openpolitics.com

These left-wing demonstrators tried to shut down an American presidential candidate’s speech during the campaign — and they succeeded, through an implicit threat of violence. People who support Trump drove hours to hear him talk, and they were denied their constitutional rights by left-wing hotheads who believe that they are so righteous that they don’t have to observe basic civility. You come to a Trump rally and you start flipping people off? You should not be surprised if you get a sock in the face.

.. What happened tonight in Chicago is why we need Trump, as obnoxious as he is, to keep going. I am not a Trump supporter, and I reject much of his rhetoric. But he has a right to give a speech, even an obnoxious speech, without it being interrupted by demonstrators. All of us do. Trump is revealing how impossible it is to have a normal democracy with the activist left, who think their crying need for “safe spaces” gives them the right to silence their opponents.

.. No. This political correctness needs to be opposed, and it needs to be opposed with force. I don’t know why the police couldn’t handle this situation, but they had better be on it in the future, because many Americans will not stand for this. What those protesters have done tonight is create a lot more Trump voters out of people who are sick and tired of privileged leftists using thug tactics to silence their opponents.

.. Protest all you want, but do it outside the venue, or silently inside. Do not silence the speaker, because if you do that, you legitimize your opponents trying to silence the speakers from your side.

.. For me, it’s all about the mob. I despise the mob. Any mob, which I define as a crowd that acts in force to silence people by intimidation or actual violence.

.. This is why I cannot support Black Lives Matter, even though I support its goal of bringing critical attention to police brutality: because they believe that their cause is so righteous that they have the right to stomp over anybody who doesn’t share their vision.

.. Don’t y’all understand that people like you only feed the Trump beast?

.. When an American presidential candidate has to cancel his rally in a major city because protesters have made it too dangerous, we have a serious problem in this country.

.. But he did not take America to war in Iraq on flimsy evidence, establish Guantanamo in contravention of human rights law, licence the torture of enemy combatants, oversee the gargantuan NSA data-gathering operation, launch a dirty war of drone strikes against both terrorists and those unfortunate enough to live near them, undermine the religious freedoms of employers who do not want to subsidise the sex lives of their workers, overrule the states’ wishes on marriage, compel citizens to buy healthcare products or deport thousands of illegals through aggressive round-ups. No: these things were done by “moderate” Republicans and “liberal” Democrats.

.. Trump is a symptom, and of course Stanley nails what, excatly, he’s a symptom of: American decline. I wonder what, exactly, the SJWs expect?

.. Hillary Clinton will do her best to protect a system that allows for the dismemberment of babies in the womb and trade in their body parts. I believe she, like all other national Democrats, and their allies will stop at nothing to restrict the religious liberty of orthodox Christians, and impose legal penalties on us for practicing our faith in a way that conflicts with progressive orthodoxy.

.. I think she is a serious threat to people like me ..

.. I think abortion doctors are wicked, but certain lines must be respected if we are not going to fly apart as a society. The right of people to be at peace in their homes is a fundamental right. I would also say this is true of the right of people — even bad people — to speak their minds at their own events.

.. it’s as legal in this country to do as the Klan marching through Skokie was. And it is important not only to observe the First Amendment by the letter of the law, but also to cultivate its spirit.

.. It is strange that the SJWs have been able to act in illiberal, rhetorically violent, even physically aggressive, ways for some time in this country, and nothing much happens to them. Trump’s people do it, and suddenly it’s the end of the Republic.

It may be the end of the Republic, and Trump has his role in bringing it about. But he didn’t start it.