{"id":65163,"date":"2017-11-22T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=65163"},"modified":"2017-11-21T10:08:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T16:08:24","slug":"tarred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=65163","title":{"rendered":"Tarred"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good news?\u00a0 You’ve got people on the left defending free speech on campus, and defending it well, as Charles C. Cooke notes in the National Review about a piece in New York Magazine\u00a0<\/em>by Jesse Singal<\/a>:.<\/p>\n

But there’s still a bit of fact-checking to do, as Cooke notes – in this case, quoting Singal:<\/p>\n

“The existence of white nationalist Richard Spencer, and other bigoted far-right figures like him, poses a genuine challenge to public universities. Conservative student groups invite these sorts of figures to speak fairly often, and the courts have consistently held that public universities\u00a0can\u2019t really interfere\u00a0with such events.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s just one thing wrong:<\/p>\n

Having read this, you could be forgiven for thinking that \u201cconservative student groups\u201d have invited\u00a0\u201dwhite nationalist Richard Spencer\u201d to speak on campus, and that they have done so \u201cfairly often.\u201d This isn\u2019t correct. Richard Spencer has indeed spoken on college campuses recently. But, invariably, he has invited himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After which the conservative groups do what they do –\u00a0defend actual free speech<\/em>, including the stuff that everyone hates, which is indeed why we need “Free Speech” in the Constitution in the first place.<\/p>\n

So there’s that.<\/p>\n

But there’s one other problem:\u00a0 Singal refers to Spencer\u00a0et al\u00a0<\/em>as “bigoted far-right figures”.\u00a0 \u00a0And he’s far from alone.<\/p>\n

Thing is, as Michael Knowles points out in this superb Prager U video, the “Alt-Right” is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>right.\u00a0 It repudiates, in fact, much of what American conservatism believes:<\/p>\n