Posted on 10/24/2001 6:46:02 PM PDT by Conservative
On October 9, the University of Texas Dallas hosted a “teach-in,” conducted by Robert Jensen, an associate professor from the University of Texas-Austin.
Jensen’s commentary appeared on this page Sept. 27. He blames the United States for the terrorist attacks of September 11.
Some 80 people partially filled a smallish room in UTD’s Student Center. A young woman with pierced eyebrows, wearing a rumpled Green Party T-shirt, sat barefoot on the floor. Her unkempt appearance was not conspicuous in this crowd.
The underlying purpose for this gathering was a misguided protest of America’s plan to retaliate. Warmup speakers launched verbal attacks on President Bush that were more divisive than road rage on Central Expressway. They contended that the President is using September 11 as an excuse to cut taxes for the rich, secure personal oil interests, scuttle social programs, raise his popularity, ignore poverty, destroy the environment, increase our exploitation of the third world and force Barbra Streisand to leave the country — again. Whew! The speakers stopped just short of accusing the President of organizing the attacks.
Professor Jensen added a new twist to his People column, calling for Americans to become “intellectually mature.”
Predictably, Jensen equates intellectual maturity with his own radical point of view.
During the question and answer period, one cultist fawned over Jensen.
“You are our hero,” he said.”
Wild applause followed.
But I disagree with everything Jensen has said.
There are four good reasons why Americans have displayed intellectual maturity in the wake of the attacks.
First, President Bush has declared, “Either you are with America, or you are with the terrorists.” We Americans are intellectually mature because 94 percent of us side with America. Only 6 percent remain with Professor Jensen and his shabby followers in the “objectively pro-terrorist” category defined elsewhere by columnist Michael Kelly.
One of Jensen’s junior Socialists asked me if the 94 percent actually understand what they are supporting. An interesting question, given that the modus operandi of the mindless lemmings here consists of being led to the protest-of-the-hour by their ideologue commandants.
Animal-rights people protesting McDonalds?
Get out the “Meat is Murder” sign.
Go burn a ski resort in Vail? Cool. Save Mother Earth.
And bring sticks to toast marshmallows.
Another cultist in the audience lamented the Texas law which requires public school curricula to promote patriotism, free enterprise and basic democratic values.
Blasphemy.
Second, we Americans are intellectually mature because we elected 534 senators and representatives who give unqualifed support to the President and his advisors. We are, after all, a representative republic, not the mob rule “people’s democracy” that this night’s speakers wrongly claim is being “bypassed” by President Bush.
Third, we Americans are intellectually mature since we cede First Amendment rights even to Professor Jensen and other academic opportunists, as they run around to 150 college campuses across the country, gaining 15 minutes of fame by conducting their anti-America hatefests.
And fourth, we Americans are intellectually mature because we dismiss the peaceniks as irrelevant, relegating them to the trash bin of history alongside their Socialist ideology. We will fight for our freedom, ignoring them as they curl up in fetal positions to wait for the anthrax.
Eventually, many of today’s peaceniks will grow up and see the error of their ways. In the introduction to his book, Give War a Chance, P. J. O’Rourke, the Vietnam-era draft dodger -turned-present-day-conservative, wrote, “I hope the fellow who went to war in my place got back in one piece. I hope he is rich and happy now. And in 1971, when somebody punched me in the face for being a long-haired peace creep, I hope it was him.”
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