CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: Conservative Voices ‘Are Being Silenced’ on Campuses
On Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria warned left-leaning Americans that they have to be more open to opposing viewpoints in order to truly advance the nation’s political conversation. Zakaria also warned that many liberals are not as tolerant as they think they are.
Zakaria used a segment of his show to talk about how Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were protested as they gave commencement speeches this month. Zakaria went on to say that “conservative voices and views… are being silenced entirely” because too many universities don’t do enough to support “intellectual diversity”:
“The world liberal in this context has nothing to do with today’s partisan language, but refers instead to the Latin root, pertaining to liberty. And at the heart of liberty in the Western world has been freedom of speech. From the beginning, people understood that this meant protecting and listening to speech with which you disagreed.”
Zakaria stated that freedom of speech applies to “offensive” remarks, and that the right is not reserved exclusively for “warm, fuzzy ideas.” Zakaria also noted that both political sides have shown signs of anti-intellectualism: the right refutes facts and reason, but the left acts self-righteous and has a low tolerance for disagreement.
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“Liberals think they are tolerant but often they aren’t,” Zakaria said. “The truth is, no one has a monopoly on right or virtue.”
Watch above, via CNN.
[Image via screengrab]
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