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An Old White Professor Speaks to the Class of 2020

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  • An Old White Professor Speaks to the Class of 2020

    Nearly every graduation speaker tells the graduates that they are going to change the country profoundly and irrevocably. Don’t worry, you won’t. For the most part, that’s a good thing. While America is not without its policies that cry for...


    Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the Haym Salomon Center.


    Nearly every graduation speaker tells the graduates that they are going to change the country profoundly and irrevocably. Don’t worry, you won’t.

    For the most part, that’s a good thing. While America is not without its policies that cry for change, there is much that is good about America that has become impolitic to speak about — especially at graduations.

    There is no perfect economic system. Capitalism is not evil; crony capitalism is.

    For the last four years, you haven’t had a course in civics, but you did have a course in social studies taught by people who believe that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic society that possesses a fascist political culture.


    Many generations have a revolution fantasy. I saw the barriers go up in Seattle and thought of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue in the 1960s.

    So, think a moment. Did any of these teachers get fired for such words? Did they go home looking over their shoulders, worried about whether the secret police were going to knock on their door? Did they contemplate making a dangerous journey and trying to sneak into Mexico or Canada?

    You see, in a real fascist culture, you cannot criticize the regime and stay out of prison or stay alive.

    As the old joke of my generation goes: In America everyone is always looking for a party. In Russia, the party is always looking for you.

    Your generation thinks you have discovered the evils of racism and discrimination and that both are uniquely Western institutions.

    Let me burst your bubble. There are few societies, if any, that have not practiced slavery, and more white people have been enslaved by North Africans than Africans by white people.

    In 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams negotiated with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, over the enslavement of Americans. They asked Abdrahaman what right he had to seize slaves. He replied that his right was “founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran.”


    But if your teachers were to teach about that — assuming they would want to — political outrage and cries of Islamophobia would ensue, and they would be cowed into submission.

    Two African kings, Tegesibu of Dahomey and Alvarez of the Congo, numbered among the richest men in the world in the early 18th century. Their wealth came from providing slaves to the Portuguese.

    Slavery is evil in all its manifestations, whether the horror of the Middle Passage, the North African slave raids on Italy, or the Ottoman forays into the Slavic countries. The word itself comes from the Muslims of Andalusia (Spain) taking slaves from among Eastern European Slavic peoples.

    And while your generation is marching, protesting, and calling for revolution because of the remnants of racism in this society, you need to be reminded that black chattel slavery, in all its ugly forms, is still alive and well in Libya in the 21st century.

    So, when you say that racism and slavery are uniquely Western institutions, you are not simply wrong, you are pathetically ignorant.

    Many generations have a revolution fantasy. I saw the barriers go up in Seattle and thought of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue in the 1960s.

    When people from my generation went to Cuba under the auspices of the Venceremos Brigade and sat around the campfires talking to the heroes of the revolution about urban guerrilla warfare in America, the veterans of the campaign against Fulgencio Batista laughed.

    Your Paris commune fantasy in Seattle, like the Weatherman Days of Rage of the 1960s, inflicted pain, suffering, and death, but it was not the route to change.

    These puerile and egotistical ideas of revolution will mobilize the great silent majority who abhor Black Lives Matter but are too intimidated to speak out against an organization rooted in racism and anti-Semitism.

    You see, Class of 2020, the most important political concept is legitimacy.

    For all its flaws, the American system is viewed as not only legitimate, but one that also offers a nonviolent means to change.

    So when you block the emergency room of the local hospital and then justify it by saying white people have blocked black people for 400 years, you are destroying your own legitimacy with a rationale that is as stupid as it is reprehensible.

    Don’t be swayed by what you see on TV about marches or hear from woke business leaders trying to do damage control or cash in on the symbolism of Black Lives Matter.

    As you pampered potential Marxists play with your cell phones at graduation, waiting to return home in your own automobiles, eager to Zoom with your friends, what you don’t know is that it’s not a revolution being televised but a political orgy of fun and profit.

    The word “revolution” means to return back to the point of origin. After the French Revolution and decades of war and upheaval, the monarchy passed from Louis XVI to Louis XVIII and then to Charles X. Or, as the French might say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

    The Russians would say that communism is the longest road from capitalism back to capitalism.

    If you want to change the system, join the system, because in America, revolution — like urban guerrilla warfare — is a childish fantasy.

    America has flaws, but it is still a strong, legitimate democracy with a vital political center that has always abhorred violence as a political instrument.

    Be grateful for what you have and embrace a system that offers opportunities for change.

    If you were taught that revolution is the way to change the system, you need to contact the bursar’s office and demand a refund for a meaningless education.

  • #2
    Fucking Bravo. Only the people that need to comprehend this won’t listen and will call the guy a bigot, fascist, racist or all of the above. These kids are so fucking brainwashed today it’s frightening.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Trip McNeely View Post
      Fucking Bravo. Only the people that need to comprehend this won’t listen and will call the guy a bigot, fascist, racist or all of the above. These kids are so fucking brainwashed today it’s frightening.
      They are brainwashed. Sadly their only chance to become woke might involve the thing they think they want most.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by AnthonyS View Post
        They are brainwashed. Sadly their only chance to become woke might involve the thing they think they want most.
        I don't think it'll go the way they think it will either.
        G'Day Mate

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Grimpala View Post
          I don't think it'll go the way they think it will either.
          Yes we now have a significant amount of people that don’t understand the saying, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”. Some do, but I’d say most do not. They also no zero about the history of this country, and less about the real cost of socialism. They also can’t comprehend Animal Farm, a kid’s book.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by AnthonyS View Post
            They are brainwashed.
            Why do you/we think this is happening? (have my own opinions, just interested in others too)

            In our home we don't watch much news and I'm trying to teach mine to be independent thinkers (it's funny to watch their brains getting knotted up thinking through multiple sides of an issue they know very little about) and they are still in elementary - the teachers are not teaching politics - just basic classes.

            95% of what my kids come home thinking they *know* is from other kids. Where are those kids getting their information?

            I *feel like* kids/youth/young parents buy too much into things that are not facts and what they are fed, then that gets passed down. 95% of what the media states - uses words like "could" or "possibly" and other words that mean "this is not a fact."

            It's tough for kids to go against the grain/try to think these things through. However, I'm finding the biggest challenge to raising kids is dealing with other people's kids impact on mine. I think the #1 thing these days is having kids use common sense and be independent thinkers and taking 90% of what they hear with a grain of salt until their can make their OWN CONCLUSIONS.

            The media is public enemy #1 - all sides of it.
            Originally posted by MR EDD
            U defend him who use's racial slurs like hes drinking water.

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            • #7
              Excellent post, Strychnine. Thanks for sharing it.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by ceyko View Post
                Why do you/we think this is happening? (have my own opinions, just interested in others too)

                I think the #1 thing these days is having kids use common sense and be independent thinkers and taking 90% of what they hear with a grain of salt until their can make their OWN CONCLUSIONS.

                The media is public enemy #1 - all sides of it.
                This is it. Using common sense and having your own independent thoughts are not allowed by today's educators and the mob rules mentality of society. Look at the Terry Crews interview above. Terry is a bad guy for having his own thoughts and ideas.

                Forget the fact that having your own thoughts and ideas and critical thinking should be taught in schools, it is defacto not allowed now. Conformity and acceptance of fringe ideas as the norm is all that is taught in general. And then there is the lowest common denominator of state wide testing so no one is encouraged to be more than minimal.

                You can't expect the parents of kids to teach their children any better, when they themselves, were not taught any better. It is an education problem, and it is systemic. This is the only systemic problem in this country and it's by design.

                If kids were taught critical thinking and common sense, like you are teaching your kids, the world around us would look very different and much more pro-USA. This is honestly one of the few places where you are still allowed to have your own ideas. It's not encouraged, but you are allowed to. If the crowd and mob discouraging it get their way, it won't be allowed in the near future too.

                You are in the very pointy end of a minority if you are teaching your kids to think for themselves.

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                • #9
                  My kids go to Frisco schools. When they come home talking about their black friends are upset saying that they have been suppressed, my kids laugh at them. They then tell them they live in 3500 plus square feet homes with 3 car garages and their parents drive luxury SUV's. Tell me what part of that says you've been held down???

                  In all seriousness though, I tell my kids to question everything and do their own research. That applies even to things I tell them about politics. History is easy to look up fact from fiction. Modern news, not so much. My oldest will be 17 soon, and he is getting really good at looking at all sides of issues and forming his own opinion. I'm proud of that and even prouder that he becomes more and more conservative every day. He's also a really good shot, but I digress.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by AnthonyS View Post
                    You are in the very pointy end of a minority if you are teaching your kids to think for themselves.
                    It's seems in more than one aspects - I am starting to let my kids get away with things I'd never allow before - simply because they get walked all over due to having manners and such. Multiple topics in this regard. Adults, teachers, coaches and so on - still hold strong, but among their peers - it's just a free for all.

                    Originally posted by juiceweezl View Post
                    but I digress.
                    This is a good thing for sure. I have a buddy with 2 kids - one is like 19 the other is 17 or 18. Older one is full on SJW type with a lot of mental problems, the other is typical kid, working, has a license...etc..etc. Amazing how 2 kids, same family can be so different.
                    Originally posted by MR EDD
                    U defend him who use's racial slurs like hes drinking water.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I bet if you look into the friends of those children you will see a big difference ceyko. I've seen it many times with my childhood friends siblings.

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