I’m scheduled to speak at Gettysburg College tonight, and it might not surprise you to learn that the Left-fascists are in an uproar. This letter from college alumni manifests the fundamental insecurity and intellectual fascism of these alums — not a very good testimonial for the college. Insecurity because if they really thought what I was saying was false and absurd on its face, they would encourage people to come, engage me in discussion, and prove me wrong. Instead, they try to shut me down, which is a tacit acknowledgment that they can’t refute what I say, and so want to make sure it is not heard. This letter is a disquieting indication of how far advanced the rot is at our colleges and universities today: these alumni openly call for the restriction of the freedom of speech in the context of an institution that is supposed to be dedicated to free inquiry and the acceptance or rejection of ideas on their merits after study.
More below.
“Open letter from 375 alums urges President Riggs to cancel Robert Spencer’s speech,” The Gettysburgian, May 1, 2017:
Editor’s Note: The following letter collected signatures online from Thursday evening until Sunday morning and was then sent to the administration with 375 signatures. A response from College president Janet Morgan Riggs was released on Monday and is available to view here.
Good afternoon, Dean Ramsey and President Riggs:
We hope this message finds you well. Unfortunately, today we have been brought together under less than joyous circumstances. After learning that Robert Spencer has been approved to speak on campus we, as members of the past and present Gettysburg College community, feel it is a necessity to express our concern. It was our time at Gettysburg that shaped us into the compassionate, thoughtful, principled individuals we are becoming, and it is our identity as Gettysburgians that compels us to issue this open letter.
Methinks they protest too much. Those who have to tell the world that they’re compassionate, thoughtful and principled generally aren’t, and are aware of the fact.
From a sociological perspective, we understand the complexities and power dynamics at play in the difficult decision you and your office were forced to make. However, as equity-seeking, socially and politically conscious citizens and alumni of Gettysburg College, we are outraged by your willingness to allow a platform for the ideas zealously promoted by Mr. Spencer.
The ideas promoted by Spencer and his organization, Jihad Watch, have and will continue to incite physical, mental, and emotional violence against Muslims as long as they are allowed legitimate platforms.
This is libel and defamation. It is also entirely without substance. And in a world that has seen 30,000 lethal jihad attacks committed in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings since 9/11, it’s grotesque and obscene.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Spencer’s “writing was cited dozens of times in a manifesto written by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. Spencer was banned from the United Kingdom as an extremist in July 2013.” These are just a couple of examples of the effects of his ideology. Allowing him to visit and speak will be an act of violence against Muslim students at Gettysburg College and will further legitimate his false and hateful message.
Breivik — always Breivik. If I really incited violence in my writings, one would think that there would be more than just one lone madman to prove it. Breivik actually quoted a great many people, including Barack Obama; he also criticized me for not calling for violence. He also did not hold to my views, but counseled collaboration with Hamas and al-Qaeda. Even if he did, if every point of view were discredited by violence done in its name, Islam and Marxism would be first in line. I was banned from Britain, according to the Home Office’s letter to me, for saying that Islam has doctrines of violence, which is like banning me for saying water is wet. Meanwhile, Britain has admitted many jihadis, illustrating that its banning policy is not based on sound principles.
But these alumni don’t need any actual acts of violence committed by people provoked by what I have written. Allowing me even to visit and speak is “an act of violence against Muslim students at Gettysburg College and will further legitimize [my] false and hateful message.” False? Prove it, snowflakes. Speaking is an act of violence now? Are you so intellectually bereft, and authoritarian at your core, that you cannot bear to hear unpopular ideas, and have to shut down and defame those who enunciate them? It just indicates you can’t refute those ideas on a rational level.
Spencer is the author of many books, including “The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion” (2006) and “Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America Without Guns or Bombs” (2008). These titles alone make it clear that his arguments are predicated on the deliberate conflation of Islam with terrorism. Mr. Spencer has made a name for himself by exploiting fears that are rooted in racism, colonialism, and Western-centrism. Inviting him to join in dialogue on campus is not presenting a difference of opinion but is instead allowing and fostering a level of hate comparable to anti-semitism.
Racism? Islam is not a race. Colonialism and Western-centrism? Tell it to the Thais and Indians threatened by the jihad, and the Acehnese women suffering under Sharia oppression.
Despite regard for and understanding of the right to free speech, bringing Robert Spencer to campus and hosting a platform for his opinions damages the atmosphere of diversity that Gettysburg College has publicly sought to foster over the past few years. There is a way to have healthy and respectful exchange of opinions and Robert Spencer is not a part of that equation. Spencer’s dialogue targets an entire minority population represented not just in this country but also on Gettysburg’s campus and by inviting him to speak, those people, those students and faculty members, have been betrayed.
“There is a way to have healthy and respectful exchange of opinions and Robert Spencer is not a part of that equation.” In other words, “a healthy and respectful exchange of opinions can only include those with whom we agree.”
In the name of free speech, Gettysburg College has chosen to facilitate an atmosphere laden with hate and fear. An opinion article for The New York Times written by Ulrich Baer, a faculty member at New York University, concisely summarizes this concern- “freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute.” As the rising generations fight for cultural equality in this country, we are making space for the voices of the oppressed and we will not be making allowances to further their oppression.
Howling absurdity. The “voices of the [supposedly] oppressed” have an absolute monopoly in places such as Gettysburg College. I represent a small dissenting voice, an opinion that is usually never allowed a fair hearing at colleges or universities.
It is the time we spent learning and growing at Gettysburg College that necessitates this letter. As graduates of Gettysburg, we are grateful to have been instilled with strong critical analysis skills and an appreciation for intellectual diversity. As we have entered the workforce, furthered our education, traveled the globe, and continued the growth that began at our beloved alma mater, we carry the citizenship pillars of Gettysburg College with us: to be curious, own and cherish our experiences, engage difference, and make an impact.
Many of us have come forward individually to express our disapproval of Spencer’s visit and those emails have all been met with the same stock response. Though we can all understand the justifications for such a response, it is undeniably dismissive.
We are sociologists, global communicators, psychologists, educators, scientists, counselors, linguists, faith leaders, doctors, and artists. What unites us all is our history with Gettysburg College and the pressing need to express our objection to Robert Spencer’s invitation to speak on campus. We demand that Gettysburg stands up for those who do not have powerful voices and against Mr. Spencer and all that he stands for by cancelling the event. Until our concerns generate results, many of us have committed to withdrawing any financial support for the college.
If the College had any intellectual integrity, it would refuse any donations from you Left-fascists enemies of free discourse.
Bill says
Quoting the SPLC as a source for banning Mr. Spencer. That shows just how intellectually and morally bankrupt are the graduates of Gettysburg College.
john spielman says
this is a nearly defunct campus with the apostate Lutheran (ELCA) church seminary – along side it – these tiny liberal (F)art colleges are going to go the way of the DODO bird as parents realize their snow flakes cannot get a job with the nearly worthless BFA degrees- “bachelor of ” f ” all”
Paul N Silas says
Little known fact about Islam
Islam is in the Bible. Written about 500 years before Mo-ham-head was even born.
Read the Book of Revelation concerning the “False Prophet”. A “beast” that appears peaceful like a lamb, but has the voice of a dragon/Satan. The Beast/False Prophet has two horns of power (Shite and Sunni) or Iran and Saudi Arabia?
It can call fire down from the skies, nukes?
This Beast helps the ten anti-Christ nations of Marxism come to power, which is what is happening at this college. Islam and Marx
JIMJFOX says
Paul, you talk drivel. Pleases shut up unless you have something useful to add.
Carolyne says
I agree that Mr. Silas talks drivel, but telling him to shut up is the same as telling, for instance, Mr. Spencer to shut up. One may or may not agree with Mr. Silas. He does have a right to his belief in the supernatural. Mr. Spencer can back up his argument with modern day facts, not drivel, facts which affect each one of us ever day as we see Islam attacking innocents on the street and trying to overwhelm civilized countries with their invasions.
Gettysburg College alumni and it students will not benefit from wearing blinders insofar as the purpose and intent of Islam goes. Colleges should be places of learning, not places where only approved opinions are heard.
I also am not impressed with the sell-promotion the letter gives its writers as being “Passionate, thoughtful and principled.” I say they are ignorant, unthinking and have not developed principles by their own analysis, but by listening only to one side and believing that while rejecting even listening to another side.
Also, since Islam is not a race but a barbaric culture, they fall short in that department, too.
I used to live near Gettysburg and visited it often. It is a beautiful serene town now and hard to imagine that a raging battle once was fought there, a battle which was, in part, to free the oppressed, and not to silence the opinion that men should be free. Thousands who died and are buried there would, I believe, not approve of these closed minds seeking to establish a foreign stone-age culture here where they died and trying to silence any voice opposed to their doing so.
Pastor c says
You are insightfully correct in your interpretation of biblical prophecy. Impressive!
just pass'n thru says
you got your views and I have mine and they are not the same.. I’ll just wait for the end and see what happens and who will be saved.
harbidoll says
very interesting. Moham. is definitely an anti -Christ. & 1 bigger, badder than him hasn’t arisen yet.
BC says
I am sorry (not really) but quoting the bible is a dead end. the Quran is in fact a plagiarisation of the Old Testament
Moham. did not have the intellect to create a ‘new’ religion so he borrowed form the Judeaic one.
Obviously if ‘god’ created everything as Christians and Jews believe, he must also have created evil and Satan as well. You only need to look at all ‘god’s’ ‘conversations/revelations’ with Moham. to see that ‘god’ is always doing what Moham. wants ie. to make Moham the ‘greatest prophet’ of all and to always support his desires. It is all about Moham.
Rich says
Paul, you are on the right track, sort of. Islam is woven into Bible prophecy as it is the beast of the end times. The reality that the world will see will be a renewed Ottoman Empire under Erdogan or his successor. The results will be unprecedented carnage against Christians and Jews, with the eventual return of Christ to do the cleanup. It’s becoming more obvious as time goes on.
vlparker says
Nothing but a bunch of totalitarian fascists who always accuse their enemies of doing exactly what they themselves do.
Tony says
Moslems should be banded from speaking. Better yet Moslems should not be in this country. Go back to Saudi Arabia.
old white guy says
a society and people that allow their mortal enemies to live among them will not survive.
Matthieu Baudin says
Colleges and Universities as bastions of free speech and enquiry – what a joke it all sounds like today.
mortimer says
Merely being ‘ideological’ is NOT a valid substitute for being truly LEARNED on a subject.
Robert Spencer is LEARNED on jihad. The alumni of Gettysburg are merely spouting ideology devoid of any LEARNING AT ALL on Islam.
mortimer says
The writers of the ‘open letter’ have not read the Sira or hadiths or tafsirs…(and don’t even know what they are)…and yet, preposterously, they present themselves as AUTHORITIES on Islam. This would be the equivalent of claiming to know more about medicine than a medical researcher who has spent a lifetime studying heart disease… without doing even the basic reading on the subject. Somehow, people who have not even read Islam’s primary source texts, think they are spontaneously experts on Islam, a very complicated topic which has a voluminous library of authoritative primary and secondary source texts. Having an unfounded opinion does not make one ‘COMPASSIONATE’… just PRESUMPTUOUS and perhaps ARROGANT.
On the other hand, Robert Spencer has done the reading. He is one of the world experts on the subject of JIHAD. Mullahs regularly lost so many debates with him, that they now flee from the debate podium. They will be beaten like a drum.
No one at Gettysburg College could defeat Robert Spencer in a structured debate. These pompous alumni know that.
The Vilest of All Creatures says
These people defile and spit on the graves of the thousands of heroes buried just a stones throw from the college
Diane Harvey says
“As graduates of Gettysburg, we are grateful to have been instilled with strong critical analysis skills and an appreciation for intellectual diversity.”
Really? Could this be true? You have strong critical analysis skills AND an appreciation for intellectual diversity? Well, your letter belies those claims.
If Spencer is a mere nothing, then let him set himself up, and then knock him down. And you could get it all on video. Think of all the bragging rights you’d have in having knocked Spencer down with those skills and that appreciation.
Go on and take him on. Show him, with facts and analysis, that his assertions, based on Islam’s core texts, are wrong.
But in truth, Gettysburg College instilled neither of your claims. Did it fail to teach, or did you fail to learn?
Westman says
“As the rising generations fight for cultural equality in this country, we are making space for the voices of the oppressed and we will not be making allowances to further their oppression.”
It walks like fascism and it talks like fascism. How many times has the world seen this phenomenon of a rising group that promises a forced “equality” and then brings failure, poverty, oppression, fear, and war instead of the Nirvana that, without experiential evidence, they had promised?
Calling for the end of human competition while expecting a productive result is a fantasy.
Kiel says
Times are a changing. Gradually, but especially in the Obama years, an anti-intellectual atmosphere has erupted on the campuses. One of the clearest signs of fascism is those of contempt for rational discourse. The red-fascism parallels the Islamofascism. Both are hell-bent on destroying what we see as nuclear values of the American way of life.
Affinity says
What the elite academicians really dont get is that they think islam operates on the same kind of liberal bleeding heart politically correct ideology that they think everyone else in the world should operate under. And of course islam does not and will never subscribe to these tenents.
Scott Morgan says
Robert, I commend you for speaking out on the threat to our country and to the West from Islam.
RK says
NOTE TO THE WORLD- being called “racist,” “Islamophobic” and “intolerant” IS a CHIEF STEALTH WEAPON of Islamic supremacists who are attempting to advance the Sharia in the West.
WAKE UP TO THE TRUTH! WAKE UP AMERICA! Be careful what U wish for people…. YES indoctrination IS very real in their game of twists and turns, deceit and pretend, and out right lies of deception to achieve their world order of control caliphate …. That IS written in their Koran- that they openly follow. SO GET REAL PEOPLE, GET REAL. Stop living in u’r land of denial- just look around where other Countries allow this to flourish- ya reality check! Not good, not good. And yes deadly!
Edward Dillon says
Another block to FREEDOM OF SPEECH by the liberal left who do not want our children to hear opposing discussions to their views. Its time the Republican tax payer demand equality in the classrooms of our schools. Our children deserve to hear the conservative views as well as others, so they can make decisions based on facts not just on the LIBERALS IDEOLOGY.
Politicianphobia says
“Take up our quarrel with the foe, to you from failing hands we throw the torch, be your to hold it high, less ye break faith with us who die.” Thank you Robert Spencer
Geppetto says
“Left-fascists”? No Robert. These are extremely intelligent, nuanced, bordering on brilliant, intellectual, narcissistic jackasses who believe the sun rises and sets on their “courageous,” morally and intellectuality corrupt backsides. The mob mentality cloaked in lofty prose and the ivy covered walls of academia.
Thank you, Robert, for your dedication, commitment, scholarship and for having the strength and character to stand against these silver tongued, fascist thugs. They brag about their noble charade and self expressed commitment to the free exchange of ideas with lofty arguments carefully crafted to institute and enforce the exact opposite. And Gettysburg is far from being an isolated case.
ninetyninepct says
For ALL HR Departments – If you have the bad luck of touching a resume mentioning Gettysburg College or Berkeley, simply shred it for recycling and then run and wash your hands to clean off the filth.
ninetyninepct says
How wonderfully Islamofascist. If we don’t think the way they want us to think then we are wrong.