College Republicans continue to protest getting educated

I do sympathize with college Republicans. It's getting increasingly difficult to maintain the ignorance levels required to vote for the party--it's to the point now where simply knowing how to read puts them in grave danger of finding out that their beloved President is a nimrod. Their efforts to stomp out liberalism on college campuses are getting ever more surreal--check out this story about a college Republican who has started a harassment campaign against a college professor who has committed the sin of being dedicated to animal rights. The whole thing is a hoot, since a few other examples of grievous liberal sins that drew out the wingnuts are extremely mild. This is probably my favorite:

Among numerous complaints being investigated by Horowitz's organizations throughout the country are the one against Wolfe and one against an Indiana University professor who, in a class on the history of rock and roll, allegedly bashed the war in Iraq and made derogatory remarks about Rush Limbaugh and his addiction to prescription pain killers.

Who the fuck takes a class in the history of rock and roll music and expects to hear kind words about right wingers?

Okay, for those who don't know, college professors have a right to free speech and not obliged in any way, shape, or form to refrain from expressing their political opinions. While it's wise for educators to refrain from haranguing students, it's ridiculous to expect them never to let a political opinion pass from their lips. Neither of these subjects is out of place in a class on rock music--how else is a professor to teach the subject of anti-Vietnam music to students while there is a similiar war going on and not mention it?

The Limbaugh comment sounds extremely pertinent to the subject to me--any realistic assessment of the history of rock music should include some discussion about how the music is being co-oped by screaming hypocrites like Limbaugh who claim to hate the counter-culture and everything it stands for but want to use its emotional power (not to mention indulge in its excesses like drugs) for their own ends.

And I can see right off the bat how that would offend the Republicans in the class. The great dilemma of many a young conservative is how to both participate in the cheerful hedonism of college life while participating in a cultural movement that wants to stomp out sexy fun like rock music. The usual strategy is to just ignore the contradiction, which is much harder to do when someone is pointing out that very contradiction in a classroom setting.

Anyway, the entire article is a head-scratcher--it's just alarming how much censorship on campuses that conservatives feel free to ask for. I mean, within this article alone, they are demanding that the students be lied to about everything from rock music's relationship to politics to whether or not diets heavy in pork products are bad for you.

Via Catch.