I am so pleased that John took a close look at the myths surrounding the funding of conservative student groups. For whatever reason, the Left has always had an intense paranoia on this issue. They assume that groups in Washington, DC must be throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into student groups. That is the only possible reason, from their perspective, that a student would want to be involved in conservative activity on campus. What ignorance. I’ve dealt with this paranoia as both an employee of one of the groups John mentions and as a student. As an employee, I always laughed at such allegations and thought, “I wish I had that much money to spend on my programs.” As a student, it bothered me more.

When Charles and I were students involved with the Bucknell University Conservatives Club, we were constantly met with criticism (most often from professors) that we were simply tools of national conservative organizations, as if they were puppet-masters. While we certainly appreciated any assistance or guidance we got from groups like ISI and YAF, the claims are simply ridiculous. The truth is that any conservative activity on campus at it’s core rests with the students themselves. If conservative students aren’t motivated and don’t want stand up to liberal shenanigans on campus, no organization or amount of funding could change their minds. The students deserve the credit. But I doubt the Left will ever understand that.