My wife was pretty liberal then, she almost didn't have a choice, being fed that crap on a daily basis. My favorite memory of one of my visits was her taking me by a place called the "free speech rock." It was a big rock on campus where students lined up to make speeches espousing the causes of the day. The favorite topic that day was Rodney King and his assault and the oppression of inner city blacks. I watched one white trust fund kid after another walk up and bemoan the plight of black America and declare their solidarity with Mr. King, knowing that 90% of them had never lived around, worked with or gone to school with black people.
After a while, I got in line. Panicked, my wife (then girlfriend)asked me what I wanted to say on the Free Speech Rock. I told her I just wanted to tell the other side of the story, the truth about Rodney King, the fact that he wouldn't obey the officers, the drugs in his system, etc. Mortified, she begged me and begged me not to, saying that we would be attacked, that everyone would hate her and that she would risk being retaliated against by the school. I said, "Wait a minute, you said this was the Free Speech Rock."
She said, "Yeah, but not that kind of Free Speech."
Knowing that she was probably right about what would happen if I went through with it, I got out of the line. I still laugh thinking about the terror in her eyes at the thought of my free speech.
Ten years later, she's a stay at home mom and has dropped all or nearly all of the liberal crap from college. She is one of the few people I know who truly is an Independent. And I am much more of a libertarian that I was then, and now I'm pretty disturbed by the beatings administered to Rodney King and others. Funny how things change.
Don't be. You can be libertarian and still realize that a guy hopped up on PCP who led the cops on a high speed chase and refused to surrender even after being hit by a stun gun, etc., was not the victim of a rights violation.
Rodney King is far from the poster boy for the Libertarian party.
Nearly one month later, the Ithacites are still up in arms over the idea that someone dared have the temerity to criticize liberal bias at Cornell and Ithaca College.
Today's "guest column" (how many has it been? Four? Five? And that's not even counting the outraged letters to the editors) blames the liberal bias on, you guessed it, conservatives:
It is true there are a disproportionate number of liberals on the faculties of the better colleges and universities, Cornell University and Ithaca College included. However, the reason for this may not be the elimination of conservatives by their liberal rivals on the basis of their political views. Rather, it may result from the rule of the survival of the fittest -- idea or opinion. Because the ideas and opinions of liberals appear to more closely correspond to reality than do those of conservatives, they are more likely to survive the tests for truth...
Ithaca is the City of Evil.
And, even more importantly, didn't want to "live around, work with or go to school with...black people".
Ex-boss of mine, an Ivy league graduate, actually spent his vacation one summer as a Freedom Rider in Mississippi. Admirable, indeed.
But, then, a black couple moved into the apartment next door to him. He moved out in a huff the very next weekend.
Net/net: feeling noble was one thing. But being a neighbor was another.