Thread: Tancredo takes UNC protesters to task

Tancredo takes UNC protesters to task


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 15, 2009

Updated: 03:16 pm

CHAPEL HILL

Former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo said Wednesday that student protesters violated their own calls for tolerance when they used profanities, broke a window and eventually forced police to shut down his speech about illegal immigration.

Tancredo was invited by a student group to speak Tuesday at UNC Chapel Hill about his opposition to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Campus police used pepper spray after hundreds of protesters gathered, many of them denouncing Tancredo's tough stance against illegal immigration.

"The so-called purveyors of tolerance and diversity showed just how open minded they are when it comes to diversity of opinions," the former Colorado congressman said in a statement. "There is no freedom of speech on hundreds of university campuses today for people who dare to dissent from the radical political agenda of the socialist left and the open borders agitators."

Tyler Oakley, a graduate student who helped organize the protest, did not immediately return an e-mail or a phone message left at his campus office Wednesday seeking comment on Tancredo's statement.

Lizette Lopez, vice president of the Carolina Hispanic Association at the university, said Tuesday that Tancredo should have been allowed to speak. She didn't immediately return an e-mail seeking comment Wednesday.

Tancredo, a Republican, had been invited by Youth for Western Civilization, a student group that opposes what it calls mass immigration and radical multiculturalism.

Two women were ejected for delaying the speech after they held up a 12-foot banner across the front of the classroom that read "No dialogue with hate" in Bingham Hall.

After Tancredo began speaking in the packed room, two more protesters stood in front of him with a banner that read, "No one is illegal." Tancredo tried to pull the banner away, saying "You don't want to hear what I have to say because you don't agree with me." Then someone outside broke a window pane and police shut down the event.

Police spokesman Randy Young said pepper spray was "broadcast" to clear the area. Officers also threatened to use a Taser, and the more than 30 protesters went outside.

Young said the use of force was being investigated by the department.

Tancredo said after officers escorted him out of the room that he had never been silenced by protesters.

"This is the free speech crowd, right?" Tancredo joked at one point as protesters screamed at him.
Before the speech ended, some in the audience of 150 urged the students to let Tancredo speak.

"We are the children of immigrants, and this concerns us," Lopez, with the campus' Carolina Hispanic Association, said Tuesday. "So we would at least like to hear what he has to say if you want to hear what we have to say."

Chancellor Holden Thorp issued a statement expressing regret that Tancredo was unable to speak.

"We pride ourselves on being a place where all points of view can be expressed and heard, so I'm disappointed that didn't happen," Thorp said.
http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009 ... -tancredo/

Young said the use of force was being investigated by the department.




Use of force? What?

A little pepper spray and pulling out a taser is considered use of force?

These kids would be more afraid of their parents taking away their cars and credit cards for Christ's sake. Use of force

Tyler Oakley, a graduate student who helped organize the protest, did not immediately return an e-mail or a phone message left at his campus office Wednesday seeking comment on Tancredo's statement.

If he is faculty and was involved in this disgrace, he should be fired. There is NO excuse for suppression of free speech in this country. If this is what this college teaches, it will come back to bite them.

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-4143--0-0.html

But they would have no problem letting some off the wall third world mass murderer come and speak. Or that scumbag Bill ayers.

Kids that never worked a day in their lives....................Oh never mind ......My blood is boiling on this one.........snot nosed little bastards!

The same thing happened to Tom Tancredo at American University

Maybe those students could start to share housing with the illegals for a while. Would be a great warm gesture of their openness and tolerance.

Pack all of the protestors and an equal number of illegals into the same buildings, dorms, etc. So they can live in harmony and help each other out.

After a few weeks the number of illegals in the housing will quadruple and I am sure their opinions just might change once a rape or two happens.

"No dialogue with hate."
"We shut down Tom Tancredo and his hate speech."

No.
What you ignorant, irresponsible jackasses did at UNC was to send the message that the only free speech you will tolerate is that which falls into line with YOUR way of thinking. No one has a right to voice a dissenting opinion; if they disagree with your oh-so-enlightened point of view, they must be shut down because they're obviously racist fascists - or even worse, White American males who truly love America and believe that the rule of law applies to everyone.

What you have demonstrated by your actions is that you wish to change the First Amendment to read, "Only those who agree with us have the right to speak," and the principle of an exchange of ideas is now only to curse at and shout down those who have another point of view.

God forbid that you display some common decency and even some of that open-mindedness you so stridently demand of everyone else; don't ever bother to see another side of an issue, because it might divert you from your primary purpose: Making the rest of us take what YOU feel is the best, right, and only course of action.

You immature, ignorant, clownish fools.

Well said, RocketmanVT. Oh, and welcome to ALIPAC.