Loring Wirbel, board member of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Colorado chapter and co-chair of the ACLU’s Colorado Springs chapter, called for supporters of GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be shot before they vote for the billionaire businessman.
Comparing Trump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Wirbel wrote in his Facebook page:
The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, “This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before election day.” They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force, as Laurie would say.
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When confronted by commenters who questioned comparing someone running for office to one of Hitler’s henchmen, Wirbel was unambiguous. One commenter implored him, “Let’s not stoop to Trump tactics to combat Trump. Let’s defeat him with reason and data.” Wirbel would have none of it.
The ACLU board member replied with a swipe at a larger percentage of the Republican Party and the American people.
“But see, most people don’t even know what reason is. They don’t use anything other than the lower brain,” Wirbel wrote, “and would no more make decisions based on logical conclusions than choose milk based on a theme song. The base of the Republican Party is unfamiliar with a cortex.”
When confronted for offering “extreme fear-mongering,” Wirbel didn’t back down. “I think Cruz is just as dangerous, but I don’t think likening Trump to Nazism is fear-mongering at all,” he replied.
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Later, Wirbel called Trump a “hate-speech felon who should be in prison.” Though when asked how someone could be imprisoned for their words, he backed off, saying, “There was a little droll intended in that — the European leaders (even Cameron) want their own speech laws applied.”
In a letter to the editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette on December 7, Wirbel wrote on the topic of free speech. “First, attempts to prevent offensive speech operate far beyond the restrictions on hate speech and threatening speech — speech that is not protected by the First Amendment,” he wrote.
Wirbel did, in that letter, criticize the concept of “safe spaces” on college campuses, writing:
A second related issue is that of “safe spaces.” The well-intentioned efforts to create spaces where LGBT students or those from racial or faith minorities can feel safe, often degenerate into campaigns that wreak havoc on the First Amendment. They also do not prepare students for the real world. There are no safe spaces once a student leaves the academic world, and this effort may leave them ill-prepared for the type of invective they will encounter on a daily basis.
Ironically, one of his most recent Facebook posts was about an app that allows you to identify and “unfriend” friends who support Donald Trump, creating a “safe space.”
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