Tancredo: Establishment Media, GOP Betray First Amendment over VDARE Conference

A conference planned for April 2018 at a resort in Colorado Springs — a conference, not a political rally — was abruptly canceled this past week by resort owners after local officials in the most heavily Republican county in Colorado warned that they would withhold police protection against threatened disruption by protesters.

It appears that in Colorado Springs, the left does not need to show up and disrupt an event, they can merely threaten to do so and city officials run for cover like cockroaches. 

The conference sponsors issued this statement after the cancellation.

I had been asked to speak at the conference and would gladly have done so. I know that the VDARE Foundation’s only crime is to espouse the politically incorrect view that our immigration policy should be based on the needs of our own country. Pretty radical stuff, huh?  

The VDARE Foundation conference planned for the Cheyenne Mountain Resort had been announced months ago, but on Monday, August 14, two days after the Charlottesville riot, a local Colorado Springs television news story cited the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) attack on the VDARE Foundation and quoted the SPLC’s slander against VDARE as a proponent of alleged “hate speech.”

The very next day, on August 15, the city’s Republican mayor publicly asked the resort owners to reconsider the hosting of the VDARE conference. But the mayor did not stop there; he issued this official warning: “The City of Colorado Springs will not provide any support or resources to this event…”

The message was there will be no police protection if violent protests occur...

Folks, we are talking here about a conference, not a political rally, a private meeting on private property where invited guests sit and talk to each other about matters that are important to them. No public park or public facilities were involved, and no city permit was sought or required. The city would not be involved in any way — except to protect the civil liberties of conference attendees engaged in the exercise of their First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of assembly...

In Charlottesville, the city permit granted to the “Unite the Right” sponsors allowed them to hold a noon rally on August 12 in Emancipation Park. The city attempted to revoke the original rally permit and move the event to a different park several miles away, but that action was blocked by the August 11 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Glen E. Conrad.

Colorado Springs officials should have read that federal court ruling before surrendering to threats of disruption against the VDARE conference. After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge Conrad issued an injunction against the city’s illegal action and specifically cited persuasive evidence that the city’s attempt to revoke the permit was based on the content of the rally organizer’s views and not on concerns for public safety. That, my friends, is unconstitutional, and Judge Conrad said so...

While we can hope that both state and federal courts would squelch such dangerous undertakings as unconstitutional infringements of the First Amendment, the precedents have been set and the Champagne uncorked. If the next President of the United States adds a Minister of Public Virtue and Peaceable Assembly to her cabinet, we will know the alarm was sounded too late.

Related

PayPal Bans Jihad Watch from Accepting Donations, Breitbart, August 21, 2017. Donate to Jihad Watch here.

What to do about hateful corporate censorship? Where is free speech now that we need it?, Fred Elbel, CAIRCO, August 21, 2017.

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