Why I Didn't Attend CPAC: Reason #1...And the Only Reason I Need

Not only am I not listening, you can't speak!

Be it known that I live within an easy drive of the CPAC location so there would have been no problem for me to attend.  But there is no reason to attend any political gathering when you also have a group or groups in attendance who feel it perfectly proper to shout down those with whom they disagree or who feel it proper to shout insults at invited speakers.  Because that is the type of gathering allowed by the organizers, I have no interest in attending or even being seen in the company of those attending.  (And please realize that some who attend are people that I admire and would love to listen to in person.)

As Conservatives or Libertarians we always heartily condemn the usually young, rabid and very useful idiots on the left who disrupt speakers like Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly or Michelle Malkin when they appear in public.  And don't forget how nice it was to recently hear that some of the Muslim Student Group individuals at the University of California, Irvine, had been indicted by the local District Attorney for conspiracy to deny Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren the right to speak at a forum at that university last year.  There is something intrinsically un-American, even evil, about denying an individual the right to speak when that person has been invited to give a speech at a specific time and location.  It is a tactic that focuses on denying one of our most basic freedoms:  Freedom of Speech, which is embodied in the 1st Amendment.  It is a tactic that destroys discourse--a tactic of liberals, I know--rather than promotes it.  It is a tactic that should be eschewed and condemned when it rears its ugly head.

It is a tactic that was engaged in today at CPAC.  Are we to presume that those who engaged in the heckling are also "useful idiots?"  Clearly those who engaged in the heckling are mindless drones incapable of lucid thought but clearly capable at shouting insults and acting like two-year olds throwing a tantrum in the grocery store.  Clearly they are embarrassing to serious Conservatives and serious Libertarians.

If CPAC wants to go in that direction, so be it.  But they will do so without my support as I have no time for idiots on the left or the right.

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