90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Florida Bans ‘Free-Speech Zones’ at State Colleges

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has signed into law a bill banning so-called “free-speech zones” at public universities and allowing students and speakers to sue the schools for violating their First Amendment rights.

Free-speech zones are limited areas, sometimes only fractions of a campus, where students may express themselves freely. Critics argue that an entire campus should allow free speech, not small and restrictive areas.

The legislation, called the Excellence in Higher Education Act, reads: “A public institution of higher education may not designate any area of campus as a free-speech zone or otherwise create policies restricting expressive activities to a particular outdoor area of campus.”

Students, faculty, and staff of a public institution of higher education may not “materially disrupt previously scheduled or reserved activities on campus occurring at the same time,” the new law says.

Scott, a Republican, signed the bill Sunday.

“No one has a right to shut down speech simply because it makes someone feel uncomfortable,” state Senate President Joe Negron, a Republican who made passage of the bill a top priority, said in a press release.

“Florida’s universities will continue to achieve national distinction because they are training our students to articulate and defend their ideas in an open, responsible way that prepares them for the real world.”

Supporters of the legislation pointed to the riots in February 2017 at the University of California, Berkeley, when demonstrators prevented libertarian commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, a Florida resident, from speaking on...

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How The Southern Poverty Law Center Attacks And TERRORIZES Conservatives: A Firsthand and Account From A Former Member Of Congress

The Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson recently broke the exclusive story that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is “policing content on YouTube as part of YouTube’s ‘Trusted Flaggers’ program.”

Let me tell you why this news is scary as hell — from personal experience.

My name is Trey Radel. I’m a trilingual, well-traveled lover of all cultures and an easygoing kind of guy. I don’t say this to toot my own horn; I say it because underneath my passion for culture — as well as love and fascination with political foreign policy — is apparently something more sinister: I’m a “hater” and “extremist,” in league with murderers.

Here’s some background to illustrate just how much I friggin’ despise anyone different from my white upbringing.

In my twenties, I lived off about 10 bucks a day, backpacking from Colombia to Cambodia to soak up and learn different cultures, customs and languages. By age 30, after living and working in a few different countries, I was trilingual — fluent in Spanish, Italian and English. I’m such an observational nerd that I can tell you the distinct differences between Hispanic cultures and even fluently imitate the Spanish accents country to country throughout South America.

In my thirties, while serving in the United States Congress, the highly influential nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), put me on a list titled, “The Year in Hate and Extremism.” Every year, the group publishes a list identifying racists, terrorists, murderers and hate groups. There’s a common thread, though. Many of the people and groups they identify happen to be Republican or conservative, or as they state, “far right.”

Apparently, I fit right in.

The SPLC put me on the list in 2013; I was in Congress then, a Spanish-speaking Republican, frequently seen in English and Spanish media. At the time, years before the issues were en vogue, I supported immigration reform as well as criminal justice reform, both policies clearly racist AF.

My “hater” ass made that SPLC hate list with some notable figures, including a neo-Nazi gunman “who stormed into a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, murdering six people before killing himself.” Sounds about right. The SPLC also put another member of Congress on the list: Senator Rand Paul. This guy despises minorities so much that, like me, he is a vocal opponent of the War on Drugs, rightly pointing out how it disproportionately harms minorities in our country.

What a racist dick.

How I made the list is almost as unbelievable as getting put on the list in the first place. A blogger published a roughly 15-second sound bite of me saying, “all options should be on the table” when it comes to...