Recently, there was a paper that was censored on campus by having it thrown out en masse. Strangely enough, it was the Michigan Daily. Now the Daily was censored because, now get this, because it was "racist" in its' coverage of MSA elections and had apparently published "racist" cartoons that were among other things, critical of affirmative action.
You didn't misread that last paragraph. Now, anyone with even a rather subjective liberal slant will tell you that the Daily hasn't done anything that is non- Politically Correct within the last decade. In fact, an objective observer or even one with say, fiscal conservative-social moderate views such as myself, would realize that (even through that brief six month period when the Daily almost became apolitical) the Daily has been extraordinarily "conscientious" towards that question of race. They don't criticize affirmative action, they don't criticize quotas, you name it, they love it and support it over there.
In my mind three questions popped up when I first learned from a friend that the Daily had been stolen.
1) Why in the name of God would want to steal the Daily? It's Daily. You aren't going to stop it.
2) The Daily is racist? Are they kidding?
3) Two local factions of the New Left are going at it?!
There is no doubt that the Michigan Daily has an extremely liberal editorial page and columnists, just like the Review has rational, articulate people as columnists (ha,ha). But I find it interesting that the day after the incident and even on Friday, the Daily was still on the warpath. I think the shock may have been too much. To be honest, if I was at the Daily, I would be shocked too, because they haven't done anything. Sure, the Daily doesn't give equal time and sure it doesn't print conservative views. But one word that does not describe them is "racist." Even I am willing to give them that!
Then it gets better we've got the Campus Far Left, including the Free Mumia Coalition (motto: "We'll raise him from the dead if we have to!") demanding another one of their walkouts to protest institutional racism in the Daily. And that was, as we know, a big hit. You can't get 90% of this campus to vote in an election for student government, and only about 200 thought it was a good idea to march through Angell Hall chanting. But wait, there's more. The Daily is counter-attacking! They're screaming censorship and they're not apologizing! We've got the Far Left going against the Left, and the Right...hey...wait a minute...
For once on this bloody campus, no one is attacking the Right. If one were to be totally cynical and somewhat bitter, they might find the situation almost comic. The main bastion of student liberalism is being besieged by the forces of The Far Left, now currently manifesting like some daemonic presence in the form of the Ñthis is almost funny "The Ad Hoc Committee Against the Bullshit in The Michigan Daily." (I thought the Far Left hated Latin (ad hoc, indeed) and loved Bullshit.) This must be step one in the Evil Plan to Restore the 1960s on campus, or something. Could not this theft possibly be one of the stupidest, if not strangest, things you've heard of while you've been here? The left wing attacking the left wing paper for being racist. The Ad Hoc Committee indeed. Three words fit the description for this censoring group, namely: utterly beneath contempt. No one has respect for any censor, and least of all a censoring group with the apparent IQ of bathroom mold. In fact, no one knows who these people are, which brings up question one: Who the hell are these people to censor the Daily? Boy, I sure like it when six leftist wackos decide that Goddamnit, the Daily is racist so no one else gets to read it either.
The thought that comes to my mind is that if those on the Far Left are so wacky, then why bother listening to them? Why has the University and the Daily given into the Far Left for so long when their ideas and policies are so without merit? The rantings and ravings of the Far Left should have many questioning the policies and practices upheld by the only slightly rational rest of the New Left at the Far Left's insistence. Excise the Far Left's policies from the rulebooks and the law codes like the ashy boils they are!
Conservatism and Libertarianism on U-M's campus seems more and more to be a massive, silent majority of people who for the most part don't like affirmative action, quotas, mandatory health care, burdensome regulation, etc. and who are quite honestly just a bunch of people with the same hopes, fears, likes, and dreams that everyone has. The problem is on campus is that conservatives are not vocal and are not as involved as they should be. Why? My guess is that they would prefer not having to deal with the stigma that seems to hang over your head. They might be concerned that a bitter professor, who if he was fighting for a piece of the pie instead of handing out the crumbs would sing a different tune, might think less of them. They would rather keep silent as it can save themselves a headache not having to defend themselves against angry class liberals when their TA tells them one of liberalism's New Lies as truth. But now is the time for that to change. To me, this seems like the opportune time to have the conservative, libertarian, and moderate and empirically rational students of this campus finally Stand Up and assert themselves. When your teaching assistant goes off on some politically charged tangent, stick it to him. Annoyed with MSA? Run for office. Annoyed with the Daily? Join the Review. This campus needs to change. It's Time.
There are thousands of things that happen to students every day, whether large scale political correctness, or the small things that make one hurt inside or feel angry because they aren't sensitive or caring enough, as if they had some obligation to be obsequient. As the Far Left attacks and ridicules the partially rational Left, It Is Time for the Right to embark on a campaign to point out the massive failures of the entire New Left and discredit their ideas as being fit only for the past, for that is what they are! A lot of campus journalists look upon the age of Tom Hayden, leader of UÑM's Students for a Democratic Society and former Daily editor-in-chief, as some kind of Golden Era. But like all Golden Eras it is gone, and we should bury that age along with Mr. Hayden's spectre, that once in a while rears its head. I wonder what his reaction would be to the current situation. My guess is that he would be surprised.
Let the Far Left's house of cards collapse with their screaming and their demands. No one is listening anymore, for no one wants to listen. The vast majority want a voice that is rational, calm, collected, with real solutions for the problems of today, whether at the national, state, or campus level. They want good leadership, not racial division, protests, and resentment. Soon, they will choose a new voice. Whose voice this is, or what doctrine it will serve, remains to be seen, but it will no longer be that of the outspoken and pathetic Far Left. It will be that of either a rational Right or that of a (quasi) rational, but more noticeably a moderate, Left.
Political thought is always evolving, and I feel that we shall soon see the next step in the evolution of campus politics. Overall, I believe it will move centrist, with a sizable conservative voice. But we shall see. For the next step of political evolution has come, as we realize the failures of the irrational Left and cast it off like a chrysalis, revealing a beautiful butterfly of rational thought. In the words of that enigmatic character Trevor Goodchild, "It's the evolution revolution. May the best man win." Well. It's Time.