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Colleges Being Remade Into "Repress U"?
The Nation has up a sobering article from its upcoming issue about how colleges and universities are being turned into homeland security campuses, in the name of preventing homegrown radicalization. Quoting: "From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism prevention' — as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name — have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university."
Keep your eyes to the sky.
The main watchdog for campus rights abuses is FIRE.
Speech codes and anti-harassment "respect" policies are the most common culprits when it comes to violating individual rights at colleges.
Two issues out of the article -
1. Police departments on campus getting more firearms, including semiautomatic rifles and pistols.
This is just dumb, for several reasons.
A. Students may not see it that way, but the reason that campus police have guns is to protect the students. Criminals love to target students. Better armed criminals argues for better armed campus police. Happy peaceful unarmed campus police equals soft target. And there are always some nuts out there. Campus police may seem intimidating to students, and part of their job is to keep students from rioting and burning campuses down during periodic fits of dissention, but their primary job is to go get the people who come from outside to prey on students.
B. 99% of police in the US now use semi-automatic pistols - they're just a better choice for officers than revolvers.
C. Semi-automatic rifles are, in many situations, less likely to hurt bystanders than shotguns, the more common shoulder arm police use. Police also have had some long-range issues (snipers, mass murders, etc) which rifles are needed to counter.
2. Blackwater as an example in the privatization
Blackwater has for a long long time been a police and security training company. They also got into private security in Iraq, yes, but what they do in the US is nearly entirely provide tactical and skills training to police officers. Do you want more professional, better trained police? Most people do... Doctors and Paramedics need continuing training, so should Police. Some departments are big enough to do most of their own training, but most aren't. Training is good.
I've worked for several colleges, and most had Free-Speech Zones where student organizations, community members where allowed to setup tables, pass out leaflets, etc. The other instututions that didn't have these, had a general understanding of "where" was appropriate to have peaceful protest, or speakers.
In all cases, these areas were central to the campus and often in areas where students tended to gather normally. I never observed police try to interfere with the students or speakers and only interfered outside these areas when they were breaking the law (e.g. using chalk on unviersity buildings walls where the rain wouldn't wash it off), harassing bystanders going to class, or were being loud as to interupt others right to peace. (e.g. interupting classes.)
Unfortunately in my experience, the only situations I observed censorship in higher ed were in the classrooms, where students were penalized in their academic work for arguing alternative theories (e.g. in the social sciences) that were not the prefered theories or ideologies of the professors. I found it was a lot easier to grit my teeth and agree in class and on paper with the professors than argue any alternative viewpoint.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
"because they are people who don't support the current heir to the throne of George III"
The current American President is from a family that are for all practical purposes Tories, pro aristocracy both in Britain and in America.
Its quite possible British anarchists would be banned by the current administration precisely because they are vocal critics of the British royal family. The Bush clan are inordinately fond of the British monarchy.
Yale and Connecticut have been a hotbed of Tory sympathizers since the America revolution and its that is the heartland of the Bush clan, not Maine or Texas. The Yale Fraternity Skull and Bones, where most of the Bush men have been members, originates from a group of Connecticut Tories and prominent opium traffickers. The Skull and Bones emblem comes from the pirate flags of Opium smugglers. A number of blue blood American families acquired much of their wealth trafficking in Opium in China in the 1800's. They were more or less the same as Heroine smugglers are today. Reference Wikipedia on William Huntington Russell one of the principal founders of Skull and Bones.
Americans were never universal in their support of the American revolution, for severing ties with the British throne, or establishing a Democracy which many Tories considered mob rule. Tories morphed into the Whig Party which in turn was the foundation of the Republican party which is why Republicans tend to be white, elitist and pro wealth.
One interpretation of the Republican revolution over the last 10 years is it was basically the Tories regaining control of America 200 hundred years after they lost the American revolution. The last 8 years have been marked by the Republican aristocracy regaining control of the reins of power in America and doing away with as much of the American constitution as they could manage. Tories have always held the constitution in complete contempt along with the concept that all men are equal. Tories/Republicans are most decidely of the opinion that some people are better than others.
@de_machina
I always point out that organizing is the antithesis of anarchy [...]
No it's not. Anarchy is not chaos; it's a lack of rule. Chaos is just a natural result.
There's nothing about being an anarchist that prevents you from listening to someone else's advice. The key difference between an anarchist and, say, someone who believes in electing a leader is the expectation that once a leader is chosen that everyone *must* listen to them. An anarchist is free to nod his head at the advice and then go off and do his own thing.
Sure, people might complain at him and he may or may not be made to feel guilty, but there's no binding law making him do what he's told or providing for remedies for him not doing so. That's anarchy -- the lack of legal / community-imposed consequences for your actions; it's not some boneheaded, punk-rock poser obsession with telling everyone, "F--- off," who might tell you what would be a good idea to do.
Apparently, when you were a kid, you had a very juvenile view of the concept, and adulthood doesn't seem to have cured you of it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Revisionist history is so much fun isn't it? The current republican party is NOTHING like the republican party of 150 years ago, when it was formed. Oh, and guess what...it did not directly evolve from the Whig party. If you read into your history a bit, you will see the Republican Party (The Party of Lincoln) was formed out of a coalition of people from several parties, including some who were "former Whigs". You could argue that this anti-slavery party was actually not pro-wealth, since they were attacking much of the wealth of the south by seeking the abolition of slavery.
Remember, the Democratic Party of the time was the preferred party of the south. In fact, this was the case for almost 100 or so more years until relatively recent history started to change this. A big part of this change of course was the result of evangelicalism invading the political front. Oddly enough, this is actually beginning to create a rift within the part, which could result in the sort of split of the Whigs that created the Know-Nothing party and the Republican Party.
If they're undocumented, how do you know they are foreign-born?
When you apply to college, you have to submit various documents of identity. A simple identity check is enough to catch most of them, but thanks to "sensitive" morons like you we can't do it - and as a result we've had kids (and parents) screaming bloody murder because their SSN's were being used to apply for illegal aliens and some of the loan companies ran checks on the SSN in question and caught the fraud.
Accents? Okay, say you do "your papers please" on everyone with a foreign-sounding accent. Why do you want to track these people now? You just report undocumented students to Immigration, job done.
Better still: you don't let those who are undocumented - e.g. not citizens and not having a valid visa - enroll. Save the space in classes (we DO have limits on how many kids can get into each class each semester) for those who are entitled to be there.
Your blathering about the skull and bones sounds like the dude who got tazed.
The Gospel according to lolcat