The Far Left Has a Big Problem When They Go Nuts Over Someone Like Ben Shapiro

On Thursday night, conservative Ben Shapiro spoke at UC Berkeley and gave a speech appropriately titled “Say No To Campus Thuggery.” In the speech, Shapiro talked about the left’s overreaction leading up to his scheduled appearance and made the argument that the grievances the left makes regarding identity politics are out of laziness and not actual victimhood.

There was a lot of drama (and, frankly, melodrama) that took place before Shapiro gave his speech. First, UC Berkeley blocked Shapiro from speaking altogether. Then they reversed their decision, but decided to charge Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the organization hosting the event, a $15,ooo security fee. Then the university cut Shapiro’s crowd size roughly in half due to “safety concerns” even though he could have easily packed the auditorium. Leading up to the event, the university offered counseling to students and staff who were troubled by the mere fact that Shapiro would be speaking on their campus. And on the day of the event, classes were canceled, graffitied chalk was all over the sidewalk in protest, and businesses closed up shop in fear that riots would break out like they did when Milo Yiannopoulos attempted to speak on campus earlier this year. There was even a banner put up that read “We Say No To Your White Supremacist Bullsh*t.” And by the end of the night, nine arrests were made and roughly $600,000 was spent on security because of the fear that Antifa would freak out about the presence of a 33-year-old Orthodox Jew. And fortunately, no riots broke out due to high police presence.

To those who don’t know who Ben Shapiro is, he’s frankly not worth all the controversy he’s been getting. A graduate from UCLA and Harvard Law School who was smart enough to finish high school at 16, Shapiro is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire and his podcast The Ben Shapiro Show is one currently of the most popular in the country, certainly among conservatives. He is also a best-selling author and has made numerous appearances on cable news over the years.

If you listen to what he says on a daily basis, whether it’s through his podcast, his website, or his active Twitter account, then you’d know he is in no way part of the alt-right as his detractors claim he is. His positions are overall mainstream conservative. He’s for smaller government, fiscal responsibility, he’s pro-life, and according to his QA last night is a self-admitted libertarian on things like immigration and marijuana legalization. You may not agree with his positions, but he is far from being considered “fringe.”

Despite all of that, UC Berkeley isn’t the only university that Shapiro has had conflicts with. Aside from sparking protests on other campuses, he was also banned from DePaul University as well as California State University Los Angeles. He was even threatened by DePaul University to be arrested for attempting to defy their ban. Again, it’s worth reiterating that Shapiro himself isn’t a threat to these campuses; it’s the threat posed by its students who simply can’t handle him being on their campus.

It’s quite remarkable how much outrage Shapiro sparks among the fringe left, especially in comparison to provocative personalities like Yiannopoulous and Ann Coulter, who was also prevented from speaking at UC Berkeley earlier this year. Unlike Yiannopoulous and Coulter, Shapiro never supported Donald Trump during the election, and he’s been very critical of him during his presidency. In 2016, he left his position as editor-at-large at Breitbart News over the site’s treatment of its then-reporter Michelle Fields after her dustup with Trump’s then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. There aren’t many people in politics or in the media who are as principled as Shapiro and yet, despite his outspokenness against the Trump administration, he is still called a “fascist” and a “white supremacist” by many on college campuses.

The question that still needs to be answered is the following: Why would someone so non-controversial like Ben Shapiro spark so much controversy among the far left anyway?

The answer is simple: it’s because of the far left’s inability to have civil discourse with those they don’t agree with.

In the current political climate, there is a bipartisan problem with folks on the left and frankly on the right of the aisle who prefer echo chambers and ideological bubblies than to listening to opposing views and that’s only been further dividing the country. That being said, the right doesn’t attempt to suppress what the left has to say, especially in violent manners, the way the left does. Sure, people on the right called for the firings of Kathy Griffin at CNN and more recently Jemele Hill at ESPN just as the left constantly calls for the firing of conservatives like Fox News’ Sean Hannity. But what separates the outrage from the left and the right is when someone on the right is given a platform on a left-leaning outlet like on television or at a university. Bill Maher received backlash when he invited Yiannopoulous onto his show. Megyn Kelly received backlash for interviewing far-right radio talk show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for her show. And it’s only worse on college campuses, where people like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, conservative icon Charles Murray, activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and retired Gen. David Petraeus are invited to speak but are given hostile treatment by snowflakes within the student body. Even someone as liberal as Bill Maher was faced with opposition for his political incorrectness. And we can’t forget the violence that broke out when then-candidate Trump attempted to hold a rally at University of Illinois in Chicago.

That’s not to say everyone on the left has this issue. They don’t. In fact, there were several left-leaning students who attended Shapiro’s speech and debated him on things like abortion and climate change. However, those on the left who don’t have a problem with Shapiro speaking don’t do enough to tame these knee-jerk overreactions that are trying to prevent him from speaking. Aside from a handful of individuals like Maher and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, much of the centrist left has remained silent on this ongoing dilemma.

Going back to Shapiro, there is truly nothing objectionable about him unless you object to his political views, which you are more than allowed to in a civil manner. He may be blunt and often times brutally honest, but isn’t a provocateur and he doesn’t incite violence. The only weapon he carries with him is his intelligence. As he often says, “facts don’t care about your feelings.”

The problem many college students––and to some extent college administrators––have with Shapiro isn’t just his conservative ideology. It’s also the fact that he’s influential. He is a brilliant debater and Antifa fears he can persuade the undecided to “join the dark side,” as they see it. Shapiro is huge among conservative and moderate millennials, among Trump supporters and #NeverTrump Republicans alike. Not attending his speech wasn’t enough. They see Shapiro as a threat and they’re willing to attempt to shut him down. Fortunately, Berkeley Police had a heavy presence last night armed with pepper spray and enforcing a tough policy on Antifa’s black masks, an accessory which has previously encouraged them to riot.

Alan Dershowitz, a liberal and staunch supporter of free speech, called last night a “battle” for the First Amendment. And thanks to strong police presence, Shapiro got to speak and the First Amendment won, but Dershowitz warned that he or anyone could be next, which he’s absolutely right about. This wasn’t some Nazi or white supremacist that these students were seeking counseling over… it was an Orthodox Jew whose politics they claim are fascist and racist. If you don’t follow their liberal or even socialist ideology, you’re seen as some deplorable bigot. You’d have to be a complete moron to call Shapiro, who was the #1 journalistic target of anti-Semitism in 2016, a “white supremacist.”

The funniest part about the outrage that target these right-leaning speakers is that they always backfire. The intention of these protests is to silence individuals like Yiannopoulous, Coulter, or Shapiro, but in the end they increase their profile and make them more famous. Had they just give their scheduled speeches without any interruption, no headlines would be made and they wouldn’t own the spotlight.

There are definitely issues with political discourse on both sides, but there’s no question that the far left has a bigger problem with anyone interfering with their safe space than the far right does. And all the drama that surrounded this speech from Ben Shapiro proves it.

[image via screengrab]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Harry Dean Stanton, Quintessential American Actor, Dies at 91

Rarely a leading man, the Kentucky native was memorable in ‘Paris, Texas,’ ‘Repo Man,’ ‘Alien’ and ‘Big Love.’

Harry Dean Stanton, the character actor with the world-weary face who carved out an exceptional career playing grizzled loners and colorful, offbeat characters in such films as Paris, Texas and Repo Man, has died. He was 91. 

Stanton, who also was memorable in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981) and John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink (1986) — in fact, what wasn’t he memorable in? — died Friday afternoon of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his agent, John Kelly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Stanton was eerily creepy as evil polygamist and self-proclaimed Mormon prophet Roman Grant on HBO’s Big Love, and he partnered regularly with David Lynch, appearing in the director’s Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) and the series’ recent return, the 1993 miniseries Hotel Room, The Straight Story (1999) and Inland Empire (2006). (He said he turned down a meeting with Lynch about playing Dennis Hopper’s part as a serial killer in Blue Velvet.)

Stanton was great pals with actor Jack Nicholson, and they roomed together in a Laurel Canyon house on Skyline Drive in the early 1960s. (Nicholson moved in after sharing a place with screenwriter Robert Towne.) They first appeared together in Monte Hellman’s Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), which Nicholson also wrote, and Stanton always said he learned about “acting natural” from that experience.

“Harry, I’ve got this part for you. His name is Blind Dick Reilly, and he’s the head of the gang. He’s got a patch over one eye and a derby hat,” Stanton, in a 2008 interview with Esquire, recalled Nicholson pitching him. “Then he says, ‘But I don’t want you to do anything. Let the wardrobe play the character.’ Which meant, just play yourself. That became my whole approach.”

He and Nicholson caroused and worked together in Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks (1976), Man Trouble (1992), The Pledge (2001) and Anger Management (2003). Stanton also became friends with Marlon Brando, another actor from Missouri Breaks, and they engaged in long phone calls for years before Brando’s death in 2004.

Meanwhile, Stanton was an elegant musical performer with an angelic tenor voice. He sang and played rhythm guitar and harmonica in a Tex-Mex band that did weekly gigs at The Mint in Los Angeles. (He also was a regular in front of and behind the bar at Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood.)

Stanton played a convict and sang in Cool Hand Luke, coaching Paul Newman’s character on the song “Plastic Jesus.” Years later, he portrayed an Ozark musician in Chrystal (2004).

So it’s no surprise that Stanton bonded with Kris Kristofferson and recommended that his friend work with him in the title role of a former 1960s rock star on the downside in 1972’s Cisco Pike. (It was the country singer’s first leading role.) A year later, he befriended Bob Dylan during the difficult shoot for Sam Peckinpah’s somber western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).

With his hangdog, morose visage and faced etched with crevices, Stanton was known for playing characters of innate sadness or darkness. The omnipresent cigarette dangling from his lips helped with that.

“The great Harry Dean Stanton has left us,” Lynch said in a statement. “There went a great one. There’s nobody like Harry Dean. Everyone loved him. And with good reason. He was a great actor (actually beyond great) — and a great human being — so great to be around him!!! You are really going to be missed Harry Dean!!! Loads of love to you wherever you are now!!!”

Stanton had been working for decades as a character actor and was well into his 50s when he got his first lead role, playing Travis, a man and father broken by unrequited love, in Wim Wenders’ classic road movie Paris, Texas (1984).

“After all these years, I finally got the part I wanted to play,” Stanton once said. “If I never did another film after Paris, Texas, I’d be happy.”

Wrote Roger Ebert in a 2002 critique of the film: “Stanton has long inhabited the darker corners of American noir, with his lean face and hungry eyes, and here he creates a sad poetry.”

Stanton also sang on the film’s Ry Cooder soundtrack, performing a haunting Mexicali waltz, “Cancion Mixteca,” in Spanish.

In Alex Cox’s satirical cult sensation Repo Man (1984), Stanton recruits a young punk rocker (Emilio Estevez) to seize cars, just like him.

“Harry is a walking contradiction,” Sophie Huber, who directed the 2012 documentary Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, said in a 2013 interview with The Guardian. “He has this pride in appearing to not have to work hard to be good. He definitely does not want to be seen to be trying.”

Harry Dean Stanton was born on July 14, 1926, in West Irvine, Ky., a small tobacco-growing community. His father was a farmer and a barber, his mother a hairdresser. Following high school, Stanton served in the Navy as a cook on an ammunitions ship in the Pacific during World War II  — he was in the Battle of Okinawa — then enrolled at the University of Kentucky to study journalism and radio arts.

Since 2011, the Kentucky city of Lexington each year has hosted a Harry Dean Stanton Festival.

In 1949, Stanton hopped a Greyhound bus to California to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse. He performed on L.A. stages and toured as a singer with a Baptist preacher and spent time in New York studying acting with Stella Adler.

Stanton was touring with a children’s play when he quit during a stop in California, deciding to try his hand in television and films. His first credit came in 1954 when he appeared on the series Inner Sanctum, and Alfred Hitchcock gave him a bit part as a Department of Corrections employee in The Wrong Man (1956).

Starting out, Stanton often played menacing black hats or crusty sidekicks on such TV shows as The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, U.S. Marshal, Bat Masterson, The Rifleman, Johnny Ringo and The Untouchables.

He landed his first significant part as the son of an evil rancher in the Michael Curtiz Western The Proud Rebel (1958), also starring Alan Ladd and Olivia de Havilland.

In Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Stanton has just a few minutes on screen — playing a lonely, gay hitchhiker who puts a hand on Warren Oates’ knee — but he’s unforgettable.

The quintessentially American actor was hired by such famed directors as Francis Ford Coppola (1974’s The Godfather: Part II), John Huston (1979’s Wise Blood), Robert Altman (1985’s Fool for Love), Martin Scorsese (1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ), John Frankenheimer (1990’s The Fourth War) and Frank Darabont (1999’s The Green Mile).

His other notable film credits include Kelly’s Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), Farewell, My Lovely (1975), 92 in the Shade (1975), Straight Time (1978), Private Benjamin (1980), Red Dawn (1984), Stars and Bars (1988), Never Talk to Strangers (1995), She’s So Lovely (1997) and The Mighty (1998).

More recently, he appeared in The Avengers (2012), Seven Psychopaths (2012) and Lucky — in theaters Sept. 29 — and on the series Getting On at HBO.

He never wanted to be a leading man. “Too much work,” he said.

Except for a brief marriage, Stanton was a bachelor who in the Partly Fiction documentary spoke about the lost love of his life, actress Rebecca De Mornay. “She left me for Tom Cruise,” he says in the film. Deborah Harry, whom he also dated, recorded a 1989 song for him, “I Want That Man.”

His agent said that Stanton “is survived by family and friends who loved him.”

Stanton said his religious philosophy was “closer to Taoism or Zen Buddism, because it’s the most practical.” Ruminating about death in a 2013 interview in The New Yorker, he said, “When you’re deep asleep and not dreaming, where the fuck are you? There’s total blackness, it’s nothing, right? So I’m hoping that’s what death is, that it’s all gonna go. I don’t want to deal with any consciousness afterward.”

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