The potential tyranny of economic boycotts

Parkland, Florida, high school student turned anti-gun political activist David Hogg got his feelings hurt when Fox News personality Laura Ingraham described his tweeting regarding being rejected by UCLA (among other schools) as "whining." Mr. Hogg played the "don't go after the children" card by demanding advertisers to boycott her show, and sadly many have done so.

(As an aside, Mr. Hogg conveniently wants to be viewed as an adult when people say things he approves of or when he is demanding action on his ideas, but that is not the point of my letter.)

His SAT score placed him in the 25th percentile of accepted students at UCLA, so the only reason I can come up with for his complaining about UCLA's decision is that Mr. Hogg wanted fawning left-wing media outlets like CNN to come to his aid, which they did.

Surprisingly, students at these California universities are not calling for an advertising boycott of CNN, which if Mr. Hogg's approach is appropriate, they should do so immediately. But deploying economic terror tactics because you don't like what someone says is a dangerous trend that threatens our ability to have honest conversations about complicated and emotionally charged issues.

I was disappointed to see that a sponsor of the left-wing news network MSNBC also pulled advertising because of something they didn't like that was said on MSNBC about a pro-Second Amendment advocate who is a high school classmate of Mr. Hogg's. That's no better in my opinion, and if this type of behavior continues we will no longer have a free press that is able to speak their minds out of fear of being put out of business.

Angela Tobler

Long Grove