Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, a self-proclaimed “reporter” with Inside Higher Ed, demonstrates that that publication is in lockstep with what is going on at colleges and universities nationwide: the demonization and forcible suppression of dissenting views. In this hit piece, he tries to make an issue of my responding to attacks upon me and my work that were published in the Stanford Daily and the Stanford Review. Apparently he thinks that I should have no right to respond, or that the attackers’ student status should give them immunity from being called out for their defamation and false statements.
Bauer-Wolf’s implication, of course, is that I endangered these students by responding to them, as it is a staple of Leftist fantasy that racist redneck MAGA-hat wearing right-wingers are brutalizing little Leftist snowflakes wantonly all over the country, when in reality the violent ones are the Leftist groups such as Antifa. In any case, it isn’t as if the people to whom I responded wrote anonymously, and then I found out who they were and named them — they signed their names to their hit pieces, and the fellow who was ripping down the posters advertising my event put up the video of himself doing so, so if they didn’t want to go public with their positions, they have no one to blame but themselves. And if Bauer-Wolf is claiming that I am endangering them simply by criticizing them, then one could never write critically of anyone, for one would be endangering them, and he would be endangering me by writing this hit piece.
More below.
“A Different Kind of Speech Debate,” by Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Inside Higher Ed, November 15, 2017:
In building up to speech by anti-Muslim activist at Stanford, some questioned the appropriateness of hosting someone who has attacked students by name on his blog. Students stage walkout at event.
I am no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were anti-German.
In a digital war of words, Robert Spencer, widely considered to be an anti-Islam extremist, mocked Stanford University students who criticized him before his talk at the elite institution Tuesday night.
Widely — i.e., by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which Bauer-Wolf presents as a reliable guide to what constitutes “extremism.” He doesn’t bother to inform his hapless readers that the SPLC itself has been widely criticized for the obvious bias and sinister agenda of its “hate group” listings.
On his blog Spencer named students, posted photos and videos of them, and referred to them as “fascists.”
Bauer-Wolf here again misleads his readers, by not explaining that the people I named had already come out publicly denouncing me, and I was just responding to their attacks. And are they fascists? Yes. In The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans explains how, in the early days of National Socialist Germany, Stormtroopers (Brownshirts) “organized campaigns against unwanted professors in the local newspapers [and] staged mass disruptions of their lectures.” If you behave the same way fascists did, maybe you are one.
Student organizations and faculty members publicly expressed deep concerns with both Spencer’s invitation to the campus (extended by the Stanford College Republicans) and his continuous “harassment” of students online.
My response to that hysterical and baseless attack is here.
Stanford administrators remained silent on specific blog posts by Spencer, but released multiple more general statements. One statement from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost Persis Drell did not reference Spencer, but promised an inclusive campus environment. They also at length defended the need for free speech in higher education.
But they were not really committed to free speech in higher education. Stanford officials orchestrated the walkout by allowing in students they knew to be opposed to my event, while keeping out those who were sympathetic. Even some members of the sponsoring group, the College Republicans, were not allowed in. Then after the walkout, they refused repeated requests to allow in students who wanted to attend but had been unable to get in. If Stanford were still a university in any valid sense, Tessier-Lavigne and Drell would be resigning in disgrace today.
On Tuesday night, hundreds protested Spencer’s speech outside the venue. More than 100 students opposed to Spencer entered the auditorium and took seats. Then shortly after he started to speak, they stood and walked out. They did so silently and did not attempt to disrupt the speech. Students posted photos to social media (at right) suggesting that only a small number of people remained in the room after the walkout.
As a private institution, Stanford has no constitutional obligation to allow Spencer on campus — it is governed by its own policies.
The Constitution is not at issue. What is at issue is the very mission and idea of a university, which is supposed to be a place where ideas are evaluated on their merits, and free inquiry is not just allowed, but encouraged.
The most recent announcement last Thursday, by Susie Brubaker-Cole, the vice provost for student affairs, and Jane Shaw, Stanford’s dean of religious life, acknowledged “the emotional impact” of Spencer’s visit, but said that nothing could “undercut the fact that Muslim students are an integral part of our community.”
“Significantly, in relation to the talk next week, the president and provost underscore our university’s commitment to freedom of expression, which allows groups in our community to host speakers of their choice provided university policies are followed and imparts upon each of us a responsibility to ensure that speech can proceed without disruption.
However, the president and provost also emphasize that this commitment empowers each of us to exercise our own free speech, “to call out hate when we see it,” and to speak forcefully and peacefully against injustice. These are values we know Stanford community members — of all faiths and none — feel deeply about.
My response is here.
Robert Spencer — who is unrelated to the white nationalist Richard Spencer, who has dominated headlines in recent months for his speeches at public colleges and universities — has been deemed by civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center one of the country’s most “prolific and vociferous anti-Muslim propagandists.”
More info here on that so-called “civil rights organization.”
He was barred from the United Kingdom, where he and Pamela Geller, co-founders of the Stop Islamization of America group, were due to speak at a rally by another fringe conservative organization, in 2013 because his presence would “not be conducive to the public good,” according to statements from the U.K. government.
“Fringe” is a pejorative term that has no place in what is supposed to be a “news story.” In any case, the UK Home Office actually said that I was banned for saying: “[Islam] is a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers,” yet that is an obvious and readily demonstrable fact that I’ve documented extensively on numerous occasions, and which many Muslim clerics themselves affirm.
Spencer has detailed his credentials deeply on his website — he has authored 17 books and delivered seminars on Islam to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force. Fundamentally, he believes that Islam is a violent religion.
Spencer has disputed the SPLC’s characterization of him and questioned the center’s validity. In an email to Inside Higher Ed, Spencer wrote that SPLC has tried to destroy “legitimate organizations” and “stigmatize legitimate positions.” He wrote that his opposition to “jihad terror” has been lumped in with the likes of neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
Bauer-Wolf doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that numerous organizations are noting this about the SPLC.
For at least a week, Spencer has responded on his blog Jihad Watch to multiple opinion writers in Stanford’s student press, at times dissecting the students’ and professors’ grievances with him line by line.
This is called “intellectual exchange.” That a “reporter” for Inside Higher Ed would think it something heinous shows the low state of the academic establishment today.
He has also criticized and identified students who have simply openly disagreed with his views or the event.
No. They identified themselves. I just responded.
In one post Monday, Spencer wrote about and identified one student, and linked to a 2016 article in the student newspaper The Stanford Daily, in which the student was quoted.
I had to hunt for this, since Bauer-Wolf doesn’t link to Jihad Watch, perhaps knowing how his scenario will be exploded if he does. I looked at all the posts about Stanford put up Monday, and there was nothing from 2016. I just responded to the attacks that the Stanford student press published that day. He is trying to give the impression that I went digging in order to defame and endanger students.
After a Muslim student published an essay titled “I Will Never Belong in the Stanford Community,” detailing her discomfort with Spencer, in the political student magazine The Stanford Review, Spencer sardonically picked apart nearly every sentence of it.
“Her piece here wringing her hands and claiming victim status over my scheduled appearance at Stanford next week is a masterpiece of self-dramatization, featuring outlandish claims that would have moved me to laughter were it not, hang it all, for the pathos of this poor girl’s plight. I shed a few tears in solidarity with her, while giggling behind my hat,” Spencer wrote.
She wrote it. It was a silly farrago of victimhood posturing, so I mocked it. She is above mockery and ridicule? Why? Here is my full response. Are we already living under Sharia now, such that Muslims are not to be criticized?
Spencer ridiculed in several posts made by another student — whom he referred to as a “fascist.” In the video, posted to Snapchat, someone purported to be the student is shown tearing down posters advertising Spencer’s event. The video was first flagged and written about by national right-wing group Young America’s Foundation, which orchestrates with campus conservative groups to schedule appearances by controversial speakers like Spencer.
Bauer-Wolf doesn’t tell you that the student himself posted the video. If he didn’t want to be known, he should have thought twice.
Then Bauer-Wolf goes into the funding for the event, obviously intending to prevent such funding in the future, and then:
…Asked if the university felt Spencer was inappropriate in naming students on his blog or whether it was grounds to refuse to host him, Miranda wrote in an email, “The university will be reviewing various issues related to this event after it has concluded.”
What are you going to do, Miranda? Prevent me from speaking? Persecute the College Republicans even more?
At least eight professors and others on Monday wrote in The Stanford Daily that Spencer’s blog has opened students and faculty members to harm.
Remember: he is saying I exposed them to harm by responding to their attacks. This is the bizarre world of Leftist academia, in which apparently one must suffer defamation in silence or be accused of further atrocities.
They said that while they respect free speech, Spencer’s actions need to be addressed by the university — they called on the institution to take “ethical action” as determined by its code of conduct. It is unclear if they were asking for Spencer’s invitation to be revoked….
Too late, but the fascists took care of business anyway.
Poor Jeremy Bauer-Wolf! When he sees this post he will be requesting a police escort to his safe space. But if this post, or my posts responding to Stanford students, faculty and administrators, are endangering them, how is his article not endangering me?
VRWC member77 says
How very beta male of a piece from Jeremy-Bauer-Wolf.
Terry Gain says
Why do you elevate his vicious calumny? Robert Spencer has conclusively proven that Stanford U is run by simple minded fascists. Bauer-Wolf is out of his depth. His criticism of Spencer is a pile of mendacity.
gravenimage says
Terry, calling someone a “beta male” is *not* a compliment.
Terry Gain says
Graven Image
He is much worse than a mere beta male.
mortimer says
Agree. In debate on the topic of jihad, Robert Spencer is the ALPHA. The reasons for that are his insuperable knowledge of the topic of jihad, his moral honesty and intellectual integrity and sterling person character… not to be confused with kneeling to bullies!
Students at Sandford seemingly have very low standards of intellectual integrity if they think they can simply hurl invective, malicious defamation and groundless, libellous slander at a person and not receive a refutation. They have the wrong target, because Robert Spencer not only excels in intellectual integrity, he is also an untiring and unceasing advocate of human rights, good manners and plain old decency, values students and some teachers at Stanford seem not to understand.
The critics of Robert Spencer cannot expect a man of his high moral and intellectual integrity to stand for false accusations, for that would imply that he agrees with the slanders or has no ability to refute them. Robert Spencer not only has great personal integrity, but he is also superior and hard to beat in debate as the recognized DEAN OF JIHADOLOGY.
Let these popinjays challenge Robert Spencer to a debate! He will gladly toy with them before beating them in debate like a drum! I imagine this know-nothing Bauer-Wolf would not last ONE MINUTE in a formal debate with the MIGHTY ROBERT SPENCER… nor has he the guts to find out.
Norger says
@Mortimer—You are absolutely right. The reason why Spencer’s critics work so hard to demonize him is because he is simply too effective when given a fair hearing. The last thing they want is an open exchange of views on the (obvious) relationship between Islamic theology and terrorism.
gravenimage says
This is true, Terry.
JOHN FORBES says
Jeremy NEEDS TO GET OUT MORE & GET A REAL JOB!
THE REAL WORLD MAY WEL BE FAR TOO MUCH FOR JEREMY!
HE TALKS UTTER NONSENSE AS DO THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE FROM STANFORD!
YOU SURE THIS IS A UNIVERSITY ??
larry says
He looks like a 40-ish wimp trying to look like a 20-ish intellectual. Still trying to hook-up with them teen girls, or maybe boys?
p bay says
goats
p bay says
good to see him back in men’s clothes. Is this the guy that made transmitting aids a misdemeanor from a felony?
Christina Hadleigh says
Student B/W’s name sounds like a descendant of WWII Nazis, hiding in America and working for GEORGE SOROS….. What an wanker……
Wyldeirishman says
An Omega male with a hyphenated last name.
DIS-qualified!
mortimer says
Bauer-Wolf is a coward. He thinks writing puts him and students above criticism.
The reverse is true. It puts them in a position where they WILL BE CRITICIZED FOR EVERY WORD and even EVERY UNINTENDED IMPLICATION!
Be careful what you write if you put your name on it!
Mr. Bauer-Wolf, if you or other students do not wish to have their writings “DISSECTED” (your word), then DO NOT WRITE IN A PUBLIC FORUM.
Mr. Bauer-Wolf, if you and your student pals cannot take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. It’s for GROWNUPS, not coddled, entitled Marxist babies.
Norger says
Exactly. They attacked Spencer, in writing, in a public forum, with some vicious (and mostly false) accusations, but it is they who are are “threatened” in some vague yet sinister way when Spencer responds,in writing, in his own public forum.
The other thing that strikes me about this is that Spencer responded to most of these “hit pieces” fairly quickly. My point is that nearly all of these student writers knew, when they published their “hit pieces” that Spencer was likely to respond as he did to these personal attacks upon him. And now the complaint is?
maghan says
What does this guy with his attention-getting haircut know about Marx? Has he ever read a serious nonfiction book cover to cover?
He is just so simple-minded in his comments.
Bezelel says
Wyldeirishman, You wouldn’t Dis-qualify him just for keeping his maiden name, now would you? Bauer-Wolf has sort of a ring to it, like fairy chimes.
Christina Hadleigh says
More like the Lunch Bell in a NAZI Concentration Camp, during WW11…..
p bay says
Thats a woman!
Christina Hadleigh says
Surely, no Transexual would want to look that ugly…..
Christina Hadleigh says
Even the Irish ‘Gedwood’ twin Brothers would hope they don’t look as ugly as Bauer-Wolf.
TheBuffster says
Where we are in the progress of the spirit of true fascism – the smearing of honest and intelligent people like Robert Spencer and the prevention of open, serious, probing debate on crucial issues *by universities* – is truly terrifying.
I read an article by a law professor that I now consider to be a real hero in today’s murky swamp of “higher” education. It’s an uplifting (while simultaneously disturbing) message to today’s students about learning to actually think and understand. It’s telling them how their minds have been grossly “diseducated” and what they must do to save their minds from the ignorance and shallowness that has been foisted upon them by those who are supposed to be educating them.
He actually delivered the bulk of this article as a lecture to his first-year students, because he says that unless they embrace what the lecture has to tell them they will not be able to learn the lessons they must learn in his class.
Here is the link to the article. I think we should do what we can to make it go viral.
http://newbostonpost.com/2017/11/09/undoing-the-dis-education-of-millennials/
mortimer says
Agree with “honest and intelligent people like Robert Spencer”.
Robert Spencer is scrupulously honest, moral and intelligently fair and painstakingly analytical.
Robert Spencer has all the characteristics of a fine scholar. He is the DEAN OF JIHADOLOGY.
TheBuffster says
Yes he is, Mortimer! 😀
Jim says
If the left ever opens their eyes to Islam, it will be a hard fall. Unfortunately, some people can remain blind their whole life. I hope he is not one. Read the friggin’ Koran and hadiths, every word, front to back. You deem yourself educated, then educate yourself on Islam; read it all. Turn your biases off, read with comprehension. Don’t gloss, don’t scan, read it very carefully.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it.” Aristotle.
Entertain the idea. You’re supposed to be educated.
mortimer says
Yes, Jim. KA-POW!
p bay says
Its going to take some sharia law to get their minds right
Emilie Green says
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf,
Now that’s a do to die for!
Pajaro says
Snowflake wishing for a man bun!
p bay says
only the best fudge pounders have a name like that
Timothy McAlee, Sr. G.eD. says
These Muslim fanatics believe that “allah” will Reward them with, 72 Virgins & they could Not be more Wrong! Mohammad was a Dyslexic & misread the Quran! It says, “with 27 Virgins, will I reward YOU, BUTT YOU WON’T KNOW, if they are Male, or female UNTIL YOU GET HERE SUCKERS”!!!
Terry Gain says
No. The reward is a 72 year old virgin.
Benedict says
These people will exercise their free speech and call out hate when they see it and speak forcefully and peacefully against injustice. –
But if a person, able to read and study in a university, can’t see hate and injustice in Islam there is not much hope that he or she will be able to see hate and injustice anywhere, much less speak out against it.
Norger says
+100
gravenimage says
I’m hoping some of them will come around in time–it certainly helps if they are actually allowed to hear truth-tellers like Robert Spencer.
mortimer says
Agree with GI. They will come ’round after they read ONLY ONE OF THE 17 BOOKS written by Mr. Spencer and then they will understand why his the DEAN OF JIHADOLOGY.
A slight correction says
This is also a lie, Mortimer, as quite a few of them have read “ONLY ONE” of his books and still don’t agree. Please stop lying if you care about free speech. Like, Spencer is right, but it’s still ok to disagree (even though I think the people who disagree are wrong). Please stop attacking free speech by spreading lies. The fight over free speech is more important right now than this in America.
Joe says
Slight Correction, you are accusing Mortimer of exactly what you are doing. You have no way of know that “quite a few of them” have read one his books. Only one student looked at Robert Spencer’s books and he was impressed. The rest of the attacks on Robert Spencer are “no research” attacks. Mortimer accused them of being “lazy”.
The point is that if these attackers would read a few pages of the Koran, they would agree with Spencer and Mortimer. Read the first 12 pages of the Koran, and you will find at least 8 times where it tells people not to be friends with the unbelievers. The failure to look into it even a little is pretty lazy as Mortimer alleges.
I have talked to Muslims about this. Their defense is that “no one reads the Koran”. If you are going to be a Muslim, that is being lazy. I think Mortimer has a point.
gravenimage says
Good post, Joe.
Not everyone will agree with Robert Spencer, of course, especially if they have been indoctrinated for years, but if they are open minded there is a good chance that they will at least entertain the validity of his well-reasoned arguments.
Sadly, many of those who consider him an “Islamophobe” have never read his work at all–neither his books nor his articles here at Jihad Watch.
As for A slight correction’s claim that Jeremy Bauer-Wolf has read five of Robert Spencer’s books, after combing through the story above I can find no reference to this. He mentions that Robert Spencer has written seventeen books, but–unless I have missed something–gives no indication that he has ever read them.
roger woodhouse says
The leftwing media had thoroughly brainwashed them.They are now automatons.Only when they are earning a living in the real world can we expect a shift in opinon but for them it will be too late
Norger says
“Remember: he is saying I exposed them to harm by responding to their attacks.”
In each case, the student chose to villify YOU personally, with patently false and truly ugly smears in each instance (e.g. you inspired a mass murderer, you are anti-Semitic, you de-humanize Muslims etc.) Notwithstanding the muck being thrown at you by the bucket full, you are not allowed to respond because it’s dangerous to those who are defaming you. These people are completely unhinged.
TheBuffster says
Norger: “In each case, the student chose to villify YOU personally, with patently false and truly ugly smears in each instance (e.g. you inspired a mass murderer, you are anti-Semitic, you de-humanize Muslims etc.)”
I’m afraid it’s scarier than this, Norger. I think a lot of these people actually believe those truly ugly smears because they have been anti-educated all their young lives, from kindergarten through college and they don’t know how to distinguish a fallacy from a true process of sound reasoning.
They believe they’re right.
Norger says
@TheBuffster—I read your excellent longer post above on this same subject. I’ve been away from college for too long to offer any meaningful input, but what you describe is totally consistent with what we’re seeing on our college campuses. In any event, I think that most of these misguided souls at Stanford (1) know next to nothing about Islam;(2) know less about Robert Spencer; and (3) sincerely believe that they are on the right side of this. It’s frightening.
Davegreybeard says
One look at this arrogant, smirking little dickhead tells you all you need to know.
DBM echo says
All dressed up for his visit to the bathhouse.
Hugo Hackenbush says
Now, Now! This is no place to insult bathhouses!
Custos Custodum says
Jammy Boor-Woof has a glib and agile tongue.
A slight correction says
Davegreybeard, why are you limiting his free speech by judging him before hearing what he has to see? He’s full of nonsense, of course, but you’re just as bad if you judge him by his appearance and deny him his free speech.
gravenimage says
A slight correction, you are mistaken in believing that Davegreybeard is in any way denying Jeremy Bauer-Wolf free speech.
Countering or criticizing anyone’s speech is not limiting free speech–it is *practicing* free speech.
A slight correction says
No, you are mistaken. By judging someone by their appearance BEFORE they speak, you are limiting their free speech and are just as bad as the Stanford students who judge Spencer without reading his works. Do some research, gravenimage.
A slight correction says
By saying that all you need to know about his opinions you can get by looking at him, he is IN FACT denying free speech to the author. He is just as much of a fascist as the Stanford students who assume things about Spencer without reading his works. Fascism and anti-free speechism is not allowed, even if you support Spencer.
gravenimage says
A slight correction wrote:
No, you are mistaken. By judging someone by their appearance BEFORE they speak, you are limiting their free speech and are just as bad as the Stanford students who judge Spencer without reading his works. Do some research, gravenimage.
……………………………….
A slight correction, you might take issue with commenting on someone’s appearance, but this *in no way* limits their freedom of speech.
Likewise, someone commenting on Robert Spencer’s appearance–even negatively–is not hence limiting his freedom of speech.
Enrique says
Obviously the Stanford students who walked out vastly outnumbered Robert Spencer. They could have tried to discredit the evidence he presents, and his reasoning, with question after question. They could have attempted prove that his arguments were either not sound or invalid. But they didn’t.
Why didn’t they? Didn’t they have any questions or argy=uments that they believed he could answer satisfactorily? If so, why didn’t they stay and make them? As it stands, the walkers have demonstrated that they are either unable or unwilling to communicate rationally, and to even listen. This might be attributed to their age, immaturity and inexperience. Then there were all those other disruptive events, the walking out. So they wanted to make a point, but what was it? Was it that Robert Spencer’s arguments were unsound or invalid? Why, Stanford “walkout” students, why? What about the otherr Stanford students? Are they to believe that they can agree with Robert Spencer without feeling or being ostracized, demonized and excluded?
Norger says
It’s much easier to assert your moral superiority and walk out, than to listen, formulate a reasoned response and deliver it. It’s simple; you don’t need to know anything about Islam. Just say that Spencer is beneath contempt, congratulate yourself, walk away and declare victory.
Enrique says
Many of these walkout Stanford walkout students are surely being manipulated. It doesn’t make sense for rational, intelligent and hard working students to suddenly commit a public act of intellectual suicide.
The administrators are either on the team with the manipulators or are also manipulated. Why would they not expect rational conduct otherwise?
We should all worry for the other studernts in the Stanford environment who are either silent or who agree with Robert Spencer.
Norger says
As another poster noted above, there is clearly a lot of “group think” and peer pressure at Stanford to be on the politically correct side of this. It is pretty clear that anyone who doesn’t toe the party line on the “Islam is peace” narrative is in for a very unpleasant college experience.
Custos Custodum says
QUOTE: Many of these walkout Stanford walkout students are surely being manipulated.
BLACKMAIL? Students feel vulnerable and typically have limited street smarts, and more limited intestinal fortitude.
Think about a student’s concerns: her/his grades, letters of recommendation, deleting disciplinary records (crucial for security clearance), …
Colleges can easily CREATE disciplinary records to punish students for extraneous acts (cheated on finals …), …
gravenimage says
Custos, I doubt universities would actually gin up false claims of politically unpopular students cheating on finals.
But it is quite possible that their completely legal and peaceful activities could be labeled disruptive–this, grimly, happens all the time.
roger woodhouse says
They’ve had their ‘opinions’formed for them so they cannot allow ‘an outsider’to try and change them.They just cover their ears to any contra view and scream ‘facist’.Its so much easier than accepting they were wrong all along.
Enrique says
“Didn’t they have any questions or argy=uments that they believed he could answer satisfactorily?”
I meant: Didn’t they have any questions or arguments that they believed he could NOT answer satisfactorily?
gravenimage says
Inside Higher Ed’s Jeremy Bauer-Wolf attacks Robert Spencer for responding to attacks from Stanford students
……………………..
Just pathetic.
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf himself admits that many universities have a “a student body that does not fully embrace the First Amendment or its principles”.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/14/college-administrators-no-easy-answers-controversial-speakers
But this does not stop him from saying that UC Berkeley was “a campus spurred to violence after a hot-button speaker, former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos” came to speak.
Why should this be? Milo Yiannopoulos has never been violent, nor does he preach violence. One need not agree with him on his every point–I don’t, myself–to respect his right to speak without threat of violence.
And yet, Bauer-Wolf blames peaceful speakers for the security costs incurred by universities, rather than the violent thugs themselves.
At least half of the comments on this article are reasonable, though–this, at least, is a good sign.
Voytek Gagalka says
Bravo! Smash them (intellectually) to pieces, Robert Spencer, as you have all right to do so in this (still) free country! I see that you touch their very nerves in your excellent analyzes and this is the reason of their outrageous reactions. They simply can’t stand superiority of reason (abandoned by them long ago)! They don’t have any valid arguments whatsoever! Their silly attempts of criticism go to pieces on its own “merit” each and every time they try. Are they, those members of some untouchable caste surprised? They fully deserve consequences of their actions.
Luis says
Does reading and loving the book Mein Kampf make one a Nazi?
Enrique says
If someone loves Mein Kampf because one agrees and supports Hitler’s views and acts, then it stands to reason that,such a person, lamentably is a Nazi Sympathizer. Would you agee?
But what does your question have to do with the Robert Spencer at Stanford event?
eduardo odraude says
Here’s a funny one from David Wood, if you can stick it out till the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UO_6KZjI5Q
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Tip: Don’t bother listening to the boring 10-minute setup to the punchline; skip right to the end.
Spoiler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_Stranger_Calls_(1979_film)
eduardo odraude says
Don’t skip right to the end; watch a minute of the setup. Then, understanding that the setup goes on basically the same way for another 8 minutes, skip to 9:10 in the video. Skip then to 9:10 and watch the rest of the video.
Enrique says
Try to imagine Stanford students repeating this at dinner on campus. Imagine if you were an 18 year old Muslim or Puerto Rican students sitting at the table. Would you still think it’s funny? How about if you were the parent of one of those students?
MFritz says
German origins AND a “double name”. Typical indicators of extreme self importance.
As – male – students we would avoid people with double names like the plague as they would either point toward feminist idiots (of both sexes) or arrogant bastards (ditto).
Oh, and to avoid a complete “ad personam”-posting… Bauer-Wolf is a child. He looks and he writes like a typical Millenial. “Grow up, child” is the ONLY appropriate reaction.
Bezelel says
MFritz, he is simply using his maiden name with his married name. Not that uncommon. Tacky yes but not uncommon. And if the boy? jeremy reads this, It’s better to keep quiet and let people think you’re a fool than to write volumes of evidence to convince us all that you are indeed a fool and have years to go before you will begin to form an opinion worth hearing even by a psychiatrist.
MFritz says
So… does he have a point or not? Because that’s what it’s all about.
Bezelel says
Definitely not. He really should study Robert’s books before he comments on them
MFritz says
None of them ever do.
maghan says
It’s the age of the “post-post Enlightenment” when inculcated “feelings” determine what’s right or wrong.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Bauer-Wolf: For at least a week, Spencer has responded on his blog Jihad Watch to multiple opinion writers in Stanford’s student press, at times dissecting the students’ and professors’ grievances with him line by line.
Spencer: This is called “intellectual exchange.”
More specifically, a point-by-point refutation like this is called a “fisking”; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk#Fisking
Or when it comes to Islam, maybe we should call such a refutation a “fisqing”, from the Islamic term for one of the three levels of evil: (1) fisq = disobeying Allah but acknowledging that Allah should be obeyed, (2) kufr = disobeying Allah and not acknowledging that Allah should be obeyed, (3) taghut = disobeying Allah and encouraging others to disobey along with you. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taghut
eduardo odraude says
Except that Stanford’s huge endowments are tax free, and it gets a lot of government grants. Perhaps that tax benefit and those grants should come into question if Stanford’s administration is too benighted or cowardly to permit and teach free speech on campus and to expel students who are intimidating other students with dissenting viewpoints.
Lydia says
He looks like a typical ‘pansy-snowflake’!
“Oooouch! Stoooop thaaaat! You’re hurting my delicate fantasy imagination bubble with the truth!
How daaaaaare yoouw! Aaoouuwh!”
jayell says
“They stood up and walked out…..silently so as not to disrupt the speech”. Audiences are supposed to SIT quietly and NOT MOVE in order to avoid causing disruption. Just one person getting up and walking out in full view of the others will cause distraction. 100 members of the audience ostentatiously doing this this will clearly cause total distraction, which equals disruption. It is also known as gross dscourtesy, which springs from gross social ignorance. Bauer-Wolf knows this, of course, but somehow believes that writing such deliberately nonsensical, puerile tosh is going convince anyone that these deluded adolescent sheep had anything resembling so much as a shred of personal maturity or intellectual integrity. He does a very good impression of a deluded idiot writing for deluded idiots about deluded idiots. Anyone not wishing to be included in that description should feel grossly insulted by Bauer-Wolf’s dubious attempt at responsible commentary.
By the way, I notice that the female Muslim’s public whinge about Mr. Spencer’s visit included a statement that she did not/did not wish to feel part of the Stanford community. What was the point of that statement? Did she feel that, as a muslim, she was so important that her rejection of Stanford’s supposed affirmation of traditional academic freedom (which did not happen to suit her personal agenda) should be of primary influence? Does that connect with Bauer-Wolf’s assertion that Muslims are an ‘integral part of the Stanford community’ when in fact they are just a recent small-minority addition that has played no part in Stanford’s initial institution or historical development and furthermore is alien and inimical to its founding principles – and proves the point by serving as no more than a corrupting and corrosive influence? And Bauer-Wolf, like a dutiful snowflake-sheep, invokes the ‘i’-word – ‘inclusion’. That is, you blindly accept anyone, anything and everything without responsibly-informed question until, apparently, someone turns up to question things in a responsibly-informed way. Then you conveniently confuse your self-presumed righteous liberalism (sic) with undiluted fascism, and, like gullible idiots, we’re not supposed to notice. Unmoderated self-projection is a classic symptom of defective intellectual development, but I for one do not wish to be the subject of Mr. Bauer-Wolfe’s dubious presumptions. I think I prefer Mr. Spencer’s proven integrity.
maghan says
Suppose a Stanford student has very racist and sexist beliefs and displays those beliefs with a special mode of dress, and if an invited speaker exposes and comments on those beliefs, how should the student feel?
GUEST says
Here in Europe Islam is now considered an invasion. The agenda from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always been to take over the world. Read about the Poles and how millions are praying to stop it. Read about Malmo, Sweden, now the rape capital of the world. Nothing has changed over the centuries, and we know it, since Otronto, in Italy, in the 15th century (please research that one) which won’t ever be forgotten. ALL the TV talk shows every night are debating, “What are we going to do?” Muslims collaborated with the Nazis in WWII and this is being suppressed. Do come to Europe. Visit Molenbeek in Belgium. You will see that Islam is not a “live and let live” religion like say, the Amish. Or Hindus. Or Orthodox Jews etc. It’s mind boggling how you, someone with education and presumably an academic background, are shamefully ignorant of history. No sir, we will not drive off the cliff because people like you are seeing to it that the warning signs are removed.
Matthieu Baudin says
“… The Constitution is not at issue. What is at issue is the very mission and idea of a university, which is supposed to be a place where ideas are evaluated on their merits, and free inquiry is not just allowed, but encouraged…”
The problem is that these institutions have degenerated over time and come to encourage and adopt the proselytising, antidemocratic, ‘direct action’ antics of New Left groups of whom the Maoists were exemplary decades ago while Trotskyist groups and nihilist/anarchists outfits continued an unbroken tradition as models for this style of behaviour. Many of the current crop of University administrators and academics were in the prime of their youth in Universities during the early ’70’s where they became suckers for dreams of social transformation and indoctrinated into thinking that the whole social edifice was so rotten that it all had to be brought crashing down. At a time when higher education debts are monstrously high and well paid job prospects for graduates so low this type of aggressive student radicalism is being encouraged and young people exploited by being provided with a phoney sense of destiny and purpose.
Benedict says
Wolf: “Fundamentally, he [Robert Spencer] believes that Islam is a violent religion.” –
Quite a lot of Muslims believe that also and act upon it. Where did they get their ideas from?
And how many of these believers does it take for Wolf to consider their clam?
No one is made victorious through ignorance. No one is made victorious through terror either, but it takes time before they realize it. Wolf should promote this realization.
gravenimage says
Good points, Benedict.
RodSerling says
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf claims:
“Then shortly after he started to speak, they stood and walked out. They did so silently and did not attempt to disrupt the speech.”
That’s blatantly false. See the video below, starting at about 12:40 of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTB_dOM-VWM&app=desktop
The group’s highly disruptive, noisy exit, with music, laughter, and talk, went on for about four minutes. One of the “protesters” apparently kicked the lectern on the way out, also causing a loud noise and knocking down an electronic device. Looks like a violent intimidation tactic.
If Bauer-Wolf knows his claim is false, then he’s lying. The only other possibility is that he didn’t check, and just recklessly claimed that they left silently, to support his own narrative–which is itself a form of deception.
gravenimage says
Important point, Rod.
Sickofallthecrap says
This is all nonsense. Goebbels would be pleased. The fascists have indoctrinated mindless, coddled, gutless children into a mob of “brown shirts”. Well done. Embrace your dhimmitude. Display your ignorance for all to see. Replace productive, hard working Jews with lazy, entitled Moslems like they are doing in Europe. Shame America! Jefferson, Madison, Paine and Franklin have been betrayed and replaced by limp, foggy minded post modernist, bull shit mouthing anti-lectuals. Canada’s even worse. Time to move to Israel.
Fred H says
Muslims are civilisation destroyers. Just look at history.
gravenimage says
+1
D Trump says
He’s just another lefty milk toast twerp.