Pun Salad

³ A fool’s mouth lashes out with pride,
    but the lips of the wise protect them.

President Donald J. Trump, this Proverb is for you.

It may not yet be "the end of free speech," but that particular fundamental right is probably a bad candidate for a new life-insurance policy.

We have an environment in which the president of the United States is dismissive of the free speech rights of his opponents, prominent constitutional scholars sniff at free speech unless it's used by the "right" people for their favored goals, and the country's leading civil liberties organization is suffering an internal revolt by staffers who oppose "rigid" support for free speech protections.

RTWT, of course. The anti-Constitutional babblings of Georgetown Law prof Louis Michael Seidman are criticized, as well as the suddenly weak-kneed ACLU, which has been chided by its own staff for its "rigid stance" on the First Amendment. Rigidity is … frowned upon these days.

Does leftist zealotry on American college campuses imperil freedom of speech and liberal values, or is this a largely made-up issue that distracts from far more serious threats on the right? The latest polemics about this have been ignited by an incident at Lewis & Clark College law school in Portland, Ore., where protesters tried to shut down a talk by author, scholar and feminism critic Christina Hoff Sommers.

After a failed attempt to get her disinvited, the students repeatedly disrupted her talk with chanting and loud music. To opponents of “political correctness,” this is a sign of chilling authoritarianism. Skeptical progressives argue that, despite a few highly publicized conflicts, actual data show free expression on college campuses is alive and well — and supported by most students, especially political liberals.

But there is plenty of evidence that the problem of left-wing intolerance in the universities is real and damaging.

The "don't worry" Progressives cite polling data showing (mostly) growing support for abstract free-speech cases. Fine, but the people responding to polls are not in charge, and most of them would be unwilling to stick their necks out to defend controversial speakers against a vocal and vicious minority.

A high school student in Hilliard, Ohio, didn’t want to pick sides in the contentious gun debate surrounding Wednesday’s “National Walkout,” so he stayed in class instead of joining the largely anti-gun protest or an alternative “study hall.”

Hilliard Davidson High School senior Jacob Shoemaker was then reportedly slapped with a suspension.

Good news, Jacob. I'm sure the University Near Here will let you in. As they say in a pinned tweet:

If you’ve applied or been admitted to @UofNH you should know any disciplinary action stemming from peaceful protests exercising your 1st amendment rights will not jeopardize your admission decision. We support your right to stand up for what you believe in.

— U. of New Hampshire (@UofNH) February 25, 2018

Or at least I would hope so. I'm not sure declining to join in "peaceful protests" is considered a legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights at UNH.

Also, the out-of-state tuition is brutal.

Yes, she's writing about guns. You see what she did there with "shooting"?

But never mind that, because Ms. Toomey is actually a sane voice of reason:

We all know that when firearms get into the hands of people who are mentally unstable and are obtained illegally by criminals, that is where the problem lies. To own a gun, to live free or die as they say in New Hampshire, is not going away anytime soon, and I do not want it to. I rather like the idea that I am surrounded by good, law-abiding people who know how to respect and use firearms responsibly and properly. That does not make them insensitive people who don't care about gun violence. I rather like being a sheep who lives with sheepdogs who'd quickly protect us from the wolves out there.

So good on Ms. Toomey.