Blue Crab Boulevard

“They Have No Right To Be Able To Speak Here.”

The words of a budding leftist storm trooper proud of storming a stage to silence someone else's right to free speech at Columbia University. In an appalling display of intolerance, students assaulted two speakers from the Minuteman group and forced them to cancel the speeches they were giving.

Students stormed the stage at Columbia University's Roone auditorium yesterday, knocking over chairs and tables and attacking Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the border between America and Mexico.

Mr. Gilchrist and Marvin Stewart, another member of his group, were in the process of giving a speech at the invitation of the Columbia College Republicans. They were escorted off the stage unharmed and exited the auditorium by a back door.

Having wreaked havoc onstage, the students unrolled a banner that read, in both Arabic and English, "No one is ever illegal." As security guards closed the curtains and began escorting people from the auditorium, the students jumped from the stage, pumping their fists, chanting victoriously, "Si se pudo, si se pudo," Spanish for "Yes we could!"

The Minuteman Project, an organization of volunteers founded in 2004 by Mr. Gilchrist, aims to keep illegal immigrants out of America by alerting law enforcement officials when they attempt to cross the border. The group uses fiery language and unorthodox tactics to advance its platform. "Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious ‘melting pot,'" the group's Web site warns.

Columbia has a lot to answer for here. Why was there insufficient security? Why is there no tolerance for free speech? What kind of graduates are they producing? Ones tat thinks overrunning a stage and attacking speakers is a valid way of expressing oneself? Thugs like the one quoted at the start of this post?

"These are racist individuals heading a project that terrorizes immigrants on the U.S.-Mexican border," Ryan Fukumori, a Columbia junior who took part in the protest, told The New York Sun. "They have no right to be able to speak here."

This is appalling. These thugs should be in jail.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has the video up. The words I used at the beginning of this post are especially apt: Leftist Storm Troopers. That is what this is, the same tactics as some other people used in the past. (Yeah, I know that's close to a Godwin's Law violation, but it is quite obviously applicable here). Columbia has a genuine problem if this is the quality of graduates it is turning loose.

Left Wing | Gaius October 5, 2006

By Dan, October 5, 2006 @ 8:27 am

Agreed. These guys should be lined up with Jim Robinson from FreeRepublic.com as a bunch of near-fascists that stifle free speech.

The funny part about FreeRepublic is that it claims to be a libertarian site, but will not hesitate to censor dissenting opinions…what a bunch of kooks.
By BubbaB, October 5, 2006 @ 12:17 pm

Dear Dan:

Once again, off point, but excellent use of the Leftist tack of diversion. Horrible that people WHO OWN A SITE would want to control what is on that site…

Obviously on the same scale as PHYSICALLY PREVENTING someone from speaking on a stage. The irony is, I know those idiots are probably congratulating themselves for protecting free speech!

Gaius, Godwin’s Law doesn’t say anything about whether the comparison APPLIES or not…
By Black Jack, October 5, 2006 @ 12:29 pm

Let the punishment fit the crime:

Every student who was involved in this shameful incident should be expelled from Columbia for the remainder of the school year, the organizers should be dismissed and never allowed on campus again.

Any faculty or staff, including senior administration officials, involved should be fired, with prejudice, and restricted from working anywhere in higher education for a full 10 years.

If the guilty go free, the judge is indicted.
By apple pie, October 5, 2006 @ 11:16 pm

Are you kidding? These kids will be “rewarded” with high paying jobs as soon as they get their “free” degree in their hot little hands. The AFL-CIO will see to that. Oh, and that degree of their’s well you know, its mostly about mouthing the right words!
By Bob Alley, October 10, 2006 @ 1:12 pm

Those idiotic and immature students should be permanently expelled and charged criminally. They are scum.