Sunday, December 16, 2007
Beating up conservatives in Princeton
If I were a truly dedicated blogger, I would have been all over this story when a loyal local reader sent me the links yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of Christmas shopping hell, followed by grocery shopping, followed by some pumping of iron at the gym, followed by heavy drinking punctuated with dinner.
But you should still know what it is like for conservatives in a liberal college town where everybody is affluent, will be affluent, or has affluent sensibilities. People threaten conservatives, and sometimes they follow through.
The threats are not surprising. The following through is. Perhaps they are unrelated.
UPDATE: Hoax! As I wrote in the original post, I was not surprised by the threats -- shame on me -- but was surprised by the actual attack. Both the threats and the attack, however, were fabricated. Congratulations to all of you who called bullshit, and a pox on Francisco Nava '09, who needs a stern talking-to and some ridicule besides.
16 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Dec 16, 10:12:00 AM:
"But you should still know what it is like for conservatives in a liberal college town where everybody is affluent, will be affluent, or has affluent sensibilities. People threaten conservatives, and sometimes they follow through."
Please. I'd bet a case of beer and my four wheeler that the number of conservatives being bullied or threated by liberals comes nowhere near the number of die hard, patriotic, conservative beer guzzling frat apes on any major US college town who want to beat up some "fag" for being too liberal (or maybe a just hippie).
By 
TigerHawk, at
Sun Dec 16, 10:16:00 AM:
That might be right. There being no frats here (the eating clubs are a different animal), there are relatively few "frat apes." Barely any.
By , at
Sun Dec 16, 02:29:00 PM:
Really? Relatively few frat apes? Has your love for The Inn blinded you to its denizens of recent vintage?
Maybe things have changed there in the few years since the Class of 2002 became the Great Class of 2002, but I'm dubious.
By , at
Sun Dec 16, 03:02:00 PM:
That sounds like a dogmatic belief, anonymous, not a reasoned statement.
No one takes the idea that US servicemembers are targeted for physical assault by militant leftist 'students,' either. But they are.
The idea that politically motivated violence is consigned only to one side is wrong. But for some reason, no one seems to care if a roving gang of hippies goes around San Francisco busting out the windows of cars with DoD stickers on them, and then beating the asses of the owners if they try to interfere. (happened to two acquaintances, a soldier and a marine, last May I think)
By , at
Sun Dec 16, 06:01:00 PM:
From the posting of anonymous, talking about frat apes beating up on a "fag" ( I am quoting a) or a "liberal," I doubt that anonymous has much recent experience with a college campus, where the PC atmosphere can be suffocating.
By , at
Sun Dec 16, 07:10:00 PM:
"The idea that politically motivated violence is consigned only to one side is wrong."
Interesting, because I thought that's exactly what TH's post was trying to imply. Why specify threats/violence against just conservatives when liberals are also targeted (even more so in my humble opinion)?
And Gringo, I have been to plenty of American campuses and went to Michigan State University for my undergrad. There is absolutely no way in hell that there is a suffocating PC atmosphere on any Big 10 school. If anything, it is the complete opposite. Again, I've never been to a liberal arts school or San Fran, so I don't have that experience. But just today I'll play spokesman for the entire Midwest. :)
By , at
Sun Dec 16, 08:43:00 PM:
Maybe a Big 10 school is more accepting of the minority than an ivy league school. "Suffocating intolerance" of conservative views is a good description of Cornell academic life, and greater Ithaca's social structure, in my view.
If Michigan State bests Princeton and Ithaca in this regard, hurray!
By Bryan, at
Mon Dec 17, 12:57:00 AM:
Princeton is definitely not a victim of suffocating intolerance of conservative views. They are readily accepted. It's well known to be the most conservative of the Ivies. I am a current student and you wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard derogatory remarks about someone's homosexuality.
By , at
Mon Dec 17, 02:25:00 AM:
"I am a current student and you wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard derogatory remarks about someone's homosexuality."
Tolerance (or intolerance) of homosexuality, doesn't establish one as belonging to the left or right.
I for one am a conservative who supports gay marriage. On a similar issue, I couldn't tell you how many times I've heard racist sentiments from self-professed liberals.
But even worse than this is the assumption on their part that all Republicans/conservatives are intolerant/racist/bigoted people.
Some may be, but I can tell you that some liberals are as well.
By , at
Mon Dec 17, 12:17:00 PM:
Boy, love the liberals here.
A conservative is physically assaulted, specifically for having conservative views, and they still feel the need to say "well, I bet it's worse at a state school".
By Howard, at
Mon Dec 17, 12:41:00 PM:
I find that (all) college conservatives are pussy boys to the extreme. All somehow or other get victimized by mobs or crowds or individuals for daring to articulate their views in public. I was a vet on campus when it appeared that vets were targets of spitting gorillas in airports and so on. We had a single incident against a vet here, keeping in mind that when you've been in combat for a month nothing scares you, and he took two of them out. THEN, he was expelled for a semester for his barbaric defiance of collegiality because he refused dialogue. FACT: Conservative so-called male students are girlie boys. Period. BTW the above vet got a lawyer and things went away very fast.
By , at
Mon Dec 17, 03:37:00 PM:
First, the liberals respond by saying "well, I'm sure there are more instances of liberals by conservatives elsewhere."
Now that it's been exposed as a hoax, I bet the first thing conservatives will bring up is the Kerry Dunn hoax.
Let's just all agree that each side has bad eggs. I understand it's difficult to debate politics with someone whose viewpoint is opposite yours without making them the most debase, vile, putrid excrement of humanity in your mind, but give it a shot, and you won't do something ridiculous like this stupid kid.
:cheers:
By , at
Mon Dec 17, 03:39:00 PM:
My bad, the first sentence should read "instances of intimidation of liberals".
I'll go have my afternoon coffee now.
By Fausta, at
Mon Dec 17, 04:20:00 PM:
Anyone who self-inflicts a concussion has a lot more problems than most of us. Politics has nothing to do with that.
By , at
Mon Dec 17, 06:05:00 PM:
'Boy, love the liberals here.A conservative is physically assaulted, specifically for having conservative views, and they still feel the need to say "well, I bet it's worse at a state school".'
That is not at all what they were saying. They were taking issue with the idea that a conservative being assaulted for their political views is somehow common place (TH said that the threats were "not surprising") while not mentioning that this issue also has a large problem (possibly larger problem IMO) with conservatives also threatening/assaulting liberals. The implication in TH's post seemed to be that when it comes to political violence on campus, conservatives seem to have it bad, and some see this as being pretty hypocritical. Nobody downplays the fact that violence against anybody is terrible. I think this has more to do with bloggers reporting news from a slightly biased point of view. I love TH's informative blog, but I think it is biased in such a way (enough with the New York Times already!!! They suck, we get it!!! How about the garbage on the Drudge Report or Huffington Post!) :)
-j.b.
By Buce, at
Tue Dec 18, 12:21:00 AM:
I won't gloat. Getting taken in by a hoax happens to the best of us (e.g., me). But I think the giveaway here might have been the suggestion that opponents of abstinence would be moved to outrage. My experience with horndogs (or as a horndog?) suggests that they are too busy trying to get unzipped to worry about what others may think.
