KSU and the American University

                     KSU and the American University

                      Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 30, 2016

            Kennesaw State University’s recent dustup over the naming of Attorney General Sam Olens as its next president doesn’t rise to the level of campus unrest, but it does bring to mind the goings-on at tax-supported universities across the nation.

            Public schools are usually on everybody’s mind because they affect our children who are still under our wing.  Colleges and universities, we apparently assume, are doing their jobs.  It’s wise, however, to give thought to what goes on in higher education.  After all, we’re paying for it too.

            The Board of Regents’ appointment of Olens to KSU led to a measure of protest from faculty and students.  Placards in hand, faculty members and students got their 15 minutes of journalistic and television fame with the following words: “We need a national search,” “Olens is not qualified,” and “Olens is homophobic.”

            The purpose of a university is to educate.  Its primary purpose is not to give students a voice.  Giving students a voice has its place, as in leadership training, but students are amiss and faculty employees impertinent to tell the administration or the Board of Regents what to do.  Shall the pot command the potter?

            Why is so-called progressivism the default setting of the American university?  Why is the prevailing ideology of most tax-supported universities decidedly liberal?  Why, given that education is a conserving endeavor, does education draw liberals?  Why do so many professors disdain the words orthodox, traditional, and conservative?

            Is anybody besides me tired of the words “tolerance,” “diversity,” “inclusivity,” and “safe space”?  These words are being spoken (and yelled) on campuses across the country.  Yet, how many of these perceived virtues are extended to campus guest speakers who are political conservatives, Orthodox Jews, evangelical Christians, or traditional Catholics?

            I’ll back up on the Catholics.  Democratic VP candidate, Catholic Tim Kaine, would be welcome, but only because he has “evolved” from the historic Catholic stance on abortion.  (“Evolved” is the weasel word for changing one’s position in order to get votes.)

            Yes, academia’s tolerance and inclusivity have their hypocritical limits.  Its tolerance doesn’t tolerate anyone’s ideology that isn’t progressive.  And its inclusivity doesn’t include anyone who dares to express a difference of opinion on abortion or homosexuality.  No, tolerance and inclusivity are only for designated groups: women, Hispanics, homosexuals, and blacks.  “Dis-invited” is the new word for turning away an already engaged speaker when the administration or student government learns that the speaker espouses a view different from theirs.  Ask libertarian sociologist Charles Murray and former Secretary of State, Republican Condoleezza Rice, if they know what “dis-invited” means. 

            There are many names for the spirit that permeates and reigns on college campuses.  Its opponents call it “political correctness.”  Its adherents are pleased with “progressivism,” which is understandable.  The word has a positive connotation.   I say call it leftism or socialism because its 1960’s origin and present main tenet is Karl Marx’s idea that society has two classes, the oppressors and the oppressed.  Leftist students consider themselves the oppressed.  That’s why they like Hillary Clinton’s talk about free college.

            No doubt Clinton’s election would inspire college kids to hit the pavement (and the Dean’s office) once again, ushering in another age of student protest.  No doubt because Congress will not, in this present political climate, appropriate money for every college student’s education.  And when promises are made and un-kept, a la Obama, frustration levels rise and protests happen.

            With a Clinton presidency we would again hear cries for “relevance” in curriculum, as though relevance is a stand alone judgment.  (Relevant to what?)  Students will protest traditional subjects and argue for “Family Life,” “Community Resources,” “Feminine Studies” and such.  (In the mid 70’s while education was drying off from the 60’s, Cobb County Schools taught “Bachelor Living” and “Death and Dying.”)

            There has been some pushback on universities that have been too mild with their student activists.  Last spring when the University of Missouri allowed student protesters unfettered access to the campus, even students pushed back.  This fall, enrollment was down 8 percent or 2100 students.  The university’s budget shortfall was $32 million.  So far, no pushback on the University of Michigan’s asking students to specify the pronouns by which they wish to be known.  The majority chose “he/him” and “she/her.”   “Genderqueer” students chose “ze” and “xyr.”

            And just where do those who know him think President Olens will stand on these matters, both the silly and the serious?  Squarely on the side of good sense and wisdom.  My impression is Olens knows how to listen to all parties and then to act.  We should wish him well. The American university scene hath need of him.

Roger Hines

10/27/16 

            

The Power of Realistic Imagining

                                The Power of Realistic Imagining

                 Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 23, 2016

“We are the world, we are the children,” or so sang Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and a bevy of other famous singers who got together back in 1985 to promote African famine relief.

  Well, yes we are and no we aren’t.  Certainly we are all human beings with common needs.  Most of us (we of the whole world, I mean) are busy earning bread and caring for families.  All people groups of the world also deal with hardships and dashed dreams.

So there are definitely some things that tie Americans to their fellow world citizens in … Bangladesh, or … Peru, or … Uganda.  There really is a “family of man,” and there is much that all humans around the world hold in common.

To get a sense of this fact, Google and listen to John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.”  Combined with its slow, haunting cadence, its words, “Imagine there’s no countries,” can make one conscious of the desperate, uprooted people of Syria, the poverty of Africa, the eternal unrest of the middle east, the danger of living in drug-lord infested central America, and the Baltic nations that still must fear the Russian bear.  Such suffering in other nations should move us all.

People of all nations are like Americans in at least two ways.  They must eat, and they have non-physical, emotional needs – such as dignity and self-worth – that cry out for fulfillment.

There are three people who have kept my mind on the condition of our world and have inspired me to hope and work for its betterment.  One is an Italian sister-in-law.  Another is an outstanding Indian son-in-law, and the other is also an outstanding son-in-law whose mother is of Mexican descent.   Antonia, Tanveer, and Laurence have taught me much about our world.  Because of their knowledge and respect for all people, my knowledge and thought world have been enriched.  Their background, their stories remind me that we are the world.

There is a limit, however, beyond which such thoughts of globalism just don’t work.  Realism blunts such thoughts.  Yes, we are the world, and most human hearts desire peace and love.  But there is also language, culture, race, and even topography that keep us from being citizens of the world.

Would that it were not so!  If the words “Why can’t we all just get along?” had not come from the lips of a violent, apprehended lawbreaker, we could resort to them more freely.  Rodney King’s question, however, is exactly the question we should be asking.  But we should also know its answer.  Its answer is we must view the world realistically.

Recently I watched a real life video in which a young woman was resisting arrest.  “You cannot arrest me,” she yelled to the cop.  “I’m not a citizen of your jurisdiction.  I’m a citizen of the planet.”  It appeared that she actually believed it as she continued to repeat it and resist the patient officer.

A growing number of college students have seriously adopted this view of their existence.  The grandchildren of the children of the sixties are resurrecting “Peace, brother!” and are labeling patriotism as “nativistic.”  Thus the refusal of more and more college and professional athletes to salute the American flag or to stand while the national anthem is sung.  It must be that they never came to understand or appreciate what America is.

Why did Antonia come to America?  Mainly because she loved my brother and not Mussolini, but she fast became a patriot.  Why did Tanveer leave Bombay for America?  Why did Laurence’s grandparents remove themselves to Texas?  It was because America was a beacon.  She still is, but will not remain so if illegal immigration is not checked,  if certain black leaders don’t start preaching accomplishment and hope instead of resentment, and if our love of freedom doesn’t supplant our love of government largess.

America has been a superpower only since 1945.  Seventy-one years is not a long time.  The world still needs America for an example of what freedom can produce.  Before we sing too much about world citizenship we should ponder what good has come from the American spirit: free markets (groceries), free speech, freedom of religion and more, all of which, according to Jefferson, must forever be guarded and fought for.

John Lennon’s song goes on to say “Imagine no possessions,” and then sallies off into unreality.

When Frenchman Crevecoeur visited our fledgling country, he wrote the following: “The American is a new man who acts upon the new principles of toil and rugged self-reliance.”  Imagine what things would be like if we reclaimed those principles.

Roger Hines

10/19/16

Moral High Horses and Selective Disgust

   Moral High Horses and Selective Disgust

                            Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 16, 2016

It was James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, who pressed the campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  That slogan was code for “Let the Republicans have the abortion issue and any other issue that’s not economy-related.”

             Republicans, fearing Carville’s strategy, urged presidential candidates Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney to ignore the social issues.  All three candidates played down their platform’s pro-life stance and Planned Parenthood’s hand in the federal cookie jar.

            “Character issues,” Carville argued, are a matter of personal belief.  Bill Clinton’s character was inconsequential.  Job performance was what mattered. 

            After Bill Clinton was impeached, members of his cabinet and White House staff assembled on the White House lawn to assure reporters and the nation that they were still OK with their man. Monica Lewinski and the Arkansas women who had accused Clinton of sexual assault didn’t matter.  They were placed within the category of Carville’s other verbal flourish: “Drag a 5-dollar bill through a trailer park and there’s no telling what you’ll get.”

            So here we are in a season of déjà vu all over again.  Suddenly we’re back to character matters.  It matters because we need something to hold over Donald Trump’s head.   It now matters to the networks even though 24 years ago they ignored Paula Jones, Kathleen Willy and Juanita Broderick when they first revealed that Clinton assaulted them.

            Offensive, repulsive words are one thing.  Vile acts are another.  Vile though Clinton’s acts were, he didn’t pay for them, unless one thinks the $850,000 he paid to settle with Paula Jones was enough. 

            The word “apologize” wasn’t blurted from the lips of very many people in 1992.  Nobody, certainly not Republicans, was demanding that Clinton apologize.  Remember, character and morality didn’t matter.   Hillary Clinton’s treatment of her husband’s victims didn’t matter either.

            So why the sudden concern for moral standards in speech, namely Donald Trump’s?   Historically, wrongdoing is what we punish people for, not wrong thoughts (“hate crimes”) or words.  The case before us in the presidential race is a candidate who said some things and a former president and his candidate wife who did some things.  The ex-president and his wife are getting off scot free.  The Republican candidate is being raked over the coals. 

Neither did the media “out” JFK.  He was their boy as well.

            Trump’s media critics have no basis for their feigned moral outrage.  They themselves are amoral.  Yet on their moral high horses they are giving “freaking out” a new name.  They react in horror to Trump but are hunky dory with the likes of Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, the aging Madonna, the lyrics of too many rock singers to count, and all the other cultural icons who have turned entertainment into a moral cesspool in which our youth are awash.

            The New York Times recently “reported” that “Trump has made gutter attacks on women.”  Get this weekend’s issue of the NYT and take a peep at its Arts, Movies, and Entertainment section.  See the ads the NYT is willing to take money for.  Browse a few pages of “50 Shades of Gray” and you’ll see what millions of suburban women (they who supposedly are most offended by Trump’s video) are reading.  Why is the NYT surprised that the decadent culture it has helped spawn has spawned a presidential candidate?

            The network that out-ed Trump’s salacious video is a purveyor of the very thing for which it criticizes Trump.  The networks push and sell sex virtually every hour of the day, and they do show men groping women.

            So let’s call it selective disgust.  JFK and Clinton were not disgusting.  Trump is.  JFK and Clinton committed actions and are still championed.  Trump spoke words and is lacerated.

            During the Clinton era we were supposed to shut up about the Ten Commandments,  Judeo-Christian values, and character.  All of that is personal belief.  From the 70s through the 90s social conservatives tried to challenge the culture.  They lost the culture war, but don’t despair.  Now we can decide for ourselves if we are male or female.  That’s nice, I guess.

            As for the Republicans who are jumping ship, does anyone think they would be doing so if Trump’s poll numbers had been 8 or 9 points ahead of Hillary when his video came out?  I do not.

            The Democratic Party is the party of secularism and abortion, and suddenly it is concerned about crude words.   Abortion versus crude words.  Ponder that one.

Our presidential choice is clear, and Bernie Marcus put it best.  “It’s 4 years of Trump or 25 plus years of liberal Supreme Court justices.”

Roger Hines

10/12/16

Why Trump Will Triumph

                       Why Trump Will Triumph

                    Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 9, 2016

             How many times did columnists, commentators, and competing candidates assert that Donald Trump was a flash in the pan?

            In spite of all of his deniers, Trump is the Republican nominee and continues to draw crowds in the thousands. To his critics’ dismay, Trump is now in a very competitive, winnable race.  There are at least four political realities that point to a Trump victory.

            First, populism is in the air and it is thick.  Populism still means “of the people.”  A political term and outlook, it extols the virtues and addresses the plight of the common man.  Simply put, it focuses on the little guy as opposed to catering to big banks, big corporations, big oil, crony capitalism, and political elites.

            The American political landscape is sprinkled with figures who were bona fide populists.  Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan, and George Wallace come to mind.  But so should the 1972 liberal Democratic candidate George McGovern who proved that some populists lean left.  On the cover of Time Magazine, McGovern, U.S. senator from South Dakota, was dubbed “the prairie populist.” 

  All populists, of whatever stripe, have addressed the concerns of factory workers, farmers, small businesspeople, and manual laborers.  Donald Trump is not the first wealthy presidential candidate to do so.  Theodore Roosevelt was also “to the manor born” but built his career on opposing the railroads and banks and courting America’s working class. 

Trump’s base, with its thousands of rally goers, is a resurgence of the silent majority, the moral majority, the Tea Party, independents, libertarians, and even Democrats who are barely left of center.  This resurgence spreads over the nation like a blanket.  It constitutes a band of Americans who simply think “America First” makes sense for both their own interests and for other nations that still need America’s example of a city on a hill.

Secondly, Trump will win because evangelicals are practicing what they preach. Often ill-defined, evangelicals are Christians of many different denominations who believe in evangelism, that is, sharing their faith.  Following the example of Christ, they also believe in the expression “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”  This phrase itself is why countless well-known evangelical leaders have refused to let Donald Trump’s sins keep them from endorsing him.  They know that they, too, are sinners.  Their Bible says so.

Not all evangelicals support Trump, but an impressive number does, 76% according to Pew Research Center.   Evangelicals have constituted a large voting bloc since the 1970s.  Often accused of self-righteousness, evangelicals have certainly not been self-righteous regarding Trump. Some evangelicals are embarrassed by Trump, unlike many Democrats who never seemed too bothered by Bill Clinton’s White House shenanigans or his Arkansas escapades.  Even so, Hillary Clinton’s stance on abortion and homosexual marriage has tethered evangelicals  to Donald Trump.

Thirdly, the nation’s deplorables may not all have college degrees, but they aren’t dumb and far outnumber intellectuals.  Already effectively wooed by outsider Trump, deplorables were getting registered to vote long before Hillary Clinton so labeled them.  Intellectuals make their living with words.  Deplorables make their living with their hands.  They care little about any candidate’s faculty lounge pedigree or decades of governmental experience.

One intellectual, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, couldn’t defeat North Vietnam.  Another intellectual, constitutional scholar Barack Obama, can’t defeat ISIS.  But a deplorable Missouri haberdasher, Harry Truman, decisively ended a major world war.  Such realities are what led conservative columnist William F. Buckley to say he would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the telephone book (deplorables, that is) than by the Harvard faculty.

Lastly, Trump will triumph because there is a healthy rebellious spirit in the land.  It is a rebellion against globalism, loss of jobs, border insecurity, and denigration of law enforcement; against a hypocritical media that approves of Hollywood’s vulgarity but is apoplectic of Donald Trump’s, and against a conservative party that, while in control of both houses of Congress, has fought timidly, if at all, for conservative measures.

Trump understands that Hillary Clinton’s deplorables are actually the nation’s ignored citizens.  Many party regulars think Trump’s strategy of appealing to the ignored is dumb.  Actually it is politically astute.

Populism is not hovering; it’s spreading.  Evangelicals are not waiting for a perfect candidate; they’re praying for the one who will best represent their strongly held beliefs.  The deplorables are not humiliated by Hillary Clinton’s characterization of them; they’re wearing it on their t-shirts. And amongst voters there is an appetite for what we might call sufficient anger.

Donald Trump has tapped that sufficient anger and he will be rewarded.

Roger Hines

10/5/16 

Are Race Relations Worse Under a Black President?

         Are Race Relations Worse Under a Black President?

                          Published in Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 2, 2016

            Waiting for the school bus, I saw them coming.  I sensed something was wrong with the picture, but my childhood values were not developed enough to understand that I was observing a sorrowful tradition.

            Every school day morning, waiting to ride into town to an excellent school, I, a white boy, watched as 10 to 15 black children and teenagers walked from the edge of town on past our house to a rickety shack.  There was no signage on the shack or the grounds.  The shack was a school for black children.  Its grounds were never kept.

            I know nothing of the quality of instruction received there and doubt that anyone wondered.  Segregation had a way of numbing the human spirit and the conscience.  Tradition can inspire or debase.  It can foster nobility or ignobility.

            Segregation fostered ignobility.  But segregation wasn’t an active evil.  More horribly, it was an unquestioned social order.  I never saw or heard of any mistreatment of black people.  My parents, as well as all of the adults I knew, would have quickly punished their children for the mistreatment of anyone, regardless of their color.

            Nevertheless there was no questioning, and seemingly no awareness, of an existing social order that was absolutely de-humanizing.  It must have been de-sensitizing as well, because as a college freshman I wrote an essay titled “A Defense of Legal Segregation.”  (Segregation was the law.)  If nothing else, the essay indicated that something which grieved me at ages 8, 9, and 10 no longer bothered me at age 19.  Apparently, tradition sucked me in.

            The essay received much attention, mainly because my English professor showed it to other professors, all of whom praised it highly.  I wallowed in their praise.

            The following summer I attended College Student Week at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly in North Carolina.  I simply desired to grow spiritually.

            Did I ever!  At Ridgecrest, a man whose current social and political views I don’t share spoke on race.  At the time, Bill Moyers was Deputy Director of the Peace Corps.  A Baptist minister at that time as well, Moyers laid bare the truth about man’s inhumanity to man and how a Christian should respond to it.

            I was convicted.  Leaving the meeting, I wept.  How, within a decade, could I have allowed a tradition to change me from what I felt so keenly at age 8?  How could I have written that essay and enjoyed the attention it garnered?

            Back home, I tore up the essay.  My shame was instantly replaced by release and even joy.

            But how genuine was my conviction about race if I did not act on it?  Maybe I could string together some paragraphs on race for the college newspaper.  I did, but it wasn’t quite time for the student editor and faculty advisor to allow “pro-integration thought.”

            Four years later in my second year of teaching, I volunteered to teach at an all black school, resulting in one of the most memorable years of my life.  The outstanding faculty at Carver Jr. High in Meridian, Mississippi endeared themselves to me.  Their grasp of the race issue and their hopeful acceptance of gradualism were inspiring and instructive.  Mrs. Kornegay, teacher and wife of the city’s only black physician said often, “Mr. Hines, we’re making progress.  Let’s just keep it up.”

              My efforts to help promote racial unity over the years have been miniscule.  Unlike so many others, I have paid no price.  I’ve only received satisfaction and unforgettable black friends. 

So here’s my beef.  Why has racial conflict intensified under the leadership of a black president?  Why has he not taken a stand against rioters and thugs who call themselves protestors and have set back hard won gains? Why hasn’t he spoken out strongly on how to respond to the police?  Why has he not encouraged black citizens to observe the progress made in race relations, his election being a prime example?

Why haven’t Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Young, who paid so much, tried to influence the direction of our errant president?

Our black president has been elected twice.  Our nation’s lawyer is black.  So is the head of the nation’s homeland security.  My home state of Mississippi has more black elected officials than any other state.  The first state to secede from the Union has an outstanding black U.S. senator.  Every week I see good race relations everywhere I go. 

A black president who could have moved us forward has clung to the attitudes of professional, no-real-job protestors, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  He could have extolled the self-reliant, forward looking mindset of accomplished men like Ben Carson and Herman Cain.

What a waste we have witnessed of an incredible opportunity.

Roger Hines

7/28/16