Courage at Kennesaw State University

Wednesday October 12^th started out well.  This was Yom Kippur, the highest holiday on the Jewish calendar.  Although I am not religious, I was, as is my custom, fasting.  Doing so is my way of reminding myself of my heritage and reaffirming my intention to be a moral person.

But it was also a teaching day.  My first class was to begin at 11:00 and the last would end shortly before 5:00 PM.  Nonetheless I left home at 8:00 to make sure I could get a parking space.  It was thus not until almost 10:00 that I discovered the Atlanta Journal Constitution had run a story about the Great Pre-election Debate to be held on the KSU campus the next day.

I was pleased. This, I thought, would be good publicity for the event.  Dr. Ken White and I had debated four years earlier to a standing room crowd and I hoped this might be bigger.  The article also mentioned that the Cobb County Tea Party would be backing the event and this too pleased me because I had invited its members.

It was not until my last class ended that I realized there might be trouble.  It was then I learned that our moderator was withdrawing.  He emailed me to say because the Tea party was “sponsoring” the debate, and that this organization was “partisan,” he could not, in good conscience, participate.  To do so, he stated, was against KSU policy.

Although deeply disappointed, I went back to my office in hopes of scrounging up another moderator.  That evening, however, when I went home, my chief concern was breaking the fast.  My practice is to do so with a big bowl of matzo ball soup—which I made and eagerly consumed.

It was therefore not until the next morning I learned my debating partner had cancelled the event.  This was done without consulting me—as had been the case with the moderator.  Anyway, before I knew what happened, an official email went out notifying the campus that the debate was called off.

I was livid.  How could this have been done without even talking to me?  I thus quickly contacted the Dean and my department chair to let them know that I would show up as planned—even if I had to do so at the front door of our building.  Both of these administrators had no objections.

That evening I did, in fact, talk to a room full of mostly Tea Party people.  Not many students attended because they had been informed there would be no debate.  For an idea of what I said, the reader is referred to my Saturday column in the Cherokee Tribune or to my blog  (professionalized.blogspot.com).

Exactly why this unfolded as it did, I still do not know.  What I do know is that the stated reason is erroneous.  First, the Tea Party is officially non-partisan.  It does not endorse candidates.  Second, it did not sponsor the event—whatever the AJC said.  It did not fund it or have any part in organizing it.

Ken White must have been aware of this.  After all, he was the one who invited me to debate, wrote up the schedule of questions, and solicited our moderator.  Ken is a liberal and knows there was absolutely no attempt to influence him.

How do I explain what transpired?  So far as I can tell, this was political correctness run amok.  My guess—and it is only a guess—is that some KSU faculty members saw the AJC piece and were horrified.  How could a right wing organization be allowed to sponsor anything on campus?

This, so far as I can see, was akin to disinviting conservative speakers.  Liberals and radicals are acceptable—whereas traditionalists, who might corrupt young minds, are not.  For me, the supreme irony is that I had just published a book on courage (Unlocking Your Inner Courage).

Why are so many academics afraid to hear opinions that contradict their own?  Why, even when they have a partisan defending their positions, do they need to shut down those who disagree with them?  I am still prepared to debate, but it appears that the other side wants complete control over political messaging.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

A One-Sided Debate

Last week, on Thursday the 13^th, I was scheduled to participate in a political debate with Dr. Ken White at Kennesaw State University.  This was to be our second pre-election rumble.  Four years earlier we squared off, with me representing Romney and him Obama.

That event had been a great success.  As might be expected, the standing room only crowd came away believing the speaker upholding their favored position had won.  This was okay with me because I had a blast.

Nonetheless I did not intend a repeat performance.  During the spring, I was a Never Trump man.  He struck me as a shallow narcissist.  I was not even sure I could vote for him in November.  How then could I honestly make a case for him?

Yet in September, Ken asked if I was willing to give it another go.  Much to my surprise, I agreed.  By this time, I had become a Never Hillary person and hence was prepared to do what I could to prevent her victory. 

So far so good.  Ken got us a room, prepared a schedule of questions, and recruited a moderator.  I was now raring to go.  But then, the day before the debate, it was suddenly called off.  I seems that Ken and the moderator objected to an AJC article that suggested the Cobb County Tea Party was a “sponsor.”

For more details about what transpired, the reader is referred to my upcoming column in Monday’s Marietta Daily Journal and to my blog (professionalized.blogspot.com).

I was so upset that this was done without consulting me I decided to go ahead with a one-sided debate.  Rather than leave non-campus attendees in the lurch, I showed up to explain what occurred and to let them know what I had planned to say.

The debate had been intended to begin with introductions and proceed to segments on domestic, international, and character issues.  My expectation was that Dr. White would pummel Trump about the recent sexual revelations.  I, however, did not propose to take the bait.

My idea was to agree that Trump was a sleazy amateur, but to counter that she was a corrupt traitor.   He might have said vulgar things, whereas she sold influence to the highest bidder.  She had also exposed sensitive national secrets to our enemies on a private server she should have known to be vulnerable to espionage.

As it happened, a lively discussion did ensue.  The folks who came were well informed and therefore asked wonderful questions and made insightful comments.  Most agreed that Hillary would perpetuate Barack Obama’s mistakes and probably make many of her own.

What we did not discuss, because it was only then being divulged on Wiki-leaks, was the extent of Hillary’s cover-up.  The more we learn about this operation, the clearer it becomes that it puts Nixon’s Watergate machinations to shame.

Let me mention just one aspect of this growing scandal.  Recently a State Department spokesman claimed that emails, which reveal President Obama knew about the private server, were withheld because of “executive privilege.”  Despite the fact that they were asked for by congress, they were not disclosed.

In fact, executive privilege does not exist unless it is asserted and this never occurred.  Had the State Department invoked this to explain why it was not opening its files, this would have been regarded as evidence there was something to hide.  It would have been the equivalent of Obama pleading the Fifth Amendment.

Hillary, once upon a time, bemoaned the existence of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”  It is now obvious that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy.  Hillary and her minions are charter members, but so are the president, his staff, the administrators of many federal agencies, and the editors and reporters at the mainstream media.

Given the mountain of data that has been released demonstrating a broad array of players actively planned either to withhold or distort information, can we doubt the existence of an intentional cover-up?  Nixon must be turning in his grave considering how relentlessly he was hounded out of office for misdeeds of much less consequence.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Sleaze versus the Traitor

Who expected Donald Trump to be a choirboy?  Wasn’t his past history of womanizing common knowledge?  Why then were so many people shocked when they heard his locker room banter?  Did listening to his words make such a difference?

My first reaction was to recall the movie Casablanca.  In it, the French police chief expressed shock that gambling was going on in Rick’s cafe.   Meanwhile he was collecting his winnings on the side.  Who among us was truly shocked by Trump’s words?

I also thought about the movie Patton.  One of the episodes recounts how Patton was relieved of duty because he slapped a soldier for cowardice.  The Germans, on the other hand, could not imagine that the Americans would hold back their best commander for so trivial a reason.

Nonetheless, there were calls for Patton’s scalp.  His affront to American democratic traditions was considered more important than winning the war.  Although our egalitarian heritage would have been destroyed if Hitler triumphed, this consequence was disregarded.

Next, I tried to imagine the repartee between Trump and Bill Clinton when they played golf together.  Would they have recounted their amorous conquests?  Would they have done so in pristine language?  I can even picture them laughing about these things.

Then I thought back to the nation’s reaction to the Nixon tapes.  Millions of voters were distressed to learn that their president used foul language in the oval office.  So offended were they that when the transcripts came out they were riddled with the phrase “expletive deleted.”

Apparently Americans are more concerned about the words people use than the deeds they perform.  No, let me take that back.  They are more troubled by what conservatives say than by what liberals do.  Thus, when Bill Clinton was caught with his pants down with a White House intern, we were urged to “move on.”

Back when Bill engaging in indiscretions, the liberal establishment told us this was a matter exclusively between the president and his wife.  If she was okay with it, so should we be.

So let us turn to Hillary.  It is now clear that she was aware the Russians and Chinese were hacking into privileged communications.  Nonetheless, she ordered that her official emails be transmitted by way of a personal server.   How could she not have known this was extremely dangerous?

Hillary currently tells us this was a mistake.  If so, it was a mistake she deliberately tried to cover up.  Let us remember that Nixon was driven from office for something more trivial.  He was scourged for eighteen minutes of missing tape, whereas she deleted over thirty thousand messages.

People have been calling Hillary’s behavior illegal.  It was much worse than that.  It was treasonous.  Had she hand-delivered her communiqués to the Russian embassy, this is exactly how it would have been branded.  Why then was intentional carelessness—about vulnerable secrets—any less treacherous?

So here we have somebody—in an official capacity—exposing our nation to peril and the pubic is more outraged by private peccadillos.  Trump’s temperament is deemed unacceptable, whereas her judgment is okay.

But it is worse than that.  Hillary has assured Wall Street insiders that her private beliefs differ from her public pronouncements.  What she essentially said was that she endorses lying to voters.  Because she knows that if she tells people the truth, they will turn elsewhere, she deliberately deceives them.

We already knew Hillary is a liar.  We knew it just as much as we did that Trump is irreverent.  But now we are stunned by the Trump revelations, yet take hers in stride.

Where is our sense of proportion?  Don’t we understand what is important for our national survival?  Shouldn’t treason and habitual dishonesty count for more than sexual talk?  As has been said, we are electing a president, not a pope.

Let me be clear.  I too find Trump’s behavior distasteful.  But Hillary has harmed our collective security and may do so in the future.  She is so corrupt that she might not hesitate to sell us out on the altar of her ambition.  This really scares me!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Political Balance: Liberal-Style

For many years, I routinely attended sociology conferences.  I went to the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, the Southern Sociological Society, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Sociological Practice Association. 

When I was a novice, I found these gatherings interesting and informative.  But then as the years rolled by, my grievances accumulated.  Instead of being exposed to uncontaminated sociology, many presentations were accompanied by growing doses of political correctness.

Ever since my graduate student days, I was aware that a majority of my colleagues tilted left.  This was a fact to which I grew inured.  Nonetheless, I expected a fair hearing for my dissenting outlook.  Eventually, however, it sank in that this was never destined to happen.

At first, the jokes about how Ronald Reagan was a dumb actor struck me as shallow, but harmless.  Then, when I was castigated for suggesting that Karl Marx might be out of date, I was offended.  Nonetheless, the last straw was being told to shut up when I offered a non-liberal perspective.

You may thus understand why I have been reluctant to attend such meetings.  Yet last week I did.  I went to the Association of Applied and Clinical Sociology conference in Denver.  This was because I wanted to promote my book “Unlocking Your Inner Courage” and thought this would prove a suitable venue.

For the most part, nothing untoward occurred.  But then I attended a plenary presented by a local newspaper reporter.  She was actually rather entertaining.  Even though she began her career working for National Public Radio, her stories were largely straightforward.

Not unreasonably, she encouraged this room full of sociologists to provide social science data to support her journalistic impressions.  If they could supply facts to put her pieces in context, this would surely help her readers.

This, however, provided an opening for one of the other attendees.  Why, the speaker was asked, did so many reporters strive to provide balance in their accounts?  Didn’t they realize that they should be writing about the truth and not what right-wing partisans believe?

From the follow-up, it became evident that the questioner assumed that the liberal point of view is consistently true.  Whereas it is based upon science, conservative assertions are unenlightened opinion.

In recent years, I have heard many liberals quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan to the effect that although everyone is entitled to his of her own opinion, no one is entitled to his or her own facts.  Liberals, because they assume they have a monopoly on facts, use this as a way of putting conservatives in their place.

Still, at no point during this discussion did anyone suggest that there was such a thing as liberal bias.  The word was never mentioned.  The current political campaign may have brought forth a raging torrent of left-wing prejudices, but this is not how these sociologists saw the matter.

They assumed they were objective.  All they wanted to do was to protect the public from conservative misinformation.  This was part of their responsibility as scientists and concerned citizens.

It never occurred to them that they were asking for censorship.  Had someone suggested that liberal arguments be left out of journalistic accounts because they are slanted, they would have been outraged.  This would have been regarded as tyrannical.

The point is that liberals are so arrogant that they are unaware of their biases.  From their perspective, they are only good people who are trying to reveal social realities.  If others come to different conclusions, it is either because they are malevolent or dim-witted.

It was easy to see from whence liberal preconceptions derive.  These folks are always surrounded by like-minded associates.  They never hear a nonconforming voice and so they assume there is no such thing as legitimate disagreement.

Perhaps I should have said something.  Perhaps I should have pointed out that they were endorsing dishonesty.  I did not.  Maybe this was cowardice on my part.  Or it could have been a realization that nothing I said would have made any difference.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University