Getting Away with Verbal Offenses

The pieces of the past couple days have centered on some odd thinking on the part of an office at Harvard.  Each of the episodes, and each odd thought about how an office thinks it can foist its own opinions on students, leads me to yet further contemplation.

Today is Christmas, a time for festivity and reflection, for appreciation of blessings and assemblage of family and friends.

And time to ponder.

The word "conservative" has multiple meanings, but one in particular is relevant for the day.  I refer to the meaning that relates to circumspection, to forethought and to humility.  It is the kind of attribute that keeps people from pushing forward when propriety would tell them not to.

I thought this while wondering about the contemptible Harvard Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion thinking that they were so morally superior that they could actually, without anyone thinking it a stupid idea, distribute placemats that told students exactly how to answer reasonable questions in the furthest-left way.

I think there is an interesting fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives.  It would seem unthinkable for conservatives to do something like that.  By "like that", I mean to take a public stance in a public institution and bully forward with an action that avoids the possibility of discussion, or the admission that there is even another side.  We certainly give our opinions, but we recognize the existence of people of contrary views.

Where it is particularly strange is manifested in the current pandering to Muslims by this administration -- actually not the pandering itself, but the incredible lemming-like capacity for the left to follow Barack Obama regardless of their self-interest.

There is no -- count them -- no argument whatsoever for bringing 10,000 "Syrian refugee" Muslims into this country without the capability of determining their individual threat level.  Yet all three of the Democrat candidates for president are lined up to support the idea as if it were not the gargantuan threat to American security that it, in fact, is.  Why?  Because Barack Obama said it was a good idea.  The same can be said of releasing the prisoners from Guantanamo, and trading five Taliban generals for the deserting traitor Bowe Bergdahl.

What happened, say, to the USA's support for Israel?  Did strengthening Iran (oh, yeah, add that to the list) at the expense of our actual ally in the region somehow make more sense?  Barack Obama is simply pushing a pro-Islam agenda, even pro-radical Islam, that none of us can understand, including Democrats, but the Democrat leaders are constitutionally incapable of standing up and saying that the president is deluded -- or corrupt.

No, they just plow on forward, teaching students at Harvard how to answer reasonably challenging questions in the way that their slavish devotion to Obama tells them they should, despite the fact that following those answers means acting against their own safety, security and self-interest.  Obama's view is king, and no one dare do anything but follow it.

I cannot imagine a conservative taking such action.  We are far from the cult of personality -- we hold Reagan's policies as correct, not because they were his, but because they were ours and he fought for them.  We think for ourselves -- cool, cool, considerate people who believe we are right but would rather convince someone of our high ground than simply deny the opposition's existence.

Much will be fought out in the debates and primaries to follow.  I do hope that we use the Harvard incident as a way to understand the strategy of our opposition -- "just do it; no one will call us out and we'll just keep going."  It's why Hillary "not my abuela" Clinton won't get prosecuted by the FBI any time soon, why Lois Lerner is still getting a pension; why John Koskinen has a job.  They just do it; no one with strength will complain.

And a merry Christmas to you too.
  
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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