The far left protests at a recent Donald Trump rally in Chicago, which caused the event to be cancelled, may do more damage to the Left than to Trump himself. The sight of violent Leftist thugs punching and kicking people within the venue, and the gleeful spitefulness of protesters outside when told that the even was being cancelled, showed Americans and the world, just what the Left is all about these days.
Whether you agree with Donald Trump or not, and there are reasons for both agreeing with him and disagreeing with him, what should not be denied is his right to speak and also the right of those who wish to attend his events, to listen to him. Those rights have been denied by Leftists who are plainly not in favour of freedom of speech per se, but are only in favour of speech that they approve of.
The Left really have become the ‘book burners’ of the modern world, and their shutting down of the Trump rally shows it.
The behaviour of the Leftists, some of whom are believed to be supporters of the socialist Bernie Sanders, has nothing to do with equality or freedom or reducing hate, and everything to do with silencing views that a small minority disapprove of. There are quite a few reasons why I am cautious about Trump. He’s bombastic, speaks in slogans a bit too often and does come over, at least he does to me on this side of the Pond, as arrogant. However, he is saying things that a large number of Americans and non-Americans, wish to hear. It is this speaking up for those who feel themselves silenced by political correctness that scares the living daylights out of the Left. Here are a group of people, Trump supporters, who cannot be bullied into silence by screaming ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ at them, and the left are terrified of people that they cannot coerce or frighten into submission.
The thugs who disrupted and caused the cancellation of the Trump rally and who have been showing up since then to engage in more minor disruption, are the enemies of free speech. The ease with which violent Leftists were able to stop Trump speaking emphasise again just what a valuable precept is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It also shows the extreme danger posed by allowing the Left to interfere with that right. The ability to speak ones mind on all manner of subjects was considered important by those who latterly amended the constitution and the right to speak out is equally important today. The right to speak is far too important to be allowed to be trashed by the Left.
I hope my American cousins will accept a polite warning from this particular Limey? This warning is, do not yet the Left interfere with your right to speak. We in Britain mistakenly allowed the government of Tony Blair to bring in hate speech legislation and other similar laws for reasons of ‘equality’, which have had the complete opposite effect. All that these new ‘hate speech’ laws have done is severely curtailed the right of Britons to speak out about matters that concern them. Because of Blair’s Laws, it is now possible that a citizen of the UK could be sent to prison for saying something nasty but true in public about the ideology of Islam. You really don’t want that to happen. The only reason I can run this blog, and stay out of one of Her Majesty’s prisons, is because it is published in a nation, the United States, that respects the right of free speech. Believe me, you don’t want to happen in the USA what has happened in the UK, but that is what you will get if you allow the Left to dictate the debate.
The shutting down of the Trump rally may seriously rebound on the American Left. Even if Trump fails to gain the Republican nomination, or fails to become President, he has still done America and the world a great service. His service has been to show up the modern Left for the censorious thugs that they have become. I wonder how many Americans will look at the Left wing hooligans who disrupted the Trump rally, and shudder at the thought that they are going to see more of the same sort of thuggery if America ends up with a President Sanders or a President Hilary.
The Left in America who gathered to silence Trump in Chicago have shown the world exactly who they are and what they are, and it’s not a pretty sight.
