode to the Faith Militant's treatment of Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, though why anyone would want to be associated with the religious fanatics in that particular conflict is beyond me), "blood on your hands," "the revolution will not uphold the Constitution," and, uh, "liberalism is white supremacy."

This went on for nearly 20 minutes. Eventually, according to the campus's Flat Hat News, one of the college's co-organizers of the event handed a microphone to the protest's leader, who delivered a prepared statement. The disruption was apparently payback for the ACLU's principled First Amendment defense of the Charlottesville alt-right's civil liberties.

Of course, this is not acceptable. It might also be illegal. Apparently, some lawyers in different venues are going to raise the question.

Naturally, we are inexorably led to believe that these college students do not know anything. Products of America’s increasingly lame educational establishment, they probably cannot do college level work. Thus, they do what they are capable of doing: disrupting and deconstructing.

At a time when the nation is engaged in a serious debate over the meaning of the NFL protests against the National Anthem, we might also have a bit of a national conversation about anti-American and unpatriotic disloyalty. After all, that was what the Kaepernick protest was about. And, whether the football players know it or not, their protests express disloyalty. No human being can determine the meaning of his own gestures.

How are we to stop this BLM madness? I have a suggestion. Why not request or demand that African-American leaders, beginning with Barack Obama, speak out and denounce the movement in the most forceful terms?

You might tax me with being young and naïve. You might respond that the Black Lives Movement was supported by the Obama presidency and that it belongs firmly on the list of the Obama administration legacy.

The moral of the story: before we get into high dudgeon over a bunch of fascistic college students, we ought to recognize from whence it all issues.