Bump !
Posted on 05/16/2004 6:15:30 PM PDT by calif_reaganite
Good afternoon.
First off, allow me to extend my gratitude to Young America’s Foundation for inviting me to speak. The foundation is truly a beacon of support and inspiration, and altogether an indispensable resource and ally for those who are fighting in the trenches against college leftism to preserve and advance our conservative values. I am profoundly honored to be here.
Ever since the election of President Ronald Reagan, conservative values have been on the upswing in America.
Faced with Ronald Reagan’s unyielding leadership and the unprecedented commitment of the United States to strong national defense, the Soviet Union - the Evil Empire – simply ceased to exist and in due time so will radical Islam.
After decades of reckless taxation, raising taxes is fast becoming a one-way express ticket to the political graveyard. Just ask Gray Davis how successful was his attempt to triple the CA car tax.
Gun ownership is on the rise. Just this year, a number of states finally dropped their shameful restrictions on the individual’s God-given right to self-defense, making it legal there, at last, to carry concealed weapons.
The ghastly practice of partial-birth abortion has been outlawed for good and support for abortion itself is on the decline. Indeed, more women are now pro-life than pro-abortion, and that is a momentous achievement.
While the travesty of homosexual marriage found widespread acceptance in Europe, and as close to our borders as Canada, Americans remain in support of the sanctity of marriage. Even in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts.
Other ugly progeny of leftist thought, such as racial quotas and socialized healthcare face widespread popular scorn and dim prospects.
The battle is far from being won, of course.
We still face government spending that is out of control, both on the federal and statewide levels.
Income and Property tax rates are still unacceptably high. Too many states, as well as the federal government still impose draconian restrictions on businesses. Believe it or not, it is illegal in California for an employer to fire an employee who happens to be a cross-dresser. Even if that employer is a religious organization.
Our very sovereignty is compromised, as untold numbers of illegal immigrants are pouring into California and other states, often being welcomed with open arms.
Millions of lives have been prematurely ended by abortions.
Nonetheless, conservatives are making a significant headway to promote our values and undoubtedly the momentum is on our side.
The story however is significantly different on our college campuses. Once proud homes to unfettered academic exploration and intellectual diversity, our institutions of higher learning have degraded into becoming safe heavens for staunch Socialists, sympathizers of Palestinian barbarism, committed enemies of our Judeo-Christian principles, Taliban apologists, radicals who agitate for the Southwest to be reclaimed by Mexico and other anti-American deviants, whose contempt, in some cases, even extends to basic hygiene. And this is a very very partial list.
Traditional American concepts, such as popular sovereignty and the notion that our rights come from our Creator rather than from the State are frighteningly alien to these groups.
They are not simply an annoyance for those students and faculty members who adhere to mainstream views. They rule with an iron fist at numerous colleges and universities in the nation, and control virtually all in California. With their presence, respect for individual rights and diversity of thought disappears, while political correctness and disregard for the law become widespread.
Examples of this extremely troubling fact are literally everywhere. A student at the California Polytechnic University faced severe disciplinary action simply for posting a flyer advertising a conservative speaker, after that flyer was found offensive by a group of radicals.
Similarly, a student at San Francisco State was expelled for openly advocating Zionist and anti-terrorist views. Her comments were too offensive to the radical pro-Palestinian agitators on that campus.
A student voicing his opposition to a boisterous rally celebrating abortion at the University of California, Davis was arrested by campus police and charged with, get this, disturbing the peace. At a rally.
This is how things run on many of our college campuses. If you dare to openly express a view disfavored by the radical left, you are branded a racist, a bigot and publicly ridiculed if you are lucky. Otherwise you may be consigned to diversity training, suspended, or even arrested or expelled.
Needless to say, such actions are not even remotely close to being grounded in any form of law. Lack of a willingness to challenge similar disgraceful abuses of power over many years led campus radicals and their allies in the college administrations into a false sense of security, thus paving way for more brazen assaults on our fundamental freedom of thought. The key to easing the reign of terror of campus radicals, is in many cases, organizing into sound conservative groups and fighting back using every available resource from talk radio, to television, to the internet to, ultimately, the court house.
Encouraged by a revival of conservative values nationwide, conservative students have indeed begun to fight back in ever-increasing numbers. The students in all three of the examples I mentioned, succeeded in challenging the punishments meted out to them either in a court of law, or in the court of public opinion.
When I was fired from the sole student newspaper at UC Davis for “enraging members of the opposing causes,” I likewise fought back, not because enjoyed receiving volumes of hate mail, granted they were rather entertaining, or because I desperately needed that $1/column inch, but because I knew that unless these campus radicals were stopped by a force infinitely more legitimate and much more powerful than them, attempts to silence conservative thought would only become stronger.
The days of the University of California, Davis as a quiet University Farm are long over. The campus is now home to over 50,000 students, quite a collection of radical groups, such as the International Socialist Organization, MEChA – a group seeking the relinquishment of the Southwest to Mexico, Students for Justice in Palestine, and an overt hatred for anything even remotely conservative. Makes me glad I graduated.
In September 2002, along with other students, I applied for a columnist position on the student newspaper and, in order for the newspaper to maintain a remote semblance of balance, I was the only student granted a contract to write a political column with a conservative tilt, compared to at least 3 ultra-leftist columnists.
After writing seven columns supporting the war on terror, expressing support for Israel and explaining general conservative principles in the face of blind leftist rhetoric and hateful grammatically- and spelling-challenged mail, I received this email from Mr. Fitz Vo, the editor in chief of the California Aggie on New Years day of 2003.
“I hope you're having a good new year. Thanks for giving me the opportunity this year to edit your columns. Due to the increasingly tighter spaces in The Aggie and the relative impact of your column, I regret to inform you that I would have to cut your The Right Stuff Column.
This is due to several reasons, first of which is the dryness in your column's tone. I have told you several times that I would like to hear more of your voice in your columns, but that seems to be muddled in a lot of similarly versed right-wing rhetoric that I have heard before. Again, I would like a unique perspective, and you don't seem to provide it.
Secondly, the tone of your column seems to have a tendency to enrage members of the opposing causes. Judging from the range of feedback I have received, your column does not seem to spark dialogue, but anger that only increases a tit-for-tat response.”
When my family and I, being a pre-teen, fled the former Soviet Union, we left behind a nation where laws were systematically ignored and persecution ruled. In silencing the sole voice of conservatism, the UC Davis newspaper has committed essentially the same kind of assault against the freedom of thought that Soviet Communists would have been proud of. Such reckless disregard for individual rights and the rule of law has no place in this country.
Confronting the editor-in-chief with logic and reasoning failed dismally, after I was told that his position apparently gives him the power to repudiate even those contracts, which require agreement of both sides for termination. Campus administration did not seem to care about the situation either, even though privately conceding that I had a strong breach-of-contract case.
As soon as I filed a case in small claims court against the newspaper, the incident aroused substantial interest locally, statewide and even nationally. Shortly after my termination I was making rounds on numerous radio talk shows, and Brit Hume ran a segment about the situation on the Special Report.
Soon, the newspaper was flooded with phone calls and mail from members of the public incensed at the fact that a columnist could be fired simply for being a conservative.
However, it was not until the newspaper was told point blank by a Court-appointed mediator that it had no prospects of prevailing in Court that Mr. Vo grudgingly conceded defeat. The newspaper was forced to publicly agree to pay out the balance of my contract and admit wrongdoing.
While the amount I recovered and subsequently donated to a non-profit conservative organization was insignificant, this small victory was yet another source of inspiration for the conservative students on the UC Davis campus and elsewhere as well as yet another fracture in the sense of impunity and contempt for the law possessed by the leftist dictators on campus.
This sense of impunity must be destroyed in order for sanity to return to our college campuses. It is what allows campus radicals and their associates in the administration to suppress that with which they disagree and spread the radical leftist dogma that threatens to destroy our values and with them, our way of life. Radical leftism has no place in this free society of ours and it must be vanquished on our college campuses.
Allow me to conclude on the same note with which I began. While we face many more battles, Conservatism is spreading in America. It is therefore easy to dismiss the ugly ooze of leftism that pollutes our fine institutions of higher education and simply write them off as islands of dying philosophies in the sea of resurgent conservatism. It is absolutely not without reason, though, that Abraham Lincoln once said, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
If we allow our homegrown band of junior Marxists, up-and-coming censors, terrorist sympathizers and other haters of America to run amok on our college campuses unchallenged, we had better be prepared to reap the consequences later. Campus leftism will be swept from its pre-eminence and consigned to its rightful place with other abandoned ideologies, but conservative students need our help and dedication to succeed in this endeavor.
Thank you very much for coming. God bless you all and may He continue to bless this great nation of ours and especially our troops in harm’s way, placing their lives in jeopardy abroad so that freedom can reign supreme at home.
I’ll be happy to take some questions.
Excellent post. Enjoyed reading about someone successfully "hacking and slashing at the tentacles of communism" in the cesspools of leftist academia.
Outstanding! Didn't pull a single punch.
BTW, some of my favorite conservatives are from the former Soviet Bloc. They are among the few who truly understand how serious is our situation.
Excellent! BUMP!
SPOTREP - EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM
BUMP!
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Bump !
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