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Victor Davis Hanson: The Disgrace and Fall of the American Elite Campus
American Greatness ^ | 20 May, 2024 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 05/20/2024 5:56:28 AM PDT by MtnClimber

These infantile campuses have a rendezvous with adult accountability, both public and governmental. And they won’t like what is coming.

Anti-Israel/pro-Hamas campus protests have engulfed hundreds of college campuses. But the more coastal, blue-state, and supposedly elite the campus was, the more furious the violence that sometimes followed these demonstrations.

Even rowdier and more vicious street analogs shut down key bridges, freeways, and religious services. Protestors often defaced hallowed American monuments, national cemeteries, and iconic buildings. Visa-holders were among the worst perpetrators, adding ingratitude to their criminality.

The vast majority wore masks, not to protect from infection but to hide their identities. It is received wisdom, however, that those who wear masks do so for obvious reasons: so authorities cannot identify and punish those who commit crimes (e.g. the Klan, antifa, bank robbers, criminal gangs), or so that anonymity can help incite mob furor, given that participants feel that their vehemence increases once it cannot be traced.

More mundanely, why don’t the students simply identify themselves, insist they want their “resistance” to be known, and then hope their arrests will be proof of their courage to galvanize like-minded people to join them?

Why? One, because the students are sunshine and careerist revolutionaries. They see no inconsistency between shouting “Death to Israel,” “Global Intifada,” or “River to the Sea” one day and then the next, applying for a top spot at Goldman Sachs, a tony university, or a federal bureaucracy. Jacobin professors protest like it is 1793, but when politely arrested, they collapse into fetal positions and scream hysterically that consequences cannot follow their illegality, given they are privileged, superior intellects and moralists, with titles and degrees no less.

Two, the protestors, deep down, know they are aligning with the murderers and rapists of October 7 and that their chants...

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Gaza; Hamas; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: academia; domesticenemies; gaza; hamas; israel; vdh; victordavishanson; waronterror

1 posted on 05/20/2024 5:56:28 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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The left instinctively sides with evil. Again.


2 posted on 05/20/2024 5:56:41 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: texas booster

VDH ping


3 posted on 05/20/2024 5:57:12 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

I regard most degrees as worthless. In ranking, journalism is below “studies”, as is amply demonstrated by reading the drivel hurled by our modern media. STEM is holding on, but ‘climate research’ demonstrates that the ‘tards are making inroads there also.


4 posted on 05/20/2024 6:00:56 AM PDT by Da Coyote ( )
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To: MtnClimber

If VDH ever wrote anything hopeful or discussed solutions rather than problems, I would first wonder whether it wasn’t the Bee.


5 posted on 05/20/2024 6:05:53 AM PDT by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: MtnClimber

The establishment corrupted the universities with money. Funding studies that produced only the desired outcome and student loans.

It was first, shading the results on the studies and then mandating the results. Every study produced results that said we needed more government control. Ditto, student loads with the terms. They were slippery slopes that trapped the universities in over time.


6 posted on 05/20/2024 6:09:12 AM PDT by alternatives?
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To: MtnClimber
Agree with the poster here that VDH does need to move from "Oh things are awful..." to constructive reform.

We all do.

First, the professors set the bar. No one but.

So, it's like Boomers griping about younger generations: Who was it who parented them? Who failed to challenge the students? Who created 'studies' departments? Look in the mirror VDH, and all the kolleje kommies. It was the faculties who made universities into clown shows. Not the students.

Fixes for colleges: Harder core curricula, expel people who can't do the work. Even at state schools, students were allowed to drift in and out as if it was their right to attend. It should not be. Every lazy, troublemaking 'studies' student makes it harder for serious ones to get through.

So colleges everywhere need to stop giving away degrees and tighten up the college experience.

7 posted on 05/20/2024 6:16:33 AM PDT by caddie
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To: Da Coyote
STEM is holding on, but ‘climate research’ demonstrates that the ‘tards are making inroads there also.

Agreed. And as a software engineer with a BS in computer science, I'm starting to see a divide among STEM majors and degrees. My son says that you can still get a CS degree in a state university with no woke BS (pun intended) except for the few liberal arts courses you take. This is just like it was when I got my degree (thought we didn't say "woke" then, it was "liberalism" and "atheism").

But if you get a STEM degree from a more prestigious school, or perhaps if you get a masters or PhD in STEM even from a not-so prestigious school, then you're more liable to have woke indoctrination even in your math and CS courses. I believe the idea is that those students are seeking government jobs or jobs funded by government grants, where more letters after your name combined with leftist indoctrination is more attractive to those kind of hiring managers. But for now, a BS in CS or engineering, etc. from a not-so prestigious school is still pretty clean from the woke cult and your hires will be trained in the skills you need from newbie engineers and programmers to give you quality work.

8 posted on 05/20/2024 6:18:09 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: MtnClimber

BTTT


9 posted on 05/20/2024 6:19:59 AM PDT by nopardons
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To: MtnClimber

VDH is hitting the foreign student aspect of the pro Hamas mobs hard. A good reform would be to eliminate foreign student visas.


10 posted on 05/20/2024 6:35:57 AM PDT by DeplorablePaul
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To: 5th MEB; 6ppc; agondonter; Alberta's Child; Alouette; AndyJackson; Aria; artichokegrower; ...
Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list

The students talked grandly of “justice” as they violently rampaged, vandalized, and exuded hate. None felt any would be deported or even suspended from university, much less jailed for criminal offenses. They proved prescient.

FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR

Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall

American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness

His website: Victor Davis Hanson

Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.

As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.

Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience.

11 posted on 05/20/2024 6:51:29 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: alternatives?

“The establishment corrupted the universities with money. Funding studies that produced only the desired outcome and student loans.”

When money is tight, people are extremely judicious in carefully making choices so they can get the most value from the dollar spent. When money is “free” poor choices are frequent and often fatal.


12 posted on 05/20/2024 8:56:34 AM PDT by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: caddie

“Fixes for colleges:”

1). Eliminate federal government government grants to universities and colleges.
2). Eliminate federal government government student loans.
3). Eliminate tenure
4). Parents taking an active role in their children’s education from birth.


13 posted on 05/20/2024 8:59:18 AM PDT by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

14 posted on 05/20/2024 10:34:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: MtnClimber

btt


15 posted on 05/20/2024 11:45:27 AM PDT by GailA (Land Grabs, Poisoned Food, KILL the COWS, Bidenomics=BIDEN DEPRESSION. STAGNATION)
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To: alternatives?
The establishment corrupted the universities with money.

The universities and professors wanted to be "corrupted" and "trapped." The professors wanted power and wanted to influence politics and policy.

16 posted on 05/20/2024 2:10:42 PM PDT by x
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To: MtnClimber

bump


17 posted on 05/20/2024 3:14:54 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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To: Albion Wilde

The PBS Frontline documentary, “Crisis on Campus,” examines how university leaders, some of whom have faced congressional hearings, navigated the challenges of responding to heated rhetoric and division on their campuses and balancing free speech with the need to prevent harassment and discrimination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESNxDn6Efs


18 posted on 06/13/2024 12:24:16 AM PDT by Texan4Life
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To: MtnClimber

Good summary of what went on viewed from the surface of media reports, and approximately how students from the two sides said they viewed it.

Missing from the documentary was more illumination of the role of outside protesters, paid insurgents and their planning and coordination with Hamas itself or lack thereof, and the true ignorance of many in the student body.

Also missing: a credible statistic about the number of anti-American, documented anti-semitic, or anti-conservative faculty at the most disrupted universities. It would also be instructive to know the percentage of foreign muslim students at each university in question, and the anount of funding each uni received from middle eastern or Amerian islamic sources.

The problem with the university administrations is that they have conflated rioting, noise pollution during classes and finals, and encampments that the city Health Department surely should have condemned with “peaceful protest.” Contrast the dignity of the black marchers for Civil Rights in the 1950s, the beatings they endured, and their patience in pressing for full rights of citizenship (not to be confused with today’s commie-led social disorder among their underclass).


19 posted on 06/17/2024 9:54:17 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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