The latest issue of the Weekly Standard features a story about the latest outrage from academia, only this time it doesn’t involve the faculty. Apparently the student senate at the University of Washington voted down a resolution to construct a monument on campus in honor of Col. Greg "Pappy" Boyington, one of the university’s better-known alumni. Boyington, for the history-deficient, was a U.S. marine fighter ace during World War II. He shot down 28 Japanese aircraft before becoming a prisoner of war, and was tortured and nearly starved to death by his captors.
During debate on the resolution, student senator Jill Edwards "questioned whether it was appropriate to honor a person who killed other people," according to the minutes of the meeting. Karl Smith said Boyington should be honored for his service, but Smith was also bothered by the killing thing. Senator Ashley Miller was against the resolution because "many monuments at UW commemorate rich white men." The debate went downhill from there.
Interestingly, back in 1998 the university constructed a monument to some war veterans, but not ones who served in the U.S. armed forces. The monument was built in honor of the eleven University of Washington alumni who fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Again for the history-deficient, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was created, financed, and commanded by the Communist International, which was in turn controlled by Josef Stalin.
As for Pappy Boyington, the article concludes:
Pappy Boyington would’ve laughed at Student Senator Ashley Miller’s "rich white man" crack. A beer salesman is hardly rich, and Boyington had money problems most of his life. As for being white: he was part Sioux. But he was fully a man. At least she got that right.
In a word - incredible.
Luckily, not all college students are idiots like those.
In college I went from being liberal to being conservative and have stayed conservative ever since.
Another school for me to cross off the list of those schools to which I will pay for my grandchildren’s higher education. That list is getting smaller by the day.
For the History deficient at U. of Wash especially Mizzez Miller and Edwards and mr. Miller, whose "bothered by the killing thing" please note.......
BOYINGTON, GREGORY
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Squadron 214. Place and date: Central Solomons area, from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Entered service at: Washington. Born: 4 December 1912, Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Other Navy award: Navy Cross. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and valiant devotion to duty as commanding officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 in action against enemy Japanese forces in the Central Solomons area from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Consistently outnumbered throughout successive hazardous flights over heavily defended hostile territory, Maj. Boyington struck at the enemy with daring and courageous persistence, leading his squadron into combat with devastating results to Japanese shipping, shore installations, and aerial forces. Resolute in his efforts to inflict crippling damage on the enemy, Maj. Boyington led a formation of 24 fighters over Kahili on 17 October and, persistently circling the airdrome where 60 hostile aircraft were grounded, boldly challenged the Japanese to send up planes. Under his brilliant command, our fighters shot down 20 enemy craft in the ensuing action without the loss of a single ship. A superb airman and determined fighter against overwhelming odds, Maj. Boyington personally destroyed 26 of the many Japanese planes shot down by his squadron and, by his forceful leadership, developed the combat readiness in his command which was a distinctive factor in the Allied aerial achievements in this vitally strategic area.
From...https://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/mohiia1.htm
To these student "senators", I suggest they go to a real school for an education. Maybe their parents ought to ask for a refund of tuition. At least those monies paid to the U. of WhiteWash history department.
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Dem student senators must be a totin’ a heavy load.
1 -- Tony, it’s not "incredible." It is precisely who and what these left-liberals are. To them, this sort of action and these sorts of comments are completely NORMAL. Until we stop being surprised by them, we are in no position to defeat them.
2 -- Texas Dude, no one thinks "all" college students are like this. What matters is that:
1) students at relatively elite institutions -- and U. Wash. IS a relatively elite institution, from the standpoint of society as a whole -- are more likely to be like this than students elsewhere. And it’s the students at relatively elite (and truly elite) institutions who matter most.
2) Active students, the ones in student "senates," etc., also tend to be liberal. It’s the active people, not the passive population, who govern, in large ways and small. Conservatives are mostly passive.
3) Students very often move to the left while in college. Others, I suspect, move to the left without really knowing or acknowledging it.
The old Republican chestnut about becoming a conservative once you have a job, pay taxes, and have kids, has only a grain of truth. If it had more than grain of truth, we wouldn’t have 45 Democratic senators (at least 42 of them solid liberals), and John Kerry wouldn’t have won 48 percent of the vote.
4) While college does not produce a monolithically liberal college-graduate population, it is the average person’s most intense exposure to cultural elites, scholarship, and "smart" people. If Republicans, independents, and moderate Democrats get the impression that "smart" people are basically on the left, it does tremendous damage to their political self-confidence and willingness to speak out.
What?!?!? A Student Senate that can actually make decisions about what the university does???
I wish Ashland was more like that . . . (with regards to the Seante’s authority . . . not the ridiculous reasons for the rejection of the veteran’s statue).
If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.
Winston Churchill(?)
David Frisk:
I would not dispute that liberal democrats in the house and senate have brains. They just don’t use them very often.
Tony, it’s not "incredible." It is precisely who and what these left-liberals are. To them, this sort of action and these sorts of comments are completely NORMAL. Until we stop being surprised by them, we are in no position to defeat them.
David, do you really think that all or nearly all of the people who voted for Kerry would reject a statue honoring a war hero because he had killed people? It’s hilarious to read the Right’s portrait of the Left here at NLT. Yeah, right, we’re really all total bleeding heart pacificists who believe that all war is wrong all the time. Those student senators are probably over-privileged brats- hardly representative of most liberals. True, we’re not as eager to go a’killin’ as you fellows are, but that doesn’t mean most of us despise soldiers.
Jesse Fan and Pine Knot- what would be a better school, guys? Bob Jones U, maybe? A place that preaches to the choir a little more? Do you think that those kids went to the U. of Washington as nice little right-wingers and got brainwashed by the liberal faculty? Or hey, Pine, maybe you could look into home-schooling your kids in college, too! That way they’d NEVER have to be exposed to any offensive ideas!
Phil,
You imply that you wouldn’t agree with the reasons the Senate gave for refusing to honor Pappy Boyington. You also seem to agree that students will often (whether knowing it or not) reflect the general doctrines they are taught. Yet you then ask jesse fan and Pine Know if Bob Jones U. would be better, at least implying(?) that liberal faculty indoctrinating students would happen at conservative institutions as well. I agree, and I think that’s the problem.
To illustrate:
I went to see Kurt Vonnegut speak at Ohio State last night with a friend of mine, an incredibly sharp-minded (smart without the negative connotation that David Frisk uses) woman majoring in environmental engineering. She is a serious student and person, and she is liberal. Anyways, as we were waiting in an unbelievably long line (Vonnegut’s a rock star), she began talking about some list of famous works that people are saying needs to be revised because there are too many "rich, dead, white" guys on it. I smirked and she looked at me, with a questioning look on my face. All I said was "I didn’t realize the color of peoples’ skin affected the quality of their work." She just looked at me and gently shook her head.
I realize there is a bunch of factors at play when it comes to preference and considered importance of literature, but I find it striking, in light of those factors, that some works undoubtedly stand the test of time. It is not by mere chance that Socrates still consumes souls today. As a result, I think my criticism is at least legitimate, but all it gets is a sad shake of the head. For Ellison’s birthday, let’s at least admit that the state of reality does not force our aquiesence. If it is a problem, then we should act to fix it.
Fred- there’s liberal faculty at Bob Jones? I’ve never read that.
Why sure, Phil. It was those BJU leftists who were trying to preserve the school’s ban on interracial dating. Admittedly it is a strange situation there, having those Godless Commies teaching Bible-based classes on intelligent design and such...
#8:
Mr. Thompson, by "these left-liberals" I meant the kind of people who scream and get their way in academe and in many other places. I did not mean "all or nearly all" of the people who voted for Kerry.
Those who voted for Kerry, by and large, are not that far gone. However, they often vote for people who are. At the end of the day, the residual patriotism of the typical Democratic voter, and the strong patriotism of what I would guess is a minority of Democratic voters, matters little.
Because these are not the people who will make noise about things like the idiocy at U-W re: Pappy Boyington.
What matters are the people who make these decisions. And they have shown their true colors in this incident.
Phil (and JMont, for jumping on board),
I guess I wasn’t clear. Phil and I sometimes play the role of grammar-nazi, so I had this coming.
"Yet you then ask jesse fan and Pine Know if Bob Jones U. would be better, at least implying(?) that liberal faculty indoctrinating students would happen at conservative institutions as well." =
...at least implying(?) that the problem of liberal faculty indoctrinating students at liberal universities would also take place at conservative universities, with conservative faculty indoctrinating students."
I thought that was excessively wordy, so I tried going with the "write-as-you-speak" technique, but you got me Phil. Kudos
Actually, Fred, I really wasn’t trying to be a grammar-nazi there. I was genuinely confused by your statement. Anyway, I just don’t buy the argument that colleges brainwash students so that they graduate as liberals, no matter what their politics were before they went in.
I’m not sure I do either. I don’t think there’s any doubt that a professor’s politics influence the manner in which material is taught. I also don’t think there is any doubt that affects the way a student perceives what is true and untrue/ right and wrong, and things become dogmatic. But this can only work to an extent. Indoctrination would seem to require simple automatons. Human beings are too complicated for that, and students have a responsibility not to let it happen to them.
It does at times look like it happens, but I’m sure that normally the perception is a result of a lack of clarity and valid arguments.