Totalitarian Tactics at FSU

by Francisco Gonzalez ~ September 18, 2008

Last night, I gave a talk at Florida State University about the book that I co-authored. The talk was sponsored by the student group, the Institute for Conservative Studies (ICS). In preparation for my talk, members of the group put up hundreds of university-approved flyers to advertise the event. The flyers included the SGA logo (which is needed to show that the flyer is officially approved to put up on bulletin boards around campus) as well as the ICS student group logo.

The event was advertised as taking place on Wednesday, September 17 at 8:15 P.M. in Bellamy 180. The group also made “chalkings” on side walks around campus to advertise the event.  However the day before the event, something strange happened.

In the middle of the night, the date of the event and the room it was held in were miraculously changed on the flyer to one day later: Thursday, September 18, and in a different room in Bellamy. Perhaps Obama “the messiah” had made these changes to prevent students from showing up to the lecture where they might hear some facts about his voting record, his background, and his worldview, that he didn’t want them to know about it.

More likely, it was the typical totalitarian tactics of the left on college campuses. After spending many years studying at universities for both an undergraduate and graduate degree, and then 3 1/2 years working as the Director of Campus Leadership for a national campus-focused organization, I cannot say I am surprised. College campuses are supposed to be a place where free thought and an open discussion of ideas are encouraged. But, if you hold a different opinion from the the leftist-dominated academy, the left will go on an all out war to shut you down, as they attempted to do to my lecture last night.

Thankfully, the more than 40 students that attended were able to hear me speak and engaged me in a civil way through an open dialogue that ensued during the question and answer session. I do wonder, however, if other students were planning to come to my talk, thinking it was on Thursday night (when it was actually on Wednesday). My free speech rights were violated, as were theirs. And, the culprits  who took their time to take down the university-approved flyers and put up hundreds of false flyers violated the legal rights of the ICS student group as well as the entire university community. They should be held accountable and I will be working with ICS and other local and national free speech groups to insure that the culprits are brought to justice.

This act of intolerance only confirms why me and my co-authors wrote this book. The media and the left have engaged in totalitarian tactics to hide the truth about the real Barack Obama and the radical political agenda he (and they) represent. Apparently some on the FSU campus were scared to allow others to hear what I had to say about Barack Obama. Instead of coming to the event and challenging my assertions in the Q&A, they chose to stifle my opinion and the freedom for others to hear that opinion and participate in the event.