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What It's Like To Be A Conservative on a Liberal College Campus
ABC News ^ | April 25, 2014 | By RYAN STRUYK

Posted on 04/25/2014 9:38:21 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

When Luka Ladan started his freshman year at Vassar College in southeast New York, he started noticing a difference between himself and the majority of his classmates.

“We were talking about the upcoming election,” he said. “I was in a class talking about Republicans – Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Whenever a name was mentioned, one kid would snicker and then five to seven would just laugh at the name.”

This is a common experience in this age group: 66 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Obama in 2008 and 60 percent did in 2012 – the largest numbers in decades, according to the Pew Research Center.

“I would say a lot of liberals on campus are a lot more vocal, a lot more in your face,” she said. “I know I have – or my friends have – spoken up about their views in political science classes and we get beaten down and laughed at.”

The liberal classroom climate hasn’t stopped Haas from standing up for her conservative point of view.

“I’ve started ‘coming out’ in classes,” she said. “The faculty are – I don’t want to say oppressive – but they are very not open to other views.”

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abcdisneynews; academicbias; failure; liberalism; marxism; socialism
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To: CitizenUSA

The kind of mockery heaped upon a person who takes the side of conservative thought, is similar in every way to the kind of taunts and muttered threats once, and until only very recently in the history of this country, heaped upon those Americans of African descent, children and grandchildren of those who were forcibly imported as slaves, unwilling immigrants, but with offspring born on American soil.

Conservatives are also American citizens, let us not forget that. Whether by birth, or by naturalization, they are every bit as protected by the 14th Amendment as those former slaves.

This constant denigration by self-identified “liberals” of others for their beliefs, demonizing honesty and industrious application of effort, and mocking their religious and moral beliefs, is unconscionable and logically, is in direct conflict with their own avowed allegiance to the principle of tolerance.

But duplicity has never been a burden for some folks.


21 posted on 04/25/2014 10:25:28 AM PDT by alloysteel (Selective and willful ignorance spells doom, to both victim and perpetrator - mostly the perp.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
College made me into the conservative that I am today.

Story time with WBill....

I went to college fairly apolitical. Maybe liberal. I was 18, and didn't know squat.

Within a few weeks, I ran across a womyn's group on campus called "Women against Rape" (who isn't, but I digress...). Among other things, its members advocated for mandatory castration of all men at birth.

The powers that be at my college, instead of tossing these bombthrowers off-campus - or at least, ignoring them - actually FUNDED them. With MY student fees.

It was an eye-opening experience, at least for this smalltown boy. I rapidly figured out that liberals don't have the same values that I do, and I've been conservative ever since.

And the author of this piece (and FR posters, too) is right. It can get very lonely, espousing a conservative view on campus.

22 posted on 04/25/2014 10:37:36 AM PDT by wbill
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To: cripplecreek
A bigger question is what is a conservative on a college campus.

If you find a college “conservative” at the University of Michigan, 9 times out of 10 he’ll be to the left of John McCain. At a conservative college the number might be 4 out of 10.


If you are correct, and I think you're close enough, this portends ill for our Nation's not-distant future...unless something happens that sobers up the youth and a lot of their parents.
23 posted on 04/25/2014 10:44:08 AM PDT by Resettozero
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Good luck snickerers looking for a job!


24 posted on 04/25/2014 10:48:41 AM PDT by golf lover (goingf)
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To: Resettozero

Conservatives need to stop retreating from the culture war which plays an even bigger part than the colleges.


25 posted on 04/25/2014 10:51:07 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: alloysteel

My son’s a senior in high school, so we’ve been visiting colleges. One of the colleges we’re considering is Juniata College, a small college in Huntingdon, PA, with a great reputation for post-graduate achievement.

A few weeks ago he and I attended a day-long “orientation” of sorts where he got to sit in on some classes, have lunch with some students, etc. The last hour of the day was spent watching video presentations of three Juniata students who recently participated in a national speech competition on the topics of their choice. All three speeches left me speechless. They were all just plain sickening Marxist schlock. All three were clearly robotic Obama suck-ups. While I wanted to open up on them and their like-minded
instructress, I didn’t want to embarrass my son, because it would’ve been ugly. What a mess we’ve made of things. Liberals never sleep. They aggressively seize every opportunity at every institution to advance their warped agenda. They are major-league competitors. Comparatively speaking, conservatives and libertarians are playing in the powder-puff leagues. Needless to say, he won’t be attending
the People’s Republic of Juniata.


26 posted on 04/25/2014 11:00:39 AM PDT by huckfillary
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To: Thorliveshere
It’s funny. I went to college with *some* liberal ideology, and come out a conservative. Go figure.

Same here.

27 posted on 04/25/2014 11:07:16 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

say “oppressive” that is what it is.


28 posted on 04/25/2014 11:11:26 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: CitizenUSA

“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

W. Churchill


29 posted on 04/25/2014 11:18:49 AM PDT by dhs12345
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To: A_perfect_lady

Me three.


30 posted on 04/25/2014 11:19:20 AM PDT by dhs12345
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To: huckfillary

My son is at a North East liberal college. When he went for orientation, the rainbow crowd was there acting as tour guides.

As we were walking around, I heard two of them babbling about global warming. The general gist of the conversation was one person saying that until global warming is 100% proven, there cannot be consensus. The other person said and I quote, “facts are irrelevant.” I kept my mouth shut and suggested to my son, for the next 4 years he do the same.


31 posted on 04/25/2014 11:22:05 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz ("Heck of a reset there, Hillary")
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To: wbill
“Among other things, its members advocated for mandatory castration of all men at birth.”

Wow. Sounds like a bunch feminazis.

I bet if you confronted them on it they'd make you out to be a woman hater or even a rapist.

32 posted on 04/25/2014 11:22:14 AM PDT by dhs12345
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Yup. Keeping ones mouth shut is a good idea. :)


33 posted on 04/25/2014 11:23:13 AM PDT by dhs12345
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To: alloysteel

If you demonize your political opponents long enough, then people will begin to think that they are impeding the progress towards utopia! For example, “Obamacare would be working wonderfully if those evil republicans hadn’t distracted our efforts by trying to repeal it!”

Once folks begin getting agitated at those standing in the way of Utopia, they’ll applaud when the government puts them on trains.


34 posted on 04/25/2014 11:26:25 AM PDT by CSM (Keeper of the Dave Ramsey Ping list. FReepmail me if you want your beeber stuned.)
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To: CSM
If you demonize your political opponents long enough, then people will begin to think that they are impeding the progress towards utopia! For example, “Obamacare would be working wonderfully if those evil republicans hadn’t distracted our efforts by trying to repeal it!”

Straight out of the Road to Serfdom.

35 posted on 04/25/2014 11:29:40 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I went to the Univ of Ark in the late 1970’s and it was pretty conservative. In our upper class economic courses we’d laugh at liberal views on the subject.

I remember us all working on a paper called “Why Keynes Is An Idiot!”.


36 posted on 04/25/2014 11:37:59 AM PDT by Fledermaus (Conseravtives are all that's left to defend the Constitution. Dems hate it, and Repubs don't care.)
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To: alloysteel

My kids in High School go through this all the time. The one just read 1984, and I was explaining to her how the idea of “getting with the program” is what she has to deal with every day; where 97% of her classmates are liberals. And the “newspeak” has changed the language so that immorality is now diversity, freedom of speech is now bigotry, and killing people is pro-choice. (Although in one class she had to debate some other kid on global warming and was armed with facts, etc. which were only “rebutted” by things like “don’t you like polar bears?” The teacher came up to her afterwards and said “It’s like arguing with a brick wall, isn’t it!”)

My son is REALLY glad to be going to a college with other conservatives.


37 posted on 04/25/2014 11:45:29 AM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: huckfillary

Try Washington & Jefferson over in Wash Pa. Good school 1200 students coed. About $25K a year. I’m class of 1969.


38 posted on 04/25/2014 11:55:55 AM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: EQAndyBuzz
Why is he there? It's a shame there are no other choices for you. I have said I wouldn't send my grandkids to Ivy league even on full scholarship.
39 posted on 04/25/2014 11:58:51 AM PDT by prof.h.mandingo (Buck v. Bell (1927) An idea whose time has come (for extreme liberalism))
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To: prof.h.mandingo

My kid will have his bachelors in three years and his masters degree in business in four years. Save two years of tuition. With his scholarships it would have been crazy not to take it.

When he is done, what kids pay for one year of school, he will get six years of education for the same one year of tuition. He is an affirmative action case. Not many NE liberal colleges get Jews from south Texas.


40 posted on 04/25/2014 12:12:52 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz ("Heck of a reset there, Hillary")
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