Again: protests are fine. Riots, violence, and destruction of property aren’t protests. Those are criminal acts.
Too bad the college students were never taught to think about distinctions.
In one day UC Berkeley’s student newspaper The Daily Californian published five opinion pieces defending the violent protests over last week’s Milo Yiannopoulos talk. At the protests, which turned into a riot, people were pepper sprayed and hit with sticks, a man was knocked unconscious and beaten on the ground, and various buildings were vandalized.
Alumnus Nisa Dang demanded other students “check your privilege” when decrying violence at the protests. Student Juan Prieto claimed violence helped ensure the safety of students (just not the conservative ones). Neil Lawrence called the tactics by the black bloc antifa protesters not an act of violence, but one of self defense and said they were doing what the university should have done.
Desmond Meagley said condemning protesters was promoting hate speech. Josh Hardman questions whether breaking windows even counts as violence, while neglecting to mention the real people who were pepper sprayed and beaten up.
In fact, not a single one of the articles bothered to mention the real people who were physically assaulted on video, people who were neither fascists nor Nazis. The violence was completely written off as property damage, which is simply intellectually dishonest. You think one out of the five essays could have bothered to mention it, considering actual students were hurt by the protesters.
But thanks to The Daily California, next time Berkeley protests, the students will know the violence they use is not only effective but intellectually justified.
Via Heatstreet