Free Speech, Harvard Style
My niece just sent me two pieces from the Harvard Crimson, about how right-to-life posters are torn down almost immediately after they are put up. The other is more philosophical. Nice to know the best and brightest are so willing to entertain another point of view. Here's a snippet from the first:
Missed the “Smile, your mom chose life!” posters around the Yard last week? Thanks to some of your fellow classmates, probably so. Just as regular as the descent of midterm season in October is the tearing down of Harvard Right to Life’s posters every time pro-life students attempt to share their message of life with the campus. In 2008, HRL’s Cemetery of the Unborn in front of the Science Center was even vandalized. The posters have been consistently ripped down for years, going back far longer than any undergraduate has been on this campus, with barely a protest from most students and the administration.
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Jul '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
Some animals are more equal than others comes to mind. Quite frankly the very mentality Orwell so adroitly mocked is alive and well both in the educators and the budding socialists/ liberal whack job kids they are further indoctrinating.
Aug '10
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
Not to bring up an old debate that centered around comments made by Rush Limbaugh criticizing "Classical Studies," but...
Did you notice that the author of the philosophic column has a "classics" concentration?
Nov '10
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
I flip over all the anti-Bush books in the bookstore, so I guess we're even.
Nov '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
I would imagine that the anti Bush books would be in the cheap bin now that Obama has adopted 90% of the Bush terror tactics.
Nov '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
Sadly, our greatest strength (our sincerity) is also our greatest weakness. We could resort to wit. Let me set an example..
Why not emphasize on the "adoption" message? I´m quoting Prager on this one, but the success of adoption always implies the failure of abortion. The film Juno was spot on in this discourse. It has a strong anti-abortion message, but at the same time left the liberals with that fuzzy "feeling good about yourself" sensation they constantly need.
It does seem like a tactic Saul Alinsky would use though.
May '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
The argument that abortion should be illegal "except" in the case of rape or incest of the mother is often made. Why?
Look at two babies side by side. Can you tell which is the product of a rape? Or of incest? (Don't go there! A defect can occur in any birth.)
There can be no justification for abortion.
Edited on Nov 29, 2011 at 4:03pmFeb '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
At my alma mater, Williams College, Nat Hentoff came to speak on abortion one night. He is a fascinating man -- jazz critic, atheist, pro-life libertarian firebrand. During his speech, a woman from my rugby club got up in the classroom where he was speaking to write nasty comments on the blackboard behind him. He tried to engage her in conversation, but she refused and began to chant instead. Anyone who has been involved in respect life work is familiar with these tactics. Here is a video of a speaker at a university being drowned out by chanting and heckling, rather than discussion, debate, conversation... The fact is that they are not interested in choice, they are interested in their perverted sacrament of abortion being enshrined unquestioningly.
Fortunately, your niece is not alone. The link is to a story about the 2010 summa cum laude valedictorian from Harvard who gave her valedictory in Latin and entered a Dominican convent after graduation. May the Lord bless Harvard Right to Life!
Nov '10
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
It has been a l o n g time since I was at the College (Class of 1960), but my memories of the time are of the grinding labor of the work, the reading, attending class, and writing and then the preparation for examinations. I took little notice of posters, except those announcing party weekends, at the Union and the House (I recall none in the Yard) or on the boards of the buildings where classes were held. Politics were for the few and far between who had some interest in them and for occasional brief conversations around the table after supper. Most of us were too concerned with studies, games, and girls to fiddle time away on such things as abortion "rights" and other such interests of the Left. I am persuaded that it was a healthier time to be young.
Dec '10
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
As bad as the bullying of undergraduates is I am even more disturbed about the condition of today's faculty. When I was in school (or my father for that matter) the faculty was already quite left wing. However, there was at least a third of the faculty that would stand up for core conservative values. This allowed for a real market place of ideas and gave people a chance to do what they were supposed to do "think for themselves".
Now, it is more like 90% just puking back the left PC nonsense and glossing it over with pseudo-intellectual babble. One can detect a small cadre of 10% that still know what's what. Unfortunately, you must 'detect' them because they have well camouflaged themselves against the incessant attacks. These attacks are often defended or even encouraged by dangerous University Administrations. Elena Kagan comes to mind.
Sometimes the uphill fights are the ones most worth fighting. We should not cede any ground at any University to the left. If other political posters were unmolested then the bias is evident.
Apr '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
Reading the (first) article and the reader comments, I got the impression that it might be faculty and staff, rather than students, who are the culprits (ie, the tearer-downers). Am I imagining this?
Jan '11
Re: Free Speech, Harvard Style
Of course the Democrat-voting students tear down the Right-to-Life signs on the campus. Why shouldn't they, Mr. McGurn? What penalty do they suffer for doing so?
And Mr Gawron, why shouldn't 90 or 95% of the professors at major universities be Democrats? What penalty to their careers do they suffer for being Left-Wing?
Many foreign policy conservatives are concerned with rising "isolationism" and the pullback of American power in the world. They fear that if America withdraws from guaranteeing stability, that either chaos will result or that another, less benevolent hegemon will fill the vacuum, both prospects being detrimental to freedom and to America.
But many of those same conservatives see no reason whatsoever to maintain a strong, vigorous presence domestically, one that makes no bones about threatening and punishing the forces of chaos and malevolence here at home. They apparently believe, incoherently, that pacifism on the world stage is ridiculous, but that pacifism on the home front is commendable.
In the 1930's and 40's the morality portrayed in most Hollywood movies was very "conservative." Strangely enough, that was also the highwater mark of an organization called the Legion of Decency.