Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Conservative Pride Day?

Are you a forlorn conservative college or high school student who feels isolated and tyrannized by the hegemonic lefty professoriat and social milieu on campus? Are you beset on every side by silly left-wing pieties and intolerance? If so, you'll want to read this article and maybe visit this brand new web site to network with similarly situated ideological minorities:

Though Christopher Flickinger calls himself "dean" and poses in parodistic photos waving a small American flag and looking stern, he says he's never been more serious about eliminating what he claims is pervasive anti-conservatism on college campuses today.

"When I was on campus, I had no help," the recent Ohio State University graduate told FOXNews.com. "I was harassed, intimidated, shouted down."

Flickinger, schooled in broadcast journalism, said he wants to provide the support he never had as a lonely conservative in college. That's why in November he launched the Network of College Conservatives to act in part as "a link for these conservative students, to let them know they are not alone."

Running the Web site solo from his Pittsburgh, Pa., home, Flickinger said he wants the network to be much more than a shoulder to cry on. Conservative students are still easy targets of liberal intimidation, he claims, but more than ever, they have a growing body of legal and activist support groups to turn to - and he wants his organization to be top among those resources.

Flickinger added that his group plans on "exposing and letting people know what is going on" on campuses by creating a clearinghouse on the Web site for students to pass along information about individual schools and professors.

As welcome a development as this is, we think it's time for conservatives to have more than just their own web-sites. Conservatives need to demand their own dorms on campus, just like other minorities have. Perhaps also a conservative pride day is not out of the question. A conservative history month is a capital idea, and, while we're at it, affirmative action and quotas for hiring conservatives are certainly not too far-fetched.

Anyway, back to earth. Follow the link to read the rest of the article.

Bad Culture Drives Out Good

After reading stories like this we must remember to repeat to ourselves - All cultures are equally valid; No way of life is inherently better than any other; All values are equally good - lest we succumb to the seductions of common sense and begin to think that maybe the troglodytes on the right are correct when they tell us that Western culture really is superior to the way the rest of the world lives. Wouldn't it just be awful to discover that, contrary to what we've been told now for over a generation, the values that arise out of a Judeo-Christian worldview actually are superior to those which arise out of secular or Islamic worldviews? Here's the gist of this tragic tale:

MULTAN, Pakistan - A father, angry that his eldest daughter had married against his wishes, slit her throat as she slept and then killed three of his other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said Saturday. Nazir Ahmad, a laborer in his 40s, feared the younger girls, aged 4, 8, and 12, would follow in their sister's footsteps, police officer Shahzad Gul said.

Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan every year, many by male relatives, after they are accused of staining their families' honor by having affairs or marrying for love without family consent.

But, as we're reminded by the multi-cultis and the diversity hucksters, who are we to judge? What right do we have to impose our values on another culture? If it's right for them then it's right, don't you know? Who's to say that our way is better than theirs? If you think this way of life is horrific that's just your opinion.

Well. It's time to say to our friends celebrating the beauty of all cultures except their own that some ways of life, some cultures, and some values are just plain ugly. Not just subjectively, aethetically ugly, but ugly at a deep, objective, moral and spiritual level. What's more we should not shrink from saying so when the opportunity arises, whether it arises within our own culture or in some other. When we lose the will to pass judgments on behavior then it becomes only a matter of time before bad behavior drives out good, before standards and values all decline, and the Nazir Ahmads of the world become increasingly common both here and abroad.

Too Much to Ask

The Guardian informs us of the unsurprising news that Hollywood types are refusing to go to Iraq to entertain the troops:

Wayne Newton, the Las Vegas crooner who succeeded Bob Hope as head of USO's talent recruiting effort, told USA Today. "Now with 9/11 being as far removed as it is, the war being up one day and down the next, it becomes increasingly difficult to get people to go."

Newton said many celebrities have been wary of going because they think it might be seen that they are endorsing the war. "And I say it's not. I tell them these men and women are over there because our country sent them, and we have the absolute necessity to try to bring them as much happiness as we can."

Fear is also a factor. "They're scared," country singer Craig Morton, who is in Iraq on the USO's Hope and Freedom Tour 2005, told USA Today. "It's understandable. It's not a safe and fun place and a lot of people don't want to take the chance."

Let us suggest another factor: Many of these "beautiful people" are narcissistic, self-centered, pampered children who don't care about the troops and don't have any desire to inconvenience themselves for their sake. Yet we treat these people like gods even as the soldiers who are risking, and sacrificing, life and limb for the safety of those same celebrities, are all but anonymous except to their families and friends.

These people are rewarded with lavish lifestyles for doing nothing more than entertaining us. They live in multi-million dollar homes and can have anything money can buy, yet they can't give a few days out of their life to perform for the men and women who risk their own lives for next to nothing in order to ensure that the glitterati can go on living as they do.

We wonder if the celebs would think any differently were the next terrorist attack on our soil directed at Hollywood or if the president leading this war were Bill Clinton.