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Who are the real proponents of hate speech on campus?

Supporters of Darwin’s theory continue to distinguish themselves on America’s college campuses—not for their reason and logic, but for their incredible ill manners and an almost pathological inability to engage in civil discussion. Last week, a factually-challenged attack on intelligent design was published in The Nevada Sagebrush, the student newspaper at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nothing new in that; I see ill-informed articles on intelligent design all the time. But after my colleague Rob Crowther posted a short comment suggesting that readers might actually want to hear from intelligent design proponents themselves (imagine that!), the Darwinist thought-police came out in force. One writer who is so courageous that he hides behind the pseudonym “bobxxxx” fulminated:

Robert Crowther… and the rest of the theocratic morons of the Dishonesty Institute are traitors who want to destroy America’s science education. If it was up to me they would be put in prison for treason. They are enemies of America, no better than terrorists, and they should be treated like terrorists.

Traitors? Terrorists? Enemies of America? ID proponents should be “put in prison” for freely expressing their views?!! Perhaps the University of Nevada should consider requiring its students to take a course on the First Amendment. It’s pretty obvious that some of them don’t understand the value of free speech.

When another person had the temerity to observe on the newspaper’s website that “anti-Intelligent Design advocates often post nasty, name calling, ignorant, and often just plain slanderous comments on websites but the ID support[er]s rarely respond in kind,” he provoked a denunciation from someone calling himself “Jumbalaya,” who opined:

In the early 1940s, many of the German militants occupying France were known to be real polite as well. But you know what…?

THEY WERE STILL NAZIS!

Good manners don’t excuse ID supporters for the filth they’re pushing to the public.

This is not free speech; it’s an attempt to suppress free speech by demonizing and intimidating others so they will be afraid to speak up. I have a suggestion for the Darwinist purveyors of such hate speech: If you really want to identify the opponents of a free society, try looking in the mirror.

John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute
Dr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s. His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, The War on Humans, and (most recently) Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

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__k-reviewRobert CrowtherThe Nevada SagebrushUniversity of Nevada