Author’s Note: This column contains some bad language from a critic – although I don’t mind. The fact that I am receiving flak shows that I am flying over the target.
Good Afternoon, Margaret (president@northcarolina.edu):
I am sure that you will recall an interview you gave back in January in which you characterized my political views as “hate speech.” I know that you and other administrators have been concerned that my views are causing prospective students to decline to enroll in the UNC system. A phone call I recently received from the parent of one prospective student shows that your fears are indeed well founded. Here is the exact wording of the voice mail I got from the parent who declined to leave his name:
“My son was planning on attending UNC-Wilmington in the fall of 2017. However, based on a column you wrote on the Internet, we are now withdrawing his acceptance per his request. Free speech is protected. But your hate speech isn’t.”
Based upon that one phone call, I would say that the university owes me a big pay raise. UNC-Wilmington was about to get yet another student who is so emotionally fragile that he cannot tolerate even a single opinion column that advances a view different from his own. Now, thanks to me, he is going to be someone else’s problem.
You can probably imagine how delighted I was when I received that voice mail. But imagine how much more delighted I was when I received a second one about an hour later. Once again, it was the father of the same prospective student. He left me a message in which he started off talking but ended up screaming. I have tried to reproduce it word-for-word below:
“I hope they fire you. You deserve it. Since hate speech is protected you are a vile piece of sh*t. I hope you f****** die. You mother f*****! You f****** a**hole!! You despicable f****** piece of sh*t!!! I hope you f****** die!!!! F*** you!!!!!
Naturally, when I received this message I tried to reach out to the parent to get more material for another one my “hateful” opinion columns. Unfortunately, when I called back I realized that it was not a residential number. It was a phone located in a bar called “The Dead Mule” in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, just a few miles away from your office.
The fact that the message was left at 4:41 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon is significant. Most normal fathers would be working during the late afternoon in the middle of the week. In contrast, this father was sitting in a bar, getting drunk, and leaving profane messages in the voice mail inbox of a perfect stranger. If I were a betting man, I would say that the caller’s son is likely to be doing the same thing in a few years. Mentally unstable parents tend to raise mentally unstable offspring.
Margaret, it bears repeating that I deserve a pay raise for saving UNC-Wilmington from having this family of unhinged leftists become a part of our “inclusive Seahawk nation.” Can there be any doubt that such a man is prone to violence? Could there be any realistic hope that his son has the minimal level of emotional stability needed to function in a free and open marketplace of ideas?
Clearly, I have just made our campus safer and also saved the administration from a major headache. Of course, I do not expect the $775,000 annual salary you make as a public “servant.” Nonetheless, I do believe that I am entitled to something. After all, I have a gun collection to maintain. In a culture characterized by such tolerance and diversity one can never be too careful.
In all seriousness, the time has come for you to consider your role in encouraging these kinds of unhinged lunatics who decry “hate speech” while wishing death upon their political adversaries. It is clear that you have been stung by criticism from the political left and that now you seek to appease them whenever the opportunity arises. That is why you jumped on the anti-HB2 bandwagon. That is also why you decided to attack me in public back in January.
You need to reconsider your tactics. Experience shows that you can never appease leftists. If you give them a license to define “hate” then they will surely exempt themselves from the definition. It is far better to ignore them than to empower them. Let the sons of lunatics go to Berkeley with other fragile “warriors” who are compelled to riot every time they hear a divergent opinion. We don’t need them here in North Carolina.
In other words, your administration needs to stop marginalizing conservative professors. You need to clone them instead. We make excellent lunatic repellent for those who call ideas hateful because they lack the intelligence to rebut them.