TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A Milo Yiannopoulos speech is not for the faint of heart. In the most politically incorrect way possible, the openly gay conservative provocateur stormed onto the campus of the University of Alabama Monday evening and delivered a speech loaded with Hillary Clinton zingers, praise for Donald Trump, and strong rebukes of the anti-speech left.
Yiannopoulos spoke to a sold-out crowd in the University’s Ferguson Center Theater at 7:00 p.m. The audience was jam-packed with Donald Trump supporters, many of whom donned their “Make America Great Again” caps.
Where Yiannopoulos goes, student protests follow. The tech editor for Breitbart has made his career out of sparking liberal outrage with his intentionally inflammatory statements.
When the tour stopped in at DePaul University earlier this year, two Black Lives Matter activists “stormed the stage, forcibly seized the microphone, and threatened to assault” Yiannopoulos. He was later banned from ever returning to the campus. At Rutgers University, feminists and Black Lives Matter supporters “smeared themselves with fake blood and tried to shut down the event in protest.”
Predictably, when the UA College Republicans invited Yiannopoulos to campus, left-leaning organizations were none-too-pleased. While the level of protest did not reach Depaul or Rutgers levels of absurdity, several students did stage a sit-in at Rose Administration building to protest Yiannopoulus’ ability to exercise the first amendment on public property.
“I think that other organizations on campus take care to respect certain groups on campus just to make sure that they invite speakers who are not going to directly insult anyone’s existence as is,” Maya Perry, student protestor, told UA’s student newspaper. ” I think it’s very irresponsible of the College Republicans to invite someone like this to speak knowing how insulting he is to certain marginalized people on campus.”
During the event itself, only one protester stood outside of the Ferguson center with an anti-Milo sign, whom Milo attempted to speak to after his talk concluded.
But Yiannopoulos had some very harsh words for students looking to restrict speech rights because of content and tone.
“We’re in a situation now where students can go to university and they come out dumber than when they went in. They are infantilized by safe-space and trigger-warning culture,” he said. “This evening, there is a safe space at Michigan University to protect the safety and emotional well-being of students from this dangerous f****t with the wrong opinions. That is insane.”
Yiannopoulos believes that the anti-speech environment at colleges and universities could “infect” the broader American culture. In the bulk of his speech, he discussed how this could take place and the perils of shifting the burden of internet regulation from the United States to the global community at large.
He noted that countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have abysmal records when it comes to protecting free speech, and their involvement in internet regulation could prove toxic.
“In the words of one of my Breitbart colleagues, we are giving up control of the internet so that Turkey has as much say as America,” he said. “We are doing that because Obama and friends thinks it is noble, that it is right to give all countries, no matter how despotic, a voice in managing the Internet.”
In Yiannopoulos’ opinion, the only way to protect free speech and put an end to political correctness is to elect Donald Trump President of the United States.
“It’s up to daddy [Trump], and to all of us, to fix this,” he said to thunderous applause.
As previously stated, Milo’s speeches are not for the faint of heart. The entire video is linked here: consider this your “trigger warning.”
