A couple of recent news items illustrate the close-mindedness, aggressiveness and oppressiveness of modern liberalism's thought police.
MSNBC's Toure issued a scathing commentary against the GOP for considering outreach efforts toward African-Americans. Toure said: "Such is the dysfunctional, abusive relationship the GOP insists on with black folks. They say they want a new relationship while continuing to try to screw us over."
Toure went on to lambaste Dr. Ben Carson, a black person, for daring to stray from leftist ideas and endorsing conservative ones, such as a flat tax. Carson has "intellectual tumors in his mind, like a flat tax, which is regressive and ignorant in the face of American wealth inequality." Toure continued: "I doubt the GOP would entertain a white non-politician with unserious ideas." But blacks such as Carson "get raced to the front of the line because then people get to put a bumper sticker on their cars saying, 'How can I be racist? I would have voted for Carson."
Another story involves Ryan Rotela, a student at Florida Atlantic University who alleges that he was suspended from his class on "intercultural communications" because he refused to comply with a directive (or request) by the course's instructor, Deandre Poole.
Poole allegedly told his students to write "Jesus" on a sheet of paper, put the paper on the floor and then stomp on it. Rotela, a devout Mormon, said he refused and "picked up the paper from the floor and put it right back on the table." He said he told the professor he didn't believe this was appropriate, that it was unprofessional for the professor to have initiated this exercise and that he was "deeply offended" by what he had told him to do.
Todd Starnes of Fox News said that according to documents, Rotela "has been brought up on academic charges by the school and may no longer attend class." But this "notice of charges," according to Starnes, is contrary to a statement the university released Friday night, which said no one had been disciplined as a result of the classroom activity.
Regardless, the assignment itself was outrageous and is illustrative of a hostile attitude toward Christianity (and conservatism) on many campuses and elsewhere in our culture today.
The left can vehemently deny it, but does anyone really believe that a professor would still have his job if instead of using the word "Jesus," he had used "Muhammad" or "Barack Obama" or the name or symbol of any other iconic figure of the left?
In so many universities, what passes for open academic inquiry is often more like indoctrination. In the name of diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance, academics trash Western civilization and traditional moral values on the perverse rationale that those values are intolerant and thus undeserving of tolerance and favorable treatment.
We see this same phenomenon occurring throughout our society, not just in universities but also in the media and in corporate America, where the tyranny of political correctness has taken firm root. How often have we read about corporate employees being forced to attend "sensitivity training" when they've expressed views about same-sex marriage or other issues about which leftist culture commanders are passionate?
As Paul Kengor of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College explains, "these are the new secular disciples of 'diversity' and 'tolerance' -- empty buzzwords that make liberals and progressives feel good while they often refuse to tolerate and sometimes even assault traditional Christian and conservative beliefs."
Liberals hold themselves out as open-minded, tolerant and supportive of academic inquiry, but many of them are contemptuous of views they reject. If you do not subscribe to the left's views on politics, social science, religion, affirmative action, sexuality, etc., your views are not only not worthy of protection but deserving of scorn, ridicule and sometimes even punishment and recalibration.
But guess what. These tactics tend to work. No matter how many courageous conservatives fight back against the left's intolerance and no matter how many black conservatives refuse to toe the liberal line that requires them to think like liberals -- lest they cease being authentic blacks -- more and more on the right are throwing in the towel instead of standing up for what they believe and facing ridicule and abuse from the left.
Many, for example, are jumping on the bandwagon to support same-sex marriage to receive their pat on the head from our progressive culture. Some have been persuaded, no doubt, but many are just afraid to be branded as bigots or homophobes for taking a principled stand in support of traditional marriage.
Long ago, leftists learned that bullying and persistence work, and they are being rewarded for their efforts by those whose social and political opinions are determined more by a craving for popular approval than by deeply held convictions.