Vigilante Justice on Campus

Recently I received an e-mail message from Kennesaw State University’s Office of Diversity—and it was chilling.  My colleagues, students, and I were being encouraged to report on violations of political correctness.  Shades of the Stasi and Gestapo immediately danced before my eyes.

It appears that our Office of Diversity has established a “New Bias Reporting Website.”  Faculty, staff and students are asked to alert our moral guardians of any “bias motivated incident” we have experienced or witnessed.

What counts as a bias motivated incident?  Any untoward behavior based on a person’s “individual or group identity, beliefs, and/or perspectives.”  These, we are told, can be obvious, such as discriminatory comments or behavior.  Or they can be subtle, such as “statements about someone’s looks or appearance that might be linked to historical stereotypes.”

In other words, if you feel uncomfortable with what someone says, you should get them in trouble.  You can initiate vigilante justice based solely upon your subjective sense of entitlement.  Put another way: Snowflakes of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose except your integrity and our democratic traditions!

The people who put this website together must have assumed that they were promoting justice.  They could not have been more wrong!  They are actually following in the footsteps of the Jacobin Committee of Public Safety.

Do you know what this was?  Why it was the chief means of carrying out the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.  Ordinary people were urged to report on counter-revolutionaries.  Then those implicated were brought to trial and subsequently introduced to Madame Guillotine.

Who counted a counter-revolutionary?  Soon enough, it was anyone the accuser did not like.  Since guilt was in the eye of the beholder, no one—not even the most respected insurrectionists—was safe from indictment.  In the end, matters got so out of hand that these insurgents were eating their own.

Nor has this been an isolated occurrence.  We saw it again in Nazi Germany, in Communist East Germany, in the Soviet Union, and in Mao’s China.  Whenever a government incites its people to spy and inform on each other, trust and justice are lost.  Vendettas, power grabs, and violence become the order of the day.

Is this what we want?  Is it where we are headed?  Are subscribers to the Black Lives Matter movement to be given veto power over whatever they desire?  Are they to be handed a weapon with which to eviscerate their enemies.  These activists may not chop off heads, but they are bound to ruin more than a few careers.

All of this is especially amazing given that college campuses are among the least biased places in our nation.  More particularly, KSU is not a hotbed of racial tensions.  In the quarter of a century that I have been on its faculty, I have witnessed the percentage of minority students swell.

Why are they coming?  Because they find us a congenial place to learn.  Students get along with each other.  They routinely form interracial friendships.  They even date across racial boundaries.  Nor are the professors intolerant louts.  Most, in fact, are card-carrying liberals.

So why are we taking a chance of destroying academic freedom?  What is to be gained by allowing the radicals to decide what constitutes the proper sort of education?  My guess is that this will produce empty-headed conformity.  Just as in places like East Germany, a lock-step mentality will bring tyranny and economic devastation in its wake.

We are frequently told that the best way to improve race relations is to open an honest conversation between the races.  I can think of few better ways to foreclose this possibility than by what KSU’s Office of Diversity is doing.  My hope is that our administration understands this as well.

Isn’t it ironic that in the pursuit of justice, we so often undermine it?  KSU’s current P.C. initiative may have been launched with the best of intentions; nonetheless it has the potential for the worst imaginable outcomes.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Soaking the Rich

Their tax plans are now out.  Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have outlined the changes they intend to make in the tax code—and their approaches couldn’t be more different.  Whereas Clinton aims to raise taxes, Trump hopes to lower them.

Hillary, of course, condemns Donald for trying to reward his wealthy friends.  She describes cutting the business tax in half and lowering the death tax as an effort to squeeze the poor.  As she sees it, this is further evidence of his bias against the little guy.

What Clinton does not seem to understand is that lower taxes provide an incentive to invest and grow businesses.  Having made her own hundred million plus fortune on what amounts to political graft, she has no idea of what it takes to create jobs.  Although she promises honest work, she apparently does not realize it is the private sector that provides this.  The government only transfers money.

If Hillary studied her history, she would learn that during the Great Depression, tax rates on the rich were over ninety percent.  This practically brought the economy to a halt and, for nearly a decade, prevented the United States from achieving the recovery that all sought.

Maintaining one of the highest business taxes in the world has the same effect.  It is one reason that our economy has been growing at a mere one and a half percent annually.  This is not enough to keep up with our population growth, never mind to generate new jobs or higher incomes.

Not long ago, just to assuage my curiosity, I consulted Forbes list of the wealthiest people in the world.  I was looking to see if folks with inherited wealth dominated it—folks like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Astors.   Much to my surprise, they did not.

Indeed, the first old money name I recognized was that of David Rockefeller.  He was worth three billion and ranked below five hundred on the list.  At exactly the same level—also with three billion—was Oprah Winfrey.

Highest in the ranking was Bill Gates with seventy billion.  As importantly, he, and nearly all the other one thousand billionaires I reviewed (including Oprah), were self-made.  Many of their names were recognizable because they have founded well-known companies.

My guess is that most of these magnates would not have been nearly as successful had they labored under a Hillary-style tax policy.  They would have been poorer, but so would the rest of us.  It is thus doubtful that I would have my Apple computer, i-pad, or i-phone.  As a consequence, I do not resent Steve Jobs widow her billions.

Once upon a time most Americans did not begrudge the wealthy their riches.  The goal of ordinary people was to get rich themselves.  What they wanted was opportunity.  If they could start a business and make it grow, they too might be well off.

In Hillary’s universe, however, the objective has changed.  It now seems to be two-fold.  One goal is to obtain revenge on the wealthy.  The other is to ensure the most lavish welfare payments possible.

When I worked for the New York City Welfare Department, many of my clients unabashedly told me that their first concern was to protect their checks.  They did not want to jeopardize these by taking jobs they might lose.  And so they stagnated in self-imposed helplessness.

This seems to correspond with Clinton’s vision of an idealized future.  She apparently wants to increase the number of people receiving public assistance on the grounds that they will vote Democratic.  The more she can promise, the more grateful they will be.

If this strategy works, then one day we will be a nation of indolent lay-abouts.  Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with this quasi-socialist approach is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.  Hillary seems bound and determined to hasten that day.

The question is: Will we let her?  Or will people see through her plan for self-aggrandizement?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

We Own the Finish Line

During the Democratic National Convention, Vice-President Joe Biden said something that is patently absurd, but extraordinarily revealing of the liberal mentality.  His audience—and the media—should have been taken aback.  Instead they cheered wildly.

What did he say that was so ridiculous?  What line was extoled as brilliant, but is actually evidence of shallow and egotistical thinking?  Why is was that “we own the finish line.”

By this Biden meant that the United States is first and always will be.  We have the best economy, the strongest military, and the most moral people.  Others—especially Republicans—must stop putting us down because we are inherently the world’s foremost superpower.

It was clear that Biden regards this status as an entitlement.  We do not have to earn it.  It is ours merely as a result of who we are.  We are simply THE BEST—period—exclamation point!

Our vice president has, of course, long since demonstrated that he is a man of limited intellect.  He obviously does not know history.  There was a time when Rome owned the finish line—then the barbarians ended their reign.  There was also a time when China owned the finish line—yet the Mongols and Manchus sent them into eclipse.

At various times, the Spanish, the French, and the English have likewise claimed the mantle of natural superiority.  None, however, was able to maintain it.  Why then should we be different?  What is there about us that exempts us from the competition that might eventually bring us down?

Biden is not alone in his narrow-minded smugness.  It is characteristic of the progressive mindset.  These folks regard our economic and military dominance as a given.  As a consequence, we do not have to do anything to preserve it.  Our ascendency is effectively a golden goose that can be plucked, mutilated, and starved of nourishment with impunity.

It therefore follows that the American people deserve every freebee the liberals can ladle their way.  Citizens of the United States do not have to work for these things.  They do not have to sacrifice or make do with less than they desire.  That would be unjust.  Everyone—including illegal immigrants—is to be provided with the comforts of our limitless prosperity.

This means that taxes can be raised on the wealthy without reducing the capital needed for investment.  It means that regulations, which cost business trillions a year, can be expanded without limit.  As Americans, a free lunch is manifestly our due.

And so we bust the budget to provide elective medical care—such as sex change operations.  We likewise go blithely into debt such that we will soon owe more on interest than we spend on welfare or defense.  Many progressives also want us to cut back on policing, regardless of whether our inner cities become sinkholes of despair.

The Romans fell to the Germanic hordes because they preferred to live in luxury rather than defend themselves.  The Chinese turned inward and hence failed to recognize imminent threats.  Meanwhile, the Spanish used American gold and silver to purchase extravagances, instead of developing Iberian industry.

Are we in the process of doing something comparable?  Life demands choices and determination.  The notion that we can have it all without growing our economy or strengthening our military is childish.

When I was a teenager—and a socialist—I argued that an affluent society should leave no one behind.  Everyone ought therefore be provided with a minimum income by the federal government.  None needed to work.  A kind of reverse taxation could be automatic.

Much like contemporary liberals, I regarded this as elementary justice.  It was blatantly unfair that anyone possess more than anyone else.  In a society as rich as ours, it was self-evidently incumbent upon us to share with the needy.  Moreover, demands for effort would only worsen their lot.

This attitude has become part of the liberal creed.  It would seem that because we are American, we all deserve trophies—even if we don’t show up.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Journalistic Malpractice

Years ago, when I was working as a reporter for the Hudson Dispatch, I participated in a newsroom conversation.  One of the more senior journalists was pontificating on the state of New Jersey politics.  Although I was new, I realized that a lot of what he said was grounded in his personal biases.

Much to my surprise, when I read the paper’s lead story the next day, it was essentially a rehash of the previous afternoon’s bull session.  What had seemed to me nothing more than disheveled speculation was presented as if it were incontrovertible truth.

Once upon a time, journalism was supposed to be about conveying the facts.  Reporters were expected to be neutral observers who transmitted information without distorting it.  Although I realize that this was an ideal, there was nevertheless an effort to respect it.

Today, however, editorializing on the front page has become business as usual.  Although I was taken aback by what I read in the Dispatch, contemporary reporters routinely take disguised partisanship in stride.  If anything, they long to be so well established that they too can palm off opinion as fact.

Who nowadays doubts the prevalence of a liberal perspective in the media?  Who doubts the pervasive bias of reporters when they write stories about presidential candidates?  Everyone knows that unfairness abounds.  It is crystal clear that Hillary Clinton benefits from relatively gentle treatment.

Some journalists have actually broken the unspoken ban on admitting this.  Instead of the conventional denials, they acknowledge slanting their coverage.  They justify this, however, in the name of protecting the nation from disaster.

Liberal journalists are sure that a Trump presidency would be catastrophic.  Having become reporters in order to promote progressive causes, this prospect cries out for intervention.  They must, in good conscience, save the American people from making a dreadful mistake.

Why do journalists feel this way?  Why do they assume that progressive policies are always in our best interest?  The answer is that they are often just as ignorant as that senior reporter back in New Jersey.  They too do the equivalent of putting their shoes up on the desk and BS-ing ad nauseum.

People frequently confuse the authoritative tone of correspondents and commentators with knowledge.  If these talking heads sound like they know what they are saying, it is assumed that they do. 

The plain fact is that this is not always the case.  Sometimes the mask slips.  It is remarkable how often reporters who appear on the television show Jeopardy reveal a lack of in-depth comprehension.  And why not?  Schools of journalism do not teach history or politics.  Their concern is with communication and manipulation.

Hence we get this spectacle of journalists clacking over absurd misinterpretations of what Donald Trump says.  They are happy, for instance, to pretend that he called for the assassination of Hillary Clinton, rather than do even-handed analyses of her economic policies.

Journalistic malpractice abounds because so many journalists are unreconstructed idealists.  They have no clue about how the economy works or the way that social change occurs.  In their naiveté, they are therefore prone to exaggeration and misrepresentation.

Let me make it clear that there are exceptions.  Some reporters remain conscientious.  Still, the trend toward knee-jerk partisanship is unambiguous.  Not that long ago, reporters aspired to doing investigative pieces.  They wanted to break through the curtain of political deception.

Today they are part of the institutionalized dishonesty of the contemporary scene.  This is a shame because it does not have to be that way.  Journalists could uphold ethical standards.  Although some do, too many don’t.

As a result, the public is becoming jaded.  Ordinary Americans know they are being stage-managed.  Unfortunately, millions are willing to credit the validity of stories that feed their prejudices.  They do not object to nonsense as long as it is nonsense to which they subscribe.

In other words, journalistic malpractice is a social phenomenon.  It flourishes not merely because of the foibles of reporters, but because ordinary folks serve as its enablers.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University