Even though I hate it, I love it.

On Thursday, the Senate based by voice vote — yes, there is something everyone can agree on — a bill called the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.” The bill was crafted by Senator Tim Scott (SC) and Bob Casey (PA). What this act does is to tell the Department of Education to use the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism for purposes of enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act:

Simple justice requires that public funds, to which all taxpayers of all races [colors, and national origins] contribute, not be spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes or results in racial [color or national origin] discrimination.

What could go wrong? Right?

The State Department defines anti-Semitism thusly:

Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism

• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews (often in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion).
• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective—especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
• Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, the state of Israel, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
• Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.

What is Anti-Semitism Relative to Israel?

EXAMPLES of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel, taking into account the overall context could include:

DEMONIZE ISRAEL:

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis
• Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions

DOUBLE STANDARD FOR ISRAEL:

• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation
• Multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations

DELEGITIMIZE ISRAEL:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist

If you aren’t wetting yourself at this point you simply don’t have any sense of humor. Like these guys:

“The definition will have a severe chilling effect on campuses, and that is the explicit goal of the Israel advocacy organizations who promote it,” said Liz Jackson, an attorney with the group Palestine Legal. “Student activists for Palestinian rights already operate in a repressive environment. If this bill passes, they will face the specter of federal investigation simply for engaging in criticism of the Israeli government’s abusive policies.”
…
“If the Department of Education were to enforce this definition by restricting student speech critical of Israel, it would violate the First Amendment,” said Jackson. “The right to criticize a government — the U.S., Israeli, or any other government — is an enshrined constitutional freedom in our country. The Senate can’t legislate that away.”

There is not a single thing the Senate did here that the left hasn’t done for years. Professors have been stripped of tenure for not being sufficiently supportive of sexual perversion. The Civil Rights office of Department of Education stripped young men accused of sexual assault of the right to even defend themselves. Any public rejection of the liberal orthodoxy on a campus and in most work places will get you shown the door. The left doesn’t give a flying f*** about free speech or a civil society. What they want is to be able to make you parrot their slogans or punish you if they don’t.

At some point, if this nation has a future that doesn’t entail putting a lot of pointy heads with scuzzy, quinoa infested goatees on pikes, this crap has to cease.

As much as I dislike what Scott and Casey did with this, I find myself agreeing with their action and hoping that this becomes the norm until the left discovers that suppression of speech and debate works both ways and if they want to preserve their rights they had damn well better start supporting them for everyone.