You know the times they are a changin’ when you get into political discussions not only with total strangers, but with a car salesman after test-driving a car.  This happened to me yesterday.

The guy was for Trump and when I asked him why, the first thing he mentioned was not Mexicans or Muslims, but that he admired Donald because he had the guts to be politically incorrect.  He doesn’t care what people think.  He isn’t beholden to anyone.  He speaks his mind.

This is pretty much what I’d been hearing from other Trump supporters.  They, like the salesman, have college degrees. They’d experienced for four years the intolerance of Indoctrination U.

Of course, some of the most politically incorrect things Trump has said have been about Muslims and Mexicans.  But it was the fact that he was speaking out, not what he said, that counted.

For the record, Trump’s most extensive comments on Islam date from 2011, when he said:

…most Muslims are wonderful people, but is there a Muslim problem? Look what’s happening. Look what happened right here in my city with the World Trade Center and lots of other places…  The Quran is very interesting. A lot of people say it teaches love … But there’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe … Now I don’t know if that’s from the Quran. I don’t know if that’s from someplace else. But there’s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it.

Not very informed, not very controversial, not very recent.   Then, last December, he proposed a ban on Muslim immigration “until we figure out what’s going on.”

His fullest statement on Mexico dates from last summer:

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.  They’re not sending you.  They’re not sending you. (pointing to the audience)  They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! …   The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States.

And he’s proposed not only building a wall, like all Republican candidates, but making Mexico pay for it.

But, again, it was not the specifics of his comments nor his proposals that his supporters admired, but the fact that he was daring to say something politically incorrect, and was willing to pay a price for it -- not only abuse from the usual suspects, but cancelled contracts.

However, while he’s acknowledged that his own comments are politically incorrect, Trump has never defended free speech or the First Amendment for you or for you.  His own thin-skinned responses to critics, over and over again, don’t suggest he has much tolerance for dissent.

So here’s another opportunity for Ted Cruz to peel off support from the Donald. 

Cruz has a long history of defending the First Amendment.  But since his trip to Kentucky last September to show support for jailed county clerk Kim Davis, he’s said little on the subject.

It’s very important to protect the rights of business owners to observe their religious values.  (I happen to disagree about the right of an elected government official to disobey a law, whether it’s the President or a county clerk, though I respect those willing to go to jail for their convictions.)  No one should be forced to cater a gay wedding if they oppose gay marriage.

But ground zero in the war against free speech is the college campus.  If Cruz is serious about the First Amendment, he should be telling us about his plans for restoring it for students.

American Thinker just ran a story on the cancelation of a speech by Ben Shapiro at CSULA.

Censorship of non-politically correct speech in the name of “tolerance” and “diversity”  (the left has no sense of irony) goes on continuously.  For recent incidents, check the websites of FIRE, Accuracy in Academia, and Young America’s Foundation, whose current issue of Libertas is devoted to the subject.

As for what the proposed legislation would look like, I’m happy to leave that up to Ted. 

The government spends about $76 billion per year on higher education, including Pell Grants, subsidized and unsubsidized loans, and research grants (about $25 billion alone).

That’s a lot of leverage. 

Colleges and universities curtailing the free speech rights of their students, and particularly permitting the harassment and intimidation of students with unpopular views, would see this aid terminated for the next academic year.

Alongside mandatory sessions on “diversity” for incoming freshmen, there would now be obligatory lectures on the First Amendment, and on the penalties for violating the rights of others.

The only candidate to speak out consistently about political correctness has been Ben Carson.  But he’s complained about it in general terms, without offering details as to what he’d do to eliminate its chilling effect on free speech.

The issue is important for Trump supporters.  For those for whom it’s not just a matter of making over-the-top comments, Cruz needs to address the question and to spell out exactly what he’d do to restore freedom of speech both on college campuses and in the workplace.  We are rapidly heading toward the world brilliantly described by Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz in The Captive Mind.