In a new column at National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke examines the issue of censoring those with whom we disagree on college campuses.

How to Censor Speakers on College Campuses

In Monty Python’s Life of Brian, there is a scene in which a market seller becomes irritated with his customer because he does not have time to “haggle properly.” “How much” for this false beard? the panicked patron asks, looking around him for soldiers. “Twenty shekels,” replies the salesman. “Right,” says the customer, and he hands over the cash, without a fight.

Evidently, this is rather annoying. “No, no, no!” the exasperated merchant exclaims. “You’re supposed to argue! Haggle properly!”

For those of us who frequently engage in political debates, this scene will be oddly familiar. There you are, halfway through making your case, and all of a sudden — without any warning at all — your interlocutor comes out and willfully demolishes his own position. Yesterday afternoon, in the course of an asinine argument about David Horowitz’s visit to the University of North Carolina, I witnessed a young undergraduate at the college do precisely this. “ur part of an oppressive group (white, male),” he told a critic who had suggested that his condemnation of Horowitz was intolerant. “Don’t tell me whats oppressive. I tell you, you shut up and listen #NotSafeUNC.”

Right there, for a brief, shining moment, all of the pseudo-academic tosh to which we have become accustomed was thrown unceremoniously out of the window; and, in its stead, was placed the good old-fashioned language of power and of dogmatism.