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A university is not a political party, and an education is not an indoctrination.
-David Horowitz
It has been 42 years since the Woodstock Concert, the iconic cultural peak of the rebellious sixties generation. I remember as young boy watching television and hearing that the NY State Thruway had to be closed during those three August days in 1969 and wishing I was old enough to attend since many of my rock and roll heroes were playing there. I also remember that summer going to Lavalette, the NJ Shore town where my working class family used rent a bungalow for a week or two in the 1960’s. The hippies who stopped there in the summers of 1967-1969 renamed the town “Love-A-Lot” and would drive their VW beetle vans painted with psychedelic flowers with every color of the rainbow on their sides like tattoos. I remember one or two of them with the infamous bumper sticker on the it: “Don’t laugh – your daughter could be in the back” or a more popular one “Stop the War.” Seeing these, my father would not be amused and would say, “I don’t know what is with these kids today. We tried to give them everything we didn’t have.” Most of the “Greatest Generation” parents felt that way.
The flower children were free-spirited and did their own thing, which in Lavalette included
sneaking their sleeping bags onto the beach at night to make love (not war) under the stars, along with leaving their trash behind without regard to the majority of the vacationing traditional families or the quiet shore residents. They said they just wanted be individuals and not to be forced into living the same regimented and conventional lives of their parents. For the most part, they were left alone and much of the older generation went with the adage that they could be young and dumb if they wanted to, but they should get a haircut and take a bath.
In the 40 plus years since those summers, Lavalette has long since gone back to its traditional nature of being a quiet, beautiful vacation spot on theJerseyshore. The flower children have grown to middle age with many of them taking positions in the Federal or state governments over the years, as well as academia. The slogan “Do your own thing” has now changed to political correctness. The free speech movement has now turned into strict college Speech Codes, where conservative discussion is shut down and even constitutional libertarians like myself are considered dangerous. Invited speakers who are against the religious dogmas of the left, such as affirmative action, abortion on demand, gay marriage, open borders, gun rights etc. are often shouted down or even attacked. I will go so far as saying that they are guilty of intellectual fascism. For the most part, college professors represent only the far left of political thought. According to a study of 183 four-year colleges by professors atSmithCollege,GeorgeMasonUniversityand theUniversityofToronto, 72 percent of professors at American universities labeled themselves liberal, while just 15 percent considered themselves conservative. Fifty percent of faculty members identified themselves as Democrats and only 11 percent as Republicans.
The Flower children who said they did not want to live in conformity with their Depression/ World War Two era parents have no qualms about forcing their beliefs on us when they get elected into political office. I offer as proof what is currently going on in the city ofSan Franciscohome, of the sixties hippie nirvana Haight-Ashbury district. The Democratic-led city council has passed, or is considering the following measures: ban on infant circumcision (what happened to religious tolerance?), ban on free “Happy Meals” at MacDonald’s restaurants, and banning landlords from asking potential renters of felony arrests, among others. Their Progressive brethren in both parties in Congress have told us what kind of toilets, washing machines or light bulbs a we can buy, and with Obama Care, not only restricting the type of insurance coverage we can buy, but fines us for electing not to buy any. I guess that to them, freedom of choice only applies to aborting unborn children. It is ironic that these former flower children that prided themselves in their youth as being tolerant govern with so much intolerance.
The portion of this generation who subscribes to progressive dogma doesn’t believe in personal responsibility for their decisions, but believes in socializing responsibility and the government making choices for the individual – just like when they were flower children on the beach having the community pick up their garbage. They love the idea of the “zero-liability” voter, where the minority of the population pays all of the taxes and the majority doesn’t, while they benefit from government entitlements.
Our Republic was founded by men and women who knew that the key to keeping our freedom was rigorous debate on all issues, as well as personal responsibility and individual freedom. Our Constitution is based on these principles, which is why the Progressives have such a distaste for it.
-Just my Opinion D.B.
Associate Member Online News Association 2011-2014 http://journalists.org/