... 'bold' and 'independent'... as long as it agrees with the popular point of view, that is. WashU recently had Green Star Czar Van Jones speak on campus, at the invitation of the Student Union (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee (initially)) to hear Jones' words of wisdom, such as,
- to judge ourselves by the most demanding standards;
- to attract people of great ability from all types of backgrounds;
- to encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers;
"Would you be willing to take your life, write on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else, reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence"That's Jones view of not just a measure of societies affluence, but an actual ideal goal; to live a life as undifferentiated and as lacking in individual meaning and value as anyone else (what our Founders would have called a "A leveling spirit" (and then spat)) - that's the Green Star Czar's view of things... spreading not only the wealth around, but of cutting all the poppies down to one uniform size.
Sad, sick even, but for some reason it didn't cause much of a stir among the students, faculty or student union. But that's not really my point here, and only slightly more to the point is the fact that only those friendly to his views are allowed to listen to his words of wisdom. Curious.
Somewhat less than curious, is the fact that Bristol Palin was invited to speak by the student union as part of 'Student Sexual Responsibility Week' (I know, really? But it is only one week out of the year. Phew, right?! And besides, it's balanced by faculty advice on Miss Lewinski's speciality (no word on whether or not that qualifies as new Green Jobs )) and offer a conservative point of view on a panel (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee) to hear about the folly of thinking there were no consequences to pre-marital sex, you know, being 'penalized with a baby', single parenthood, you know, non-fun stuff.
A cautionary tale, to be sure, and I don't know enough about Miss Palin to say whether or not she has anything to say that'd be worth listening to, but for some reason the fact that she might be there saying it, almost immediately stirred up a firestorm of fury and outrage, raising concerns about the security and safety not only of Palin, but students as well. There was also much outrage from students, faculty and so forth, over the exorbitant fee involved. (See Gateway Pundit and Poed Patriot for the details).
"A "No thanks, Bristol" Facebook petition against the appearance was started by College Democrats shortly after the plan was announced Wednesday and hundreds of students signed it Thursday. Others expressed displeasure during a packed meeting on the St. Louis campus"Hmmm... do the differing receptions of Jones, vs Palin, strike you as being particularly fair and balanced? Do they strike you as evidence of promoting 'bold, independent and creative thinking' in their students, or of a diversity of views?
There were two bills: Jones billed $20,000, Palin billed $20,000, but only one firestorm over them... hmmm... suspicious? I was, but apparently there's no reason to be, the Student Union reports that:
"“His honorarium for the Assembly Series actually cost $20,000,” Klagsbrun said. “The speech was only $5,000 because we were able to call in a personal favor.”"That's nice.
Now, being that WashU is a 'private' university, and it being the decision of the Student Union who to invite, and what out of state events to fund a delegation to (they reportedly chose to pay for 165 kids to go to the "Return to Sanity" rally in D.C), that's their decision to make.
Sad, sick even, but it is their right to do what their students want them to do.
However... given that the basic premise of the University is to broaden a students outlook and perspective, make them more reasonably tolerant of other points of view, even (supposedly) encourage interest in seeking out other points of view by, you'll remember, making an effort to "encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers"... isn't this a sign that they are failing in both their intent, and follow through?
Mom? Dad? Are you getting what you thought you paid for?
These fiery outbursts over Free Speech being used for an opposing point of view, is not an uncommon situation on college campuses, or even a localized event, do you think it might have some ramifications for our society?
It was pointed out to me by a shadowy anonymous source that:
"The state Bar Associations (essentially professional unions that are far scarier than SEIU) require Continuing Legal Education (CLEs) to maintain a legal license. The Van Jones speech counted as 1 CLE credit in the state of Missouri, despite the fact that there was nothing "legal" in the Van Jones speech."Ah. Well, might there be some ramifications from a Marxist's views being considered worthy of credit, in our lawyers continuance of their legal education? The Student Newspaper notes that:
"Jones was listed among Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009 and is a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a senior policy adviser at Green For All, the non-governmental organization he established in 2007. He was appointed special advisor for green jobs in the Obama administration in early 2009, before his previous political ties entangled him in controversy and forced his resignation."'Previous political ties'... yeah... just your average communist party member, and avowed marxist promoter of cop killers - those who uphold the law - just another case of building bridges between students and communists and democrats, nosiree, nothing to see here, just move along please.
What again is the educational profile of this communist friendly, green jobs promoting university with a concern for the little people?
"The university has nearly 14,000 students and is among the Top 10 most expensive in the country, with costs of over $50,000 a year per student."Yeah... $50k a year, instilling students with a fondness for phrases like "Workers of the world unite", and against those considered representative of an opposing point of view. Could there be a problem there? Does it seem reasonable that the ideas of Marx, and Che, and Jones, of 'toss your life into a pot', are being made popular, on a campus that's paid $50,000 per year for the education of their students? Does it seem reasonable that the students thinking of such things as being popular, are likely to have any real comprehension of what those phrases mean, intellectually, or occupationally? Or even to have given consideration to the consequences in death and destruction which the popularity of such phrases, visited upon Russia, China, Cambodia...?
Parents send their kids to colleges like this to train their kids to sharpen their reasoning faculties and to learn a profession (two things which shouldn’t be thought equivalent, but that's another story), and yet their children are being indoctrinated with the most virulent one sided, strident, unreasoning sets of views, which are avowedly out to eliminate all professions and all possibility of any individual getting ahead in life ('toss your life in a jar and pull out another' remember?).
We're told we should accept these thug's denouncing of conservative views... and apparently we do.
And that's considered reasonable? And parents send their kids here... expecting what? And from Conservatives, why no outrage? Why are so very few voices being raised about how a point of view, easily an unpopular point of view, being trampled and forced off the stage, why is THAT not decried and protested? Why aren't YOU making noise about this? Yet we are going to allow these thugs of the left to go about their bully-boy ways of intimidating any speech they don't approve of into silence?
Freedom of Speech or freedom from speech?
It's tempting to ask what our problem is. Why are we being so 'reasonable' that we politely wait our turn for admittance to the gulag which must be waiting for us at the ultimate end of this queue?
But don't let it fool you, this isn't a problem of conservatives being too reasonable - the fact is that we are being anything but reasonable. That's our problem, it's the fact that we've accepted this passionless Mr. Spock form of logic chopping in place of reason, something that says when unreasoning and even anti-reasoning savages attempt to shut you up, that you should give them the credit for being 'just another valid point of view'.
Listen to this clip at Poed Patriot,
"This is a Video that explains, in the Communists own words, how they use a Crisis to manipulate people's feelings ( of peace activists and the unemployed) in order to indoctrinate them into Marxism (Blame the Capitalist System for everything). All the While working with Unions, Churches, and organizations, like Jobs with Justice, to push forward their agenda."To stand by and listen to that, is not in any way being 'reasonable', but is in fact jettisoning reason, as well as any informed view of a hierarchy of principles, out the window. Putting your head calmly into the mouth of a lion is not a demonstration of being reasonable, cool, calm and collected - it's a death wish. We are allowing ourselves to be distracted into focusing on lesser rules of civility and appropriateness, at the expense of our vital interests and values, distracted into behaving as if we are facing a reasonable opponent, while missing the higher and more vital issues involved.
Civility is indeed a necessary component of civilization, but it assumes a reasonable expectation of receiving the same from your fellow and opponent. When your opponent's entire ideas and tactics are based upon eliminating your point of view, and your right to speak it, civility must take a back seat, if you wish it to have any prominence in society ever again. No, that doesn't mean violence, that means that you cease turning polite and contrite ears to these people; it is time that we call them out for supporting the ideas which are suited only to thugs, murderers and tyrants.
Our valued higher principles, such as 'life, liberty and pursuit of happiness', the exercise of Reason, a nation of Laws, not of men, these are all under belligerent assault, and it is no longer being done surreptitiously At the very least, it seems as if views once considered those of our deepest enemies, are being given a friendly ear amongst those considered to be our future leaders. Isn't it reasonable to be concerned about that?
Socialists and communists - self avowed - have been coming out of the wood work lately, the Director of White House Communications could offer up comparisons between Mother Theresa and Chairman Mao,, there are newscasters announcing it on T.V., communists and socialists no longer hide or pretend they don't exist. We've even had a message from the head of the Communist Party USA, that it's "Time to "Ally" with "Sections of the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration""
And how do they somehow manage to not be publicly and angrily rebuffed and denounced by the Democrat party for even suggesting that a political party devoted to the Constitution of the United States and the free market (right?), should be thought of as being chummy with those committed to the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States, people who are purveyors of communism, the greatest cause of human misery, destruction and death in all of history?
Gee, I wonder, where it is that they find their members, where do they find people sympathetic to the views of the State controlling the lives of it's people 'for their own good'?
There is a war going on, an intellectual war upon the principles of freedom and Reason itself, by avowedly anti-Reason, anti-Western savages.
The reason why Reason has been attacked and undercut in our schools, is that Reason isn't in any way weak... Reason not only developed the atomic bomb, but dropped it. Twice. For thousands of years Reason has made possible a range of incredible feats, everything from enabling small numbers of determined men to destroy vastly larger ones, as Alexander the Great defeated the Persians 2,500 years ago and the U.S. Military when obliterating a million man army just a few years ago, and both with only a handful of losses, to actually sending men to the moon - or the most astounding feat of them all for Reason - the U. S. Constitution which made it possible for men to live in freedom and prosperity for over two centuries.
But we aren't facing an enemy who fights with anything as clean as an atomic bomb, or even as civilized as suicide bombers. Our enemy is even lower than these, attacking us in our very hearts, souls and minds, eating at our very ability to know who we are, hollowing us out from within our own minds, and we are it's greatest weapon, sending our children to these 'schools' of self destruction, for $50,000 dollars and more per year.
We are paying for the privilege of being denounced and destroyed. There is nothing reasonable in that at all. Merely compliant.
Is Winning Everything?
Anything less than winning IS unacceptable. But winning isn't everything. Mistaking an opponents thinking and aping of our values ('free speech!' isn't free when it's used as cover for force), that IS a deadly mistake, but even so, winning is not everything, and the proper response is not to respond with force, or to begin seeking to win at any cost - that would be losing to our enemies 'values'.
However, that does not mean that we be quiet, civil and polite, except as they might further our cause, that of a reasoning, moral, law abiding society. Last year I had an animal rights activist attempt to shout over me in a 'discussion', fully expecting me to quietly and politely yield to her stream of assertions.
Screw that. I demonstrated how ridiculously loud I can be. I won't be shut up by those expecting to use my civility against me, those who have no civility for me or those in attendance, and I won't sit down if you try and roll over me. And none of us ever should. I suspect that the old saw "Don't talk of religion and politics in public" was started by proregressives who wanted to be able to subvert religion and politics without interference.
Screw that.
Being Reasonable certainly doesn't mean yielding and stepping aside for the barbarians within the gates of academe to pour out upon us. We must fight ideas with ideas. Brutally, and without a shred of political correctness involved. Use raw, unadorned truth, when someone claims to be 'for the little person', remind them that in the last century, the ideas in their minds have slaughtered 'little people' by the tens of millions around the world. When they claim to be for free speech, remind them that their view of 'free speech for me but not for thee' are the same vile view of 'freedoms' practiced by Stalin, Mao and Hitler. When they speak of only wishing to offer health care, remind them that what they intend will mean enslaving an entire nation, and dooming coming generations to bureaucratic death panels and economic destruction.
Winning is important, it is extremely important, but it is more important to win because it is the right and reasonable thing to do, Win because it is the only way to preserve the Western way of life, freedom, and the liberty to live your own life, without permission from some worthless bureaucrat to breath or eat as you wish. Winning for the right Reasons is a vital focus to retain, and prudence says that when a potential murderer demands to be allowed to demand your death, screw the niceties, take away the only weapon they have - your polite acceptance of their 'right' to demand it.
Keep in mind that these punks who shut down Palin from speaking at their conference, did far more than stop one person from speaking, they shouted down the conservative voice from being heard on the same terms as their pro-regressive leftist views, which they desired to go unchallenged; they shut down the very principle of Free Speech altogether, and they did this on a college campus, where Reason is supposed to hold supreme, and liberty is supposed to flourish.
They attacked the very heart and soul of America... and our response is supposed to be 'reasonable'?
Screw that!
When these little Che wannabee's demand that you treat them with respect for their ideas, then you should firmly, even loudly, identify what they are saying as nothing less than an apology for evil, and rationalizing brutality and murder. Stop worrying about offending your Sister-In-Law, and start considering the evil you are allowing to fester unchallenged in her mind... and to be spread to others.
Think. Speak. Act.
In short, damn the civility and full speech ahead.
