According to Liberty University vice president of student affairs Mark Hine, “the Democratic party violates the school’s principles by supporting abortion, socialism and the “‘LGBT’ agenda,” referring to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people” and that even though the group “may not support the more radical planks of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is still the parent organization of the club on campus.”

The group’s faculty sponsor has said that she was simply trying to allow alternative views to be heard on a campus where the Republican Party’s agenda is  “preached on every avenue.” The Liberty University College Republicans have a large presence on campus and have not been the target of any action from the administration.

Now, Liberty University is a private institution and as such they can deny recognition to whatever groups they wish. However, just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. If Liberty wants to suppress free speech and intellectual discourse on their campus, they can do that. But they are only hurting themselves.

As I wrote in an earlier post, allowing ideas to engage in free competition with each other will allow the best ideas to win out. Attempts to control the competition of ideas only make it appear that the controllers have something to hide. This only increases interest in whatever it is they are trying to suppress. It also lends less credibility to whatever ideas end up winning in Liberty’s competition of ideas. After all, a victor with no competition is no victor at all. And finally, students who are educated in an environment where only one viewpoint is presented are ill equipped to defend their views once they enter the real world.

Liberty is within its legal rights to ban the College Democrats club from campus, but by limiting the competition of ideas, Liberty is only hurting itself and its students.

When I got here, I found out that a large percentage of the student body at this university profess the Christian religion. There are a multitude of Christian religious groups with membership in the thousands. Most of my professors do not make mention of their religious or political views in class, and more than a few made positive references towards Christianity. Acts of moral depravity of all sorts were more often a product of the rumor mill, rather than something I witnessed firsthand.

It turns out, the rumor mill was what most people back home were going off of. The Sodom and Gomorrah, Bart Ehrman-will-turn-you-into-an-atheist-communist-hedonist mindset was nothing more than the prognostications of people who knew only of twisted second and third hand stories.

I’m proud to report that the University of North Carolina is in fact a place of healthy intellectualism. For every person taking a position on an issue (be it political, social or religious), there is likely to be someone to counter it. In this environment, both sides’ arguments are made better by the existence of opposition.

Rather than avoiding them, we should all listen to people who oppose our views, for the simple reason that competition breeds improvement. When our own ideas are challenged by conflicting ideas, our ideas are refined into something better. In other cases, our ideas are bad and they get tossed out.

This Darwinist competition of ideas breaks down when outside factors intervene to try and stop the competition. By and large, Carolina has been free of this. There have been some exceptions where one faction has attempted to shut down the voice of another. However, such examples as the controversy over Carolina Students for Life, SDS/YWC, or the Board of Election’s abuse of campaign laws have been the exceptions rather than the rule. By and large, the competition of ideas flows freely each day on campus. And I am thankful for that.

Now, many would say the state of morality in the United States is far below an acceptable standard. However, this has been true of every civilization throughout history. The fact is, people are less than perfect no matter where they are.  Human progress is an illusion. Hence, I am not going to single out the University as a place of exceptional immorality, because it does not appear to me that this university is any more or less moral that American society as a whole. The problem is not with this university’s administration or its student organizations, but with American society at large. America’s institutions are a reflection of its people. Any attempt to reform public morals by reforming university administration is like trying dam half a river. The current will still flow, it will just be re-directed slightly for a while and it will eventually erode the dam.

In short, our University is not an intellectual wasteland. Rather, it is a hotbead of intellectual discussion, which is exactly what a university should be. This competition of ideas can only benefit our society. If ideas are allowed to be expressed and evaluated freely, truth will come out on top. Like economic markets, this competition stops working when interlopers begin to fiddle with stuff in an attempt to engineer their own desired result. Attempts to control the competition of ideas usually backfire on whoever is attempting the controlling. People begin to wonder: What are they trying to hide? What are they afraid of?

Be they conservative Christians or anti-”hate speech” liberals, interlopers who attempt to control the competition of ideas not only produce unintended consequences, but they betray their own ideas. If they have faith in the truth of what they believe, the superiority of their ideas should be self-evident and they should not need to seek other means to ensure that their ideas are adopted.

Fortunately, although the competition of ideas is not flowing freely in many parts of the world, it is flowing much better at UNC than at most places. We have an atmosphere of exceptional intellectual vitality, and we should strive to keep it that way.

Person of the Year

Today, around lunch time, Obama will be sworn in as the 44^th president of the United States of America.  What does that mean for us college students?  The short and simple answer is: slavery. 

According to Obama’s Blueprint for Change, he will “require 100 hours of service in college.”  Per usual, Obama is short on the details.  For example, exactly what we will do (be required to do that is) is unclear.  It does say, however, that we will receive a $4,000 tax credit for our trouble; that’s 40 dollars an hour.   In other words, the person of the year is proposing to take billions of dollars from the private sector in order to redistribute it to some punk kid planting roses in a park.

For those of you with a real job, you might find the parallels between Obama’s plan and the private sector striking.  I mean, in both work is rewarded with pay.  But, in Obama’s la la, yes-we-can land there is one slight difference: society has no say in whether the college student’s “service” is efficient or necessary.  Competitive capitalism allows for WAY too much freedom under an Obama administration.  No, coercion is the way of the future.  You will serve.  Why?  Because, it’s a good thing to do, duh!  Never mind any arguments involving inalienable rights or some such western construct ; that is sooo 19^th century. 

All in all, Obama believes it is the place of the federal government to mandate “Universal Voluntary Citizen Service.”  In American, ”universal voluntary” is translated “tyranny.”  Side effects may involve anger to the point of great indignation. But, perhaps you’re willing to give this “change” a chance.  If so, when it comes your turn to “serve,” just look Obama in the eye and say, “Yes suh, massah.”