As a proud North Carolinian and UNC–Chapel Hill grad, I am all too familiar with the incorrigible campus liberalism that pervades the state’s Research Triangle. Has your college town adopted the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Mine has. This pointless feel-good action, however, did little to stop a disheartening number of “open-minded” students and (sadly) professors from trampling all over the rights of former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, by attempting to nullify his selection as law school commencement speaker on account of his being a “war criminal,” and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.), by violently disrupting the congressman’s speech on campus in protest against his “racist” opposition to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Of course, these are but a few of many ridiculous examples.
Even N.C. State, whose student body tends to be more conservative, is not immune. So I was not exactly shocked to see this item on The College Fix today, highlighting an e-mail from Jeffrey P. Braden, Dean of the NCSU College of Humanities and Social Science, in which he offers “a bit of advice” to students:
Finally, a bit of advice. The friends you make in college will be your friends for life, and will influence what you do and how you think throughout your life time-so choose wisely. Some of the best friends I made as a student were Plato, Henry David Thoreau, Mao Tse-tung, Margaret Mead, and Maya Angelou. My colleagues are eager to make similar introductions for you!
Any name in that circle of “best friends” that jumps out in particular? No doubt parents will be thrilled to learn that Dr. Braden and his colleagues are “eager” to introduce their son or daughter to their good buddy Mao, he who despite decades of technological advancement in the field of nuclear and biological weaponry, remains to this day unequaled in the art of mass homicide. Who better to “influence what you do and how you think throughout your life”? I can’t decide which is more galling, the fact that Braden thought it entirely reasonable to mention Mao and Plato in the same sentence, or knowing that at least one person in Braden’s office (presumably) must have read over his draft and given it the thumbs up.
Of course, one can’t rule out the possibility that Braden was simply advertising himself for a post in the Obama administration.
That’s former White House communications director Anita Dunn. Friend of Mao.
Mass murderers make such inspiring life friends, don't they?
I'm not too impressed with his friend Margaret Mead either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbout to say the same -
Margaret Mead was a fraud along Kinsey/Rachel Carson lines.
Much of liberalism is based on popularized ignorance.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's nice to see the communist out of the closet. Depressing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse''Some of the best friends I made as a student were Plato, Henry David Thoreau, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Friedrich Nietzsche. My colleagues are eager to make similar introductions for you!''
Now imagine the response if that message had been sent out by anyone anywhere.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAbsolutely. The absurdity of that message tells us this is a social misfit who has probably never had any real friends whatsoever.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNietzsche is arguably one of the most misunderstood, and certainly the most misinterpreted, scholars of the modern era. It's an absolute shame that people such as yourself summarily dismiss his work by grouping it amongst the likes of Hitler and Mussolini, stretches that are so wild as to boggle the imagination.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe original list also contained Plato and Henry David Thoreau.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNietzsche advocated policies that would define the Nazi rise to power. After all, was it not he who coined the German for "super man" that the Nazis threw about so blithely? And you will find they did not pervert his work very much from what he meant by it. By a man "above good and evil," he truly meant a man who thought he himself could define good and evil, and by a man with a will to power, he spoke of Hitler. But there is nothing the universe cannot stand so much as a man with a will, and so it is that the humble can survive, and there is any respite for them at all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAdditionally, the man was a sexist bigot, an arrogant oaf, and his speech was repetitive and vacuous. That he ISN'T dismissed all together boggles the imagination---which he, by the way, seemed to not care for much.
"...remains to this day unequaled in the art of mass human extermination"
I have to politely disagree, Rachel Carson was the greatest mass murderer in the history of humankind.
Rachel Carson’s shameful legacy should be reviled for the villainess she was. She started the DDT hysteria with her pseudo-scientific 1962 book, “Silent Spring.” Along the way she so materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her own anti-pesticide agenda that if she was still alive she could be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePray tell, how were you even admitted to UNC much less allowed to graduate? They go to great lengths to keep people like you out of there. A journalism degree too??? If so that would have to be a first.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe idiocy of the inclusion of Thoreau and Mao on the same list is amusing but becomes sad when you see this clown is supposedly a prominent person (looked him up, by the way, and saw he looks completely vacuous). What does he think Mao did exactly? Maybe he was mostly stoned back then when he made these friends?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a graduate of NC State and someone who routinely gives money to the Alumni Association, well...........the money stops now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy hold NC State accountable for the actions of UNC? ::puzzled::
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseStiles a Tarheel, eh? We'll have to keep an eye on him.... liberal mole, you know.
Signed,
Pack Fan
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd I'm not to enthralled with Maya Angelou
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI see The Corner has become a campus newspaper for the day. Looking forward to articles about the new ice cream flavors at the dining halls and updates on the field hockey team's trials and triumphs.
Seriously, a whole (snarky) post about one name in an e-mail to students? Who cares?
Even a cursury glance at Mao's wikipedia page shows that he was a prolific writer of poems and political philosophy. You don't have to agree with what he did or stood for to be interested in studying his work. To study, to learn, to debate, and to form counter-arguments. That is what college should be about. Not picking up a whole book and denigrating it because it contains one sentence, name, or word you disagree with.
Kind of ironic, really.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAh the moral equivalency of the Left:
Mao wrote poems!
Hitler was a vegetarian!
Who gives a frickin darn about that. They MURDERED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
It's like what they used to say about the Mobsters - well they take care of their mothers. Before or after they call out a hit on someone?
CAPTCHA was "pond life" - sounds like a good description of you Seeroy. Well, more like "pond scum".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo your logic seems to be that if people do bad things then we should ignore the things they write.
Since you finished your comment by calling me "pond scum" does that mean you writing should be ignored as well?
;-)
I will never understand people (of any political belief) that assert moral superiority then follow that promptly with casting insults. It is not a trait of a serious and learned person. The wonders of the internet~
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"So your logic seems to be that if people do bad things then we should ignore the things they write."
Mao didn't do "bad things" now did he? Mass murder isn't a "bad thing". For most people its an abomination.
The "wonders of the internet" reveal all kinds of things. Particularly people who blithely dismiss utterly ludicrous statements by "elites". The man didn't suggest just reading Mao and studying his philosophy he called a mass murderer his "friend".
For someone educated, much less an educator that's stupid to say at any time much less to new students. The point isn't that Mao should be ignored. The point is that someone in a college administration called a mass murderer his "friend". That you don't get it doesn't make you "pond scum" but it certainly doesn't reflect all to well on your reasoning skills either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot at all! We SHOULD read what they write...so we can figure out where they went wrong.
But that is NOT what is being advocated! What is being advocated is that one become "friends" with 2 murderous abominations (Plato and Mao.) Indeed, that one's GREATEST HEROES, the philosophers one holds in the HIGHEST ESTEEM, be two fools who called themselves wise. Put a philosopher's wisdom in light of his life, and you will see how wise it really is.
Your argument is not a defense of this gaff. If anything, it is the opposite.
Teach thyself, scholar!
People throw names around when they are frustrated, and nothing frustrates by seeing learnedness compared to the very heights of barbarism incarnate! But, as you said, the wonders of the internet, where one is not afraid to praise the likes of Mao!
It should also be of note the story that the honorable P.J. O'Rourke told, of how he was held hostage by Maoists on his school campus. It is quite probable that this woman was among them.
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