This Is San Francisco

(AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

Yesterday I wrote that San Francisco is a cult. It was a VIP article, so you may not have seen it.

Shame on you! Sign up for VIP! Use code SAVEAMERICA to get 40% off, you heathen!

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I wrote that piece after viewing the disgusting behavior–and cultish behavior–of the pro-Hamas crowd after San Francisco made its ridiculous call for a cease-fire. That a city government felt the need to do this was ridiculous, but then again the whole city is ridiculous.

The video was bizarre.

Today I saw more evidence of just how awful the behavior of the activists was during the hearing before the vote to condemn Israel.

An honest-to-God Jewish man who lost five family members in the Hamas attacks and who had two cousins taken hostage was heckled by the activists.

Five of his family members were killed, and they make pig-snorting sounds at him.

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Is it any wonder that he said he didn’t feel safe in the city? I wouldn’t have felt safe with those people around me at San Francisco City Hall.

Even if I supported the resolution, I would have been ashamed to be associated with this thuggish behavior, but when you are a member of a cult, you exalt in such things. It is a form of signaling to others in your group that you are willing to do the most grotesque things in order to show your allegiance to the cause.

Is this what we are becoming in America?

No, but this is what the Left has already become.

I support free speech, even very offensive speech, short of incitement, but free speech and bullying are two different things. Intimidating people and shouting them down isn’t speech, it is an act. For some reason, we have completely blurred the line between the two.

I would have been disgusted by those activists testifying before the committee with their hateful opinions but I would support their right to do so. What I can’t support is their preventing others from speaking either through shouting them down, intimidating them, or blocking their ability to do so.

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That, for me, was at issue in many of the college demonstrations. I was appalled by what they said, but if it had remained speech I would have felt that it didn’t cross the line. But actions–intimidation, blocking access to spaces, interrupting classes, and similar aggressions–cross the line between speech and action, even at times assault or wrongful imprisonment.

That all this is done in the cause of demonizing Jews makes it worse, of course, especially when people demonstrate in support of Hamas’ killers. That is a clear threat.

Yet here we are. This is now common in America.

Thanks, Leftists! You have elevated our discourse so much. Compassion and all that blah blah.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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