Meet The Neo-Puritans -- On Campuses Across America
I have been thinking of those on campus calling for speech restrictions, administrator firings, and punishments for those who say the "wrong" things as tiny little Stalins.

However, Harvard History prof Niall Ferguson gets it right in the Bo Globe:

One group of Brandeis students (#IamFordHall2015) has published a list of responses to frequently asked questions. Question five caught my attention: "What are these violences and injustices people are talking about? Can you give examples?"

The answer is extraordinarily revealing: "First and foremost, this is a violent question because it essentially implies that the need for proof of harm is more important than addressing the harms. When this question is asked, it invokes this sentiment instead, 'I don't experience violence, so I don't feel it exists. Would you mind in addition to experiencing these violences, doing the labor of explaining them and proving that they are real?' "

It took me a while to realize where I had encountered this style of argument before -- the indignant repudiation of the questioner's request for proof as something in and of itself illegitimate.

This is not political language at all. It is religious language -- and it reads in places like the reincarnation of the tracts that 17th-century Puritans used to publish.

With their craving for "safe spaces," their revulsion against rational discussion (not to mention Halloween), their fundamentally illiberal and indeed irrational state of mind, the protesters strike me not as "little Robespierres" but as the natural heirs of the Puritans who founded the British colonies in New England.

How appropriate that the protests should reach their climax just in time for Thanksgiving, when Americans celebrate the Puritans' first good harvest at Plymouth!

Now, what's the right emoticon for "Back to the real world"?

A commenter on the piece understands the Constitution loads better than these idiots protesting -- who don't understand that "BLM" would have been the speech stamped out not long ago, and that's precisely why free speech for all is so precious:

kevincamp
These "students' don't see the irony in their own arguments and behaviors (and I use the word arguments generously here). Little is more closed minded than wanting to censor "offending" speech; and they get to define what is offensive. 200 years ago speech associated with freedom of all from slavery would have been considered "offensive' by many. They are unable to comprehend the foolishness of their own positions.

On a positive note -- about the Puritans -- at least they had trials.

On campuses today, they just complain the administrators out of the university.

via @SteveStuWill