Posted on 11/17/2008 5:26:53 AM PST by SJackson
Monday, November 17, 2008
Years ago youthful thugs murdered a young man for his high-priced sneakers. Decent, law-abiding folks wondered again What Is This Country Coming To? In another case, not long ago in Minneapolis, a youthful thug was murdered for his designer sports jersey. Evil happens, its very banality -- as political philosopher Hanna Arendt wrote in 1963, coining the phrase "the banality of evil" -- is taking on the mantle of practically normalizing once unthinkable events in a civilized American society.
On election night in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a blue state, comes a criminal horror story short of murder, but no less disturbing. It happened at Augsburg college, a private liberal arts school named after a place in Germany the reformer monk Martin Luther served in the 1500s.
After taunting 18-year old freshman Annie Grossmann for wearing her McCain-Palin campaign button at an election night get-together, and "getting in her face," four women beat her for political views which, obviously, they did not share. Grossmann took verbal abuse at the party, then left for her dorm after it was clear, about 10 p.m., that her candidates had lost. She was followed by the four women into the shadows of a nearby skyway.
There she was beaten. The four women, all black, called Grossmann a "racist." She knew none of them. Nor did they know her, to her knowledge. It was that damn campaign button that evidently caused their frenzy. Their earlier taunts proved that. They were, Grossmann said, "rubbing her face in Obama's win."
"Why do you call me a racist when you don't even know me?" she screamed. Made no difference. Grossmann was felled by the largest of the four. She hit her head on the brick wall, and staggered back to her dorm. The other three black women at the beating chucked at this dark manifestation of partisan evil. They walked away laughing, offering no help to their victim. The banality of evil had asserted itself. And at four-to-one, it was also a cowardly act of mindless violence which, presumably, the four thought "normal."
Right here, right here in these United States, it happened, in my home state. A cruel re-awakening to the excesses of partisanship, in this case mixed with racism. That it happened on a college campus is hardly surprising. Not today. Campuses ooze with crazed partisan intolerance, places mostly where left-wing academia hold forth, along with politically correct staff, inculcating students with staunch, impenetrable biases, often leading to violent confrontation.
(Not surprising at all, at another private "liberal arts" campus in Minnesota, a professor was recently dismissed for stealing McCain-Palin lawn signs and delighting in his crime online. Such is the hubris of the clueless left, maybe beyond redemption.)
Freshman Grossmann had been booed roundly at a freshman "mixer" when she identified herself (gasp!) as a Republican. She is from Delta Junction, Alaska, you see, where her mom is a Republican Party leader, a big fan of Gov. Palin. Annie considers her governor to be a role model, something the ardent left must deplore as part of their article-of-faith, damn-conservatives mind-set. Annie's mom, Dawn Grossmann, had sent her daughter a McCain-Palin sweatshirt. Just think: Imagine the consequences if she had worn that on campus, instead of just a McCain-Palin campaign pin.
Newspaper reports say the four attackers might not have been Augsburg students. Somehow that makes a difference. Well, to the college, perhaps, concerned with its image. But what were the four thugs doing hanging out at a campus election-night party taunting anyone disagreeing with their choice of Obama? Who stood up for Annie? For principle?
She is a member of the college's ladies' hockey team, a hockey player in her native Alaska. She was excused temporarily from practice after suffering a concussion and blurred vision from the attack. Thankfully her injuries are not thought permanent. Psychic scars will remain, though, along with a lesson in intolerance, at the clubbing hands of her hyena-like laughing attackers.
This is not the first time Grossman met political hostility in the land of Minnesota Nice. Even her bear-hunting in Alaska proved a sticking point. As reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a story careful to label the attacks "according to the victim," we find these clarifying paragraphs:
Grossmann's parents, Bruce and Dawn, said that in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, Annie had trouble on campus because of her political leanings and for being a hunter.
Bruce Grossmann said a "PETA person" had to be removed from her dorm room because he was upset by a photo of her with a black bear she had shot. Also, he said, she attended an icebreaker on campus and was booed when she identified herself as a Republican.
"I don't think she was prepared for the close-mindedness," he said. "I told her she needs to take a lower profile [for the sake of] her academic and her sports careers."
Intolerance on modern college (and even high school and junior high) campuses is not new, it is plainly clear, in these supposed bastions of free inquiry. They've become politicized to the core. Free speech itself is imperiled by their codes. Professors rule. Conservatives are muzzled. It runs one-way on most campuses, fiercely anti-Republican and, in general if not more so, wildly against all conservatives. What happened to 18-year old Annie Grossmann was perhaps a double whammy, of racism and ideological hate. Either way, or both, it's reprehensible to its heart-of-darkness core, banality of evil to be deplored by all right-thinking Americans.
“Their credo is “It’s not fascism when we do it!”
I don’t want to sound like an alarmist but I’m glad I have my lifetime CCW.
Absolutely.
It would be nice if the trash ended up with criminal records to follow them the rest of their lives, but it seems improbable.
Any tax guys on here that could tell us if there is any particular up/down on charging off your CCW expenses on your home business?
Yes, the liberals KNEW they WOULD get away with it.
But the liberals are so “open-minded” and “peaceful” ...
How do we contact the victim, let her know that WE - outside of her tolerant, liberal classmates in the real world - do care and respect her views?
You bought a “tool” for your business, paid a tax, paid a license fee, didn’t you?
Good question.
There are many hungry lawyers in the Twin Cities ...had that been my daughter I would be suing Augsburg College for allowing hate crime on campus and filing a civil rights and hate crime suit against the perpetrators. Imagine how this would have played if the student attacked would have been Black?
And according to the “Public Safety” office (link > http://web.augsburg.edu/~Pack/CrimeLogs/2008-11-CrimeLog.pdf )
Seems the student was only punched.
there’d be a lynching.
There is a misconception that lynching was only perpertrated on blacks in our history.
Far many more whites were lynched in our country during our growth and expansion. Lynching often occurred where there was no viable legal system. I wonder if you are again coming to that place.
This story just makes me shudder. I am so, so thankful my daughter decided to attend a very conservative college.
Stories like this just go to show that “tolerance” is an enormous lie.
Ask them how safe will he be physically. Ask how he will be perceived by the professors and other students. Will his views be respected? Will his grades be affected? Will the administration stand up for his rights? Then get it in writing.
If enough people started asking politically pointed questions, maybe they would get the point. Remember a college is selling a product. Become an informed consumer and let them know there are other places willing to take your money.
Amen.
My 6’4” Log Cabin Republican son sees the discrimination every day at his high school. Fortunately, he is strongly politically aware, extremely conservative (against gay marriage because marriage is for procreation), and has been taught by his FReep parents how to argue correctly. Recently voted “most intimidating” in his senior class superlatives. He’s chosen a small college (smaller than his high school) with no whiff of political agenda - amazing but true.
Leftists are the most deranged, angry people I have ever known. And I have known quite a few. How sick.
Thanks and kudos to the author for not calling it "reverse" racism.
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