The Conservative Revolution

For the second year in a row, The Young Conservatives of Texas at UT-Austin are displaying their “ACLU Solstice Barn” instead of a traditional nativity scene on campus. They are parodying the anti-Christian and far left stances of the ACLU, by replacing the three wise men with Stalin, Lenin and Marx, leaving out a baby Jesus and replacing Mary and Joseph with “Gary and Joseph.”

KVUE news has a short video report. You can also view YCT’s pictures here.

Watch this interview on Fox News about the movement to allow concealed handgun license holders to carry their guns on college campuses. Students at Texas State University in San Marcos recently passed a resolution supporting the idea of allowing CHL holders to carry on campus. Matt Drudge linked to the story earlier today.

As a graduate student and concealed handgun license holder myself, I fully support this movement, which has grown leaps and bounds since the Virginia Tech tragedy. The arguments against allowing law-abiding citizens who already qualify for a CHL to carry their guns on campus are, quite simply, pathetic. Police can not be everywhere, at all times. As we saw at V-Tech, the criminal gunman locked the door to the building he was in and systematically shot dozens of students. The ONLY thing that could have stopped the killing once it began would have been another student with a gun that could have shot the gunman.

The police had no way to prevent this tragedy, and the students inside were rendered defenseless by insane anti-gun laws that prohibit students from protecting themselves and each other. As a CHL holder, I can already carry my gun to the grocery store, while driving late at night or while walking down the street. Why shouldn’t I be allowed the same protection while attending classes?

Hopefully the D.C. gun ban case before the Supreme Court will come out in favor of freedom, and it will lead to momentum toward allowing more places, instead of less, for citizens to protect themselves and each other from violent criminals.

Congrats to the students at Texas State University and elsewhere who are organizing for this noble cause.

This article by two professors at Washington State University claims that conservatives are racists trying to “corporatize” college campuses. It mentions yours truly, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Collegiate Network as people responsible for the conservative revolution on college campuses.

Political theater has proven as important to advancing conservative ideologies as more serious venues like newspapers. In keeping with broader trends to disclaim racism under the cover of humor and satire, conservative student groups embrace the power of play to advance their agendas, which mix politics and pleasure in unexpected ways. Indeed, in describing the rationale of affirmative-action bake sales, one of their creators, Brendan Steinhauser, former executive director of the Young Conservatives of Texas at the University of Texas at Austin, remarked, “The idea was to parody the actual policies that some colleges had enacted, which gave points to members of certain ethnic groups while at the same time punishing those from other ethnic groups.”

The whole article is worth reading. It’s a pity they didn’t contact me for an explanation of our goals on college campuses. It is not about promoting one race over another, but rather, about moving toward a society where race is a non-issue. I really don’t think these two professors understand our opposition against political correctness and multiculturalism. I’d be more than happy to come to Washington State and discuss it with them at a forum or over coffee.

If they don’t believe that conservatives face hostility on college campuses, they should check out Indoctrinate U, a film that documents such situations quite well.

I called the office of student affairs at Texas State University today and they told me that they were not attempting to stifle the free speech of one of their students, Jessica Irwin. The person I talked to said that the university received a letter from the ADC about the possibility of an event called Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The official said that the university then contacted the David Horowitz Freedom Center and asked who the TSU contact for the Terrorism Awareness Project was. According to the school official, the Horowitz Freedom Center gave them Jessica’s name. I have not heard back from the center about how they got her name and contact information.
The university then told Jessica to come to a meeting, and at the meeting proceeded to ask her whether she was planning an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The official told me that the reason for this meeting was to “make sure the students would be safe” in case the event were to occur on campus. But when the university found out that Jessica was not organizing such an event, the official claims they let the matter drop.

This is not what Jessica told me. Jessica said that she was asked to prepare a written statement indicating that she was not taking part in the project, nor was her chapter of College Republicans. Jessica also added that the university grilled her about whether her group was planning to protest illegal immigration. Jessica was “strongly urged” not to hold a Catch an “Illegal Immigrant” event.
When Jessica tried to submit her statement to the University Star, the student newspaper, the editor did not run it. On top of that, various reporters have been calling her and CR chairman Traci Adams, asking them about the event, even though Jessica told them that CR had never planned to hold such an event. Jessica has sent the statement to the newspaper and the university, but it has not been published.
Something is rotten in the state of Texas. There seems to be a pattern of university officials and student journalists refusing to leave Jessica and Traci alone. The two might even have to face a panel of administrators or the board of regents to “talk about” the plans they have for various events.

I am not sure what direction this story will go next, but the president of Texas State University and the student affairs office are on notice.

Any violation of freedom of expression or intimidation tactics waged against the College Republicans will be met by a public outcry from concerned friends, alumni and donors of TSU. If the university decides to shut down an event because they don’t like the message, they will encounter a public relations nightmare from groups that are dedicated to protecting students’ free speech rights.

I strongly urge the university to refrain from harassing, intimidating or singling out the CR’s in any way in order to prevent them from holding an event on campus that is within the bounds of political and intellectual discourse.

If you’d like to help Jessica and Traci, please leave a comment and I’ll let you know how you can do so. I will post an update next week on this story as it unfolds.

Former FreedomWorks intern Jessica Irwin has been dragged in front of Texas State administrators who received a letter from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) telling TSU not to allow an event called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” to take place at TSU.

Turns out that Jessica never planned the event and had no idea what the ADC or the TSU president were talking about. No matter. When she denied that she was planning to host Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at TSU, the administration didn’t believe her. They asked her to submit a written statement and to contact the David Horowitz Freedom Center to have her group’s name removed from the list of participants. When Jessica agreed to submit such a statement to the university newspaper, the editors failed to print it. The result? Continuous calls and emails from anonymous persons asking her why she was hosting such an “offensive” event and demands not to continue the planning.

Jessica has repeatedly contacted university officials and reporters at the newspaper, but has not been able to put an end to the constant questioning and intimidation tactics. The university, which was apparently frightened by the ADC’s letter, might just be looking for a scapegoat so they can appease the Saudi-funded ADC and avoid criticism of the university. TSU is making sure the community knows that it does not support the event, but is doing nothing to reassure the ADC or the campus community that Jessica is not planning the event in question.

Jessica told me that the tone and nature of the administration’s questions were accusatory and clearly intended to make sure she didn’t even think about holding such an event. Even if Jessica’s group decided to do such an event (which I personally support) the university should not infringe upon the right of campus groups to express their opinions on Islam or terrorism. Instead of bowing to a pressure group that has expressed sympathy for suicide bombers, TSU should stand up for the rights of its campus leaders. If you’d like to send an email to the president of TSU, Denise Trauth, here is her email address: president@txstate.edu Ask her why she is bullying a student group that hasn’t done anything wrong. And ask her what is wrong with showing films or hosting lectures that talk about the worldwide threat of Islamist terrorism.

I will be posting updates on this story as I get more information. In the mean time, you can find out more about Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week by visiting http://www.terrorismawareness.org/

This past Friday I was one of 500 attendees of the Washington premier of Evan Coyne Maloney’s film, Indoctrinate U, about the lack of free speech on college campuses.

The film is the first of its kind, and exposes school administrators and professors who have attempted to impose political correctness on students and faculty that happen to have dissenting views. It is a brilliant piece of work, that should be seen by every student and faculty member in the country.
If you want to bring the film to your city or campus, all you need to do is encourage 500 people to sign up on the website and The Moving Picture Institute will bring Indoctrinate U and Evan Maloney to your home town.

The website is http://www.indoctrinateu.com

Ryan Sorba will be giving his talk about “the born gay hoax” on Tuesday at Michigan State University. This is also the theme of his upcoming book, which argues that the pro-homosexual movement is a complete fabrication by gay activists to gain minority status as a special class. Sorba quotes at length various leaders of the gay movement, who admit that there is no such thing as being “born gay” but people choose to be this way. Sorba will argue that the American people have been duped by a crafty few political activists whose goal is complete acceptance of their lifestyle.

You can watch his speech at California State University — San Bernardino from last year.

Already, the campus left at MSU is organizing a different event and raising money in order to counter Sorba’s argument. This should make for an interesting day at MSU on Tuesday.

Columbia University has invited Iranian thug Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on Monday. So, let’s get this straight, a holocaust-denying dictator responsible for the deaths of American troops in Iraq gets an invitation to speak at our universities, but anyone right of center is protested or deemed “too controversial” to speak. What a topsy-turvy world we live in.

The truth is that the Left on campus supports America’s enemies, whether they be communists like Hugo Chavez, or Islamists like Ahmadinejad. As long as you spout anti-American propaganda and hate President Bush as much as the Left does, you are in the club.

Along with the MoveOn.org ad calling General Petraeus a traitor, the Left has proven that Americans can question their patriotism and devotion to our way of life. I will not apologize ever again for calling the Left anti-American, since their devotion to Marxism and coddling of Islamist terrorists has become routine.

This article originally appeared in Campus Magazine.

Now that the title of my book has become part of the lexicon when discussing the situation on college campuses, I feel compelled to explain my purpose in using the term “the conservative revolution.” For some, this phrase flies in the face of traditional conservatism like that expressed by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Conservatives, we are told, reject revolutions as radical and bloody innovations. While this may be the case in a political context such as the French Revolution, revolutions are not all the same. In this essay I hope to provide three examples where revolutions were in fact conservative, and one scenario where a future revolution could be conservative.

First, let us look at the American Revolution. Who could argue that this was a revolution whereby the colonists rebelled precisely to preserve their rights as British citizens? When listing the grievances in the Declaration of Independence that brought forth the revolution, Thomas Jefferson mentioned policies that the King and Parliament had instituted that had violated the colonists’ rights. Most of these policies were recently enacted, after the French and Indian War. It was the King and the Parliament, and not the colonists, who were changing things. Therefore, the revolution that ensued sought to restore things as they were before the innovations of the British government. This was a conservative revolution.

The Texas Revolution that began in 1835 was also a conservative revolution. The Texian rebels led by cult heroes like Davy Crockett, William B. Travis and Sam Houston were fighting to restore their rights that had been trampled by the Mexican dictator Santa Anna. In fact, the flag that flew over the Alamo was the flag of 1824, which represented the Mexican Constitution of 1824 abolished by Santa Anna. It was Santa Anna, and not the Texians, that was the radical innovator. The Texians did seek their independence, but only because the government that they had consented to had become tyrannical. They sought to restore their rights that had existed prior to Santa Anna, but in doing so, launched a new nation, the Republic of Texas.

Suppose that years from now our own government grew in power and began to dismantle our Constitution. Many on the left and right believe that this is already happening today, although I think we are far from it. If our government declared martial law, forced a national identification card, instituted a draft, jailed dissidents and launched wars of conquest around the globe, would Americans continue to want to “conserve” that government? Those on the left and the right might actually join forces to overthrow the government through revolution and restore it to its constitutional foundations. Would this revolution be a conservative revolution? It seems to me that if the effect of the revolution was not bloodshed and anarchy, but ordered liberty and a return to constitutionalism, one could call this revolution “conservative.” Let us hope we never come to such a scenario. But I think the example is helpful in understanding the term “conservative revolution.”

How does the use of the phrase “conservative revolution” apply to college campuses today? When free speech is violated, conservative newspapers are destroyed and Western Civilization is torn down every day why should conservatives “conserve” the campus culture? Conservative students are facing an intellectual battle daily in lecture halls, dormitories and administration buildings. Conservative students are fighting on campuses to restore the campus to a culture of free inquiry, intellectual pluralism and academic freedom. Since the takeover of the campuses by the sixties radicals, the academy has become a bastion of Marxism, multiculturalism and political correctness. Again, the radical innovators are the professors and administrators, and not the conservative students.

When choosing to describe the battle for college campuses as a “conservative revolution,” I deliberately chose this phrase. Conservative students who revere Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk should be comfortable with this term. And those students who read Locke, Hayek and Rand should be equally comfortable in this description of our goal. When I called for the launching of a “conservative revolution” to take back our campuses from the grip of the far Left, I was not calling for the use of bullets, bombs nor the guillotine. Rather, I was calling for an intellectual battle that holds no punches, that seeks to tear down multiculturalism, political correctness and Marxism. In their place, I urge my fellow conservative “revolutionaries” to promote the ideas of Western Civilization, the great books, Judeo-Christian values, the free market and ordered liberty. Students should be organizing on campuses, starting clubs and newspapers, and hosting debates.

The end game is not to destroy the institutions of higher education themselves. Rather, it is to destroy with the power of truth the failed ideologies of Marxism and collectivism, and return the campuses to an environment that upholds the ideas that have preserved Western Civilization. Nothing short of an intellectual and political revolution against entrenched Leftists on campuses will suffice. Therefore, I declare that the conservative revolution should continue to be the battle cry for conservative students everywhere.

Brendan Steinhauser is the author of The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle of College Campuses.

Send me an email at bsteinhauser @freedomworks.org if you’d like to buy a copy of my book, The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses.

Or, just CLICK HERE.

The radio interview I did on Jim Brown’s show in New Orleans is available. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!