Shouting Down a Speaker: Left Wing Fascism at the University of New Mexico

You can read an account of the event here.

The interesting thing here is that audience members, clearly sympathetic to the speaker, rushed the demonstrators and forced them out of the hall. Were they justified in doing that?

In this instance, yes.

Either you have the rule of law, or you have the state of nature. Had cops been present to quell the disruption and arrest the disruptors, then audience members would have been obligated to stand by and let the cops do their job. But no cops (apparently) were present.

In a state of nature, people have a right to use force if necessary to protect their rights. It is important that they not use more force than necessary, and in this case all that happened was that the disruptors were pushed or shoved out of the room, and there was a minor scrap over the page of slogans one demonstrator held.

Universities ought to maintain the rule of law. But often they do not, especially when the lawless are on the political left. That’s why we would like to see more cases where the audience uses the force necessary to eject people who have assaulted free speech.