were parting ways with williamson because the language used in the podcast was callous and violent. this runs contrary to the atlantic s tradition of respectable, well reasoned debate and to the values of our workplace. of course millions of americans believe that abortion itself is callous and violent, most obviously to the innocent life it destroys. nevertheless, another nonliberal voice was snuffed out at yet another esteemed publication. my friends, something alarming is taking place. the free speech clause of our constitution doesn t just apply to speech that the elite deem acceptable. it exists to support speech that is by its nature offensive. offensive to people in power, offensive at times to lawmakers. offensive to facebook and even offensive to the cool crowd that
it s this malcontent in canada kicking up a fuss. we ve seen it with the seven poverty law center with their obscene list of islamic folks or whatever. i think i m on that list. ridiculous. they do it to shut down speech. no question. if you re going to talk about them, by their same logic they are responsible for the attack on the family research council a few years ago since the guy was a follower of the splc and use their apparently their map of hate groups as a target. all of this is really dangerous and all of it is leading to an attempt in the united states by people on the far left to imitate what we ve seen in places like britain, places like canada to actually shutdown dissenting points of view if they do not meet with the politically correct standards of the left. the fact that i have tweeted out about the evils of radical islam and i cut a video talk about the percentages of muslims worldwide who may believe radical things. this apparently was enough to blame me for a terr
it is the modern way of cutting off free speech. laura: on the goalpost, by the way are forever moving. every day more issues are taken off the table altogether and may no longer be debated at all. so in other words if you are against affirmative action you are a racist. and if you where they make america great again hat to a gun-control rally and get beaten up, don t expect a lot of sympathy from the attendees. and if you praise the military skill of robert e. lee you are liable to be branded a defender of slavery in the new york times . remember what happened during the campaign when some left wing nut cases in san jose got their hands on a firm supporter? this is the intolerant left in action. whether it s striking voices from social media or driving certain viewpoints from the airwaves, beating people up,
like their right to free expression is less worthy of protection than that of any garden-variety leftist, where does that leave our first amendment? as a shell of its former self is the answer. there is a contraction of free speech all around us. and few seem to even notice. many of you have become accustomed to editing yourself, let s face it. expressing views that just five or ten years ago were considered mainstream can now get you fired. it can cause you to lose a promotion or you could be branded a hater or yes, you could get boycotted. sadly, with people like christopher hitchens and hentoff gone there are only a handful of true liberals left on the scene to defend the vigorous exchange of ideas. i have been the victim of a boycott. i lost a job once. it is wrong.
because your speech actually grows conservatism. it spreads the ideology and it draws people in. they have no ideas. they are out of ideas. they are out of solutions. they are into demonization. you go to college campuses. you could be going to corporations and speaking, but you go to college campuses and i think the groups that are trying to make your life miserable or going after charlie kirk and turning point usa, go through the list of who is behind this effort to really tamp down on free speech. we know some of the big funded groups by george soros. but go through that briefly for us. there s certainly a lot of student groups that coordinate that are associated with the women s march or very much associated with this movement. a lot of the groups that were originally associated with black lives matter were very active in his campus movement. antifa was the far edge wing.