Can a movement similar to fascism emerge in the US?

[sapphi_snake]

badgenome said:

It's not really such a small number of cases given that FIRE is only about a decade old and isn't nearly as large or well established as the ACLU, which handles exponentially more such cases. But FIRE is an easy place to look for this kind of stuff because unlike other free speech organizations, they deal exclusively with academia.

You seem to have a very narrow and glorified view of how political correctness works, I think. We are not talking about the choice of private individuals refusing to associate with people who offend them, which I don't think anyone in the world could disagree with. We're talking about institutions of learning which receive taxpayer dollars telling people they can't say or do offensive things while permitting other people to say and do offensive things, simply because they happen to agree with those particular offensive things. I mean, I get that your view of this issue is strongly colored by where you live, and probably if I lived in an intolerant backwater, I'd feel the same way as you, but I don't, so I don't.

I thought that the cases from the link you provided were the only ones.

Regarding your second paragraph, hate speech is defined denigrating speech that may incite violence or prejudice against a minority group (or a group that is not dominant within society, and is thus a possible victim of persecution). In most civlized countries such hate speech is illegal, and since universities do recieve public funding, it's actually quite appropriate that they respect the law. Now the problem is that many people extend the definition of hate speech way too much, thus making the whole concept and the laws regarding it (which are terribly necessary) seem like a joke (a lot of the cases presented on that site are good examples).

"Offensive" is really an understatement when referring to hate speech. An example of hate speech would be "black people are evil and primitive. If they get near you they'll rob and rape you. Beware of them!" or "gay people are an abomination. they should be stoned to death". If I were black/gay/both, I'd not really have much time to be offended, because I'd be too busy fearing for my life, 'cause they're essentially instignations to persecution and violence towards me, especially in a country like mine, where lynch mobs aren't unheard of. Instignations towards violence are generally illegal in most countries, regardless of whom they're aimed at.