In Welcoming Sanders, Liberty University Shows the Left How to Handle Dissent

Most have heard by now that Senator Bernie Sanders spoke at Liberty University yesterday. Liberty, of course, is the university masthead for conservative Christianity and the origin of the Jerry Falwell enterprise. Its influence in merging conservative Christianity with Republicans politics is well known.

Sanders, of course, is the notoriously liberal — nay, socialist — United States senator from Vermont now running a long-shot bid for the presidency. Sanders is an avowed progressive whose views earnestly mimic those of European statists. He’s pro–gay rights, pro–gay marriage, and pro-abortion. On issues near and dear to conservative Christians — life and marriage — Sanders stands as far to the left as is possible in America. As a conservative Christian, I can tell you that the ideological ingredients of Sanders’s campaign are not pleasing to conservative Christians. So the presence of Sanders at Liberty is an odd sight.

But something happened yesterday that is worth noting: All reports indicate that Sanders was received with the utmost warmth, respect, and kindness by the university and its students.

The media set-up of Sanders’s visit would have one believe that the senator was offering himself as a sacrificial lamb to hordes of intolerant, conservative Christians who would relish humiliating him. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Sanders delivered a speech with no interruptions or mass protest. There was no jeering. No one held up signs denouncing Sanders as a baby-killing progressive. As far as I could tell, Sanders had no need of security guards or police protection.

Moreover, Liberty students received no trigger warnings prior to Sanders’s speech. Nor did the school provide campus “safe spaces” where students could seek calm and coddling after being traumatized by his leftist ideas.

The other method to box them (and make them mad)
is to ask them on what authority do they base their sense of right and wrong.

IF they understand the concept, they eventually have to admit that their sense of right and wrong is nothing more than an opinion and no “better” than anyone else’s.

My favorite response in forums where liberals frequent,
when they tell me I “have no right to apply my sense of right and wrong on others” -
“so you’re saying it’s wrong for me to do that?”

Yet another "reach across the aisle" futility exercise. It is astonishing just how many people involved in the business of politics, SUCK so bad at it.

The left is not interested in compromise or "reaching across the aisle" or "new tone". They want to defeat us at all cost. The only way to defeat liberals is to use their own tactics against them. With a surrender mentality of the GOP elite, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Class envy is EVIL to the core and should be called out as such every time a liberal spews this nonsense.

As stated on another thread, this appearance must indicate that Liberty University allows an environment where ideas may be freely expressed and debated. Isn't that what a university is supposed to be, especially in a free society?

Perhaps University officials trust their students and the students' breadth of study of America's founding ideas to prepare their minds for debate on the ideas expressed by Sanders.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson Letter to John Adams:
"Monticello Aug. 1. 16.
. . . bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. education & free discussion are the antidotes of both. we are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism."

We might remember, many Liberty University students come from a home school or private Christian school background where their understanding of America's founding principles was informed by exposure to the Founders' own writings and speeches, not by some "progressive" historian's warped interpretation of America's history.

Also, many do not come from a mainline denomination's likewise "progressive" interpretation of scriptures and an adaptation of contemporary "progressive" ideas. Their church denominations may have more likely recognized the need to provide some education in America's founding philosophy to their youth.

Only so-called "progressives" believe in the idea of shutting down debate, excluding those whose consciences lead them to believe in different philosophies. Bravo for LU!

Even on matters of religion, Mr. Jefferson and his "University at Charlottesville" intended there to be honest debate of conflicting ideas, as is evidenced in his Letter to Doctor Thomas Cooper, 2 November 1822 (Ford 12: 270-1):

"In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences. I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Doctor Thomas Cooper

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