Popehat has definitely decided not to take Mo the Rutabaga to the UK. It’s sad for Mo, but it just wouldn’t be safe, not under present conditions.
Here’s the pusillanimous and unprincipled attitude of the RUSU and its sad ilk, offered in their own words: modern university students should not do anything to give offense, and if anyone claims offense, they should stop whatever they are doing immediately.
Kara Swift, Kath Davey, Richard Silcock, and Ceri Jones are heir to great ideas forged in mighty minds. They are heirs to Shaw: “all great truths begin as blasphemies.” They are heirs to Burke: “The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” They are heirs to Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” But they reject that inheritance, choosing instead a life of petty bureaucratism and insipid, infantilizing “civility.” Offered an opportunity to treat both speakers and listeners as adults, they treat them as children instead — children whose words must be curtailed until they do not offend even the most intolerant and overly sensitive child in the class.
A nation run by the Swifts, Daveys, Silcocks,and Joneses of the world will be weak and dull-witted and crabbed and pointless. Such people exist in every place; it’s up to us whether we will put up with them or call them out. I prefer calling them out. So write about things like this.
Yes do!