Students who called for Jewish slaughter absolutely should pay the price
A spirited debate broke out between Megyn Kelly and Vivek Ramaswamy and between Kelly and Candace Owens regarding what should happen to the college students who signed letters and took to the streets last week to say that Israelis deserved their rape, torture, murder, and kidnapping and that we should affirmatively support the sadists who target civilians. Kelly thinks that the people who made these statements should find that it affects their futures in seriously negative ways. I agree completely. Ramaswamy and Owens say that they should be cut some slack because all of us have dumb ideas. Both are wrong. However, Owens did make an important point that deserves to be recognized, which is why I’m writing here.
The trigger for the back and forth was that Vivek Ramaswamy said that companies erred when they said that they would take into account the students’ views when the students came knocking at their doors looking for employment. Kelly rightly blew him out of the water, saying that views as toxic as theirs deserve immediate consequences:
You’ve got to be kidding me. They sided with terrorists who murdered children and old women. You’re not clear on this as someone who wants to be president? https://t.co/656slMIQKL
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
Megyn, I was crystal clear that what the student groups said was dead wrong & you know that. But I don’t think it’s productive to hunt down individual members of college student groups for the purpose of blacklisting them. Persuasion is better than force, let’s stick to principle
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) October 15, 2023
If they are not “persuaded” that murdering babies is wrong, there is no “persuading” them. We don’t hire those who do the killing & we don’t hire those who applaud the killers while the savagery is underway. If you are open to hiring one of these lunatics, tho, good to know!
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
To sum up: Vivek said don’t punish them because they’re stupid. It’s better to lead them with a carrot than a stick. Megyn said stupidity like that is actually evil and deserves to be punished. At this point, Candace Owens got into the act:
Oh stop it. This is incredibly disingenuous, Megyn.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 15, 2023
You know that many of those students are not out there because they want babies to be murdered.
College kids are stupid. I used to be radically pro-choice. Glad I didn’t get put on a “conservative” black list for wanting… https://t.co/fxvnxUmSZY
Being liberal is not the same as taking to the streets to cheer murdered babies and blame said murders on the victims. But you go ahead and hire as many of them as you want Candace. I’m sure the @realDailyWire will love that. https://t.co/h941kGzaBw
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
I will again restate that is unlikely that the majority of the college kids were taking to the streets to explicitly “cheer murdered babies”. They instead believe they are fighting for some other righteous cause. While misguided, they are in need of education, not black lists.… https://t.co/Hq307mLAww
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 15, 2023
Also I hate to tell you this but my tagging @realDailyWire didn’t out your position. You did that all on your own. Good luck with your future intern program! https://t.co/V6RihyXsx6
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
So why exactly are you tagging them-
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 15, 2023
LOL. Would you like a direct contact to management? Help me help you. https://t.co/gPUBcKLYKt
Oh no, I have it. I talked to them just two weeks ago when they asked me to put you on my show to promote your crime series and I said sure I will do you and Candace that favor. ‘Member? https://t.co/9gFJ8F1sCP
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
Yes I do remember. Sorry I couldn’t actually make your show in the end.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) October 15, 2023
I’m not sure what obscure point you’re trying to prove so I’ll just continue being the mature one in this thread by thanking you for your willingness to help us promote a new series. https://t.co/O7YA1qreEn
This is how it works you see. You attack someone who has been nothing but nice to and supportive of you. Then when that person calls you out, you just keep saying “I am the mature one!”
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) October 15, 2023
Take care Candace. I wish you well. https://t.co/iJ0Stp4h2e
That catfight is not nice, but I felt I owed it to both women to include the whole conversation. I hate it when conservatives get into these ugly disputes, which harm conservativism by making it personal instead of digging into an interesting issue. Let’s get to the substance, which is interesting because of something that Owens threw into her part of the discussion.
As I said, Kelly is correct that people who state such appalling views deserve to face consequences. Getting turned away from a job because your prospective employer views you with disgust is an entirely reasonable consequence.
Owens’ view is that because people can change their minds (as she did), it’s a mistake to impose such harsh consequences on them because young people are stupid. Why blight a young life that way? Nope. We don’t learn without some suffering. If they get a pass, they will continue to be stupid and evil.
However, Owens and Ramaswamy are right about something, which is that many people can change their minds. (Notably, many people can’t, and that needs to be recognized, too.) Some of those students may not be irredeemably evil and hold out the possibility of openly and honestly expressed remorse, repentance, and redemption.
Like Owens, I, too, was once a leftist. Life taught me, both indirectly and directly, that my beliefs were stupid. Part of why I write is as an act of repentance and a way to redeem myself. When I was stupid, I deserved the consequences of my stupidity. Now that I’m less stupid, I do my best to make up for the past harms I caused. That’s how life works.
Giving students a pass without forcing them to earn their way back into civilized society is a terrible idea. It’s also a very leftist idea. No matter how much leftists sin, they never suffer. They never lose their place in college, they never lose a job, and they’re never subject to public opprobrium. Without that pushback, they will never change.
Image: The morally broken, factually ignorant, “blame the victim” students at Harvard. YouTube screen grab.