Campus Book Burning Nazis Academia has reached a new low. The fabric of scholarship has been attacked from within and defenders of Free Speech are nowhere to be found from the University hierarchy. Has anything been learned since the heady days of 1960’s campus confrontations? It seems that the only learning process that has survived is that the caliber of intellectual acumen has sunk into the thrones of totalitarian hysteria. A refresher course is needed for all those too young to recall the Origin of Free Speech Movement at Berkeley celebrated 50 years later . “After Berkeley students took part in civil rights protests against Bay Area businesses and at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco, the dean of students notified student organizations that the walkway was university property and could not be used "to support or advocate off-campus political or social action." Students defiantly set up tables on the walkway and within the campus. The civil disobedience came to a head on Oct. 1, when police tried to arrest a former student staffing a table for the Congress on Racial Equality. Hundreds of students surrounded the police car to keep it from carrying him away.” Compare this civil disobedience action to the latest exercise of student power as cited by Bill Barlow at The Harvard Law Record, Fascism at Yale . “Yale has recently endured a firestorm of protest after a lecturer that presides over one of the undergraduate colleges questioned whether concerns about the offensiveness of Halloween costumes had gone too far in impinging on free speech. In response, hundreds of protesters gathered on the quad, calling for Nicholas and Erika Christakis to be removed from their roles. Nicholas voluntarily came to discuss the matter with them, and soon, a crowd of students enveloped him. One student is heard saying, “Walk away. He doesn’t deserve to be listened to.” When Nicholas started to explain himself, a student yells, “Be quiet!” and then proceeds to lecture him. When Nicholas calmly and politely says “I disagree,” the protestor explodes, screaming, “Why the fuck did you accept the position?! Who the fuck hired you?! You should step down!” Then, finally, “You’re disgusting!” The problem here isn’t that people disagree with what Nicholas said. The problem is that they are calling for reprisals against Nicholas and Erika simply for saying it. This recent movement of university students to use administrative procedures to punish speech with which they disagree should be called by its rightful name: proto-fascism.” Who holds the authority to stifle expression of thought on campus? The answer has no heroes. College administrators and faculty has been AWOL for decades from lifting the pursuit of serious and meaningful dialogue. As for students, even using that term, does an injustice to the Socratic Method of inquiry. The cruel harsh reality is that the overwhelming majority of matriculated enrollees have never mastered the skills, discipline and aptitude to qualify as an apprentice for higher education. The fact of the matter is that government schools have been entirely successful in producing the systemic destruction of brain cells from the earliest indoctrination to the egalitarian society. The net result is a population of dense and stupid parasites that see life as a free ride right of entitlement that must be fulfilled by government and paid for by someone else. The Mizzou Concerned Student 1950 list of demands has little to do with academic excellence or racial integration. After the seven long years of the Obama linguistic rule that has distorted sensible thinking for cultural repression, it comes as no shock that mentally defective losers obstruct and extinguish any voices of reason and balance that contradict their version of “social justice”. The book burners on campus never were qualified for admission to institutes of learning the art of critical thinking and application of social responsibility. It is beyond dispute that esteemed higher education citadels are a total failure in teaching genuine American history and the principles upon which this nation was founded. Today their mission is really all about the transformation of recent and current generations into buffoons of liberalized rhetoric without the aptitude to even understand the nature of the blabber they parrot. The collectivist mantra, which is a formula for national destruction, is totally beyond any redemptive qualities. Understanding this fact is well beyond the abilities of the damaged goods that pass as college graduates. It is high time to abandon the illusion that a college education is a noble goal for most government schooled chumps. At the center of creating this preposterous mythos that it is necessary to go into debt to pay for a degree to get a job, is the obscene university structure of endowment promulgation. College Education Economics has become the opium of the people, to put it in an updated Marxist version of state mandated redistribution. Churning out gangs of commissars looking for forgiveness of student loans proves that the corporatists and their elite allies have been successful in herding their flock of deadbeats onto the collectivist welfare dole. An amusing twist from the last GOP debates was, “Welders make more money than philosophers,” Mr. Rubio said. “We need more welders and less philosophers.” The NYT cites, “It’s certainly valuable to get a vocational degree, but I think there is sort of a misperception of the value of getting a philosophy degree or a humanities degree in general,” said Cheshire Calhoun, a philosophy professor at Arizona State University and chairwoman of the American Philosophical Association. Ms. Calhoun notes that philosophy is not about toga-wearing thinkers who stroke big beards these days. Rather, she says, the degree denotes skills in critical thinking and writing that are valuable in a variety of fields that can pay extremely well.” Cheshire Calhoun makes the correct assessment that “skills in critical thinking and writing that are valuable”, but does not have to defend the need that gainful employment is the ultimate goal. The essential element that is absent in virtually even corner of society is the ability to THINK. Campus authoritarians are the exact embodiment of all the abuses that the original Free Speech movement railed about. So much for progress! In the era of the post “Great Society”, the central government empire expansion has created a population that automatically demands more assistance to compensate for their own inadequacy. The plantation overseer has become the mob. Activists in the 1960’s based their dissent on challenging the system with the tactic of civil disobedience. In today’s “PC” culture, the objective is to force collectivism upon society, using bullying as an obnoxious conduct to intimidate, that which cannot be created by civil means. Advocating brute muscle, as Melissa Click shouted deserves push back. Investigative journalism is targeted for extinction by the book burners, who are imposing their own variant of censorship, have more in common with Joseph Goebbels than Martin Luther King. Marco Rubio’s support for the blue collar trades will certainly fall on deaf ears with the current sect of sharecroppers taking worthless courses on useless campuses. Working for a living never gets included into the compulsory curriculums. The globalist plan for relying on the intentional reduction of human labor for economic activity relegates student patsies to a life of bitterness and marginal existence. If the forces of banning open discussions and sincere dialogue are left to dictate the academic experience, just what is worth protecting in the ivory towers of intolerance and conformity? The ivy panorama architecture of august monuments to erudite heritage is no substitute to the open air assembly held on the agora field in Athens. Plato or Aristotle need not apply for a professorial position, much less expect to be given tenure. The more money that government awards to the state university systems , the worse the outcome becomes. In the fifty plus years since the Berkeley Free Speech Movement ignited the student protest encounter, the moral underpinning of reasoned dissent has disappeared. Race relations dwell in a rap culture of despair. Imperialism is fostered by perpetual war. Improved economics have been swept from expectations. Hope and optimism are “Gone with the Wind” as the future for the populace falls under the competing factions of totalitarian despotism that is preached as a center piece in the “PC” syllabus. Western civilization from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment developed a respect for tolerance. While such respect for differing viewpoints has never been equally applied, the trend grew to defend the right of individuals to express and argue positions freely. Departure from this standard has always produced foreboding consequences. The street gang mentality demonstrated on campuses today is a direct reflection of the abandonment of the traditions and heritage that educated generations of God fearing citizens, founded upon Judeo-Christian principles. From Yale to Mizzou, the damage cuts across all class, race and economic backgrounds. Next, expect the book burning to be applied to the internet. The throngs of autocrats are not always the elites. The term, Sophomore is often described as an educated fool. In this case, very little knowledge has filtered into the brain cells of fanatical fascists. SARTRE – November 17, 2015