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Too Controversial for Columbia

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
From the Wall Street Journal.

Liberals just LOVE freedom of speech... but only if they're doin' the talkin'.

Too Controversial for Columbia
Student radicals can't stand to hear a Minuteman weigh in on illegal immigration.
BY ROSS KAMINSKY
October 11, 2006


As a graduate of Columbia College ('87) and the son of a Columbia graduate, I have some perspective on the school and the history of student behavior there. Sadly, nothing has changed in the over 45 years which include my father's time at Columbia, my time there, and the recent "Minuteman protests."

Around 1960, Ayn Rand was invited to speak at Columbia. My father went to hear her. She was shouted down and, unable to address the crowd, left the podium after properly scolding the students for their bad manners. The protesters spent much of their time railing against the evils of capitalism and liberty.

In about 1985, there were protests and scuffles as students barricaded Hamilton Hall to demand the University divest itself of investments in companies which did business in South Africa. The protesters spent much of their time railing against the evils of capitalism and liberty, with somewhat more physical violence than had been seen 25 years earlier.

And now, 20 years after those protests, I see Columbia students act aggressively, irresponsibly, and disgustingly, trying to silence another invited speaker.

A letter to the editor of the Columbia Spectator on October 9th as well as the staff editorial on the same date are informative: The "message from the protesters", apparently written by a senior majoring in economics, goes out of its way to misstate the goals of the Minutemen (of whom I am not a huge fan, for the record). The writer also makes the typical leftist radical mistake of calling everything she disagrees with "fascist," a rather silly error for anyone but especially a senior economics major.

The writer tries to create a moral equivalence between the protesters' directly inciting violence against an invited speaker and what she considers to be offensive speech or policy goals of the Minutemen or some of its members. She misses the basic point of America: Political speech, even if you don't like it, is precisely what the First Amendment was written to protect. Violence against a speaker is unacceptable.

Everything you really need to know about the protesters is contained in this sentence: "Shame on the College Republicans for inviting this fascist thug and provoking such outrage on our campus." In other words, the act of inviting a controversial speaker is worse than violence against that speaker . . . oh, and the speaker must be a "fascist thug" because he doesn't agree with the writer's left-wing sensibilities which are typical of Columbia students.

Her protests that "this is not an issue of free speech" makes it all that much clearer that that is exactly what the issue is. The protesters do not have an "equal right" to shout down a speaker, much less to assault him or his entourage. The right answer . . . the only answer acceptable in our country . . . is to let him speak and then set up your own event to tell everyone why he was wrong.

The Spectator's editorial was no better: Claims that the University somehow is not getting "fair representation" falls into the same trap of moral equivalence between unpopular speech and violence. From my family's experience at Columbia, this type of appalling behavior by Columbia students is not "an unfortunate exception" but rather an all too common occurrence.

It is a remarkable thing about liberals (or, at Columbia, outright leftists) in free societies: They are far more intolerant than conservatives. The protesters hate people who oppose illegal immigration. They accept the use of intimidation and violence to keep such people from speaking, then blame the victim for having been controversial. Conservatives generally don't hate people for their views even if those views are as wrong-headed as those of many (or, in my experience, most) Columbia students.

The beauty of America is that we have an open political market. People of all views are free to speak, to be a touchstone for debate, and then to win or lose in the court of public opinion and at the ballot box.

Unlike the claims of the Spectator's editorial, mainstream news outlets have "depicted the Columbia atmosphere accurately." Wishing that the atmosphere were otherwise does not make it so.

Throughout all the years that my family and friends have attended Columbia, it has repeatedly represented itself as a truly illiberal institution, in a way that only the most "liberal" institutions can. The students live in a world which would make Orwell shudder: speech can justify violence, economic conservatives are called "fascists," and any talk the students disagree with is labeled "hate speech."

In this way and others, Columbia represents everything that is wrong with the far left in America today, and I am proud to say that while I do give money to a college, it is not to Columbia.

Mr. Kaminsky blogs at Rossputin.com. This article first appeared on RealClearPolitics.com
http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009070
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
This is the norm for college campuses. I attended Northwestern University in the early-mid 90's. This is generally considered a rather conservative university when compared to the more classic liberal schools of the east and its neighbor in Chicago the University of Chicago.... Any conservative who came to speak was shouted down or met with protests by the liberal student groups and the conservative newspaper deliveriers where hounded by various organizations with papers being picked up and thrown in the trash not even giving the students the option to read the paper (which honestly was a terribly put togehter paper)...

When I would talk to some of thse peoples they said they were standing up against opressive and facist people. I kindly reminded them that censoring ideas and the bullying they were engaging in wasn't exactly following the spirit of their arguments... They never got it.. My basic experience around that campus was that the vocal libs were much more oppressive than anything any conservative I knew would ever say or support... .. And this was on what is generally known as a non political campus.... The stories from friends who went east were much, much more troublesome to me.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
IL Rancher said:
This is the norm for college campuses.
If that is really true then we need to close down every college in the nation. I would rather have one man like the Seal whom X posted about than 1000 of these college spoon fed communist idiots. They don't deserve an education. I guess the only condolence is that they aren't getting one. My grandmother with an 8th grade education was a better thinker , decision maker , and member of society than these low class morons.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Interesting that the young order buyer that has been staying with us
mentioned that many of the people around his age (30) are leaning
more and more conservative. He said they want to keep more of their
own money and are figuring out which group wants that too.
 

Red Robin

Well-known member
There is a whole bunch of our country that lies east of the Mississippi and west of the divide (cow country excluded) that is sure starting to smell similar to eroupe. PUTRID!
 

passin thru

Well-known member
PEGGY NOONAN

The Sounds of Silencing
Why do Americans on the left think only they have the right to dissent?

Friday, October 13, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Four moments in the recent annals of free speech in America. Actually annals is too fancy a word. This all happened in the past 10 days:

At Columbia University, members of the Minutemen, the group that patrols the U.S. border with Mexico and reports illegal crossings, were asked to address a forum on immigration policy. As Jim Gilchrist, the founder, spoke, angry students stormed the stage, shouting and knocking over chairs and tables. "Having wreaked havoc," said the New York Sun, they unfurled a banner in Arabic and English that said, "No one is ever illegal." The auditorium was cleared, the Minutemen silenced. Afterward a student protester told the Columbia Spectator, "I don't feel we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. . . . The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration."

On Oct. 2, on Katie Couric's "CBS Evening News," in the segment called "Free Speech," the father of a boy killed at Columbine shared his views on the deeper causes of the recent shootings in Amish country. Brian Rohrbough said violence entered our schools when we threw God out of them. "This country is in a moral freefall. For over two generations the public school system has taught in a moral vacuum. . . . We teach there are no moral absolutes, no right or wrong, and I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children." This was not exactly the usual mush.

Mr. Rohrbough was quickly informed he was not part of the legitimate debate, either. Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post: "The decision . . . to air his views prompted a storm of criticism, some of it within the ranks of CBS News." A blog critic: Grief makes people say "stupid" things, but "what made them put this man on television?" Good question. How did they neglect to silence him?

Soon after, at Madison Square Garden, Barbra Streisand, began her latest farewell tour with what friends who were there tell me was a moving, beautiful concert. She was in great form and brought the audience together in appreciation of her great ballads, which are part of the aural tapestry of our lives. And then . . . the moment. Suddenly she decided to bang away on politics. Fine, she's a Democrat, Bush is bad. But midway through the bangaway a man in the audience called out. Most could not hear him, but everyone seems to agree he at least said, "What is this, a fund-raiser?"

At this, Ms. Streisand became enraged, stormed the stage and pummeled herself. Wait, that was Columbia. Actually she became enraged and cursed the man. A friend who was there, a liberal Democrat, said what was most interesting was Ms. Streisand made a physical movement with her arms and hands--"those talon hands"--as if to say, See what I have to put up with when I attempt to educate the masses? She soon apologized, to her credit. Though apparently in the manner of a teacher who'd just kind of lost it with an unruly and ignorant student.

On "The View" a few days earlier it was Rosie O'Donnell. She was banging away on gun control. Guns are bad and should be banned. Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who plays the role of the young, attractive mom, tentatively responded. "I want to be fair," she said. Obviously there should be "restrictions," but women have a right to defend themselves, and there's "the right to bear arms" in the Constitution. Rosie accused Elizabeth of yelling. The panel, surprised, agreed that Elizabeth was not yelling. Rosie then went blank-faced with what someone must have told her along the way is legitimately felt rage. Elizabeth was not bowing to Rosie's views. Elizabeth needed to be educated. The education commenced, Rosie gesturing broadly and Elizabeth constricting herself as if she knew physical assault were a possibility. When Rosie gets going on the Second Amendment I always think, Oh I hope she's not armed! Actually I wonder what Freud would have made of an enraged woman obsessed with gun control. Ach, classic projection. Eef she had a gun she would kill. Therefore no one must haf guns.





There's a pattern here, isn't there?
It is not only about rage and resentment, and how some have come to see them as virtues, as an emblem of rightness. I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail. It is about something so obvious it is almost embarrassing to state. Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This--listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity--is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing.

We all know this, at least in the abstract. Why are so many forgetting it in the particular?

Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don't. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.

Which is, at least in terms of timing, strange. The left in America--Democrats, liberals, Bush haters, skeptics of many sorts--seems to be poised for a significant electoral victory. Do they understand that if it comes it will be not because of Columbia, Streisand, O'Donnell, et al., but in spite of them?

What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together. The Democratic Party hasn't had enough of this kind of thing since Bobby Kennedy died. What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions, but I wonder if the left could tolerate asking itself even a few. Such as: Why are we producing so many adherents who defy the old liberal virtues of free and open inquiry, free and open speech? Why are we producing so many bullies? And dim dullard ones, at that.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
Red Robin said:
IL Rancher said:
This is the norm for college campuses.
If that is really true then we need to close down every college in the nation. I would rather have one man like the Seal whom X posted about than 1000 of these college spoon fed communist idiots. They don't deserve an education. I guess the only condolence is that they aren't getting one. My grandmother with an 8th grade education was a better thinker , decision maker , and member of society than these low class morons.

I wouldn't say it was even a majority of folks who do this but the folks who do it are the same ones who go protest WTO meetings causing riots and the such and they are very vocal.. I just wish the school had the guts and resolve to shut them.. Oh well, its been 10 years since I left that school... Meet a lot of journalism majors that rally shaded my opinion on the press... Really..
 
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