It is a relatively recent liberal myth that universities exist for the “unfettered exchange of ideas.” Plenty of that can occur, and with equally worthy results, down at the local bar. Yet this notion has been repeated so often and so emphatically that eventually, even traditional America has largely bought into it.
The only real surprise from the disgraceful speaking appearance by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University is that anybody was surprised at all. University President Lee Bollinger was so taken aback by the ferocity of public anger that after first stridently defending his decision to bring the crazed Iranian ruler on campus, he felt compelled to excoriate Ahmadinejad once they were both on stage.
University leaders felt a necessity to justify themselves, resorting to most of the worn out clichés by which they have repeatedly justified their abysmal behavior in recent years. Among other excuses, Columbia’s defenders claim a “First Amendment issue,” along with their predictable mantra that “universities exist for the purpose of freely and openly exchanging all ideas, no matter how outrageous they may be.”
To begin with, the First Amendment was not the product of a committee of bloodthirsty mullahs intending to confer it upon all humanity. Rather, it resulted from the measured thought and reason of a handful of God-fearing men who, as a result of their Christian perspective on the inalienable rights of man, sought to establish a nation in which such rights would be protected among its citizens.
In their most twisted dreams, the founders never believed that the First Amendment guaranteed the “rights” of foreign dictators to defile American soil and American institutions in their effort to propagandize the populace and thus annihilate it.
Furthermore, it is a relatively recent liberal myth that universities exist for the “unfettered exchange of ideas.” Plenty of that can occur, and with equally worthy results, down at the local bar. Yet this notion has been repeated so often and so emphatically that eventually, even traditional America has largely bought into it.
But America’s universities were not instituted at great expense and sacrifice so the thinking within their halls could be devoid of any connection to reality or consequence.
Nor were they conceived as places where every youthful absurdity would be granted equal credence with the tested and proven truths of human experience. And they were certainly never intended as cesspools of treason, relentlessly devoted to the destruction of the nation whose citizens are nonetheless forced to lavishly fund them.
Rather, they were designed to ensure that learning and thought would be constrained to the foundations of amassed knowledge and wisdom, upon which newer and greater wisdom and knowledge might build in a rational and beneficial manner. From this basis, it was assumed and hoped, pupils would go on to construct and digest ideas founded on a background of proven and time-honored knowledge.
Neither did the leftists ever believe in their vaunted profession of “free thinking.” From the beginning, their quest was never about openness of thought, but only about establishing a beachhead for their radical thought. In fact, it has been through the methodical efforts of the left that the traditional approach to the advancement of ensuing generations through the accrual of real knowledge has been degraded to its current state.
Close upon the heels of this philosophical surrender, the countercultural forces that had invalidated the previous conventions proceeded to substitute their own ideologies as an unquestioned orthodoxy, always under the phony auspices of “free thinking.”
Modern “free thinkers” are the first to brand as “heresy” any reminders of the self-evident truths and intransigent concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, or any mention of the Author and Finisher of such things. Thus they display their blind devotion to a secularist order, yet remain oblivious to all of its disastrous consequences throughout the world during the past century.
Yet the real danger facing the country at the hands of its “higher learning institutions” is evidenced by the notion that the incident at Columbia is somehow exceptional.
Far from being a shocking aberration, it represents a fully predictable continuation of the abominations being rampantly perpetrated throughout American academia during the past four and a half decades. The only differentiating circumstance highlighting Columbia is that Ahmadinejad chose to appear there.
From the most prestigious Ivy League schools to the innumerable junior colleges that dot the American landscape, a perversely liberal and anti-American mindset predominates. Ahmadinejad and his poisoned thinking would have been no less welcome at any of those places, had the logistics of his stay in this country made a visit to any of them possible.
Worse yet, real America, though outraged by Columbia’s actions, continues to blindly fund and morally support the extension of its outrages throughout the land, conferring an almost universal inculcation on the next generation.
Consider, the abominable thinking and words of former “professor” Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado, as well as the tepid grounds on which the University’s board of regents finally, reluctantly dismissed him. Churchill, it should be remembered, referred to the victims at the World Trade Center as “little Eichmans” who, he asserted, deserved their tragic fate.
Hardly an outstanding icon of subversive American universities, the University of Colorado represents nothing far out of the “mainstream” of American campuses. Yet among the thoroughly indoctrinated student body, Churchill’s supporters were no less enthusiastic than those at Columbia who applauded and cheered Ahmadinejad.
Furthermore, this pattern is in complete harmony with the rest of the nation’s schools, where history revisionism, leftist cultural indoctrination, and their secularist orthodoxy of “political correctness” ensure that every liberal ideology is given the utmost deference while traditional moral, religious, and patriotic principles are completely scorned and targeted for eradication.
Ultimately, the events at Columbia did little more than to briefly “tip the hand” of those entrenched in “higher learning,” who have been spewing outrages against real America nonstop ever since the 1960s. While some are suggesting reprisals against Columbia, nothing will be fixed until Americans of traditional values and beliefs begin to hold every such school accountable, cutting funds and removing any members of the teaching staff who transgress.
Yet any individual who would even hint at such a course would undoubtedly be categorized as a “real” danger, and is far more likely than a genocidal despot to be universally barred from appearing on American college campuses.
Christopher G. Adamo is a lifelong conservative from the American Heartland. He has been involved in grassroots and state-level politics for many years, seeking to restore and uphold the Judeo-Christian principles on which our Nation was founded. His book, "Rules for Defeating Radicals," is the "Go To" guide for effectively confronting and overcoming the dirty tricks of the political left. It is available at Amazon.
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