And where professors are "bastions of free thinking". Travel writer Rick Steves said those things, while contrasting our universities to one in Iran.
Some might see those ideas as more evidence that Rick Steves is not the sharpest observer of our contemporary scene. I prefer a more charitable explanation: Rick Steves is a would-be satirist.
Anyone who has followed our campuses in recent decades knows the truth of Abigail Thernstrom's quip, that they are "islands of repression in a sea of freedom". You are more likely to find speech codes on campuses than anywhere else. Some controversial conservative speakers can not speak on many campuses without armed guards (and sometimes not even then). Many professors actively repress dissent.
So what Steves is doing in that sly little post is satirizing our colleges and universities, implying that they have as little freedom as those in Iran. And there are some good touches in his satire, for example when he jokingly describes the University of California at Berkeley as an especially free place.
His satire isn't perfect. It needs more examples, and the writing could be improved. It is odd, for instance, to describe people, even professors, as "bastions". But it's a good first effort, and I hope Steves tries again since, as every informed person knows, our colleges and universities desperately need criticism, especially satirical criticism.
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
Posted by Jim Miller at March 29, 2010 08:52 AM | Email ThisWhich conservative speakers cannot speak on which campus without armed guards (and sometimes not even then)?
Really? Canadian universities are ours?
I stopped paying attention to Rick Steves when I learned that he is in bed with Jim McDermott.
Posted by: Jack on March 29, 2010 09:35 AMNow, however, I can't set foot on this campus - or any campus - without being accompanied by a personal bodyguard and a battalion of armed campus security police to protect me and my student hosts.Sheer prudence forces me to visit campuses with these security measures in place because I've been demonized by the campus left at virtually every school I've visited in the past decade and physically assaulted at several. USC officials regard the threats against this event seriously enough to have assigned twelve armed officers to watch over the proceedings. These police are not here to protect you from me. They are here to protect me from you members of the USC Progressive Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine and the USC Muslim Student Union who have made these threats and incited hatred towards this event and its speaker. These are the tactics favored by fascists - and when I use that word I mean it literally. I don't use it the way the Left does, as an epithet for anyone they don't like.
The topic of his speech at USC should interest nearly everyone, as will the actions of one USC administrator.
Posted by: Jim Miller on March 29, 2010 10:20 AMmy bad. mea culpa
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on March 29, 2010 10:33 AMHe was a nice guy, but as I recall, there a certain tone in the class the discouraged dissent. One had to be pretty confident to speak up against him not only due to the usual lack of full grasp of the material as a sophomore, but also due to his left leaning views.
I also had other professors that were of the same thinking. I specifically recall an English/ Formal Logic professor that encouraged me to write was essentially an Anti-Reagan thesis.
I know of only two more conservative professors that taught at the school, although I am sure there were more. Both of those were in the Business school, and I unfortunately had neither.
Fortunately, in my senior year I was exposed to other influences, and through my highly technical engineering curriculum, I learned the importance of thinking for oneself, and the problem solving skills critical to technical professions. When one applies that thinking and those skills to economics, it's clear that Keynesian economics does not work in the real world.
The Left relies on this kind of indoctrination, which is why for example, only 1% of brown skinned people in the US want to repeal Obamacare, vs 54% overall. They've made their decision based on their skin color and identification with the President for emotional, rather than rational basis of whether or not it will work.
If these folks ever decided to wake up and understand what has actually given them the most success in life; hard work, embracing traditional successful entrepreneurial American culture, etc. they be gone as Democrat voters in a New York minute.
Or St Louis University blocking David Horowitz from speaking.
Posted by: Palouse on March 29, 2010 12:10 PMA few years back, the University of Washington Young Republicans set up a table in front of the HUB on which to sell cookies. They wanted to make a point regarding liberalism and affirmative action. They sold cookies at different prices to people based on their skin color (whites got charged a higher price for the same item).
When the UW lefties got upset with the cookie stands message, the campus police shut the young republicans cookie stand down. They justified the action by saying the cookie stand was provocative.
The incident is emblematic what "free speech" on leftist college campuses is all about and is one of several reasons I would never donate or bequeath money to the UW.
Campus commies (democrats) are the 21st century version of the brown shirts, controlling who gets to speak or not speak on college campuses.
People run free?
Don't make me laugh, Mr. Steves. Go back to Iran, Creep.
Discriminating on the basis of skin color in commerce is not provocative, it is against the law (Section 1981 of Title 42). Neither is it speech. It is commerce.
Curious, shouting down is not protected speech?
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on March 29, 2010 12:31 PMWhat is your point here? You support speakers getting shouted down so they can't speak?
The point is not whether it's protected speech, it's that it's attempting to suppress others' speech.
Posted by: Palouse on March 29, 2010 12:44 PM"You support speakers getting shouted down so they can't speak?"
I support free political speech. If Barrack Obama stood in front of us and said that white people should not be allowed to fly on airplanes, and you wanted to shout him down, I'd support you.
If a TEA Party supporter wanted to shout at Sen McCain at an event, I'd support that.
I'll go look it up and post the link, but Horowitz speaks frequently on campuses. No doubt he encounters angry crowds, but Horowitz speaks at US campuses rather frequently.
Michael Oren espouses nothing like your no fly example either. He was simply speaking on Israeli foreign policy.
Posted by: Palouse on March 29, 2010 01:43 PMThe freedom of public political speech has nothing to do with anyone's world view being concurrent with mine. If my examples gave that impression I apologize.
Other than that, I cannot explain Miller's hate-filled fixation on Steves. Miller seems obsessed with "proving" Steves wrong on absolutely everything, even if it means first claiming that Steves is too soft on Iran, then here claiming that Steves' banal note about Western academic freedom is wrong. (Miller's latter claim seems to be based upon provocateurs succeeding in provoking young people to loudness. Big deal. Call us when Ann Coulter has to wear a burqua, and stay silent before men.)
Posted by: tensor on March 29, 2010 02:42 PMTeach your children well, before they're off to college, such that they know the truth.
Posted by: yaddacubed on March 29, 2010 03:03 PMBottom Line: Colleges are guilty of far more than just, the suppression of Free Speech.
Corpus Christi Canceled in Texas
The University of Wyoming has canceled a speech by former 1960s radical William Ayers