Coulter Storm: Clearing in the West

While the folks in Ontario "deconstruct" the U of O Coulter affair -

University of Ottawa gets an F in Coulter-culture 101

"The Coulter affair has revealed a worrying discrepancy between what universities practise and what they preach."

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"Can a university turn its core values on and off like this?"

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"But the shock pundit’s taunts are only the latest in a series of confrontations that have made universities look hypocritical in their commitment to the free exchange of ideas.

The most notorious was the feud between Muslim and Jewish students at Montreal’s Concordia University in 2002: A speech by Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu had to be cancelled after a demonstration turned violent. Concordia’s reputation among applicants and donors took an immediate hit."

- the folks out West show they haven't forgotten what free speech or universities are all about.

Coulter, live and loud in Calgary

"At the Red and White Club on the grounds of Calgary’s McMahon Stadium tonight, more than 900 attendees gave Ann Coulter a remarkable, thunderous ovation. But they cheered, I would almost swear, with even greater volume for Ezra Levant, co-organizer of Coulter’s tour."

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"...he gives a heck of a speech. The stubbornest Stalinist alive would have been stirred by his fierce defence of strong free-speech norms as a social truce in which all have a stake."

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"The fact is, Calgary’s anti-everything left managed a pretty good turnout, perhaps fifty strong, and they did no less to try to interrupt and drown out Coulter’s talk, and perhaps more on the whole, than the U of Ottawa students. But they faced a much tougher tactical situation: a free-standing, isolated venue on a hillside, virtually a fortress; crowd-control gates and wooden barricades on the exterior; and a whole squadron of bicycle and foot police, perhaps upwards of a dozen."

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"Still, the more interesting action was outside all night―and I don’t mean the rioting, but the small-group discussions amongst smokers, latecomers who couldn’t get in, curious U of C campus-dwellers, and stray protesters. Here, on the grass, ordinary people talked sincerely to each other without punchlines or slogans or sneering. They seemed to be a different species altogether from the formidable, mantis-like Coulter and her mesmerizing blonde man."

And what was she talking about inside?

"Inside Ms. Coulter was greeted with repeated standing ovations as she offered up an hour of jokes about political correctness and U.S. politics.

But the closest she came to targeting any minorities was when she cracked three or four jokes about gay activists. At one point she criticized how gays compared their struggle to that of segregated blacks.

"You'd think there were ‘straights-only' water fountains," she said. "As if a gay male would ever drink non-bottled water."

Several students politely argued with Ms. Coulter about her positions in the question and answer session that followed, but several people in the crowd said they had come specifically in response to the University of Ottawa episode."

Thank you Ann for starting this long overdue debate. Thank you U of O for showing Calgary what had to be done to allow it to happen. At least in Calgary, those who paid to see her actually got to hear what she really said, rather than some second or third hand hyped-up and extrapolated soundbite, and were able to make up their own minds.

Hey, and did you see that picture in the Mope and Flail article? Looks like some people are going to read what she has actually written, too!!!! How novel!