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Conservative speaker to draw crowd and protest at Cal Poly

May 24, 2017

Lauren Southern in Dresden, Germany

In what could make for a confrontation between conservatives and members of the group Antifa, the Cal Poly College Republicans are scheduled to host activist-journalist Lauren Southern on Thursday.

Southern is a Canadian conservative with libertarian leanings who is a vocal critic of feminism and mass immigration. She is due to deliver a speech on the Cal Poly campus at an event dubbed “The Return of the Traditional Woman.”

Formerly a reporter and and commentator for conservative Canadian news agency The Rebel, Southern is the author of “Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants and Islam Screwed My Generation.” Recently, Southern attended the “Battle for Berkeley,” where fighting broke out between free speech activists and Antifa members.

Protesters are organizing a march against Southern, which is expected to take place before she speaks at Cal Poly Thursday evening. Several student groups, including the Cal Poly Democrats, are promoting the “March Against Rape Culture.” Also, a post in an online forum is calling on antifascists from across California to mobilize in San Luis Obispo on Thursday.

Earlier this year, the College Republicans hosted controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos at an event that required dozens of officers and thousands of dollars to police. The event at Cal Poly occurred peacefully, but the following night a riot stopped Yiannopoulos from speaking at UC Berkeley.

“Today conservatives are repeatedly accused of repression,” the College Republicans stated in a Facebook post promoting the Southern event. “The claim that all right-leaning individuals are racist, homophobic, xenophobic fascists is completely false and atrocious. The Cal Poly College Republicans will not stand by the wayside as people around the world are brutally attacked for their beliefs.”

A Facebook post promoting the protest against Southern states she is a “rape culture apologist.”

“Alt-right star and rape culture denier Lauren Southern will be coming to our campus with her bigoted agenda that attacks women, people of color, trans folks and undocumented people.”

Thursday’s event is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. in room 286 of the Fisher Science building. Tickets are limited, and the College Republicans is requesting attendees fill out a survey in order to get seats.


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I remember Cal Poly to be an Agriculture and Engineering school. Why would any of these students want to protest a conservative speaker? These students want to learn their discipline, graduate and become attractive candidates for employment. Go Cal Poly! Learn By Doing!!!!!


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Every time the left hears anything they dont like or agree with they have a label like racist, homophobe, mysogenist,etc, etc. They think this gives them the right to destroy property, commit violence and suppress free speech and in essence infringe on the rights of everyone else. Time to put a stop to their behaviour is


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Cal Poly should have to bond with all of the local law enforcement agencies to cover the cost of any protests that may occur. We the taxpayers shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of Cal Poly. I believe fully in free speech and compliment Cal Poly for their efforts. It’s their backyard and they should be held responsible for its care.


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If I recall correctly the Cal Poly Police are considered State Police which should also apply to Berkeley yet they stood down giving Antifa the keys to the University and town allowing some where around 500 thousand dollars damage to be done which is malfeasance all the way up to Governor Brown as far as I’m concerned.These pajama wearing mall ninjas need to stop destroying tax payer property among other things and they are not coming here at their own expense so we can eliminate that, someone pays the bills, not them.If anyone should take blame it should be them and no one else.They need to bare the cost of their actions not the tax payers,no caught and release like commie Berkeley.


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I don’t know how you could prove it either way but I would bet that more money is spent funding the right wing extremists (including the speakers) in these battles than is spent funding left wing protestors. I wish that the right wing would not strive for drama by inviting the most incendiary speakers they can find to push the limits and I wish the left wing would shut down those who think violence is OK as a means to protest those same speakers.


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I thought the left championed women and foreigners. Oh… just not THIS foreign woman! Time to don the black masks and burn down the Fisher science building. BTW, she’s gorgeous. Am I a misogynist?


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It is a giant troll to support the fascist’s. Mercer/bretbart fund speaking tours to push the hate.


Fuck the haters and racists, it’s not 1955.


“Another conservative nonprofit, Young America’s Foundation, also establishes student chapters at numerous universities and sends bigoted scholars and lecturers including Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Ted Nugent to speak at their campus events free of charge. Bankrolling these nonprofits are conservative mega-donors including Charles and David Koch and the DeVos family, who by funding the organizations enable hate speech at institutions of higher education.


In addition, a production company connected to the right-wing billionaire Mercer family facilitated at least one college speaking gig of Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart News editor known for his racist, sexist, Islamophobic and anti-transgender vitriol.”


It’s a shell game, follow the money…..


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“Fuck the haters and racists, it’s not 1955.”


Incorrect! I’m sure those attending Lauren Southern’s speech will be partying like it’s 1935.


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How is that George Soros the former Nazi Collaborator (Nazi would be fascist by the way ) is never mentioned in these rants while he allegedly funds all kinds destructive foolery.There is a difference between voicing an opinion and actually going out to injury people and destroy things.Apparently some cannot tell the difference.


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Blaming Lauren Southern, Milo, Richard Spencer or any controversial right wing speaker for left wing violence and destruction is…like blaming a hot chick for being raped. Like a rapist, the Antifa has low impulse control and had no interest in ideas and debate, because their ideas are discredited Communism and Anarchism.


Just as a woman isn’t to blame for being violated by a disgusting sex offender, so too is Lauren Southern not to blame for having her civil and free speech rights violated by Antifa thugs. Southern’s views were in the mainstream of society for most of American history. It is only recently that feminists and Antifa have attempted to deny public platforms to Right Wing speakers who argue traditionalist positions.


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So you want to bring back traditionalist positions on slavery? White only water fountains?


How about the SLO county committee of vigilance? Hanging criminals after a quick trial?


“Traditionalist positions” is another dog whistle code word to excuse fascist’s and racists.


Stop trying to normalize hate.


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The First Amendment is quite clear. Anyone is free to advocate controversial positions, including slavery and segregation. Vigilantism is incitement to violence and prohibited.


Your conflation of Southern’s opposition to feminism to slavery is obfuscation in the worst manner. Clearly, opposing liberal feminism is not the same as advocating slavery.


Who is the arbiter of what is “hate”? The government? If you have such a problem with free speech, I suggest you move to Europe where they imprison people for mean words.


You don’t get a heckler’s veto to stop free speech. If you or the Antifa attempt to stop Southern, it is Cal Poly’s responsibility to provide security and bear the costs of allowing Southern’s right to free speech and assembly. Again, the Constitution is quite clear on this. Auburn University just had to pay out $29,000 in legal costs to the gentleman who invited Richard Spencer to speak there.


http://www.theplainsman.com/article/2017/05/university-agrees-to-pay-29k-to-dismiss-richard-spencer-lawsuit


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>”The First Amendment is quite clear. Anyone is free to advocate controversial positions, including slavery and segregation. Vigilantism is incitement to violence and prohibited.”


Um, advocating slavery and segregation IS incitement to violence. How would YOU and YOUR’S like to be on the receiving end of a new call to slavery, or told that there are certain public places that you are not allowed to go and facilities you will not be allowed to use because of your race? You’d call those fightin words I suspect, and rightfully so.


>”Your conflation of Southern’s opposition to feminism to slavery is obfuscation in the worst manner.”


Wait a minute. YOU said: “Southern’s views were in the mainstream of society for most of American history” and spoke about some who want to “deny public platforms to Right Wing speakers who argue traditionalist positions”. Kettle was pointing out that for a long time slavery was also a traditional American value. Bringing in speakers who would argue for that would be highly objectionable to reasonable, rational, humane people. But the extremists in the rightwing today, having lost all moral compass, are doing their level best to incite the reasonable. Now, I agree with you that everyone has the constitutional right to their air opinions, though again, in appropriate settings.


I also think that the so-called “blackbloc” groups responsible for the violence are either stupid people that can’t see that they are being manipulated by rightwingers into trying to make the left look like thugs, or that they may actually BE rightwingers intent on this purpose. Who knows who’s really under some of those masks? Lowlife tactics are nothing new to the “right”.


https://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/8/how_to_rig_an_election_convicted


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“Um, advocating slavery and segregation IS incitement to violence.”


IN YOUR OPINION, not in everyone else’s opinion. Anarcho-Capitalist Economists like Walter Block and Murray Rothbard have argued the legality of human slavery for years. They weren’t ever imprisoned for their thoughts I, because the Constitution is clear. All views, no matter how extreme, are covered under the First Amendment so long as they don’t advocate violence.


“Bringing in speakers who would argue for that would be highly objectionable to reasonable, rational, humane people.”


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“Um, advocating slavery and segregation IS incitement to violence.”


IN YOUR OPINION. Others may disagree. Anarcho-Capitalists like Walter Block and Murray Rothbard have debated the philosophical legality of human slavery for years, and they were never imprisoned in America. Because the Constitution is clear. Extreme views, so long as they are not open calls to violence, are protected under the 1st Amendment.


“Kettle was pointing out that for a long time slavery was also a traditional American value. Bringing in speakers who would argue for that would be highly objectionable to reasonable, rational, humane people.”


Again, WHO is the arbiter of what is rationale, reasonable, or humane? Someone may say that slavery should be brought back, but merely advocating slavery is not the same as actually enslaving people and depriving them of their liberty. And this quickly becomes a slippery slope. First, advocating slavery is hate speech and not protected as free speech. Then Holocaust Denial becomes hate speech. Then advocating racial segregation becomes hate speech, then questioning the government becomes hate speech.


Do you really want the government deciding for you what you should and shouldn’t hear?


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>”Extreme views, so long as they are not open calls to violence, are protected under the 1st Amendment.”


Agreed. Still, some views are more extreme than others, and slavery IS violence, and advocating it IS hate speech, no question. That haters who advocate hate have done so with impunity does not mean that it’s ok. Oftentimes, I think, the worst among us get away with it because people in the system just don’t want to deal with it. Look at Scientology and the IRS for example. So they are grudgingly tolerated.


You’re right that if people refuse to be decent to others then these are matters to be decided in a court of law.


Anyway, I suspect you’d be singing a very different tune if blacks started vocally and actively advocating for white slavery.


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More whites were enslaved by the Tripoli Pirates in Africa than the number of blacks that were sent to the New World on European ships.


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>”More whites were enslaved by the Tripoli Pirates in Africa than the number of blacks that were sent to the New World on European ships.”


No. Not even the guy who came up with that study, Robert Davis, says that. He says around 1 million vs 12 million black slaves. What’s more, he based his figures on guesses.


“His figures sound a bit dodgy and I think he may be exaggerating.” ~ David Earle, author of The Corsairs of Malta and Barbary and The Pirate Wars

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/11/highereducation.books


Some articles:


https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2j3gec/ohio_state_university_professor_robert_davis/


https://technoracism.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/the-barbary-pirates-white-slaves-and-racist-agendas/


Here is a critical review of his book (under EUROPEAN SLAVES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE) https://goo.gl/4HwxhN


This doesn’t justify white slavery, but they were just two different animals. The whites involved were kidnapped off ships by pirates and often held for ransom, though there was forced labor involved too. The African slave trade was big business, that involved generations of family members. What’s more, it went on for much longer. I’m not just talking about in the Americas, but back thousands of years. No comparison.


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Think you might be looking in a mirror while posting because it clearly shows your hate.Good luck with that.


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It wouldn’t matter if slavery was proposed. Proposing that slavery should be legalized is still protected speech in America.


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Respectfully, Incredulous, it is in fact incredible that you assert “Republicans on various campuses have REALLY been up to is trying to instigate trouble by inviting the most reprehensible, divisive (Yannopolis (whatever), Coulter etc.) people.” Why? Because it is obvious that the liberal line is to censor those they disagree with.


Dialectics are subordinated to a one side view where the liberal thesis censors an antithetic response fearing that a synthesis will contradict liberal ideology. Liberalism of its most extreme kind wishes to maintain “mind control” to ferment cultural decent against traditionalist and people with sensible opposing views. That is your game Incredulous. It is academically and truthfully wrong, anti American and it violates the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.


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Paid fascist trolls are sent on speaking tours, deal with it.


Otis, that was word salad trying to cover for the haters by talking down to people..


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“Paid fascist trolls” would be those who show to suppress free speech, but then you already knew that.Deal with it.


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No, that’s not the point of my post. I do believe that everyone should have a right to speak (in the appropriate forum), I’m just making the factual point that the reason for these speaking tours is simply to create antagonism with a hope that someone(s) on the left will protest, then people like you can jump on your self-righteous bandwagons and accuse them of trying to censor. It’s really very cynical, but sooo Republican.


By the way, before you jump down my throat, when I say “in the appropriate forum” I am saying that not every venue is appropriate for unfettered free-speech. For example the famous shouting of “FIRE!” in a theatre in the hopes that people will trample each other in the panic. I also mean that I wouldn’t want astrologers to be able to teach their crap in public school astronomy classes. Would you agree with these examples?


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I’m all for free speech, but what Republicans on various campuses have REALLY been up to is trying to instigate trouble by inviting the most reprehensible, divisive (Yannopolis (whatever), Coulter etc.) people they can think of to schools just to see if they can whip up the opposition and thus create a public spectacle in hopes of embarrassing the left. That’s dishonest and manipulative. I’m not surprised though. These speakers are just being used (though likely willingly) in this plan to create strife.


About Southern’s anti-feminist line. I agree with her somewhat that some hyper feminists on the left do go too far, but she is too young to remember the days when husbands could beat their wives, or command them to do whatever they wanted and the law looked the other way because that was just the way it was. Times when women couldn’t even vote. Even now, women STILL make less money than men doing the same job. How that’s even constitutional I don’t know. And how someone can defend it morally is beyond me.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201208/why-men-oppress-women


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Wait. Are you old enough to remember the days when husbands could beat their wives? How old are you and do you live in Yemen?


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I don’t think he was speaking about technical legality. It’s more about society’s unspoken tolerance for such activities. It was more common 50 years ago (and still occurs) but people are less likely to get away with it now. We still have a ways to go on this (as well as on racism and other similar problems) but things are better now.


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I think the media already has a lock on instigating trouble, being divisive, and whipping up the opposition to create a public spectacle and embarrass those who don’t share the same opinions. This is just an opportunity to level the playing field.


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“I’m all for free speech”

Um yeah, no your not. Your all for free speech if it fits your ideals, that is not free speech. Your not fooling anyone except the gullible and impressionable, very sad.


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Seems like the college republicans are just a bunch of confrontational in your face provocateurs. Why else do this over and over again? Grow up kiddies. Are they really stupid enough to believe their own propaganda and overlook the fact Milo likes to f— little boys, and that’s somehow OK? And that such a person is a good “teacher” for themselves? Moral character seems absent from this conservative mindset.


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NO that’s definitely the “SLO Solidarity” crowd


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God forbid we don’t agree with Ricky’s brain washed left wing loony agenda, he might call us “racist” bahaha. People like Ol’ Ricky really need to leave “moral character” to those that know what it means, and liberals have failed on an epic level at having any form of morals. But they are pros at brainwashing impressionable youth with their flawed logic and agenda. How sad.


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