I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Occasionally, someone like Bill Kristol stumbles onto a good point:

As Columbia welcomes [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

For those of you who work in academia, this line of reasoning is not surprising at all. The spirit of open debate means giving an open floor to a scumbag like Mahmoud so he can spout his anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-semetic bullshit. But to allow the US military to operate on campus? No, sir! Those guys are crazy! Giving their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for America’s freedom and security? That’s certainly not the type of person we want in the sacred groves of Columbia!

But it gets even better. The ostensible reason for keeping ROTC off campus these days is not because of the Vietnam War but because of the ban on gays (apparently, not all ideas are welcome at Columbia). But they are inviting a man to speak who executes gays. Say what you want about the ban on gays in the military—and I’ve said plenty—they are not putting them in front of a firing squad.

The only explanation for these points of views is that the president and most of the faculty at Columbia are distinctly anti-American. That is the only possible way for all their actions to be intellectually consistent.

Not that consistency is the hobgoblin of over-educated liberal minds or anything.