Shapiro: When Police Can Enforce The Law, Antifa Is Powerless And Other Things I Learned At Berkeley

Ben Shapiro, conservative commentator and editor in chief at the Daily Wire, delivered his speech on campus thuggery at UC Berkeley in California. No fires erupted. No rioting occurred. Nine people were arrested, but the concrete barrier the cordoned off parts of the campus, coupled with police allowing to enforce the law, prevented chaos. Police were also allowed to use pepper spray for crowd control, which was banned though a city ordinance back in 1997. Masks were also banned.

While Shapiro had to dole out thousands of dollars in security—the city of Berkeley spent $600,000—the event didn’t cause Armageddon. Well, maybe a few students were triggered. He added that while there were many obstacles, the Berkeley administration pulled through and allowed him to speak. He also thanked the police who provided security. He also noted that he delivered virtually the same remarks in 2016, but without the drama. After the event, which began at 10 P.M EST, 7 P.S. PST, Shapiro noted five things that occurred during his speech. One of which is that when police are allowed to do their jobs, Anitfa is powerless:

Suspected white supremacist Ben Shapiro, who tries to mask his racist rhetoric by claiming to be jewish, is in Berkeley now #BenAtBerkeley
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) September 14, 2017

Last night, hundreds of police were brought in to protect our event, at a cost of $600,000. That’s because of Black Bloc and Antifa. But neither held sway, because the police quickly arrested anyone with a weapon or a mask, and prevented violence in the crowd outside.
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Many Students Are Infected By The Microaggression Mentality. The notion of microaggressions suggests that if I attack your politics, I’m attacking your identity – and that such political attacks are a form of “aggression” equivalent to violence.
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Many On The Left Are Willing To Label Anyone A White Supremacist. I, needless to say, am not a white supremacist. I devoted several minutes of my speech last night to ripping into white supremacism and the alt-right.
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Students Can Handle It. Yesterday, we had a bunch of people who disagreed with me who attended the lecture.
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Conservatism Needs To Be Heard On Campus. The administration didn’t do a great job of ensuring that those who wanted to hear my speech could do so. They heavily restricted the venue, and then prevented those in the standby line from attending. The next step in ensuring free speech is ensuring that events are better handled by the administration so that those who want to hear an opposing view – and there were literally thousands who wanted to come – can do so.