Chaya Raichik comes to Bloomington

An opportunity for productive dialogue was lost because Leftists were more interesting in screaming obscenities than having a discussion.

Chaya Raichik gained a national following on Twitter back in 2021 with her "Libs Of TikTok" account, posting clips on Twitter that people had already publicly shared on TikTok. She was anonymous at the time, but was "outed" by Washington Post "reporter" (activist) Taylor Lorenz. Last week, she toured with Congressman Jim Banks, endorsing his run for the United States Senate. That brought her to Bloomington.

As has been the case several times before, the IU Police Department handled the situation perfectly. They had many officers on site and in the building in case things got out of hand. Having the police there served as a deterrent to anyone who considered physically disrupting the speech, and they escorted the more disruptive students out of the room without incident.

The small counter-protest was not a surprise, and the behavior of the protesters (sadly) was not surprising either. Screaming the F word over and over does not make your case against either Banks or Raichik. "F*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f***" is not a convincing argument. Neither is falsely accusing Raichik of "doxxing" people by posting publicly-available videos on Twitter. Once someone posts a video to a public platform, that person loses all right to claim "privacy" over that content if someone else sees the video he posted.

Getting back to the F bombs, do you really think you are helping your cause by sounding like an Eddie Murphy stand-up routine in 1987? You may feel better after venting, but no one has ever been convinced by people screaming obscenities. You are making yourself look like you lack intelligence and the ability to control your emotions, in addition to having a very limited vocabulary.

Raichik has led the charge against putting hardcore pornography in school libraries, so one person made this comparison. The book of Judges contains a description of a woman who was raped and dismembered, so should the Bible be banned? First, the Biblical text is not explicit and does not include X-rated illustrations. Second, and more importantly, the story in Judges 19 is one of justice: The tribe of Benjamin protected the rapists from the justice they deserved, and it led to a civil war between Benjamin and the other tribes.

Congressman Banks invited the protesters into the room, after they had initially been barred. This could have been an opportunity for productive dialogue, but the Leftist protesters were not interested in that. They were interested in screaming obscenities and virtue signaling. This is not the type of behavior one should expect from students at an institution of higher learning, where one expects (or should expect) to confront challenging facts and opposing beliefs and arguments. To borrow one of their favorite phrases: "Do better."