Also known as the Authoritarian Libertarian conundrum:
State legislators have filed two “campus free speech” bills that on their face would eventually force UNC-Chapel Hill and perhaps other campuses in the UNC system to revise some of their campus-conduct rules and procedures.
As introduced, the N.C. House bill would require the system Board of Governors to prescribe “a range of disciplinary sanctions” for anyone affiliated with a UNC campus “who interferes with the free expression of others.” A board committee would monitor the campuses’ handling of that.
That's right, if you argue with somebody because you don't agree with what they are proselytizing about, you will be disciplined for speaking out. It would be bad enough if the publicly-funded university came up with this, but to have state government enshrine that into statute is *exactly* why the 1st Amendment was added to the Constitution. To keep government from deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't. Yes, it gets messy sometimes, like when Tom Tancredo couldn't get a word in edgewise over protesters on the UNC campus. But stifling those voices of dissent is not the way to cure that messiness, it's how you end up with a place where the word "democracy" becomes nothing more than a label. Let's take a trip to the Goldwater Institute to see where this craziness originated:
http://ift.tt/2oGULKs
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