Campus Implosion--Anarchy Isn't Pretty

More than 80 American public universities have experienced not simply pro-Palestinian human rights protests--that's just the excuse--but what has morphed into pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, Jew-hatred, anti-America student (with the help of significant numbers of outside paid agitators) demonstrations. These generously labeled "protests" predictably evolved into commandeering and destroying property, harassment of local Jews and others in boldly chanted antisemitic, even genocidal chants, ridiculous hunger strikes and more ridiculous demands, and violence. The Left has rushed to endorse and promote this chaos, for this is its path to power, while conservatives and Americans in general are beginning to push back. For more Christian commentary, check my website at rexmrogers.com.

Transcript

What conclusions have you drawn about the pro-terrorist social contagion sweeping the nation’s university campuses?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #148 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Why do “protesters”– generously named for sure – believe performative outrage, annoying disruption of others’ lives, outright threats or harassment of other American citizens, hunger strikes, or vandalism will persuade others to their point of view?

None of this, certainly not vandalism, validates any point of view, other than lawlessness. Boorish, immature, threatening language or behavior wins no social advancement to any cause celébre.

What kind of mass psychosis has gripped so many people in America, including public university faculty and administrative leaders, and misnamed so-called “progressive” politicians that they have no moral conscience, no common sense, no respect for law or order, no evident patriotism—-and worse, openly support Hamas?

Demonstrations now occurring on more than 80 public university campuses nationwide are not the same as demonstrations in the 1960s. 

1) the demonstrations in the 60s focused upon the Viet Nam War in which Americans were directly involved. Not so today. 

2), 60s demonstrations, including those focused upon gaining civil rights for Black Americans were based upon US Constitutional law and other American founding documents. Today’s demonstrators specifically reject these documents and their values.

The right to express oneself, to disagree, even to protest is indeed an American civil liberty defined by Free Speech in the First Amendment. As far as that goes, I’m all in. But an extensive body of law developed largely in the 1960s clearly states that protests qualify as free speech as long as they remain peaceful, do not impede others as in highways, tunnels, streets, and walkways, do not incite violence or endanger others, do not commandeer, or destroy property, and do not turn violent. Today’s demonstrations have repeatedly crossed these lines in multiple locations.

Politicians and celebrities are rushing to assert the protesters are just courageous students speaking up on behalf of Palestinian human rights. But this gaslighting has now been debunked in several cities, including prominently at Columbia University in New York. “Outside agitators,” professionals, some paid, are involved. They are “fifth-column anarchists,” some from elsewhere in the world. 

Actually, “America's ‘leading’ university campuses have been completely overrun by an infestation of riotous, anarchic Hamas sympathizers. Jewish students and faculty on campus are suffering the worst antisemitism in the history of the American republic.”

Predictably, numbers of students do not know why they are there or what they are protesting. 

Student protesters and agitators are yelling, chanting, singing, and signing not simply pro-Palestinian messages, something that is at least worthy of discussion, but antisemitic, anti-Israel, and “Death to America” slogans. For example, “The Final Solution,” or “Long live the Intifada,” meaning kill all the Jews, “We’re all Hamas,” “Go back to Poland,” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

American university students don’t seem to realize or care that calling for the genocide of Jews includes fellow students and faculty members, the US Vice President’s husband, Doug Emhoff, former President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, movie mogul Stephen Spielberg, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen Bernie Sanders, and thousands more. Do they really want to kill all these people too?

What we are seeing is, yes, a minority of students in public universities, but still, these are our kids. What we’re seeing is evidence of that “collapsing standards, and increasingly politicized and mediocre faculty reflect a collapse of the university system.”

“Faculty hiring had become increasingly non-meritocratic based on diversity/equity/inclusion criteria. New faculty hires have sought to institutionalize self-serving DEI and recalibrate higher education to prepare a new generation for self-perpetuating radical ideologies. Entire generations are now suffering from prolonged adolescence as they drag out college to consume their early and mid-twenties.”

My 35 years in higher education makes me ache when I watch all this.  I loved academia, debate and critical thinking, and the campus atmosphere. But today, “one of the great ironies in contemporary college systems is how rampantly anti-intellectual they have become over the course of the last generation or so. Cerebral rigor, open-mindedness, and challenging information have long been underpinning aspects of university life. These days, those same elements are regarded as threats on too many campuses.”

“Advocacy has increasingly displaced academics in higher education.  Activism now permeates higher education as social justice becomes the touchstone for many departments.”

“The emphasis on advocacy at the expense of education has also contributed to the increasing hostility toward opposing views on campus. These professors and students often show little tolerance for others’ views and “advocate” by canceling or silencing other views as ‘harmful.’”

“As usual with the radicals, "objectivity" or "bothsidesism" is painted as evil, and anyone speaking in support of Israel is automatically a maniacal Zionist who must be deplatformed.”

Students believe only in “their truth,” and once brainwashed, in solipsistic moral superiority, they believe no other view should be considered. And virtually anything is legitimate in the pursuit of their performance outrage, including tossing paint or powders on centuries-old sculptures or artworks, anything for a good TikTok video.

If American democracy is at risk, as we often hear these days, it is not from conservatives or Christians. It is at risk from those on the Left – not Liberals – but Leftist, so-called “Progressive,” socialists—American extremists—who hate their own country, promote class warfare, chaos and disruption like campus mob rule, and reject traditional American values like freedom of speech, free enterprise capitalism, law and order, and patriotism. Why? Well, the US is one of the great “Oppressors,” “colonizers,” inherently racist.

Leftists know they cannot win on the merits of their arguments, so they fall back on power. They prompt street chaos, social debauchery, and lawlessness to create a need for stronger central government led by the new philosopher-kings, the Left. 

But Leftists are not nice or happy people. “The Left has devolved into intolerant, inflexible, illogical, hateful, misguided, ill-informed, un-American, hypocritical, menacing, callous, ignorant, narrow-minded and, at times, blatantly fascistic behavior and rhetoric.” The Left is illiberal. Even late-night liberal comedian Bill Maher knows this.

This is what we are seeing on public university quads, the product of a public education that is not values neutral.

“As absurd as this may seem, not only is this the insane world in which we now appear to be living, but even more absurd than this, it is a world based upon an insane system of beliefs that we ourselves have created. Put succinctly, with our culture’s abandonment of our Judeo-Christian principles and beliefs, we have now trapped ourselves into being required to operate within the warped logic of a man-made amoral system of beliefs that now prevents us from opposing even that which is evil.”

What do we need to do to adjust, or some would say reclaim, America’s universities, and America itself?

These steps would go a long way:

1.    Significantly reduce federal funding for illiberal universities, which receive tens of millions, even billions, of federal tax dollars every year.

2.    Fire “Woke,” Pro-Hamas administrative leaders and faculty and staff. I’m not naïve. I know this would be an enormous, litigation-fueled task, but it’s what should be done.

3.    Suspend further funding and promotion of DEI or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These programs talk a good anti-racist game even as the promote racism, destroy incentive while promoting mediocrity, and are anything but fair or equitable. And as to diversity, on most public university campuses today there is very little if any intellectual diversity allowed, meaning conservatives need not apply.

4.    Expel, not just suspend, students who commit violence, destroy property, harass nearby Jews, or otherwise threaten public safety.

It feels like America is committing suicide, but for most Americans this is not true. But this is exactly what the Left is seeking by generating chaos in pursuit of power. We must protect our own ideals.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm. 

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2024   

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