UC Berkeley\u2019s successful attempt to shut down an appearance by Ann Coulter this week is just the latest example of college campuses – and liberals as a whole – attempting to stifle free speech by acting as society\u2019s morality police.<\/p>\n
As an antiwar activist, I am typically lumped-in with other so-called leftists, so when progressives act in an oppressive, hateful, racist, fear-mongering, violent or unappealing manner, it reflects poorly on the cause in which I associate.<\/p>\n
I have been privately challenging some of my colleagues to reflect on their apparently hypocritical behavior, but doing so publicly, in this forum, is risky.\u00a0 And in trying to make sense of this ironic phenomenon, more questions than answers arise.<\/p>\n
Shelby Steele, Senior fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Hoover Institution offers one explanation<\/a>:<\/p>\n “White guilt is not actual guilt. Surely most whites are not assailed in the night by feelings of responsibility for America\u2019s historical mistreatment of minorities\u2026White guilt is not angst over injustices suffered by others; it is the terror of being stigmatized with America\u2019s old bigotries, racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. To be stigmatized as a fellow traveler with any of these bigotries is to be utterly stripped of moral authority and made into a pariah\u2026White guilt is a mock guilt, a pretense of real guilt, a shallow etiquette of empathy, pity and regret\u2026It is also the heart and soul of contemporary liberalism. This liberalism is the politics given to us by white guilt, and it shares white guilt\u2019s central corruption. It is not real liberalism, in the classic sense. It is a mock liberalism. Freedom is not its\u00a0raison d\u2019\u00eatre; moral authority is.”<\/em><\/p>\n Liberals\/Hollywood\/pop culture are creating an environment of hyper-political-correctness, where anybody who doesn\u2019t share their worldview can be demonized and ostracized. Immigration, abortion, race relations \u2013 regardless of the topic, watch liberals who are asked questions about their views \u2013 the typical response is avoiding the question, shouting down the questioner, and ultimately calling the person a racist, xenophobe, homophobe, misogynist, etc.<\/p>\n Examples of today\u2019s hyper-PC culture are offered below (this list is a follow-up to 30 Incidents of Out of Control Liberals<\/em><\/a>.) These are instances of colleges and\/or liberals in the US – and around the world – who apparently believe that their own interpretation of what is right or wrong is the only acceptable option:<\/p>\n\n
\nBlack campus employee assaults white student<\/a> for “cultural appropriation” because of his dreadlocks.<\/li>\n