Of Goose and Gander

By Semperpapa


When Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren addressed the assembly at UC-Irvine last week, he found himself confronted by a throng of protesters who interrupted his speech shouting invectives so much that finally the campus security had to remove the protesters.
In all, 11 people were escorted out of the venue and the report has been filed with the Orange County District Attorney for possible filing of charges against the 11, if a formal complaint is made by university officials.

While the next judicial step has not even been contemplated, and if I was a betting man I would wager that nothing will come out of this criminally, the Southern California chapter of CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations) has taken a pre-emptive approach, immediately calling for the dropping of all complaints against the 11 thugs. Not only no charges should be filed by the D.A., but all disciplinary actions on the part of the University should be dropped.

The reasoning behind Hussam Ayloush, head of the SoCal office of CAIR, demand is that the students were exercising their First Amendment Right of free speech. Ayloush calls the actions of the 11 students just an expression of opposing views and therefore constitutionally protected, regardless of the viciousness of the verbal attacks, the venue, the circumstances. Ultimately, CAIR believes that the expression of pro-Muslim, anti-Semitic sentiments is always proper.

To strengthen the protest, Mr. Ayloush also is contending that the matter of the 11 students in question should not be taken out of the University circle, that bringing the handling of the complaint “outside” the University jurisdiction, namely the Orange County District Attorney, is somewhat contrary to the collegial ideals.
Not surprising of an assertion on the part of CAIR, as the University environment is potentially a much safer one than the office of the County DA, with sympathizers and politically correct zombies always in abundance.

Hussam Ayloush continues to maintain that if the University should decide to pursue disciplinary actions against the 11 thugs, the action would be “perceived as selective enforcement”. Clearly in a move to threaten the university administration Ayloush added that “the campus probably does not want to be viewed in such a light”, knowing very well that the leadership of UC-Irvine, just like the vast majority of universities and colleges in the US, will go to any length to accommodate the demands of CAIR and similar groups so to maintain their multicultural image. Even if it means trampling the forgotten notion of right and wrong.

Hypocritically, the CAIR representative, the same one invoking the thugs’ right to free speech in the incident with Ambassador Oren, is the same gentleman who in 2003 sued the National Review for an alleged article that Ayloush deemed to be defamatory toward CAIR. National Review retracted the piece, but CAIR continued to pursue the suit until it was dismissed by a court for lack of merit. National Review, though, found itself in the hole for $50,000 in legal fees anyway.
It is obvious that the First Amendment of the US Constitution is applicable to the disruptive students attempting to shut down a speaker at an event, but it does not apply to a publication.

And this coming from an organization whose ultimate goal is to have the Koran replace the US Constitution anyway.

It goes to show that the Council for American-Islamic Relations is not knowledgeable, or just plain discards, the great American philosophy of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.

And these are my thoughts!