The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Left’s Mob Rule on Campus

Posted on | May 3, 2014 | 57 Comments

Scarcely a day goes by that we don’t hear some report of the increasing turn toward totalitarianism by the campus Left. Progressive hegemony on university faculties, a humanities curriculum heavily influenced by crypto-Marxist “theory,” and the radicalization of students through an identity-group Culture of Grievance, all contribute to this growing climate of intolerance. Administrators, when not actually in sympathy with the radicals, abdicate authority in the face of intimidation tactics employed by the militant Left at universities and colleges.

We are therefore not surprised that left-wing smears of Condoleezza Rice as a “war criminal” have led the former Secretary of State — arguably the most powerful black woman in American history — to withdraw as commencement speaker at Rutgers University:

In a statement to be released this morning, Rice says,

Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.
I am honored to have served my country. I have defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here. As a Professor for thirty years at Stanford University and as it’s former Provost and Chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.
Good luck to the graduates and congratulations to the families, friends and loved ones who will gather to honor them.

Opposition to Rice had focused on her support for the Iraq War and Bush policies in the War on Terror. Rutgers faculty at the New Brunswick campus approved a resolution calling for Rice to be disinvited, citing her role in the Bush administration’s alleged “effort to mislead the American people about the presence of weapons of mass destruction.”

Insofar as this is not simply a reflection of raw partisanship — studies have shown university faculties to be dominated by Democrats by at least a 4-to-1 margin over Republicans — it is further proof (as if more proof were needed) of the profound, poisonous and pervasive spirit of anti-Americanism now prevalent in academia.

Via Memeorandum, with further reporting by the Associated Press, and commentary by American Power, Legal Insurrection and Patterico.

 

Category: Education

Comments

57 Responses to “The Left’s Mob Rule on Campus”

  1. Adjoran
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 6:51 pm

    Has Eric Boehlert ever told the truth about ANYTHING? Are we even sure it’s his real name?

    The solution to all this nonsense is to get the federal government OUT of the higher education business completely, all subsidies, all direct payments to schools, faculties, or students. When it all depends upon a free market without disguised costs, we shall see how many institutions will squander their endowments on leftist ideologues to “teach” Gender or Ethnic “Studies” (if they even bother to hold the classes – I’m lookin’ at YOU, UNC).

    And remember the little punk who couldn’t remember Benghazi because “Dude that was like two years ago” on Fox News? Tommy Vieter’s background is driving the press van for the 2008 Obama campaign. And if he sounds like a 32 year old adolescent, here is him with Obama speechwriter Favreau and friends last year in DC:

  2. Taxpayer1234
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:05 pm

    I’m one of the few conservative profs… in the belly of the beast.

  3. ???
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:20 pm

    You can’t go to the college anymore without slipping in all the Pavlovian drool running down the aisles, academic globalization Manifest.

  4. ???
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:26 pm

    Wow, a conservative professor (obvious oxymoron)?. What do you professor in?

  5. Kirby McCain
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:49 pm

    I’m convinced, at this point, that these schools invite conservatives so they can humiliate them when they uninvited them. Conservatives would be smart to avoid speaking engagements at any school. That’s how hostile the campus environment has become. Apparently the students are too stupid to realize they’ve become pawns. The fact that Rice attended a black church that was bombed at the height of the Civil Rights movement means nothing to these empty headed spigots of hate.

  6. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:49 pm

    Please, Rice should be in prison along with the rest of the Bush administration for running around selling us the Big Lie about WMD’s, Iraq’s connections to Bin Laden, and uranium sales from Niger. Don’t try to blame bad intel. Dick Cheney and his “Igor” Scooter Libby were down in Langley all the time helping to “fix” so called “bad intelligence”.

    Amazing that conservatives are so outraged over Benghazi still when the previous administration used lies as a pretext for a war that has wasted trillions of dollars, made the middle east less safe, and more radical, and got over a hundred thousand people killed. And if you think the America public has forgotten this just look at the last two Presidential elections. Mitt Romney’s cozying up to Bush era foreign policy advisors, and Bill Kristol, was a huge drawback for a nation still smarting over Iraq.

  7. Kirby McCain
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:51 pm

    Oh my, a Democratic talking points memo.

  8. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:51 pm

    The guy who directed Iron Man and was in Swingers wrote Obama’s speeches?

    Never the less, a 32 year old hanging out shirtless on a summer day with a bunch of friends at a party is not the fall of Western Civilization.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:53 pm

    Condi Rice should have gone anyway. 50 students and some teachers? Really? She is a classy lady, but giving into this sort of thing is a mistake.

  10. DOH
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 7:58 pm

    No, dummy, those are 100% facts. CIA analysts have spoken of Cheney’s meddling many times, and let’s not forget how Valeria Plame and Joe Wilson were essentially destroyed by the administration for telling the truth. There was no connection between Iraq and Bin Laden yet Cheney and Rumsfeld said this repeatedly on TV news, long after the CIA and FBI put a squash on the possible link. Wilson went to Niger, and the CIA also knew there were no uranium sales yet Bush kept it in the SOU address. Everyone also knew the mobile weapons labs were based on the testimony of a completely non-credible witness fed to the administration by Chalabi who wanted to be a part of running Iraq post Saddam. The whole thing was BS start to finish and Powell calls that day at the UN, the worst of his life.

    If you know something the rest of us dont on these matters please tell!

  11. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:02 pm

    Empty headed spigots of hate! Wipe the spittle off your chin. She’s a corrupt hack, and told lie after lie that threw the country into a long, costly, and destructive conflict. The students at Rutgers have far more morality than she could ever muster at this point.

  12. MrPaulRevere
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:08 pm

    Boehlert is trash, the lowest of the bottom feeding scum. If one googles “Eric Boehlert+Sami Al-Arian” you’ll find out all you need to know about his judgment and character. Even Andrew Breitbart was unaware of this when I sent it to him back in the day.

  13. CBDenver
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:22 pm

    No, Bush and Cheney did not say Iraq was responsible for 9/11. They said that Iraq was a training ground for Al-Qaeda terrorists. Furthermore, the CIA said before the war that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

    The CIA has subsequently said they were wrong due to “analytic liabilities [that] kept US analysts from seeing the issue “through an Iraqi prism” and generated findings that helped justify the Iraq war.” http://presstv.com/detail/2012/09/06/260129/cia-document-shows-us-iraq-war-errors/

    When intelligence agents claim that Bush and Cheney “interfered” with them, are they just covering their own mistakes and trying to shift blame from the CIA to the White House.

    Regarding Bengazhi, we now know that the Obama administration feared that an attack by terrorists would have been viewed as a policy failure. So they tried to shift the blame to an internet video. What conservatives want is admission by the Obama administration that they were dupes who erroneously believed that the Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood were “moderate” when in fact those groups represent a real threat to US interests and will never be “partners in peace” or whatever nonsense the Obama administration has been peddling.

  14. richard mcenroe
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:52 pm

    Jusr curious doh, what do you do for a living?

  15. Kirby McCain
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 8:58 pm

    Yeah, I seemed to hit a nerve with this toadie.

  16. maniakmedic
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:00 pm

    Does anybody else here get the feeling we’re dealing with one person with an endless supply of time and names for sock puppets?

  17. ???
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:08 pm

    How many now? One loses count.

  18. Taxpayer1234
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:17 pm

    Obvious troll. I ”professor in” English.

  19. Adjoran
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:31 pm

    They are playing beer pong.

    But I agree, the fall of Western Civilization is more closely tied to electing the sort of dumb ass who thinks a 32 year old beer-pong-playing van driver is qualified to be a spokesman for the NSA.

  20. Adjoran
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:32 pm

    BWAHAhahahaha!

    Good one!

  21. Kirby McCain
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:37 pm

    When are you up for parole?

  22. ???
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:38 pm

    I apologize for my abuse of grammar, then. However, I wasn’t ‘trolling’.

  23. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:48 pm

    Don’t flatter yourself Kirby. You really just sound like an idiot, and you haven’t refuted anything I said, because those are the facts.

  24. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:49 pm

    I work in advertising. Happy? What does my profession have to do with anything either? I don’t care what you do, and it doesnt give your opinions any more credibility either.

  25. Doh
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 9:54 pm

    He’s a spokesman for the NSC, not the NSA. And you dont have to be a genius to be a PR person. My ex-girlfriend was an executive PR person, and she wasn’t all that bright. Like with most jobs, all you really need to do is play the game, do what they tell you, don’t make your bosses look stupid, and you will go far. It’s not a shock at all that he’s a spokesman for the NSC. I think you’re just jealous. And Obama was a better alternative to old man McCain and Caribou Barbie, and country club Mitt. That’s why he got elected twice. Well that, and after 8 years of Connie Rice and the gang, people still dont trust the GOP.

  26. Rick Caird
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:24 pm

    Doh should be “duh”. He is making it up as he goes along. Every major intelligence agency in the world agreed Iraq had WMD. This was not just the US. In fact, Russia warned the US that Saddam was planning to use poison gas on the invading troops. There was no lie here. I don;t even think there was an error as there were plenty of WMD found and convoys leaving Iraq, bound for Syria, were seen just before the invasion.

    You are also wrong about Plame. The White House did not leak her name. Armitege at State accidentally did and State was told to keep it quiet by Fitz.

    You know nothing.

  27. Rick Caird
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

    Ah, so you lie for a living. Perfect. You fit right in with Obama.

  28. jakee308
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

    Although I respect Ms Rice and understand her actions, by her actions she and others only invite further “mobs” from acting disrespectfully; they keep getting their way.

    That’s why PC and the more recent “witch hunts” have been escalating over the years; they work. People keep caving in by either removing themselves from the debate, acquiescing to the “mobs” demands and/or apologizing to them.

    This fills the “mob” with more and more gleeful zeal and invites repetition and emulation by others.

    It’s why (with the exception of Israel) terrorism works. The reasonable are afraid of fighting the “mob” so the “mob” wins. As the “mob” wins more and more, the “mob” becomes the goto action for any of those who refuse to accept any answer to their demands except acquiescence.

    Soon acquiescence won’t be enough.

    We’ve seen this play out in the French Revolution, The Chinese “Cultural Revolution” et al.

    The “Mob” always gets more and more violent until someone(s) dies.

  29. Cactus Ed
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

    I actually believe he’s a regular commentator here. Don’t be so entitled.

  30. Lee Reynolds
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:45 pm

    I think you’re confusing Condoleeza Rice with Susan Rice.

  31. Lee Reynolds
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:53 pm

    The firm belief that Hussein was developing WMD’s, including nukes, predates the Bush administration by many years. The Clinton Administration was deeply concerned about this issue and had issued findings of their own about Iraq’s WMD programs.

    It should also be remembered that Hussein, far from being open and honest with the UN investigators, worked to hide things from them.

    Had he thrown all the doors open and said “Hey, look, I don’t have nothin!” not only would he still be alive, but we wouldn’t have wasted billions of dollars and priceless human lives on that sorry excuse for a country.

  32. Lee Reynolds
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:53 pm

    You work in advertising?

    How does attacking the people you’re trying to sell to work for you?

  33. Finrod Felagund
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 10:58 pm

    Idiot troll doesn’t know that even Wired admits we found WMDs in Iraq:

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/

  34. JeffS
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:10 pm

    “And you dont have to be a genius to be a PR person. My ex-girlfriend was an executive PR person, and she wasn’t all that bright.”

    That’s an utter crock. A spokesman speaks for the organization. They represent the organization. You want somebody who can think on their feet, but answer questions intelligently enough not to sound like a sock puppet.

    It might work if you have a pre-scripted interview that described sunshine and kittens, but promised nothing substantial.

    Anyone who puts someone who isn’t “all that bright” is asking for buffoonery.

    … UNLESS … said agency doesn’t care about their image.

    Which is exactly Adjoran’s point.

    D’oh!

  35. SDN
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:18 pm

    No, they aren’t. There’s no point in refuting you; you would ignore the refutation. Troll.

  36. TMZ
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:22 pm

    So you are part of the Mob at Rutgers? I gather.

  37. Bob Belvedere
    May 3rd, 2014 @ 11:56 pm

    Bingo.

    Make them dis-invite you.

    While I certainly don’t agree with any of the calumnies hurled at Miss Rice by the cretins at Rutgers and by Doh Duh and agree she is a glassy lady, her advice to President Bush left a lot to be desired – but that’s just a friendly disagreement over approach / policy.

  38. David R. Graham
    May 4th, 2014 @ 12:49 am

    Since February, I have been compiling a “Do Not Attend/Do Not Support List” of such institutions, relying especially on Professor Jacobson’s “College Insurrection” tag on Saturdays, but other sources as well, as I come across them. At times it feels like the list could enumerate the entire post-secondary system of education, but I fight the feeling. I have taken to referring to these institutions as Madrassa [Name]: http://theological-geography.net/?p=4283

  39. Charles Hammond Jr
    May 4th, 2014 @ 1:50 am

    “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed;
    if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may
    come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” — Winston Churchhill.
    When is someone going to grow a pair and start hitting back!?

  40. Micha_Elyi
    May 4th, 2014 @ 6:43 am

    I don’t hire Rutgers grads either.

  41. Boss Tweed
    May 4th, 2014 @ 7:12 am

    Why don’t they protest Obama and Uncle Joe Biden for continuing these “illegal” wars??

    Oh, i get it – Barry is going into these countries to liberate them, not oppress them ! LOL

  42. SouthOhioGipper
    May 4th, 2014 @ 8:36 am

    Drop your moral superiority complex before someone drops you.

  43. Quartermaster
    May 4th, 2014 @ 9:58 am

    {deleted by author, wrong spot}

  44. Quartermaster
    May 4th, 2014 @ 9:59 am

    There is only one problem with your attempt at revising history, you are ridiculously wrong. IRAQ not only had WMD, in the form of serious war gases, it also had a nuke program that got spirited out of the country as we were coming in. I dobt that you will weep, much less read as you’re mind is simply made up and no amount of fact will ever break down that impregnable fortress known as the leftist mind.

    http://www.thedonovan.com/arch…

    http://www.thedonovan.com/arch…

    http://www.thedonovan.com/arch…

  45. Taxpayer1234
    May 4th, 2014 @ 12:12 pm

    I am not an oxymoron. I am a woman with her own mind.

  46. Matt_SE
    May 4th, 2014 @ 12:38 pm

    Too much talk, not enough action. What I’d like to see is a mob of drunken, patriotic frat-boy types give these commies a world-class beatdown. Maybe some tarring-and-feathering…literally. Maybe some Molotov cocktails being lobbed around these august campuses.
    We all know where leftist universities are headed; let’s give them a push.

    Oh, and just to twist the knife these patriots should be chanting “USA, USA” the whole time.

  47. Delaney Coffer
    May 4th, 2014 @ 1:29 pm

    So a bucktoothed, America-hating Communist is better?

    You people are the scum of the earth.

  48. Julie Pascal
    May 4th, 2014 @ 3:09 pm

    Most of them just roll their eyes at it. It’s really rather heartening to see.

    I do sort of wonder how much of all this is a direct result of the split between those who are at college to party and graduate and then make a fortune in business and industry… and those who view college as something that matters; they’re going to change the world, they think that “college” ought to reflect them and their concerns, they vote to divest from Israel and save the rain forest…

    That really is a small minority of students. Most of them are in the “party and graduate” category.

  49. Economics 101: If you are not trained for a real world job, you shouldn’t be surprised if you can’t find a job in the real world | The First Street Journal.
    May 4th, 2014 @ 4:25 pm

    […] Condoleezza Rice withdrawing as the commencement speaker at Rutgers University. Mr McCain noted The Left’s Mob Rule on Campus, how the left routinely shout down anything which in an way challenges leftist orthodoxy. Would I […]

  50. Kirby McCain
    May 4th, 2014 @ 6:12 pm

    ikr