Ideas versus Identity

Who are you?  Simple question, but how would you respond?  Today you are expected to adopt a view of yourself based on physical, gender, racial or sexual attribute – not your individual ideas.  The political class and the media drive you to “identity” politics in an effort to control your behavior and confine your vote.  To make you an automaton to an ideology that keeps politicians and the special interests that feed off government in perpetual power.

Two weeks ago we heard from five astute college students from five prominent California universities at the Collegiate Forum at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.  In this panel discussion this issue of our ideas being relegated to our person was brought to light.

We are now in a state that assumes a way of thinking based on our external identity and demands - or suffer the repercussions - adherence to a political dogma.  There is sort of mob-mentality to govern our thoughts and actions, which essentially replace individuality.  This is dangerous for our country and the antithesis to a democracy.  It is contrary to our founding and can, in time, extinguish the freedom which we now celebrate.

Join the discussion.  Check-out the panelists’ thoughts on identity vs. ideas in the video of the Collegiate Forum below.

There Is Hope

Last week we launched the Collegiate Forum where we brought together five outstanding students from five notable California colleges.  Over 200 hundred people listened intently to the student panelists debate, discuss and reason the resolution: Is political correctness on college campuses an enemy of free speech?  There was no shouting, name calling, or trigger warnings. It was old fashion politeness with thoughtful and fact based debate of ideas.

The calm of the debate at the Nixon Library between students from UC Berkley, Occidental, Pomona, Chapman and Stanford was refreshing.  Without the shrill noise of protest, we could hear another side.  We might not agree at the end, but we had a chance to understand the opposing view and, in that process, become enlightened with better ideas for solutions.

This Collegiate Forum is the first of many that can be brought to Millennials and Baby Boomers.  That evening, we left with hope that the next generation is not lost to mean spirited confrontation but open to challenging ideas that can be a spring-board to responsible citizenship.

Look for the video of the panel discussion on our website www.usvigilance.com or the Nixon Foundation website www.nixonfoundation.org coming soon!

Freedom to Exchange Ideas

Student on-campus protests are nothing new.  What has changed is what is protested.  In the 1960s it was freedom TO speak and today it is freedom FROM speech.

The only free speech is unrestricted speech so that ideas can clash.  Challenging ideas leads to better ideas...silencing opposition leads to stagnation, and uniformity of political ideas is tyranny.

If a speaker is invited to campus to talk about why communism is the way of governments of the future, and economic success, then his presence on campus would be better served engaging in challenging debate with students versus campus protest.

Protest is fine to show numbers, but it is a one-way shouting of slogans and not a two way dialogue of ideas.

Join us this Thursday, April 14th at 7pm PT for the Collegiate Forum at the Nixon Library to discuss “Is political correctness on college campuses an enemy of free speech.”

Click here for more information and to register for this free event.

The Audacity of Arrogance

President Obama can seemingly operate with a complete severance from reality, which some have argued stems from a position of arrogance.  For example, Mr. Obama refuses to recognize the nature of terrorism based in Islamic extremists.

In a recent event, first reported by the Media Research Center (a conservative-leaning watchdog group) the words “Islamist terrorism” were omitted on both audio and written transcript in an official White House video.  These words were spoken by French President Francois Hollande this week at an international summit in Washington on nuclear security that also discussed global terrorism.

The White House blamed this omission (from the full excerpt given below) on a “technical issue”, that is, when the omission was noticed.

“We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination. But we’re also well aware that the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, [emphasis added] is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition. …”

Similar to the Ft. Hood shooting, that Obama declared was work-place violence, Islamic terrorism has no place in the president’s reality.  For our president, arrogance is “truth”.  Arrogance trumpets louder than facts.  Arrogance throws an impenetrable veil over the lessons of history.  Arrogance is blind to the outcome of events that contradicts its notion of what reality should be.

Barak Obama is a man who apparently sees himself extraordinarily possessed with superior intelligence and morality, so much so, that he is content to lie to the nation.  Whether it was the Affordable Care Act where you could keep your healthcare plan but could not, Iran nuclear deal that was not to permit Iran to have a nuclear infrastructure but did, Benghazi where it was an Internet video that was the cause of the deaths of four Americans but did not, the success of Yemen that was a failure, the Red Line in Syria that was a bluff, ISIS as jayvee but was not, or where he told us 20 times that he had no constitutional power to change immigration law then did.  You name it, Obama’s view of the American people is that, in the words of Jack Nicholson playing Col. Nathan R. Jessep in the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth”.

The truth is a weight that only Obama can bear as he incessantly lectures us.  For Obama knows that everything he has done will be right – given unlimited time and money.