Who has better crazies? Last night, California law enforcement moved in to start clearing the pro-Palestine encampment of protesters at UCLA.
Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers over at Columbia, which had its own night of arrests just a day prior, the college students at UCLA sprayed cops with fire extinguishers and barricaded themselves with plywood. (They literally built a wall and instituted checkpoints, the irony of which does not seem to register.)
Counter-protesters tried to pull the plywood down. They shot fireworks into the encampment. They reportedly sprayed mace. Violence on both sides ensued:
Dueling groups of pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters clashed Wednesday at UCLA, breaking out in fistfights, tearing down encampment barricades and using objects to beat one another. https://t.co/eLTOkdLARP pic.twitter.com/rlM40wLHDx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 2, 2024
So last night, the school sent law enforcement in to attempt to stop the violence and clear the tent city. Video emerged of police using stun grenades. A little before publication time, at least one California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer shot something toward the protesters in the encampment, which was met with shouts of "Don't shoot!" and "We're just students!" (The CHP said officers are loaded with nonlethal tools like flash-bang devices. The officers also held off for roughly six hours after issuing orders for protesters to disband; they have only just recently begun moving in and attempting arrests.)
"More than 1,300 protesters have been taken into custody on U.S. campuses over the past two weeks," reported The New York Times. "Arrests were made on Wednesday at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Tulane University in New Orleans, among other places."
The questions of what type of speech ought to be permitted are fairly thorny here. Restrictions on speech should, of course, be content-neutral. Public and private universities have different obligations. Protests surely run afoul of university policies when they disrupt university operations:
Campus operations will be limited tomorrow and Friday. Please continue to avoid campus and the Royce Quad area. Per Academic Senate guidance on instruction, all in-person classes are authorized and required to pivot to remote tomorrow and Friday. https://t.co/MNiqJ7bu67
— UCLA (@UCLA) May 2, 2024
And protests that devolve into vandalism and violence—as many have—ought to be treated differently than mere speech. One could make the case that encampments, housing peaceful protesters, are civil disobedience, but part of what makes civil disobedience work is being willing to stoically incur harsh consequences for your actions. Universities are well within their rights to clear tent cities from their campuses, but perhaps protesters who believe in their cause would be better served by simply taking the arrest and proving to the interested public that they are willing to sacrifice for this cause.
Absent that, the UCLA protesters—who have likened the waving of bananas near their encampment (since someone has an allergy) to Israeli settlers waving machine guns, and prevented students from attending class—deserve little respect.
Relevance allergies: Yesterday, the Libertarian Party (L.P.) announced a huge convention get: Former President Donald Trump will be speaking, and you can even buy merch in preparation for the big event (never mind the fact that the man already had four years during which he could have pardoned Julian Assange or Ross Ulbricht, yet chose not to). It says it also invited President Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak, but to my mind it's not exactly shocking that Biden ignored the invite.
The Libertarian Party is selling Trump-themed merch ahead of a speech by Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, at the Libertarian National Convention. https://t.co/S0zelJMszJ https://t.co/msMmma51o2 pic.twitter.com/vN9T0napjF
— Zach Weissmueller (@TheAbridgedZach) May 1, 2024
"I know there are some libertarians who have a severe allergy to relevance, but it is an undeniably great thing that Trump is speaking at the Libertarian Party National Convention," wrote comedian Dave Smith on X. "It will generate more attention on our party and the issues that we care about, than we've ever had."
Perhaps you're sitting there wondering why the L.P.—which, at this convention, will be nominating its own presidential candidate (contenders include Chase Oliver, Mike ter Maat, and Michael Rectenwald)—would want to host the former president and presumptive nominee for another party. To answer these questions, I called up L.P. Communications Director Brian McWilliams.
All publicity = good publicity? The media attention "is going to be more than we have ever experienced," says McWilliams. "Do you think libertarians will be happy about it?" I asked, to a firm yes from him: "This gives us an opportunity to get Donald Trump up there, to make him answer questions from our philosophical base." When I asked who would be moderating—who will be doing the pushing back, and making sure Trump doesn't turn this into a bloviating stump speech—he said he did not yet know, but possibly the L.P. chair, Angela McArdle.
"RFK [Jr.] was flirting with [the L.P.] because we are a growing bloc. Trump's seeing that," says McWilliams. "Growing bloc via what metric?" I asked. "I think we now are getting to a point where we're representing more Americans," he continued, to which I pressed: "Do we have data that reflects that?"
"We don't have data that reflects that as far as party registration or affiliation," responded McWilliams. "I'm basically speaking from the point of what we're seeing from a cultural perspective." Following the Reno Reset in 2022, at which point the Mises Caucus—essentially, mostly anarcho-capitalist edgelords who spend a lot of time online—took over the party, libertarians have widely criticized the nouveau L.P. for its dropping membership and struggles with fundraising.
As for the merch, McWilliams says "it was basically an internal miscommunication as far as timing…some version of merch might be made available, I can't say if it's going to be that exact variety." And, there's still "a question of whether or not we want to be selling merch for Donald Trump that's affiliated with the Libertarian Party or not."
"This was something that somebody clearly spent time and resources on," I noted, to which he admitted that "without a doubt there was internal thought given to creating the merchandise, you know, that there's no denying that….[But] this was not something that I wanted to go out the same exact day the same exact time." All of this struck me as wishy-washy, like they were caught in something that looked bad, and want to save face.
Awfully close? McArdle released a meandering 17-minute video chalking up a lot of the rollout awkwardness to internal incompetence.
"The founders of this party were hardcore radicals. They were anarchists. They hated the government. Many of our members are anarchists; we want total abolition of the federal government. And when we see someone else [Donald Trump] get potentially kicked off the ballot for, you know, not agreeing with the election results, complaining about the federal government, and so on and so forth, that looks awfully close to some of the views we have about the legitimacy of the federal government."
Well then! So maybe this isn't an L.P. endorsement of Trump, but boy could you be forgiven for thinking they fancy him and are willing to excuse some of his more election-subverting actions.
Scenes from New York: It's now confirmed, both by Columbia's president and by Mayor Eric Adams, that "individuals not affiliated with the university" were the ones leading the Hamilton Hall break-in and barricade that got shut down by NYPD yesterday. "Approximately 300 people were arrested," and they do not know the breakdown yet of outside agitators vs. students.
QUICK HITS
- Bill Ackman, a major Harvard donor who was one of the top voices calling for former President Claudine Gay to step down following her insufficient handling of antisemitism on campus, has seemingly decided to take his dollars elsewhere:
William. pic.twitter.com/tdkHbzSIfK
— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) May 1, 2024
- "NO bagels" needed at the UCLA pro-Palestine encampment. (Too Jewish-coded? Are they coming for lox next? SMH, I knew I didn't like these kids.)
- "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell kept hopes alive for an interest-rate cut this year while acknowledging that a burst of inflation has reduced policymakers' confidence that price pressures are ebbing," reported Bloomberg. Jerome, you big tease!
- Everything you ever wanted to know about regional skating cultures and the Atlanta scene.
- "Lack of ammunition is forcing the outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers to pull back, one village after another, including three surrendered Sunday, as intense fighting roils the countryside surrounding Avdiivka nearly three months after the strategic city fell to Russia," reported the Associated Press. "Facing an outcry after Avdiivka's fall, Ukraine is rushing to build concrete-fortified trenches, foxholes, firing positions and other barricades on the front lines. But relentless Russian shelling, lack of equipment and crippling bureaucracy plague construction across the vast 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, even as a new Russian offensive looms."
- How to stay fit on the moon.
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