rich, I think I've found the answer to the hate...
Root Causes of Anger Against Anti-American
College Faculty
By Alan L. Anderson
A professor at a New Mexico university tells his class, “Anyone who blows up the
Pentagon has my vote,” and finds himself the target of death threats. A professor at a
Texas university expresses similar sympathies for the murderers of Sept. 11 and is
similarly targeted. Finally, a college senior at Emory University in Atlanta burns an
American flag and is violently assaulted by two fellow students. I — along with most
Americans, I’m sure — condemn these acts of violence and intimidation directed toward
the America-hating radicals on our college campuses in the strongest terms possible and
agree the perpetrators of these acts should be hunted down and dealt with appropriately.
And yet ...
Should we be satisfied with such a simplistic response to violence directed against
our campus radicals? Should we be so quick to judge those who commit acts of violence
against them with such stark, black-and-white arguments as “people have a right to free
speech regardless of how stupid said speech might be?”
Shouldn’t we, instead, at least try to understand what prompts these people who love
their country to violence against those who don’t? Put simply, shouldn’t we go beyond
such pre-postmodern modes of thinking and examine the root causes of terrorism
directed toward our campus radicals?
I think we should.
Consider, for example, the two students at Emory University, who allegedly (only
allegedly, mind you) beat the stuffing out of another student for burning a flag on a
student-run radio show. Let us consider the world in which these two students live.
The modern American university is the most totalitarian and elitist institution in the
world. Students who show up on campus loving their country face a monolithic,
repressive environment. Professors are undemocratically chosen by other, like-minded
professors and tenure is distributed based solely on the willingness of the scholar to
adopt the anti-American theology of the ruling elites. This authoritarian structure
continues once the student enters the classroom, where America-hating professors can
arbitrarily impose their anti-American morality on powerless students through grading.
The oppression continues when one looks at the curriculum where strenuous efforts
by the anti-American leftists who brutally control college campuses have successfully
marginalized and often eliminated course offerings which evince a sensitivity and
acceptance of those who love their country.
Moreover, out of the classroom the student who loves his country finds himself
similarly oppressed and isolated. Most college campuses have no American Student
Centers where like-minded patriots can gather and offer each other support and celebrate
their diversity within the wonderful mosaic that is American life.
Should we be surprised that, given such a repressive environment, students would
give up on peaceful expression and turn to violence? Indeed, the flag-burner burned the
flag on a campus radio station — the propaganda arm of the anti-American university
faculty and administration. The two students who pummeled the flag-burner rightly
recognized his appearance on the radio show to burn the flag as yet another provocation
by the dictatorial university faculty and administration and viewed the student who
burned the flag as nothing but a pawn of the ruling elites. Thus, shouldn’t we hold the
university, itself, partly responsible for this violence.
Finally, consider the fascistic response of Emory University, the institution at which
this incident occurred. Rather than sensitively dialoguing with the two students to
ascertain the feelings and emotions which led them to commit their act of violence and
make note of the act of the flag-burner who actually was the symbolic cause of their
violence, the university instead immediately called in both its own gestapo (the campus
police) and even police from the city of Atlanta. Obviously, the administration has made it
clear it will crush any dissent from those who disagree with its anti-American orthodoxy
— thus escalating the cycle of violence and assuring more violence in the future.
So, then, now that we understand the root causes of violence directed against
anti-American radicals on our campus, what is to be done?
Well, there are a number of things that could be done. We just need to be creative
here.
For example, perhaps university administrations around the country should require
that every classroom display an American flag and that each class begin with a rendition
of the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by singing “God Bless America.” Moreover, the
universities should make this compulsory, for only then will patriots on our college
campuses feel they are truly accepted and loved by their anti-American counterparts. No
one should be allowed to express his or her disapproval of patriotism for to do so would
be, well, insensitive.
Second, a series of teach-ins must be held, funded by the universities, designed to
educate the anti-Americans at their college campuses on the lifestyle choice of the patriot.
Selected speakers such as William F. Buckley Jr., George Will, Paul Gigot and other
noted writers and thinkers known to love their country must be allowed to speak
unopposed. Again, attendance at these teach-ins should be mandatory and the assembled
anti-American faculty and students should be required to remain silent during the
speeches so that they truly may understand just what it’s like to be a patriot on
America’s college campuses.
Tenure, of course, must be eliminated and professors should only keep their jobs
after students vote their approval. Finally, a large number of new courses such as “The
Religious Views of Jerry Falwell” and “The Economic and Political Theories of
Frederick von Hayek” need to be added to the curriculum so that patriots of all, diverse
stripes will be made to feel welcome on our college campuses. New faculty must be
brought in to teach these courses. Retired generals, for example, would be a good pool
from which efforts to recruit faculty could be made.
Of course, all of this will cost money. Just to begin, I suggest the salaries of the
tenured radicals be cut by 50 percent so as to free up funds for these projects. Certainly,
since they often have preached in the past against materialism, this will be one proposal
they’ll readily accept once they recognize that only by sharing their power can they truly
hope to live in peace.
And if they don’t accept these and other proposals to make our college campuses
safe and secure for patriots? Well, then, I guess some protests are in order — peaceful, of
course. Let none of us start by quoting the Maoist maxim so many of the anti-Americans
live by, “In order to put down the gun one must pick up the gun.” That would be wrong.
Instead, let us resurrect the green peace symbol of the late 1960s and burn it. Let us
organize sit-ins to block the classrooms of the anti-American professors. Let us throw
pigs’ blood on the steps of the administration buildings. In short, let us utilize every
strategy they developed in the 1960s to attain their power until they cave to our demands.
Or we could just go back to the pre-postmodern standard which holds that “people
have a right to free speech regardless of how stupid said speech might be” and just
prosecute those who perpetrate violence against those who exercise this right. Perhaps
the peace-loving, postmodern, anti-American radicals who control our college campuses
would like to decide this one.
Alan L. Anderson writes on politics and culture from Roanoke, Ill. |
