Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Lucian Wintrich is the intolerable conservative nuisance – and victim – who was arrested by UConn police and charged with breach of peace for having made an unsuccessful attempt to exercise his First Amendment rights at Connecticut’s flagship university. Wintrich had been invited to speak by the University of Connecticut Young Republican Club on campus.   A raucous crowd – seeded,  one commentator noted, with fascists   – prevented Wintrich from delivering his thoughts on “It’s OK To Be White.”

Dante death mask Monsieur l’Abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write -- Voltaire The trouble with bad manners, Bill Buckley used to say, is that they sometime lead to murder. The late Charles Manson and his maenads, we can agree, had deplorable manners. Anyone who has met President of UConn Susan Herbst will tell you she has exquisite manners. And the author of “Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics,” also is an authority on political manners. Unfortunately, there are no mandatory courses on good manners at UConn.