Jonah Goldberg, November 14, 2015 [a bit old but VERY GOOD!]

Dear Reader (including those of you who want the interior of these parentheses to be a safe space),
Like Bill Clinton said when he was asked to referee a women’s Jell-O wrestling competition, let’s all just jump right in. YOU STUPID SCHMUCKS, LOOK AT YOU NOW One of my favorite scenes in Scarface is when Meryl Streep compliments Peter MacNicol’s seersucker suit. Oh, wait. That’s Sophie’s Choice. I get them confused sometimes. One of my favorite scenes from Scarface is when Tony Montana shoots the Colombian assassin in the head before he can blow up some guy’s car. There are just way too many expletives for this family-oriented “news”letter to transcribe more of the dialogue than absolutely necessary. But you can find it here. Besides, the line I have in mind is pretty short: “You stupid f**k, look at you now.” I’ve been saying words to that effect all week, watching higher ed go into full meltdown. Because this “crisis” is 100 percent liberalism’s fault. Sure, sure, you can divvy up the slices of blame in different ways, but those guys tailgating in the parking lot drinking beers and eating bratwurst? Those are the conservatives and libertarians enjoying a day off, because they don’t have to wait in line for even a morsel of blame.

I almost feel sorry for those decent, sincere career liberals standing there in the quad as the little Maoists scream in their faces and strip off the suede elbow patches on their tweedy jackets like a lieutenant being busted down to a private. As the kids fit lifelong members of the ACLU with their duncecaps, the poor souls can hear the conservatives hooting and laughing off beyond the fence, throwing nerf footballs and telling jokes at the liberals’ expense.

The Scarface reference wasn’t particularly literal since no one actually had their brains blown out. No, this mess is more attributable to the fact that these administrators have such open minds their brains actually just fell out all on their own, making a wet slapping sound like an unwrapped burrito hurled at a windshield. Outside of the actual headquarters of the Democratic party itself, no major institution in America today is more thoroughly run and controlled by the Left than academia. For several years now, whenever I’ve visited a college campus, I’ve tried to make the following point. It basically goes like this:

You kids think it is somehow rebellious to be liberal. So let me see if I get this right. The administrators at this school are liberal. The professors are liberal. Your high-school teachers were probably liberal. Your textbooks are, for the most part, liberal. Hollywood is liberal. The music industry is liberal. The fashion industry is liberal. Publishing is liberal. The mainstream media are liberal. Silicon Valley is liberal. Believe it or not, most corporations and the overwhelming majority of charitable foundations are liberal. And yet, you think you’re sticking it to the man by agreeing with them?

Moreover, it’s been like this for generations. It was true when most of these administrators and faculty were born — they have grown up inside a universe where this fact was simply taken for granted. With the Left given total control of these oases of tolerance and citadels of progressivism, what do we get? We get pampered and coddled students screaming that these institutions are hotbeds of racism, homophobia, sexism, and the rest of the 31 Flavors of Oppression. I’m sorry, but over here by the hibachi in the parking lot, that’s just frick’n hilarious.

And it is fitting. It is just. It’s almost frick’n Biblical in its justness. You see, there is precious little bigotry and prejudice on college campuses. But the bulk of what does exist is aimed almost entirely at the guys and gals chilling at the tailgate party. Pro-life Christians, Israel-supporting Jews, libertarian professors, conservative scholars, climate-change skeptics, traditionalists of every stripe including classical liberals, and, of course, people who can take a joke: These make up the bulk of the victims of campus bigotry and prejudice. I can’t tell you how many professors I’ve met who have to keep their conservatism secret, at least until tenure, if not forever. I’ve never met or heard of a faculty member who had to keep her Marxism on the down-low.

When I was in college, an administrator or professor who came out in defense of the kids’ ability to wear whacky or offensive costumes would be considered cool. But the prudish mob sees it differently. It’s not cool to let people do what they want. Everyone must be forced to care. If you can leave aside the threat to Western Civilization these little totalitarians pose, it’s a fascinating and glorious comeuppance these university staff are getting. For generations, liberals have cultivated the notion that college should be a safe space for political liberalism and, just as important, libertinism. And in response, like the ants set free from the ant farm, the kids cry out, “Freedom! Horrible freedom!” Instead, these frightened, failed libertines want to impose order from below. The administrators see themselves as Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, and the ungrateful brats respond by demanding subsidized all-organic sticks to shove up their own asses.

snip

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/42...t-protests-left