Poughkeepsie Journal 3:02 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2017

Letters to editor(Photo: Poughkeepsie Journal)Buy Photo

The alarm bells are ringing.

Insidiously and gradually, free speech is on its way to extinction at universities and colleges across America, spawned by a dictatorship of the left.

Increasingly, leftists and their anarchist disciples are inciting students to use mob violence for disrupting and preventing invited conservative speakers from expressing alternative political views at the campus.

Reminiscent of Nazi and Communist tactics for eliminating free speech, leftist-inspired rioters screaming obscene language are increasingly threatening conservative speakers with physical injury, accompanied by blockage of streets and buildings, appalling vandalism, extensive property damage, and chaos.

Recently, at the University of California, Berkeley, right-wing advocate Milo Yiannopoulos had to be evacuated and his speech cancelled because of masked rioters beating people, smashing windows and starting fires on and off campus. Incredibly, throughout this dystopian scene, despite the presence of scores of campus and city police, not a single arrest was made thanks to orders from permissive or possibly complicit municipal and school officials.

Hypocrisy prevails: The same campus leftists who allege President Donald Trump is ushering in a Fascist regime to suppress freedom of speech, are themselves plotting to silence conservatives who challenge their views.

If America is going to preserve its democratic principles, suppression of free speech through violence must be reversed. This means publicly funded educational institutions throughout our nation including Dutchess Community College need to uphold federal laws protecting the right of its citizenry to assemble in a peaceful manner and exercise free speech. Otherwise, federal funding to these scofflaw universities and colleges should be withheld.

Joe Incoronato

Dutchess County Legislator, District 15

Wappingers Falls

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Free speech in danger due to extreme leftist actions: Letter - Poughkeepsie Journal