Lessons From The Sixties

It's been a week since the violent demonstrations at UC/Berkeley shut down a planned speech by Milo Yiannopoulos.

One of the things that we learned during the civil rights marches of the '60s was that free speech matters on both sides of the political spectrum.  As the professor reminds us, conspiring to shut down free speech (or any other civil right) is a federal felony.  It carries a ten-year sentence.

But, the Berkeley riot organizers seem to be quite content with themselves, thinking that they were hugely successful.

She added, "I was there, and there were thousands of people out there who were united. It was a mass protest, it was a militant protest, and everyone was there to shut him down. And so -- whatever it was going to take to do that, we were all there with a united cause, and we were stunningly successful."

Good for them.  I'd like to remind them that the FBI is investigating, and the FBI's civil rights division will probably be very interested in their rationale.   Oh, and Jeff Sessons was confirmed yesterday as Attorney General.  There's a new sheriff in town, and the DOJ has its own civil rights section.

It might be a very good idea for those proud leftists who conspired against a man's free speech rights to pack quickly and leave town.  Shutting down free speech is never a good idea.  It's un-American, it's unconstitutional, and it's a felony.