Source: New York Post
by Ben Appel
“We’ve been told for years that offensive words are a form of ‘violence’. College campuses, once dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, have installed ‘safe spaces’ where students retreat if an opinion strikes them as threatening. The assumption is that speech itself can wound as badly as fists, and we must protect young people. But inflating the concept of violence has had the opposite effect. By equating emotional discomfort with physical assault, universities have desensitized students to the meaning of the real thing. Now when an activist like Charlie Kirk is assassinated, too many of them shrug — or worse, celebrate. Violence has been deconstructed, reframed and stretched to cover everything from being misgendered to being shot in the neck. The result is the word itself has become meaningless.” (09/22/25)