It’s inexcusable to attack people or compare them to dehumanizing things.
Except sometimes.
While you, it seems, can’t employ a pronoun other than what each individual prefers — otherwise stealing their dignity — you can absolutely equate a Jewish man with a cockroach.
At least, that’s the current allowance for some at Stanford University.
Conservative balls-and-strikes-caller Ben Shapiro’s set to deliver a speech Thursday night at the campus’s renowned Hoover Tower. The theme: “No, leftist idiots don’t get to raise my kids.”
And similarly transparent are the feelings of a student coalition holding a silent rally in protest of the Nazi Israelite.
According to the school’s College Republicans, Ben’s been invited because he’s a brave, smartypants truth-teller:
“We admire Shapiro’s intellectual consistency, honesty, and adherence to principle. He always delivers what he believes to be the unvarnished truth, even when it might be unpopular among other right-of-center commentators. Furthermore, Shapiro is courageous. Whether it means taking a pro-second amendment message to a hostile audience on CNN in the wake of a mass shooting or braving an angry mob seeking to shut down his lecture at Cal State LA, Ben Shapiro never shies away from boldly presenting his principles.”
But to the naysayers, the dude’s an insect — flyers decrying his impending infestation feature an image of roach spray called “Ben B Gon.” The canister sports a photo of Shapiro between creepy crawlers.
Hey — wasn’t there a situation recently where someone said Baltimore’s infested with rats, and yet the outraged claimed the person meant black people? And somehow, the guy who said the rat thing was the racist (here)?
Nevermind — it was cleared up by the determination that the Democratic mayor had noted it, too:
Back to Stanford: Apparently, the outcry isn’t about insults. It’s for the sake of safety, as per the flyer:
“We are tired of of Stanford Administration’s complicity in putting Black, Brown, Trans, Queer, and Muslim students at risk by allowing SCR to bring Ben Shapiro to campus.”
Nothing says fighting intolerance like depicting your political opponents as insects to be exterminated. Well done, Stanford SJWs!
Someone musta got confused, though, because the flyer folks appear to be doing what they’re against.
So thinks Ben Shapiro, as he conveyed to The Daily Caller’s “Mirror” blog:
“They literally decry ‘hateful, dehumanizing ideas’ that ‘incite’ on a poster in which they compare me to an insect to be exterminated. Nothing says tolerance and diversity quite like actively depicting your political opponent, whose views you deliberately mischaracterize, as a bug.”
But it isn’t that they’re intolerant; it’s that they’re more…well, I’ll just let the poster tell it:
“We do not protest because we are too sensitive to hear opinions we don’t like. We protest because we are strong enough to defend ourselves.”
As relayed by TDC, it ain’t that they don’t believe in Ben’s right to speak; it’s just that they wanna make sure he doesn’t:
“We would like to express disappointment, but not surprise, with the Stanford administration for continuing to put the safety of Black, Brown, Trans, Queer, and Muslim students at risk by allowing this event to happen. Our protest is not about SCR’s right to free speech, it is about the violence that Ben Shapiro’s hateful, dehumanizing ideas incite against members of our community. This event has no place on this campus, much less in Stanford’s largest venue.”
No word on how him talking threatens anyone’s safety, or how comparing someone to a roach isn’t literally dehumanizing. But in fairness to the revolters, they did explain a little more about the Daily Wire founder’s positions:
“We have chosen to protest this event in silence because many of our bodies are the antithesis to Shapiro’s hateful speech. Ben Shapiro’s bigotry tells him that Black Americans are disproportionately locked up because of their culture, that people of Arab descent ‘like to bomb crap and live in open sewage,’ that Palestinians need to be subjected to forced population transfer, and that transgender people are inherently ‘mentally ill.’ Our real-world experiences, rooted in both fact and feeling, teach us otherwise.”
As for controversial statements Ben’s made in the past (he’s been talking rather loudly since he was a kid), he offers this: “So, Here’s A Giant List Of All The Dumb Stuff I’ve Ever Done (Don’t Worry, I’ll Keep Updating It)."
And as for the protesters, they’re not the first ones to compare people like Ben to bugs.
They’ve got this guy on their side:
Facts don’t care about your feelings.
https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2019/11/06/brave-move-protesting-ben-shapiros-intolerant-speech-stanford-portray-insect-need-extermination/
