As reported a few days ago, the College Republicans have been considering bringing Jim Gilchrist, co-founder and president of the Minuteman Project—a controversial group aiming to stop illegal immigration—back to speak at Columbia.
For those of you who don’t remember Gilchrist’s last visit to campus in October 2006, violence broke out between a group of protestors and some of Gilchrist’s supporters. The ensuing controversy dominated the national media for some time.
Now, Spec has spoken to Gilchrist, who has expressed a great deal of interest in returning. According to Gilchrist, he’s “been in touch with [the College Republicans], and they have given [him] an overture of interest but no formal invitation.” The topic of the speech would reportedly be a combination of immigration and free speech—the latter being relevant to Columbia, according to Gilchrist, because “free speech on the campus environment has been compromised by indoctrination.”
Gilchrist candidly remarks on the incidents that occurred during his last visit: “I expect next time will be less rabble-rousing and more interest in listening with mature debate and questioning.” In addition, Gilchrist himself (or at least whoever controls his Facebook account) left a lengthy comment on the Spectator article, included below.
Dear Columbia Student Body and Academicians,
Anti free speech zealots like Rudi Batzell and Maria Lantigua are exactly the kind of campus scoundrels who find a meaningless purpose in life by turning our First Amendment into a mockery through intimidation of anyone with whom they disagree.
Columbia’s anti free speech fanatics should seriously think about what constitutes “hate speech,” rather than cry wolf at the thought that someone, somewhere in the world, might be engaging in some sort of freedom of thought, assembly, or speech without the permission of Batzell and Lantigua.
From the mindless perspective of Batzell and Lantigua, and their mindless act-alikes, hate speech is anything they do not understand (because they are essentially stupid) or, simply disagree with because they are mean-spirited souls who want to corner the market on hate speech for themselves. It is almost hilarious to consider Columbia an institution of higher education when it produces such selfish, empty shells like Batzell and Lantigua.
Real hate speech, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of intolerant and incurably ignorant rhetoric from philosophical fascists like Batzell and Lantigua.
I told you I am candid and blunt…but right on point. If I am “intolerant” according to Columbia’s standards, then that intolerance extends only to those who would deliberately trump another person’s right to liberty by selfishly claiming it is their right to halt discussion that does not fit their narrowed agenda.
If I appear at Columbia, I fully expect this warp-headed duo to lead the stampeding charge onto the stage to once again “dictate” to Columbia University and the world what is “allowable” speech and what is not, who is allowed to speak and who should not.
Perhaps Columbia should replace any invitation to the Minuteman Project with another invitation to Iran’s Emperor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. After all, he wouldn’t dare speak about something as horrific, cruel, and destructive as U.S.immigration policy or free speech. He would probably just speak about annihilating Israel and exterminating a few million Jews. Hmmmm…..Columbia, not too bright.
Without Apology,
Jim Gilchrist, President, The Minuteman Project
-a multiethnic immigration law enforcement advocacy group-
-the first casualty of propaganda is the truth-
14 Comments
@why doesnt the CUCR invite that indiana governor guy who gave obama’s SOTU repub response? i felt his argument was very much an intelligent conversation
–liberal
@TROOOOOOOOOOLL All the CUCR does is troll, because they don’t have the members to do anything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY&feature=player_embedded
@Anonymous Dude is just trying to get paid. CU republicans please please please do the right thing and use the money for pizza. “Columbia, not too bright.” This man is asking us for a civil discourse?
@alum having been to Glichrist’s speech last time, the posters above are exactly correct in suggesting he is a troll. the guy who introduced him basically heckled the audience and got them all riled off, and gilchrist sealed the deal.
the melee that ensued was, i’ll admit fun to watch, but it was sad that free speech didn’t happen. however, i think the melee was what gilchrist wanted anyway.
@so you couldn’t get sarah palin, huh? god, you people are RIDICULOUS. we don’t need to be talking about immigration at a time like this. IF CORPORATIONS HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, HOW CAN YOU PREVENT ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS THAT ARE IN THIS COUNTRY FROM HAVING THOSE SAME RIGHTS.
how about this, CUCR: start protesting, i don’t know, REAL threats to the future of this country — like campaign regulation — and stop bringing in mindless glenn beck zombies to speak about topics that, in this time of our lives, are comparatively irrelevant.
@also on a related note, a message to gilchrist: you think Batzell and Lantigua make a mockery of our first amendment? go read a little something call citizens united vs. federal election commision
@... maybe he’s right… maybe columbia is owned entirely by the left wing. maybe the reasons the campus conservatives are so goddamn cheesy is because the left wingers in the admissions office intentionally only admit ridiculous conservatives that consider playing media games with asshats like this guy as some kind of reasonable discourse … thus setting up a straw man for the whole campus and in effect defeating any gains in mindshare by conservative thought around here…
i mean seriously, if i want to hear cheesy-ass controversial right wing talk radio that is so looney it’s ridiculous, i know where to find it, i can google for ann coulter or rush limbaugh… but you know, while i’m here, blowing thousands and thousands of dollars, i really wouldn’t mind going to see a real, honest to god, intelligent conservative thinker speak…
instead, we get this asshat and ann coulter.
keep it up, kids! but i hope you realize that the more you play these silly media games with these airhead controversial types, the more you actually alienate people who might just be open to a conservative thought or two.
@This guy is trolling so hard.
Also:
> campus scoundrels
> mfw
@The CUCR are bigger trolls…more like the ussr, the united state’s state republicans
@Who cares What the CUCR have to say? What is next? A discussion on how they think the jim crow laws are unamerican?
The Cucr makes Columbia look bad, they are much worse than the Kingsmen.
-A Proud Republican
@Actually, a discussion on how the Jim Crow laws were un-American would be quite productive.
@clueless international what is in-American?
@clueless international i mean un-american*
@observation I think it’s pretty interesting how Gilchrist needs to specific people to single out and use them as representative of some broader, vaguely conspiratorial, threat. Newt does the same thing with Saul Alinsky. As if anyone cares about Saul Alinsky. It’s all well precedented and has been used by plenty of other people throughout history. It’s a little frightening to see this stuff work as well as it did in the ’30s.
That being said, come on over Jim. I’ll sit down and listen to you. We’ll save the yelling for later.