In 2010, only 40 percent of incoming college freshmen agreed it was safe to hold unpopular opinions on campuses. When polled again as seniors four years later, only 30 percent agreed. That is terrifying, because it suggests future adults have been acclimatized to an environment without free speech.
As a result, in a recent Pew survey 40 percent of millennials supported curbs on free speech on social justice warrior grounds. That is obscene. It is our rights they are willing to trade away, but it is comedians who are the canaries in the coal mine.
Director Ted Balaker and a platoon of outspoken comics ask WWLBD or “what would Lenny Bruce do?” in the funny and alarming documentary "Can We Take a Joke?“
No comedian has been arrested on obscenity charges since Bruce’s 1964 trial in New York. His biographer and posthumous attorney readily point out the irony that the cops and politicians who once targeted Bruce would now respect his First Amendment rights, but he could never play college campuses today.
