Note: The following was my proposed commencement speech for the 2024 class of the “People’s School of Gaza” at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. For some reason, the “faculty” declined my invitation to speak—CLS
Good afternoon. Before I begin, if everyone could please deactivate your explosive vests, remove your keffiyehs and silence your cell phones until commencement exercises conclude, that would be appreciated.
Also a brief housekeeping note: If anyone knows who spilled red paint all over the Student Union men’s bathroom, please invite them to clean that shit up. This isn’t a daycare and none of you are toddlers. Allegedly.
Now let’s begin. Dear Class of 2024 of the People’s School of Gaza: Congratulations. You did it.
What you did beyond holding parts of the University of Tennessee campus hostage, screaming obscenities at Jewish students, and generally behaving like entitled brats, I’m not sure. But you damn sure accomplished those three things, which means you’re officially as bad as the children at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia.
Let’s go back to the beginning of May when a few of you who didn’t get enough love and attention as small tykes started this “exercise in free speech.” For the alleged “benefit” of people half a world away who don’t give a damn about you or what you think you stand for, the lot of you thought it was a great idea to make your fellow students at UT’s lives hell.
So you stomped your feet. Chanted slogans like “From the River to the Sea,” “We want 48, Not No Two State,” and “Death to America.” You made your little signs, waved Hamas flags and donned keffiyehs because someone online told you it was a great way to stand against “Colonization” and “Imperial Zionism” or some such nonsense. Harassed Jewish students on campus who had jack all to do with this mess.
Are you really still surprised the lot of you got arrested?
Things really got ridiculous last week when you tried to take over the College of Law’s lawn for your little “Nakba” vigil—an event if any of you’d bothered to do ten seconds of research commemorated the mass slaughter of Israeli Jews. As do most “holidays” Hamas celebrates. But no, you wanted to have another reason to throw a tantrum and demand you get your way.
So you celebrated the slaughter of Jews. Remember that.
When the College of Law’s Dean came to let you know you’d repeatedly violated the University’s time, place and manner restrictions with your tantrums and you’d be arrested for trespassing if you didn’t leave within ten minutes, you questioned why the university you “pay money to attend” would have you arrested.
And then the cops showed up and arrested most of you. I’ll add they only did so after giving you one more chance to leave the College of Law’s lawn. When they slapped the cuffs on you, none of you even had the balls to take it like adults. No, you whined and moaned about how your “rights to free speech were being silenced” and how “this can’t be what America looks like.”
Let’s see what lessons we can learn from our time at the “People’s School.”
First, the right to free speech doesn’t mean people have to put up with your shit.
You’re free to speak your mind on college campuses. No one has to listen. I know this is hard for all of you who’ve been inculcated with this asinine notion everything you say is important and the center of the universe, but it’s a correct statement.
People are going to let you speak because that’s what we do in America. Don’t be surprised when they ignore you completely because most of the time that’s what the lot of you deserve if someone’s in a good mood. What you might get in return, if someone’s having a bad day, is what we call the “free marketplace of ideas.”
Since most of you are incapable of understanding subtext, let me spell it out: Graciously, we might ignore you. If we’re not being gracious, we might take the time to chastise you for being a complete tool.
Second, if you choose to protest, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences. When the civil rights protests of the 60s happened, those who protested knew damn well they could be arrested for what they did. They still chose to do it because they knew doing the right thing was more important than appearances or social media clout.
You were more concerned with what it was going to do to your mother and father’s opinions when they saw your mugshot. By the way, go thank your parents for putting up with your shit. They’re the ones paying for you to attend UT and have your little tantrums. Not you.
For fuck’s sakes, you got Yassin arrested! Yassin from Yassin’s Falafel House! Think abut this! Your actions got the guy both the FBI and USA Today named the “nicest guy in America” arrested! And he’s the only one prepared to not bitch about it.
Finally, your tantrums don’t matter. They never will. The adults watching your nonsense—the real adults who owe you nothing, understand you’re owed nothing and don’t give a fuck about you—see what you’re doing and we know it’s nothing more than you attempting to make something meaningful out of your miserable, entitled existences.
By hating Jews, no less.
Now it’s time to graduate into the real world. Please take the dunce caps from underneath your seats, don them, find a corner to go sit in and think about what you’ve done until someone tells you to stop.
And one more thing: Am Yisrael Chai, dipshits.
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Was this the class song?
This piece was a bunch of gratutous ad hominem attacks and mis-representation of why protestors are so passionately speaking out against Israel’s over-the-top response to the October 7th Hamas surprise attack.
This piece doesn’t address the real issues, it just tries to defame the students and others who are sincerely horrified by Israel’s killing of over 30,000 civilians , most of whom are women, children or elderly.
I find it interesting that the author attempts to infantalize the protestors by using the word ‘tantrum’ four times in this piece. In point of fact, it is the author himself who is guilty of throwing a tantrum, not the
protestors. He rants and rages throughout the piece like a 3 year old who didn’t get his way.
The author infers that the protestors are, “Jew haters”. Perhaps a small percentage are, but the majority are simply people who find in difficult to stand by and do nothing while Israel methodicly kills over 30,000 civilians, most of whom are women, children, or elderly. The majority are aghast at the physical destruction of homes, hospitals and infrastructure. And they find it appalling that the U.S. response to collective punishment through bombing, starvation and destruction of water supplies has been so tepid. They are rightly disturbed that the U.S. hasn’t forcefully called out Israel for it’s crimes against humanity.
These are not children throwing tantrums, they are young adults courageously expressing their views.
Oh the stupid.
It truly burns.
Listen, Slappy, I don’t know if you read much around here, but I’m the jokes guy.
My gig here at the hotel is to amuse the patrons. Sometimes that might take the form of a bit of roasting. Sometimes it might involve verbally thrashing an unrepentant nitwit such as yourself who decides to heckle me.
It must be nice going through life thinking your opinions, formed by legions of stupid bombarding your brain, actually means people should give a damn about what you have to say.
Spoiler alert, chuckles: we really don’t give a French fried tittyfuck about your opinions. We will, however point and laugh at your stupidity.
Go back to Reddit before you annoy anyone else.
Fucking hell, man. You came to pick a fight with a jokes guy. Re-examine your poor life choices that led you to this point!
Perhaps you should check your figures before telling false stories. The latest UN numbers say 75% or more that have been killed are members of Hamas, not civilians.
How could anyone know one way or the other?
Seaton is the jokes guy, I’m the asshole who enjoys ripping dipshits a new one.
If your alleged “30,000” civilians didn’t want the full might of the Israeli army on their front door then maybe they should kick HAMAS out and quit letting them launch rockets from the top of hospitals and day-cares. All it takes is them to quit on the genocidal pogrom against a nation that has what I believe is the only military in the world that has never lost a war.
Grow the fuck up and actually learn about world events before parading what a fucking idiot you are.
Are you familiar with Brandolini’s Law? Rephrasing ignorant infantile tantrums doesn’t make them any less ignorant infantile tantrums. Dipshit.
Ok, one of the assholes…..
Actually, Yassin did complain about his arrest.
As a lawyer who works in downtown Knoxville, and who drove past the illegal encampment on the College of Law’s lawn every day while it was up, I have a couple of observations:
(1) The protestors had been given a space in front of the UT Student Center, right across the street from where they were illegally protesting at the College of Law; they were given permission to occupy this space daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and it was right across the street from where they were illegally encamped at the College of Law. Yet they choose not to avail themselves of the very visible space where they were authorized to protest. (Apparently they started out protesting at Circle Park, by the statue of the Torchbearer; when they were told that they could not protest there, they trooped down to the College of Law’s lawn.)
(2) The protestors on the College of Law’s lawn were protesting during final exams at the College of Law, and were disrupting the law students who were taking their final exams.
(3) Yassin had his picture in the local newspaper, with his arm in a sling and complaining of “nerve damage” in a hand, and indicating that he would be filing a lawsuit over his treatment. (Another protester stated that she was going to sue the police for the heinous abuse that she received when she was led away from the College of Law’s lawn without visible injuries.) Yassin’s restaurant — where I have eaten in the past but will now never darken its doorstep again — has a sign inside stating that “All are welcome.” Unless, of course, you are Jewish.
(4) If the UT College of Law’s dean actually told the illegal protesters to disperse upon peril of legal action, then I am pleasantly surprised; I didn’t think that he had the balls to do something like that.