Now that Barack Obama has delivered his last State of the Union address, we can all enjoy waving goodbye to this far left president. But even after Obama is gone, the left will retain a firm grip on many U.S. institutions, including our institutions of higher learning.
On Fox & Friends yesterday morning, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a liberal American Jew, commented about the growing intolerance of the left. Here’s what he said:
In fact, when I was first teaching in the ’50s there were attempts to censor speech by Senator McCarthy. The right-wing was trying to censor left-wing speech. Now it’s the hard left that’s trying to censor . . . conservative speech, Christian speech, pro-Israel speech, you name it.
And this idea of safe spaces, we have to distinguish between safe spaces for ideas, there should be none, and physically safe places where you’re not intimidated or you’re not threatened. And Christian speakers, pro-Israel speakers, speakers that are not politically correct today, have their physical safety endangered.
I know when I speak on college campuses in favor of Israel, I need armed guards protecting me from radical leftist students who would use physical intimidation. They won’t give me a safe space. They won’t give pro-Israel students a safe space, they won’t give Christian students a safe space.
For example, when a group of Christians who were against abortion said all lives matter . . . they were attacked. They were told to be subject to training, and sensitivity, and the president of Smith College had to apologize for using that term.
Professor Dershowitz is right. Whether it was speaking out in defense of unborn babies, in support for the normal meaning of marriage or for a safe and secure Israel, I have been on the receiving end of the left’s hate for many years. In the past, armed guards have parked in my driveway 24-hours a day because of threats to our family.
The “tyrants of tolerance” can be incredibly intolerant. Yet, we cannot surrender the field to those who would use the brute force of big government to crush our values and restrict our rights. We must fight back!
Gary L. Bauer served in President Ronald Reagan’s administration for eight years, as Under Secretary of Education and as President Reagan’s Chief Domestic Policy Advisor.
