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.”
Stanford student Andrew Quirk disguises his fascism as a concern for the safety of Muslims, who are, in reality, not in the least endangered by the prospect of my presence, or by my talk, or by the aftermath of my event. But I will, because of the reckless defamation of Andrew Quirk and other Stanford fascists, be coming to Stanford with a security team.
“Andrew Quirk sent an email to a Twain Hall listserv in the name of ‘Your staff’ on the subject of Spencer flyers in the dorm, which was discussed at that evening’s house meeting. Titled ‘Community Safety,’ the email says staff in the all-freshmen dorm ‘recognize and support freedom of speech, and we also value safety’: ‘The flier makes people of some marginalized identities feel unsafe, and that is not OK. Twain is your home. It is where you live, and everyone deserves to feel safe. These fliers are not welcome. The hallway spaces belong to the Twain community.'”
The “feel unsafe,” they say. Do the members of Stanford’s fascist community “feel” any responsibility to acknowledge reality, or is reality entirely passé there?
Meanwhile, if Andrew Quirk really wants to protect people of “marginalized identities” at Stanford, he should start looking out for the welfare of the College Republicans.
“Stanford staff encourage students to tear down flyers for talk on radical Islam,” by Grace Curtis, The College Fix, November 13, 2017 (thanks to Lookmann):
Leftist students at Stanford University are getting help from the administration in blocking people from hearing about a Tuesday campus lecture about the threat of radical Islam.
Not only did a student send a mass email demanding that student activity fees appropriated for the Robert Spencer event be taken back, but staff in one residence hall implied they would tear down flyers for it.
The event is co-hosted by the College Republicans chapter and Young America’s Foundation. Since it was first advertised, at least one person is known to have torn down flyers for the event – because he shared video of himself doing it.
Young America’s Foundation has continually shamed the Stanford administration in public for trying to minimize the event’s reach, including through a ban on livestreaming it.
‘We want to empower your freedom of speech, and it is our job to create a safe space’
Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, and the Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as “one of America’s most prolific and vociferous anti-Muslim propagandists.”
Caleb Smith used “The Diaspora” listserv, which describes itself as “the virtual soul of Black Folks at Stanford,” to email several listservs Nov. 1 about the event with the “Islamophobe” Spencer.
Titled “Stop Student Fees Going to Support Islamaphobic Speaker Event [SIGN PETITION + FORWARD WIDELY],” the email proposes a referendum that would let students overturn the Undergraduate Senate’s decision to provide funds for the event.
“[I]t does not make sense to use $6,000 of student funds to support a speaker who is actively hostile to a large and valued segment of our campus community,” Smith wrote, adding that if his petition gets 800 signatures, “we may be able to freeze funding.”
Less than three hours later, Andrew Quirk sent an email to a Twain Hall listserv in the name of “Your staff” on the subject of Spencer flyers in the dorm, which was discussed at that evening’s house meeting.
Titled “Community Safety,” the email says staff in the all-freshmen dorm “recognize and support freedom of speech, and we also value safety”:
The flier makes people of some marginalized identities feel unsafe, and that is not OK. Twain is your home. It is where you live, and everyone deserves to feel safe. These fliers are not welcome. The hallway spaces belong to the Twain community.
Quirk, who is sophomore class president of the Class of 2019, asks residents to talk to staff if something in the hall “ever makes you feel unsafe … We want to empower your freedom of speech, and it is our job to create a safe space.”
Ari Kelman, one of two “resident fellows” for Twain Hall, told The College Fix he could not comment on Quirk’s email in the name of residence hall staff.
College Republicans ‘hope to charge him with vandalization and theft’
Sometime in early November, an unidentified person recorded himself tearing down flyers for the Spencer event.
Young America’s Foundation obtained the video. It said in a Nov. 6 post the video was originally posted to Snapchat with a caption that encourages others to “remove any islamaphobe [sic] invitations from your friendly college republicans.”
YAF mocked Spencer’s critics, asking what was “hateful” and “Islamaphobic [sic]” about Spencer’s opposition to “throwing gay men off buildings” and “using a truck to mow down bicyclists in Manhattan.” (Spencer himself blogged: “Why is Stanford’s fascist community so angry that I am set to speak? Are they for the jihad mass murder of innocent civilians? The beating of women? The execution of gays?”)
YAF said Stanford had “barred the public from attending” and “banned live-streaming of the speech.”
An executive in the College Republicans told The Fix that though closed to the public, the event has an “outside guest list” with 30 slots for non-Stanford attendees.
That decision was “forced” on the CRs by the Stanford administration, which told the club “the security cost would [be] beyond our mark of affordability if the event were open to the public,” said the executive, who asked not to be identified.
The executive also mocked the effort to prevent the community from hearing Spencer’s message.
Smith’s petition would violate the student government’s constitution, which only authorizes the freezing of funds that “have not been expended or encumbered” pending a referendum.
Spencer’s funds have already been encumbered, so even though it reached the number of signatures needed, “the petition was dead on arrival,” said the executive: The CRs are “grateful” to Smith for giving their event free advertising with his “baseless” petition.
Regarding the flyers, the executive said they cannot be removed until “after the date of the event advertised,” so the CRs reported the video vandal to the police “and we hope to charge him with vandalization [sic] and theft.”
Conservative speakers at Stanford have “seldom been afforded the opportunity to express their views to an audience beyond that of the Hoover Institution,” the right-leaning research organization based at Stanford, the executive said….
mortimer says
Andrew Quirk is unable to debate Robert Spencer, because he has not studied Islam’s primary source texts and doesn’t even know the names of them.
Andrew Quirk thinks that by preventing the freedom of expression of others, he can prevent all debate. Rather, his lawlessness and opposition to the freedom of expression has exposed himself to the criticism that he is acting like a brown-shirted fascist.
Andrew Quirk’s lawless actions show that he has NO argument.
Andrew Quirk would be more INTELLECTUAL if he read Robert Spencer’s books and articles and found anything that is erroneous. Of course, he is a pseudo-intellectual, and Andrew Quirk cannot do that.
Andrew Quirk is a virtue-signalling, lawless thug.
b.a. freeman says
+1!
Rob says
Otto Warmbier found out about removing posters!
gravenimage says
That Stanford is allowing *staff* to tear down posters is appalling.
MacUalraig says
Damn that was sound.
Linde Barrera says
These Stanford students and the Stanford staff who support their efforts to not have Robert Spencer speak do not want to know the whole truth about Islam. They are confusing doctrine with behavior and feeling. What idiotic conclusions they have. ????
b.a. freeman says
far worse than not *wanting* to hear mr. spencer, they *refuse* to hear him. a university is supposed to expose one to ideas with which one may not be familiar, and to teach one to search out the truth. rather than doing the hard work of reading islamic scripture to refute mr. spencer’s tenets point-by-point, they take the lazy way out and parrot the (false) points of their thought-leaders.
this is the worst damage that the left has inflicted upon universities. rather than seeking out truth, the leftists virtue-signal one another, *exactly* like the brownshirts did, never checking for veracity, and shutting down discussion so that they can feel good about themselves. mr. spencer is 100% justified in calling these poor fools fascists. they believe themselves to be right, and since they are right, there is no need to listen to the opposition; indeed, since the opposition is wrong, it is possible that they may mislead innocent freshmen, so it is *imperative* to prevent them from speaking decided untruths. were the words of mr. quirk to be transplanted to the 1930s and translated into german, he would be accepted at any brownshirt rally.
the nazis are back, and they are winning.
gravenimage says
They are also refusing to let *others* hear him.
Carolyne says
If these Nazis do not want to hear Mr. Spencer, there is a very simple solution. Stay away. They do not have the right to try to prevent anyone else from attending. Why does this little ignorant twerp think he controls the entire school? He needs to be informed by the administration that the has no more power then any other student. Mr. Spencer is not an Islamaphobe (Whatever that is) and he speaks from years of educating himself of the danger of Sharia law. Every American, including these students who think they know everything, need to know about the perils of Sharia. They are, by the way, students, because they need to learn.
mortimer says
Agree with Linde. Intensity of feeling is NOT an argument.
gravenimage says
+1
Guy Macher says
Dear Stanford snowflakes: Wear gloves when tearing down Richard Spencer’s notices. If your safety buddy or biddette or bud, buddo, or non-buddery person should sustain a paper cut, immediately immobilize the victim of fascist Islamophic oppression. Apply gentle pressure to the wound and sing kum-by-ya until EMS personnel arrive.
Robert Spencer says
Guy Macher:
Richard Spencer is not slated to speak at Stanford, and I am not Richard Spencer. Nor do I hold to his ideas.
mortimer says
ATTENTION, GUY! These are TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE.
Robert B. Spencer of New England, author of 17 books on Islamic terror is a different person from Richard J. Spencer of Whitefish, MONTANA, whose supremacist political views diverge considerably and IRRECONCILABLY from those of Robert B. Spencer.
Carolyne says
Even though these intelligentsia have confused Mr. Robert Spencer and Mr. Richard Spencer, if Mr. Richard Spencer were scheduled to speak, he has a right to make his thoughts known as everyone has a right to agree or disagree with him.
I think Mr. Robert Spencer is a brave man to face down these dolts, anyway.
mortimer says
Ha, ha. I suspect it is a way for Stanford sophomores to meet girls.
gravenimage says
The vile Richard Spencer could not be more different from the decent and civilized Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch.
Benedict says
I am also not a fan of Richard Spencer and I find it ironic that “Black Lives Matter” agrees with him in his main contention that race matters. The simpatico, Dennis Prager, insists that there is only one race: The human Race.
Apparently opposites tend to gravitate towards identity in attitudes and behavior like Antifa, that’s all but in name identical with a fascist organization.
gravenimage says
True, Benedict.
LeftisruiningCanada says
Despite using the wrong name, your post was very funny 🙂
gravenimage says
This is true. Very funny, Guy!
mortimer says
A truth is NOT self-evident if there are NO facts and NO evidence with which to support or defend it.
Intense emotion of the Leftist students is NOT an argument.
b.a. freeman says
sadly, mr. quirk and his fellow “students,” to stretch the definition, aren’t looking for arguments. i will give mr. quirk the benefit of the doubt, and assume that his heart is in the right place. unfortunately, he has been in leftist tutelage for at least 14 years, and is therefore unfamiliar with critical thinking; to him, emotional support of those whom he sees as oppressed *is* an argument. he is totally unfamiliar with debate, in which one tries to refute the arguments of one’s opponent. were he actually searching for the truth, he would diligently search islamic scriptures trying to refute mr. spencer’s arguments. since he puts forth no arguments, one can only assume that he has not bothered to look. of course, were he to argue *against* mr. spencer’s points, i would know that he is either naively wrong because he doesn’t understand the doctrine of abrogation, or that he is lying.
and in case any leftist snowflakes out there are insulted by that last sentence, i encourage them to look FOR THEMSELVES; don’t take mr. spencer’s word for it, and most certainly don’t take mine. either look, or shut up.
LeftisruiningCanada says
“to him, emotional support of those whom he sees as oppressed *is* an argument. he is totally unfamiliar with debate, in which one tries to refute the arguments of one’s opponent”
This is actually a very nice way to bring out the great divide between the fascist philosophy currently powering the left, which is post modern and therefore counter enlightenment, to the core, and the philosophy that founded America, which is very much enlightenment based.
For the counter enlightenment thinker, external sources of truth are suspect. Definitions imposed upon ones ideas from external sources of power are oppressive, hence the retreat in subjectivism. Feelings in this case in indeed an argument.
Mr Spencer, or anyone else who offers to come and engage in either monologue or dialogue, represents the enlightenment thinker, who looks to external and verifiable sources of truth and fact. He is antithetical to his opposition, and not only for the content of his speech, but for the very fact that he operates along lines of thought which are themselves repulsive to them.
Having no desire, or ability, to engage in the backwards and primitive activity of reasoned debate, their only recourse is to what we are seeing – loud noises, attempts to silence dissent from their worldview, and outbursts of emotion.
Given more power and influence i have no doubt that these same students would be engaging in things which would truly remind us of the NSDAP.
David says
Remember to talk to Stanford stundents as children.
David says
A Sandford student told me how to spell ( stundent).
mortimer says
Yes, they are ‘STUND’ by neo-Marxism and postmodern irrationalism.
Dum Spiro says
Is it just me, or does this eerily seem like a description of an execution? Please be careful, Robert.
Let’s all remember to pray for Robert and his safety, as well as for an open, respectful hearing by his audience. They can begin to learn and accept the real truth by his words…
— Spero
WorkingClassPost says
DS.
I too am finding this whole Stanford thing becoming a bit ominous, but that’s exactly what they want to do to all of us: to make us too afraid to address the real issue and confront the real enablers of Jihad.
Isn’t that the exact definition of terror?
Anyway, Robert is a remarkable man, who, along with the other combatants in this the real war on terror, stand up and confront such a wicked ideology with calm good humour, despite the insults and dangers they face.
http://primaryaccount.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/us-speaking-against-hate.html
IQ al Rassooli says
Dear Robert
Is it not possible to start a Class Action claim against BOTH the Stanford administration and individual student groups for literally Terrorizing and Suppressing FREE SPEECH?
Only financial distress would make these Brown Shirts abide by the rules
You must by now have enough proofs to go after them
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
Andy says
Stanford staff please watch this video and encourage students to watch this as well.
Political Stockholm Syndrome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EDqJygrtww
CogitoErgoSum says
The slave trade in Africa brought a black diaspora across the Atlantic to the Americas. However a huge number of black slaves were also taken the opposite direction into the Middle East and Turkey. Yet there is no black diaspora in the countries to the east of Africa as there is to the west in the Americas. Isn’t that interesting? Why is that?
Some questions for Stanford students (and all college students): What percentage of black slaves taken west were men? What percentage of black slaves taken east were women? What is castration? What is a eunuch? What is a concubine? What is a harem? What is infanticide? What is genocide? What role did Islam play in spreading slavery and later in the elimination of slavery? Has slavery been eliminated? What is the Islamic attitude towards slavery?
Are you afraid the answers might frighten you? Do you remember a famous quote by a great leader that goes, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself?”
Another video you should watch if you are a student (or anyone) who is not afraid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfL00dJkxU4
gravenimage says
All important questions, that very few even know to ask.
St. Manuel II Palaiologos says
“Safe spaces” because students have to be shielded from the truth and reality! Gasp!
WorkingClassPost says
If the islamists have their way, we’ll all be seeking safe spaces asap.
Westman says
When did the inmates first take over the institution? When did dorm students, merely room renters, take over the dorm operations? When did a minority of “students” of a campus assume the right to control other students access to information?
It’s absurd to have a minority complaining about the money allocated from student fees for a speaker when it is the majority who fund it. And the majority, frankly, don’t have time for such nonsense, live off-campus, and have busy lives to lead.
This seems little different than Muslim men, praying as massive groups in the streets of Europe, purposefully blocking busy streets in an unspoken power display.
Is this the future of “education” – demonstrations of political power replacing academic achievements?
Will future job resumes contain, “I demonstrated against (insert cause here) at Stanford”? Imagine the positive resonance this will create with future employers.
How is it possible, as a university instructor, to be unaware that through your influence, you are sending some students on a course of life that could be detrimental and that demands careful consideration on your part? Perhaps personal politics should be left out of the classroom. Universities are becoming the Mosques of liberal causes instead of learning.
gravenimage says
Dorms at many universities have had RAs (resident advisers)–students who serve as on-site managers–for many decades.
Until fairly recently, though, they did not generally consider themselves in charge of censoring free speech…
MFritz says
Who would have guessed that the students are supported from Stanford’s “finest”…
The solution is easy – no more public funding.
mortimer says
So-called ‘safe spaces’ are nothing more than ECHO CHAMBERS where pseudo-intellectual snowflakes can be surrounded by like minded people who will not challenge their unsupported claims, thereby insulating everyone inside such chambers from any thought or evidence that contradicts or disproves their claims or assertions.
A so-called ‘safe space’ is actually just a DEBATE-FREE ZONE or PROPANDA-INDOCTRINATION ZONE where no real education takes place. A ‘safe space’ is just an excuse for Marxists or Jihadists to indoctrinate everyone and not have to defend any proposition or claim they make.
LeftisruiningCanada says
+1
That about captures what safe spaces are.
In Canada we have to insulate our homes very well to keep the heat inside.
On Campus, they have to insulate their safe spaces very well to keep the reality from getting in.
It’s a slightly more grown up way of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “La, La, La, can’t hear ya,” But only slightly more grown up.
What troubles me is when those who’ve become used to safe spaces get into positions of power, and try to make entire countries into safe spaces. That’s how camps, gulags and purges happen.
JAR says
To the growing list of items to be banned, such as trucks, knives, and guns, we may now add flyers. So threatening are these graphic advertisements!
Reality is lost on these flyerphobes and lecturephobes. They may as well stomp their feet in protest and scream at the sky to rain down unicorns and cotton candy kisses to soothe their savage, easily damaged hearts.
I hope that the verbal MMA main event to take place at Stanford will be safe for everyone, mostly RS. These rationality-challenged realityphobes need a good beatdown and shake-up.
On the other hand, one school-sponsored field trip to a nearby Sharia-compliant area might be helpful to open their eyes to the truth, if Robert’s lecture helps them none. Getting roughed-up could dislodge their unbelief even further. But I wouldn’t wish it on them, suffering at the hands of the devout followers of MoreHamEh.
Sad to say, “some men you just can’t reach.”
Benedict says
If, for example, Andrew Quirk was a transgender boy or a transgender girl, which the photo of him doesn’t suggest, – or if he for a moment would identify as and sympathize with a transgender person he could profit a lot from listening to a lecture by Robert Spencer about Islam. So why not do just that without kerfuffle?
Voytek Gagalka says
“Safe space” for ignorance: Welcome to Stanford! Since when students are deciding what is proper knowledge for them to learn? They should have absolutely nothing to say in the matter! Even more: they should be expelled from such institution at once! You don’t wish to learn anything? Bye-bye.
PRCS says
Per the flyer:
“a Tuesday campus lecture about the threat of radical Islam” (emphasis added)
I do hope, if the term “radical Islam” comes up, that it will be quickly and enthusiastically quashed.
No Muslim practices radical Islam.
gravenimage says
“Twain is your home. It is where you live, and everyone deserves to feel safe. These fliers are not welcome…”
They “feel unsafe,” they say…
………………………….
Does Andrew Quirk realize what he is saying here? That Muslims only “feel safe” if no one is allowed to say anything critical about their coreligionists waging violent Jihad.
He is–no matter how unwittingly–confirming that Muslims support violent Islamic supremacism.
Ashley says
Excellent point, Graven!
gravenimage says
Thanks, Ashley.
Ashley says
Stanford administrators really screwed up. Blowing steam from their ears, making mountains out of molehills, inciting divisiveness, inappropriately airing personal positions and opinions that only serve to fan the flames…
Where’s common sense? Don’t want to hear Mr. Spencer? Stay in your dorm room. I don’t really care what you do.
There is only one person in grave danger here…Robert Spencer. He is no stranger to being heckled and taunted. He is no stranger to threats. Indeed, I fear for his very life especially in light of Garland, TX and Iceland.
I’m glad he will have his own security detail accompany this event. I wouldn’t trust the Stanford Security Police to screen attendees…
To the Muslims and leftists at Stanford…please embrace this rare opportunity to engage, confront, correct, debate Mr. Spencer. Be civil and respectful. Robert knows no other way…
Red Bee says
OK. So Stanford staff resorts to vandalism.
We, scientists, build.
Stanford staff ought to hand in a letter of resignation.
Greetings from the Netherlands,
http://redbee.website/
Wellington says
Note to so many at Stanford University: You have become pathetic. You’re a joke.
You defend the totalitarianism which is Islam (see what such eminent people as John Quincy Adams, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ernest Renan, Bertrand Russell, Winston Churchill, Nonie Dawwish, Ibn Warraq and Oriana Fallaci have had to say about Islam) and you seek to silence someone, in this instance Robert Spencer, who wants to speak out about the many nefarious aspects of Islam which are iniquitous to liberty.
You’re no better than the Brownshirts (SA) of Nazi Germany. Yeah, you’re this rotten and this effing stupid. You make me sick.
Wellington says
An addendum to my comment above: What’s next for you, those Stanford students acting in fascist mode, burning the books Robert Spencer has written? Hey, why not? The Sturmabteilung did it. They’re your prototype after all. God, you’re so disgusting.
MFritz says
To offer an interesting historical detail that you may not know… my neighbour was a fine lady of 89 years back in the early 2000s. She was a Dresdner. She had lived there until 1944 – shortly before the bombing – until they evacuated (a number of) women and children to the surrounding countryside. She actually saw the city burn from afar. She always blamed the Nazis for this crime. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. No.
She was around when the very first book burnings happened by students at the University of Dresden – in 1933. She told me that the students who did this were not hired goons by the Nazis. They came up with this idea all by themselves. (Goebbles actually wasn’t too happy about it as it happened without his consent – or former planning.)
It also happened in many other German cities and was very often incited by students or professors.
The lesson to learn? You don’t need brown shirts if the elite itself is rotten to the core.
Wellington says
Yes, official Brownshirts out there have been one factor that work against freedom, and then there are those who are not official Brownshirt types but still act in Brownshirt fashion, inspired by the official goons. A cascading effect and all that. And all done in the name of something stupid and highly injurious to freedom.
Tending to prove that man never learns. Now very finely exampled at Stanford.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, MFritz.
gravenimage says
Grimly spot on, Wellington.
harold says
The Left does not judge conduct by what is right or wrong, but rich vs. poor, white vs. non-white, perceived slighted victim group vs the majority society, West vs. East, etc. Youth have been brainwashed to immediately hate and argue against any person who says that there can be improvements in any group or classification of people other that white heterosexual males. This brainwashing must be confronted if there is any hope to change minds. They should be praised for hating racism, and a few just may be open to reason.
It needs to be made clear that is reasonable to track hateful Muslim Imams just as it is to track hateful white racists such as Richard Spencer. Robert Spencer should make it clear that just as it would be wrong to saw “Don’t track white hate groups because there are blacks who do bad things” it is also wrong to say “Don’t track Islamists who promote terror because white non-Muslims people do bad things, too.”
Matthieu Baudin says
“… Leftist students at Stanford University are getting help from the administration in blocking people from hearing about a Tuesday campus lecture about the threat of radical Islam…”
They stand in the tradition of Joseph Goebbels, wanting to gain a monopoly on the public discourse by actively closing down alternative points of view. It’s disturbing to witness this inter-generational project of indoctrination and censorship. Those aging ’70’s misfits are determined to white ant the open society and are using today’s youth as their agitators to lock in their radical utopian fantasies. They have succeeded in welding together a grand coalition of extremist social and environmental movements, with Militant Islam assuming responsibility for the ‘armed struggle’ and taking over from the guerrilla movements and insurgencies of the last half of the 20th Century.
Kepha says
The sponsoring group ought to bypass campus grievance procedures, lawyer up, and bring suit over attempts to deny the civil right of free speech. If some group threatens violence, press charges, too. It’s high time the Left learned that lawfare cuts two ways.
Bezelel says
“speaker who is actively hostile to a large and valued segment of our campus community,” It sounds like they are saying that jihadists are a large and valued segment of the campus community. Jihad Watch, focusing on the violent tenants and customs of islam and not even actively hostile towards them. Jihadists are actively hostile. And since when is telling the truth considered propaganda?
Carolyne says
Posters have been known to jump off the wall and attack anyone who might disagree with it’s contents. In fact, these posters might have sharp edge which could slash and maim those whom the attack. I say no more posters anywhere. We must not put these delicate flower in danger from pieces of cardboard
Jack Holan says
In the day (not too long ago) Quirk would have been labeled a hooligan, charged with vandalism and made to pay restitution, and possibly expelled from a perestigious University for for not living up to its Standards. Today this thug is embraced and encouraged by the Administration of boot-Strappers maybe they should try to cut a quantity deal on their Color for the uniform. fascism is back in vogue inder a different name and guise but still Un-American and Counter to our Constitution and way of Life!