Can You Define That?

"Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid," so said Sgt. John Stryker, as portrayed by John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima. Apparently that sentiment is in short supply everywhere in the good ole US of A, but nowhere is that more obvious than in the rarefied air of our college campi. The institutes of higher education, from the ever liberal Ivy League, to the supposed mainstream of the genteel South, have seemingly lost their dictionaries. They can no longer define simple words, much less impart any true knowledge without the prerequisite dose of indoctrination. Three events, which together generated less coverage than Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, prove that point in sobering, saddening, maddening detail.

According to the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, terrorism is defined as: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. Pretty straightforward, at least to my decidedly simplistic ego. Yale, the bastion of waspish scions and Jodie Foster, has evidently concluded otherwise. I say that because they have accepted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, for admission into a non-degree program for special students. Let's forget for the moment that his formal fourth grade education and high-school equivalency degree preclude him from entry into one of the world's top universities. Let us remember instead that he was the public face of the Taliban, the regime that dynamited the 1,000 year old Buddhas of Bamiyan, allowed female school-children to burn to death inside a elementary school because no male relatives were present to escort them away, and, oh yeah, harbored those directly responsible for destroying the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Why would he travel thousands of miles to audit a class titled "Terrorism: Past, Present and Future?" Could it be because he needs a primer, or did he hope to continue his recruiting amongst the intelligentsia?

Discrimination is what Yale, and a coalition of law schools, stated they were against when they filed suit to keep the United States military from recruiting on campus. They affirmed that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was just too onerous for their refined sensibilities. Banning recruiters from campus was the colleges' way of protesting this policy, and nothing more. Yeah, the fact that nearly all these hotbeds of liberalism are in opposition to any war in general, and the one we are currently engaged in, in particular, never entered into the equation. Ironic that this furor was never directed at the President who signed the policy into law. And yet we are supposed to see this as proof that the modern university is striving for an open, inviting, diverse experience; just not one that encourages pride in country, duty or honor, or the hayseeds who cherish such things. One wonders what the position of Yale will be when Ambassador Hashemi begins recruiting in the Quad. I doubt very sincerely that they will object so strenuously that the case will wind up before the justices of the US Supreme Court. Luckily for us all, even the esteemed Court's most liberal members voted against the nonsense the universities sought to avow. The Court decided that the universities could, indeed, bar military recruiters, but they must forfeit all federal funds if they do. In the case of the University of Pennsylvania this amounts to $600,000,000. Yes, you read that right. It remains to be seen if they have the strength of their convictions.

Finally, on Friday a University of North Carolina graduate was arrested for running down nine students with an SUV. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, who, it will come as a huge surprise no doubt, is a Muslim originally from Iran, told investigators, numerous times, that he intentionally hit people to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world." In a 9-1-1 call immediately after the event he said he wanted "to punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world." Funny how he never attempted to protest the actions of the Taliban as they tortured and killed Muslims, by running down Ambassador Hashemi. Funny how he never attempted to ram the gates of any Iraqi diplomatic station, to protest the gassing of the Kurds. More surprising still, is the fact that a student organization had to stage a rally to protest this overt act of terror, while the university was oddly silent. I can only wonder what the university response would have been had the Chapel Hill basketball team been mowed down on the eve of "March Madness." Would that hypothetical act have risen to the level of terrorism?

I love this country, warts and all. I recognize, that as Winston Churchill once opined, "Democracy is the worse form of government; except for all the others." I cannot for the life of me though, understand what it takes for the cultural elite to understand that there are people out there who intend to destroy us, and our entire way of life. Do they not remember that their darlings of armed struggle, from Che Gueverra to Hamas, execute the teachers and poets as soon as they take over? Have they forgotten the lessons of history so soon? I can only conclude that in their rush to purge the ivied towers of academia, of all manner of white, European male oppression and discrimination, that all the books, not just the dictionaries, have been removed. I can only conclude that when the Islamic hordes once again descend upon our shores that they will accept their fates and go peacefully to the slaughter. One thing is certain, 9/11 proved that ideas have consequences, and I can only hope that the country I love awakes before the ideas of radical Islam burn us down. I can only hope that the cultural elite recognizes, before it is too late, that dissent is patriotic, but aiding and abetting the forces aligned against us is not. I can only hope that somewhere amidst the Ward Churchill's and the John Bellamy Foster's there still exists a professor or two that became teachers because they want to open minds, not close them to any ideas but their own.