Brainwashing 101

Yup, another discussion-prone post.

"Brainwashing 101" is a provocative look at how universities use tools such as "speech codes" to force political views upon students. The film shines a light on political correctness, academic bias, student censorship--even administrative cover-ups of death threats--at three schools: Bucknell University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly).

View it here

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It was likely for me to assume that it would be a video about students who belong to conservative clubs at certain college campuses and were treated unfairly by so-called "leftist" administrators. First, it is hard to justify whether these examples paint a picture of similar events across every campus in the country. I find it possible that some campuses could treat liberal organizations the same way.

The video shows how colleges could bend and interpret the rules to penalize the student no matter how right he or she can be. For the Cal Poly student, it shows that whatever you can do, you will encounter a lose-lose situation. It is strange enough that the University chose to defend its actions still after the ACLU supported the student's side of the case. Fortunately the student won at the end, but at what cost? For the U Tenn examples, the "blackface" incident has happened at other campuses either for insensitive reasons or just stupid things done by students without thinking. The actions taken by the administration against the conservative columnist about liberal bias in selecting public speakers is much more serious to the average student. It also goes to show that putting your name to a possible controversial petition may result in unforseen consequences.

I guess we have been lucky here. No one went and tried to get rid of John Giorgis's My Side of the Mountain conservative column in The Observer when he was here. Unfortunately, there's no replacement after he graduated. It was too bad for that... it actually made some of the Friday issues quite interesting to read.

But the video does show a problem with the judicial system at these schools. Would it be right to say that the student does not have sufficient due process? Has anyone read the judicial bylaws from front to end and can honestly say that the defendant has sufficient rights to defend himself against any sort of allegation?

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Evening Edition: The Saddam Hussein "Circus" Trial

Washington Post - Hussein Trial Resumes, Quickly Descends Into Chaos

How long should this circus trial continue? I find it hard to accept whether the court is justified when it cannot properly go through one single day of procceedings without having the chief judge resigning from his post, new defense lawyers being appointed, and throwing out the defendants for every outburst they make. It is time to move this trial abroad to The Hague or an international tribunal. It has gone long enough.

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The Financial Edition: More Debt for the Federal Government

CNN.com - Federal borrowing raised to record level

The government will borrow a record $188 BILLION in the Jan-Mar quarter. This will surpass the old mark of $146 billion set in the first quarter of 2004. They will hit the debt ceiling of $8.184 TRILLION in mid-February but through accounting gimmicks, they can keep it going until mid-March. Then Congress must pass another bill to raise the debt ceiling several hundred billion more. Conservatives have been attempting to remove the debt ceiling altogether, but this is needed to show how our politicians are terrible at fiscal management.