With all the brouhaha about the "unsafe" spaces at the campus of the University of Missouri, it's time to look at the issue in a bit more depth. As far as I have been able to glean from the protests, the protesters are upset because some people at the school have been called the N word, somebody drove across campus in a truck with a confederate flag on the back, and someone smeared a swastika in feces in a dorm bathroom. This has led to protests, the threatened boycott of games by some on the football team, the resignations of the president of the University and the head of the board governing the University and (the latest) an announcement by the campus police that they want any student exposed to hate speech to notify the police. Again, as far as I can tell, no one has been physically injured. It is also less than clear how many of the current protesters are actually students at the university. Many of those interviewed by the media seem not to be, but we don't know if the outsiders are 10% or 90 % of the protesters.
Since the campus is in turmoil and thousands of students are having their educations interrupted, it is really time to try to resolve the dispute. To that end, I suggest that we go back to an old bit of wisdom that most likely many of the people on campus have heard before. It's a nursery rhyme:
Sticks and stones may break my bone,
But names will never hurt me.
Usually, the people who say this are young children, but it's time that the people at Missouri remember that rhyme. All that we are talking about is a few instances of name calling. Think about your own life. How many times in your life have you been called something nasty? The nasty name might refer to race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, weight, height, beauty (or lack of beauty), intelligence or a whole host of other things. Did it change your life? I sure hope not. Indeed, the point of the nursery rhymes is to point out that the names are meaningless; it is only actions which matter. In today's PC society, however, the left is trying to elevate words with which they don't agree into criminal acts. The process is first to try to outlaw "hate" words. If they can get people to be banned from using certain words, then the next thing is to get people banned from expressing certain ideas. That next step is already underway. Just look at the movements that want to criminalize or at least squelch opposition to the global warming phony "consensus". It doesn't matter that the evidence indicates that the so called consensus is wrong; any opposition must be met with suppression, much the same way that the Church tried to suppress opposition in the Inquisition.
American university communities are supposed to be gatherings of young adults seeking greater knowledge, understanding of varied points of view, and tolerance for a civil, democratic society. Instead, place like Missouri are turning into bastions of intolerance for dissent from the accepted orthodoxy, childlike obsession with not being made to feel "unsafe", and the end to democracy and respect for the rights of others. It is a dangerous step for our nation if our universities turn into nothing more than the American equivalent of the Chinese re-education camps established during Mao's Cultural Revolution of the 1960's (which by the way killed millions of people.)
We all ought to compromise. Let's bring back the nursery rhyme.
Since the campus is in turmoil and thousands of students are having their educations interrupted, it is really time to try to resolve the dispute. To that end, I suggest that we go back to an old bit of wisdom that most likely many of the people on campus have heard before. It's a nursery rhyme:
Sticks and stones may break my bone,
But names will never hurt me.
Usually, the people who say this are young children, but it's time that the people at Missouri remember that rhyme. All that we are talking about is a few instances of name calling. Think about your own life. How many times in your life have you been called something nasty? The nasty name might refer to race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, weight, height, beauty (or lack of beauty), intelligence or a whole host of other things. Did it change your life? I sure hope not. Indeed, the point of the nursery rhymes is to point out that the names are meaningless; it is only actions which matter. In today's PC society, however, the left is trying to elevate words with which they don't agree into criminal acts. The process is first to try to outlaw "hate" words. If they can get people to be banned from using certain words, then the next thing is to get people banned from expressing certain ideas. That next step is already underway. Just look at the movements that want to criminalize or at least squelch opposition to the global warming phony "consensus". It doesn't matter that the evidence indicates that the so called consensus is wrong; any opposition must be met with suppression, much the same way that the Church tried to suppress opposition in the Inquisition.
American university communities are supposed to be gatherings of young adults seeking greater knowledge, understanding of varied points of view, and tolerance for a civil, democratic society. Instead, place like Missouri are turning into bastions of intolerance for dissent from the accepted orthodoxy, childlike obsession with not being made to feel "unsafe", and the end to democracy and respect for the rights of others. It is a dangerous step for our nation if our universities turn into nothing more than the American equivalent of the Chinese re-education camps established during Mao's Cultural Revolution of the 1960's (which by the way killed millions of people.)
We all ought to compromise. Let's bring back the nursery rhyme.
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