Ben Shapiro on defending free speech on college campuses — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:03time now for the second installment of
3. 0:06our new series defending the first where
4. 0:08we expose the enemies of the First
5. 0:10Amendment free expression and free
6. 0:12thought radio talk show hosts and daily
7. 0:18wire editor-in-chief ben shapiro has
8. 0:20emerged as one of the top defenders of
9. 0:22free speech particularly on campus in a
10. 0:25series of speeches over the last few
11. 0:27years Shapiro has debunked sacred cows
12. 0:29like safe spaces microaggressions and
13. 0:32the quest for well multiculturalism and
14. 0:35diversity and not without risks to his
15. 0:37own personal safety you will and there
16. 0:48it is gang guess what you know what
17. 0:54they're not going to stop us
18. 0:57[Applause]
19. 1:14if I attempt to enter that hall right
20. 1:16there and sit down just to listen to
21. 1:18somebody speak or if I attempt to ask a
22. 1:20questions or to engage in free speech
23. 1:22you will have me arrested disappoint the
24. 1:26tolerant ones joining us now ben shapiro
25. 1:28himself but we thought of immediately
26. 1:30when we launched this series Ben you
27. 1:33know you don't look too threatening yeah
28. 1:35you're kind of a guy with some
29. 1:37interesting ideas and thought-provoking
30. 1:39conversations and you freaked them all
31. 1:42out got the head gear on it cut the riot
32. 1:44police out it is funny because it's so
33. 1:49pathetic but it's also very dangerous
34. 1:51because you do have the guts to go on
35. 1:53college campuses but there are a lot of
36. 1:55conservatives I know who are invited to
37. 1:57speak you know what they say and I have
38. 2:00better things to do with my time and in
39. 2:02a way you can't blame them but that is
40. 2:04its self chilling free speech no no
41. 2:07question the hecklers veto that so many
42. 2:09universities are now using to shut down
43. 2:10free speech on college campuses by
44. 2:12saying the left is gonna get violence
45. 2:14it's pretty astonishing and listen I
46. 2:15don't blame conservatives who don't want
47. 2:17to take their life in their hands by
48. 2:18going on some of these campuses now I
49. 2:19don't want to pretend this is happening
50. 2:20at every campus but it is happening to a
51. 2:22lot of conservatives I mean I'm talking
52. 2:23about not even just conservatives I'm
53. 2:25talking about people who range from
54. 2:26Jordan Peterson to Jason Riley to
55. 2:28Heather McDonald to charles murray now
56. 2:29there's there's a wide variety of
57. 2:31conservatives who are being really
58. 2:33rioted against in some cases on campus
59. 2:35and the administration has in some cases
60. 2:38really not done enough to to prevent
61. 2:40that from happening and when they do
62. 2:41attempt to stop the rise from happening
63. 2:43the way they typically do it is by
64. 2:45bringing a lot of cops on the campus and
65. 2:47then by suggesting that we have to
66. 2:48restrict the number of people who can
67. 2:49actually attend the lecture so they
68. 2:51actually end up restricting free speech
69. 2:52even when they're attempting to protect
70. 2:53it in some cases yeah so again irony the
71. 2:56Free Speech Movement and all started at
72. 2:58Berkeley and Berkeley as is that Center
73. 3:02you know ground cent got the ground zero
74. 3:04of the anti free speech movement in the
75. 3:06United States today in the last couple
76. 3:09of days an interesting development been
77. 3:10that fits with our series at Penn State
78. 3:14the Penn State student power Network
79. 3:16along with other students and community
80. 3:18members gathered outside old Maine on
81. 3:20Monday to present a list of demands to
82. 3:22President Barron I love it when they
83. 3:23have a list of demands
84. 3:25these demands included denouncing and
85. 3:27defunding hate groups on campus I think
86. 3:31to myself oh my god are the Nazis I mean
87. 3:33who's on campus is you know s Communist
88. 3:36Party know its groups with
89. 3:39anti-immigrant rhetoric I don't mean I
90. 3:42guess that's someone who's in favor of
91. 3:44enforcing the border wait what does that
92. 3:46man I mean everything has been deemed
93. 3:48hate speech on campus up to an including
94. 3:50there's point during the election cycle
95. 3:51when people were barred on certain
96. 3:53campuses from writing president Trump's
97. 3:55a name when he was a candidate because
98. 3:56this made people feel bad that some
99. 3:58people actually supported Trump as a
100. 4:00candidate so the I can only imagine that
101. 4:02anti-immigrant rhetoric would be things
102. 4:03like let's enforce our border or let's
103. 4:05deport some illegal immigrants but that
104. 4:07that's not a shock again Penn State is
105. 4:10one of the campuses that I visited and
106. 4:11there was a near riot when I was at Penn
107. 4:12State so it's I'm sure that some of the
108. 4:14people who are protesting against the
109. 4:16the conservatives on campus and it was
110. 4:18some conservative groups who they were
111. 4:19protesting now were some of the same
112. 4:20people who a couple of years ago you
113. 4:22know they tried to break through the
114. 4:23doors where I was speaking to disrupt
115. 4:25the lecture that I was giving what's
116. 4:26amazing about all of us is that it is
117. 4:28perfectly easy to have a nice event
118. 4:30where people come and listen to me or
119. 4:32listen to any of the other people I
120. 4:33mentioned and all of us are willing to
121. 4:35have q and A's all of us are willing to
122. 4:36have discussions we had one last night
123. 4:37over at Pepperdine where a lot of the
124. 4:39student groups who are on the Left I'm
125. 4:41talking about the same sort of minority
126. 4:42student groups you're hearing about a
127. 4:43Penn State decided that instead of
128. 4:44boycotting they would show up and ask
129. 4:46questions and we had a perfectly nice
130. 4:47conversation but unfortunately there is
131. 4:49a part of the left as distinguished from
132. 4:51I think liberals at large there's
133. 4:53there's a big part of the left and it's
134. 4:54growing that says that it is incumbent
135. 4:56to protect the campus from ideas that
136. 4:58are dissenting and everyone who descends
137. 5:00must be thrown off well and and the
138. 5:02reason that they want a stifle speech is
139. 5:05because your speech actually grows
140. 5:09conservatism it spreads the ideology and
141. 5:12it draws people in they have no ideas
142. 5:16they're out of ideas they're out of
143. 5:18solutions they're into demonization and
144. 5:20you know you go to college campuses you
145. 5:23could be going to corporations and
146. 5:25speaking but you go to college campuses
147. 5:28and I think the groups that are trying
148. 5:29to make your life miserable or going
149. 5:32after charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA
150. 5:34go go through the list of who's behind
151. 5:38effort to really tamp down on free
152. 5:40speech we know some of the big funded
153. 5:43groups by George Soros but go through
154. 5:44that briefly for us I mean that there's
155. 5:46certainly a lot of student groups that
156. 5:48coordinated say that a lot of the groups
157. 5:50that are associated with the Women's
158. 5:51March are very much associated with this
159. 5:52movement a lot of the groups that were
160. 5:54originally associated with black lives
161. 5:56matter were very active in this campus
162. 5:58movement obviously an Tifa was the the
163. 6:00far edge wing of this movement that was
164. 6:02actually promoting violence at a lot of
165. 6:04these speeches but the the generalized
166. 6:05attempt to shut down speeches by
167. 6:07pressuring administrations that's a lot
168. 6:09of student groups that have been on
169. 6:10campus since the time that I was on
170. 6:12college campuses as a student myself and
171. 6:15they continue to push for the idea these
172. 6:17campuses should be conservative free and
173. 6:19should be complete safe spaces for
174. 6:21people on the left not only because they
175. 6:23think that conservatives are going to
176. 6:24convince a lot of people but also
177. 6:25because they actually just think
178. 6:25conservatives are evil I think that it's
179. 6:27they really think that people like me
180. 6:29are there to do them harm and when I
181. 6:31show up and it turns out that I'm a
182. 6:33relatively non-threatening character and
183. 6:34I've never really beaten anyone up in my
184. 6:36life for several reasons that you can
185. 6:38imagine then you know that's the impact
186. 6:41yeah well again you don't look too
187. 6:43threatening but ideas are threatening to
188. 6:44these people
189. 6:45then thanks so much