Student: I'd like to ask your advice
on how I could encourage my peers to come out
and actually see conservatives and hear your guys' voices
instead of relying on a stereotype perpetuated by the media
to argue against drama instead.
Student: I'm more left-leaning, and I disagree on plenty
of your policies, but we also agree on some other things.
And I like to come to conservative events like this
and hear your guys' voices, but unfortunately,
there's been a lot of political censorship,
a lot of shameful attempts to keep people from speaking,
especially at college campuses,
coming from my side of the political spectrum.
And so I'd like to ask your advice
of how I could encourage my peers to come out
and actually see conservatives and hear your guys' voices
instead of relying on a stereotype perpetuated by the media
to argue against drama instead.
[audience applause]
Audience: Woo!
Cruz: So that is a fabulous question.
Let me start by just saying thank you.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening.
Thank you for being part of a civil discussion.
You're right. That doesn't happen a lot on college campuses.
And it needs to happen.
And it is important, I think, to listen
not just to those you agree with,
but to those you disagree with.
In many ways, I think you can learn more
listening to opposing views rather than people
who are just reinforcing what you already think.
I'm not sure I know the answer in terms of...
If you look at the Left, for a long time,
the Left embraced free speech.
You look at the free speech...
One of the seminal Supreme Court decisions
on free speech involved an anti-war protester
who wore a jacket that said, "F the draft,"
and it didn't abbreviate "F."
And it went all the way to the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court said, okay,
that may be one man's obscenity,
but the First Amendment protects his right to say that.
I think that's exactly right,
that there used to be lions of the Left
who embraced free speech.
It is becoming more and more rare.
And I do think it's important for your voice
and for other voices on the political Left to say,
"Look, if we..."
All right, I don't know your economic views,
but let's say your economic views
are towards bigger government
or are in the socialist direction.
I don't know if you agree with that or not,
but hypothetically, let's say you do.
If you believe socialism is a good idea,
and if you're actually convinced this is a better system
that helps people more, then one ought to be willing
and eager to have that conversation
not just with people who agree with you,
but people who disagree with you and look to the facts of,
"Okay, what actually lifts people out of poverty?
What actually helps people achieve prosperity?"
As a consumer of news, what is hard right now
is there's virtually no unbiased news.
And we live in such a tribalized world
that the Left listens to left-wing news,
the Right listens to right-wing news.
We don't have shared facts.
We don't have conversations together.
And at least the way I try to go through that is I try to,
rather than pretend any source is unbiased,
I try to listen to and read things
that are explicitly on the left and explicitly on the right.
And usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
So what I would say is your voice engaged
on both sides of the aisle,
hopefully that becomes contagious.
Knowles: I would be curious, too,
just to hear your thoughts on...
Because I think your diagnosis is obviously right
about the Left censoring conservatives.
I almost don't hear any calls by conservatives
to censor the libs.
Probably there just aren't enough of us.
So why is it?
What makes you different? Why are you here?
Why are you interested, even if you disagree with us,
in hearing what we have to say,
while so many of your fellow left-wingers are not?
Student: I would say I'm not really interested
in some big tribe of people.
I think we're all individuals
and we all have our individual policy beliefs
on separate issues.
I certainly agree with you on gun control.
I'm a big gun rights advocate.
I believe everybody should be able to own a gun
if they want to because that's your right
to protect yourself. [audience applause]
And I think having those opinions that kind of differ
from people who may share my opinion on healthcare,
for example, really kind of puts into perspective
the way that we are treating... and I say "we,"
but I don't really generally want to associate myself
with people who try to censor you guys...
But the way that leftists try to treat conservatives
and your opinions, having that kind of experience
really lends some perspective to why we should give you guys
way more respect than we actually do.