Daily Archives: January 30, 2022

Nearly half of Democrats would favor rounding up those who have declined to get the Covid shot into camps, according to a recent poll.

The survey by Rasmussen Reports and the Heartland Institute investigated Democrat and Republican voters views on Covid-related issues and asked whether they would approve of various punishments for unvaccinated Americans.The poll found that 45 percent of Democrats approve of placing the unvaccinated in designated facilities.

Additionally, a majority (59 percent) of Democrats supported putting the unvaccinated under effective house arrest, while nearly half (47 percent) wanted to see a government tracking program for the vaccine-hesitant.

Forty-eight percent of Democrats surveyed approved of government fines or imprisonment for those who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines online, and almost three in 10 Democrat respondents (29 percent) said they would support separating unvaccinated parents from their children.

These astounding results fit right in with Democrats historical track record of threatening to limit the freedom of their political adversaries, including taking legal action against them.

Democrats determination to treat the unvaccinated as a lesser class of citizens who post a threat to America up to signaling support for placing unvaccinated Americans in designated facilities recalls Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelts decision to place thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps between 1942 and 1945. Eighty years later, the Democrat party still wishes to ostracize those whom they consider a threat, to the point of being open to confining and silencing political adversaries.

The polls revelation that nearly half of Democrats approve of fining or imprisoning Americans who publicly raise doubt about Covid vaccines also continues a long Democrat tradition of seeing to silence opposition. Even before the Biden White House colluded with Big Tech platforms to silence dissidents, the Democratic National Committee platform called for targeting citizens First Amendment rights in seeking to overturn the U.S. Supreme Courts 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The courts Citizens United ruling came after the conservative group was blocked from publishing a film about Hillary Clinton which cast the Democrat presidential candidate in a negative light. The court ruled in favor of Citizens United, deeming that the Federal Election Commissions blocking of the film infringed on Citizens Uniteds First Amendment rights.Since then, Democrats have decried the decision and sought its reversal.

Additionally, Democrats have campaigned on other drastic authoritarian measures like taking away firearms from law-abiding citizens and defunding local police. Americans clearly enumerated freedoms mean nothing to Democrats who believe their agenda trumps everything else.

Alasdaire Fleitas is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where she studies psychology and religious studies.

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Nearly Half Of Democrats Support Putting Unvaxxed Americans In Camps - The Federalist

Fifth Avenue in New York City was a moving sight on Friday as thousands of law enforcement officers gathered for the funeral of 22-year-old NYPD cop Jason Rivera. Rivera, who was posthumously promoted to detective during Fridays service, was killed in the line of duty while responding to a call in Harlem last week.

Riveras partner Wilbert Mora also died following the ambush, after undergoing two surgeries and remaining on life support for four days. Mora, whose organ donations saved five lives, will be honored with a funeral next Wednesday.

Outside the funeral service for Rivera in St. Patricks Cathedral on Friday, law enforcement officers braved the snow to stand together in Riveras honor, filling Fifth Avenue in an awe-inspiring display.

The outpouring of support is especially striking after the last year and a half of intensified antagonism against police. Last week, the FBI reported that intentional killings of law enforcement officers were at a 20-year high. Excluding the law enforcement personnel killed on 9/11, the recent numbers are the highest since 1995.

Riveras 22-year-old widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, offered a moving eulogy and recounted that she and her husband had fought the day he died.

We left your apartment, and because I didnt want to continue to argue, I ordered an Uber. You asked me, if Are you sure you dont want me to take you home? It might be the last ride I give you. I said, no. And that was probably the biggest mistake I ever made, she said.

Later that day I received the call I wish none of you that are sitting here with me will ever receive. I saw two police officers were shot in Harlem. I immediately texted you and asked you, Are you OK. Please tell me you are OK. I know you are mad right now, but just text me you are OK. Just tell me you are busy. I get no response, she continued. And this time I felt something wasnt right.

Luzuriaga also directed frustration at Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, saying, The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even members of service. I know you were tired of these laws, especially from ones from the new DA.

I hope he is watching you speak through me right now. Im sure all of our blue family is tired too, but I promise your death wont be in vain, she said. Well take the watch from here.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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WATCH: Thousands Fill NYC Streets To Honor Slain Cop Jason Rivera - The Federalist

Left-wing comedian Bill Maher voiced Americas frustration over anti-science mask mandates, and it sent Whoopi Goldberg and her The View co-hosts spinning.

The Real Time with Bill Maher host echoed the exhaustion many Americans have felt about elites insistence on perpetuating a neverending pandemic.

This, its just gone on too long. Nobody cares anymore, Maher said on Friday. I dont want to live in a paranoid world anymore, your mask-paranoid world Its silly now. You know, you mask, you have to have a card, you have to have a booster, they scan your head like youre a cashier and Im a bunch of bananas. Im not bananas, you are!

While Maher spoke the mind of many Americans who are desperate for an end to the paranoia and precautions surrounding Covid, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts slammed his comments on The View on Monday.Goldberg called Mahers segment insensitive and bizarrely accused him of insinuating that vaccinated Americans are sexually gratified by taking precautions against Covid.

Nobody on the planet really wants to go through this, Goldberg said. This is not something were doing because you know, its sexually gratifying.

She went on to accuse Maher of overlooking the risks Covid poses to children who arent approved for vaccination yet, ignoring the fact that children are at extremely low risk of dying from Covid. How dare you be so flippant, man? she continued.

I dont think were to the post-mask part, chimed in co-host Sara Haines. Kind of like 9/11 with flying, [Covid restrictions are] always gonna be here now, theres a new normal. I may never go indoors to big crowds and ever feel comfortable without a mask.

Goldbergs far-fetched accusations are hardly merited by Mahers comments, which speak for most Americans who are exhausted by paranoia surrounding the virus and the mandates that have emerged from it. Americans are desperate for an end to prolonged mask mandates, while government officials are claiming there is no end in sight.

Last month, during an interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABCs Jonathan Karl that mask-wearing on airplanes will likely continue despite the fact that more than half of Americans are fully vaccinated.

Fauci signaled to Karl that, while he would support vaccine mandates for domestic flights, vaccine mandates dont mean mask-wearing shouldnt still continue.

A vaccine requirement for a person getting on the plane is just another level of getting people to have a mechanism that would spur them to get vaccinated, Fauci said. So I mean, anything that could get people more vaccinated would be welcome.

However, he continued, We want to make sure people keep their masks on. I think the idea of taking masks off, in my mind, is really not something we should even be considering.

Mahers comments raise the question that is on so many Americans minds: When will this end? While coronavirus may dissipate, it is clear that there is no end in sight for the mandates it enabled. Whats more, theobscene reactions from Goldberg and others to occasional rationality from their fellow leftists prove there is deep-seated division in this country that, like mask mandates, isnt going away anytime soon.

Alasdaire Fleitas is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where she studies psychology and religious studies.

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Watch Bill Maher's Anti-Mask Joke Send 'The View' Hosts Over The Edge - The Federalist

Whether Mitch McConnells boneheaded distinction between African-Americans and Americans was a misstatement or something more sinister, the fact remains: America will not benefit from federalizing its elections.

The narrative that continues to be stoked by the radical left is that states all over the country are actively denying blacks the right to vote and only the federal government can stop it. At the center of this controversy is the oppressive requirement that all voters be required to produce a valid ID, which will disparately affect black voters because everyone knows blacks are more likely than whites to not have an ID.

Joe Bidens risible claims about voting rights are true to what Malcolm X described as the trickery of the white liberal: The history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negroes think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems.

The trickery for todays white liberal is to manufacture racism by creating the narrative that voter ID is racist and will disproportionately harm blacks. Or that limiting the amount of early voting and other measures that increase ballot vulnerability is inherently racist because blacks wont vote unless the federal government prods them to the polls because blacks are so dependent on the federal government.

Not only is this narrative unsupported by facts, this lie covers the truth that Democrats dont want any election laws passed that might catch or stop from voting illegally people Democrats believe will vote Democratincluding voters who dont want to prove they havent voted twice in the same election.

Every black person I know has an ID. Can any supporters of the Freedom To Vote Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act produce black people who tried to vote but were turned away because they did not have a valid photo ID? Thats the rap on Georgia and other states laws requiring all prospective voters to prove who they claim to be as a protection against claims of voter fraud.

The big deal with these state legislatures tightening security measures is allegedly not that the measures are unnecessary, but that they are discriminatory, racist, and targeted to keep blacks from voting. Democrats must believe that blacks arent smart or interested enough to get a photo ID, the central security measure being added to state voting protocols.

For the past year, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi have been Jim Crowing that the Georgia law and others like it are racist since black people are more likely than their white counterparts to not have an ID and therefore be denied their vote (for Democratsbecause, according to Joe Biden, you aint black if you dont vote Democrat). Really?

What is it about being black that makes one less likely to have identification? Seems like a racist sentiment. Assuming that there is a black adult without identification, we are supposed to presume that black voters without IDs would be so intimidated by a requirement to present an ID that they would rather not vote than stop by the local license branch and get an ID for the cost of a Big Mac and a Coke? Most states like Indiana will waive the minimal fee if necessary.

But if Democrats are right, and requiring identification is indeed racist, why are they only making noise about required ID voting? Shouldnt they complain about driving, which would be racist because an ID is required to drive? What about opening a bank account, credit application, or ordering a cell phone, cable and ordinary utilities?

All these would have racist implications daily rather than just on Election Day. Yet theres not a peep about blacks not being able to get a cell phone or cable TV, because that doesnt get the Democrat his votes.

This all leads to the Democrat solution: kill the Senate filibuster. Of course, we are reminded that the filibuster was the procedural tool used by Democrats and Republicans to oppose civil rights legislation. But the use of the tactic that may have been used against what is now viewed as popular legislation does not make the tactic itself racist in its application.

The filibuster has evolved from its initial incarnation to a procedure that provides the minority party or position the opportunity to be heard. Since both parties have often been in the minority, both parties have benefited and suffered from its deployment.

I know it might be painful for them, but perhaps Democrats should open up their playbook and remember what they did to intimidate and suppress black voters in the first half of the 20th century.

It is unnerving that the Democrat Party draws comparisons to its champions of segregation Bull Connor and George Wallace suggesting that voter ID is a discriminatory tool, the same as the poll tax or the literacy test, that actually prevented blacks from voting in a notoriously humiliating manner. Such comparisons are a disgrace to the honored memory of all who fought and won victories in securing the right to vote.

In the continued invocation of Jim Crow, the euphemism for the abhorrent laws that legally sanctioned segregation, discrimination, and brutality, Biden and his race-baiting big government aim to racialize the filibuster so that all who support its continued use are brandished racist forevermore. I hope blacks in this nation are wearing thin to the leftist patronization that denigrates the proud history of black and white patriots who fought, bled, and died for freedom, independence, and our opportunity to vote.

Curtis Hill is the former attorney general of Indiana.

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No, Requiring Voter ID Is Not 'Jim Crow 2.0' And It's Offensive To Say That - The Federalist

Today, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, or Webb) reaches its position in solar orbit. Launched on Christmas Day from Kourou in French Guiana on an Ariane 5ECA rocket, the seven-ton Webb represents the most sophisticated instrument ever conceived for measuring the cosmos.

Its infrared and spectroscopic sensors are designed to peer into the visible universes edge roughly a quarter- to a half-billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe became optically transparent (an event called recombination). Prior to this, scientists posit the ionized universe was too hot to enable stable atoms to form.

To provide some perspective, 500 million years is as distant from the present as when trilobites first appeared, but represents less than 4 percent of the universes estimated age. The infrared spectrumwith light wavelengths somewhat longer than the visible spectrumis also less opaque for interstellar dust, enabling astronomers to see celestial objects otherwise obscured from earth.

As the universe expands, the light from distant celestial objects decreases in frequency, so the visible ultraviolet photons upon reaching our instruments have stretched their wavelengths into the infrared or even microwave bands. Stephen C. Meyer, the author of Return of the God Hypothesis, explains Webbs importance to improved cosmic understanding in our ongoing quest for knowledge.

Webbs final destination corresponds to its second Lagrange Point, almost 1 million miles beyond home and four times our distance to the moon. For those who skipped orbital mechanics in college, the gravitational attraction by a pair of massive bodies presents nodes, where a small object can hover at its relative position to its much larger neighbors.

Each binary system has five such nodes, called Lagrange Points. The second such position, called L2, is situated behind earth in relation to the sun. At this location, earths dark side perpetually faces Webb.

As a cooperative venture by NASA Goddard, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency, the JWST project presented major design engineering and integration challenges across its quarter-century development. To exploit an additional 13 percent increase in initial velocity from earths rotation, Webb passed through the Panama Canal following final evaluation in Redondo Beach, California to launch near the Amazon mouth rather than from Cape Canaveral.

Webb represents a technological marvel designed for unforgiving requirements to operate hundreds of components without error. This monumental engineering accomplishment combines a photon collector and an equipment assembly under contract to Northrop Grumman.

Solar panels provide two kilowatts of power, about half that used by a lawnmower. A primary mirror gathers photons that then reflect through a secondary mirror for directing to infrared detectors.

Supported by a carbon-fiber truss, the primary mirror comprises 18 gold-plated hexagonal tiles designed to flex and tilt via motors. These tiles are composed of beryllium (recall the power control sphere from Galaxy Quest), which is both lightweight and stiff. Their total starlight collection area is 48 square feetfive times that of the Hubble Space Telescope (at launch in 1990), despite Webb weighing only 60 percent as much.

To ensure adequate infrared sensitivity, an ingenious sun shield passively cools Webbs mirror tiles to 388 degrees Fahrenheit. With the area of a tennis court, the sun shield faces earth and sun, deflecting and reradiating the suns energy away from the primary mirror.

Behind the sun shield, a carbon-fiber container called the spacecraft bus stores communication and instrumentation equipment. After arriving at L2, control systems on board will align and calibrate the tiles to ensure proper focus.

Designing and fabricating the sun shield itself presented enormous difficulties. The sun shield comprises five sheets of Kapton polyimide plastic from DuPont coated with aluminum. The two outermost layers include an additional thin layer of silicon to reflect solar energy away from the mirrors.

Seams reinforce the sheets to inhibit lengthy rips when struck by micrometeorites. These sheets were folded origami-style into a 15-foot diameter cylinder to fit within the Ariane fairing. While boosted along Webbs trajectory towards L2, the sun shield had to then carefully unfurl via multiple cables and pulleys tugged by motors.

Although the sun shield protects the mirrors from solar radiation, the mid-IR detection instrument behind the primary mirror must be further cooled to 448 degrees Fahrenheit. An acoustic resonance chamber specifically configured for the Webb mission accomplishes this energy transfer. This cryocooler buffets helium atoms to thermally separate them and uses heat exchangers to radiate away the excess energy.

The telescopes namesake, James E. Webb (1906-1992), served as NASAs second director. He was the man who guided the Apollo lunar program. A veteran of the Marine Corps, he vigorously defended manned space missions to skeptical congressional representatives and senators, handling life-threatening crises that arose during these breakneck developments. Leftist grievance activists sought to have the telescope renamed, but NASA declined to cave into these cancel culture demands.

Professor of chemistry Anna Krylov warns that politicizing technological endeavors disrupts scientific discovery. Refusing to recognize predecessors whose achievements have provided astounding improvements in society is a hallmark of dclass grifters envious of others who possess the skill and self-discipline to embark on such difficult assignments.

Although their intimidation shakedowns have infiltrated Lockheed and Raytheon management, one can expect that many in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) community will resist this encroachment. Merely imagining STEM professionals reception of diversity charlatans banning terms such as blackbody radiation, white noise, and male and female fittings provokes considerable amusement.

The 20th-century German historian Oswald Spengler issued pessimistic predictions about the continuance of western culture in Decline of the West. Towards the end of that second volume, however, he glimpsed a distinctive observation regarding what he called the Machine that represents our technological civilization.

[T]he very existence of the industry depends upon talented rigorously schooled brains that command the technique and develop it onward. The quiet engineer is the machines master and destiny. When the crop of recruits for this army fails, the industry must flicker out.

Individual techies might be expendable, but they are not en masse. Without such persons, technology vanishes, and society descends to prehistoric subsistence. Alternatively, we can study Mandarin before the rush.

To accomplish socially significant projects like Webb, the STEM community depends on the broader polity by which compatible goals can be shared. Its interesting that Chinas tripling of its economy over the past three decades has been overseen by three science-minded executives since 1993: Jiang Zemin (electrical engineer), Hu Jintao (hydraulic engineer), and currently Xi Jinping (chemical engineer). Over the same period our presidentseither lawyers (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden) or businessmen (George W. Bush and Donald Trump)have carelessly squandered Americas global-influencing heritage and fecklessly imperiled her national security.

Webb presents a tremendous milestone in space exploration: a telescope with the power to peer even beyond Hubbles magnificent accomplishments. Future astronomy may envision subsequent celestial light-gathering devices assembled in low-earth orbit for even better insight into Gods creation. In the meantime, we can bask in the achievement of the teams of scientists and engineers who brought Webb to fruition.

G. W. Thielman has bachelors and masters degrees in engineering. He is currently employed as a patent attorney, and lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His opinions are his own.

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A New Era In Space Begins Today, Thanks To The Webb Telescope - The Federalist

By Bob Leith

For The Ironton Tribune

Our second national government was called the Articles of Confederation. This government was ratified in 1781. This government, with a short life lasting until 1789, was purposely made weak and ineffective and each of the 13 states retained its sovereignty.

There was no president of the United States under this government. Men began talking about revising the articles. The Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to revise the Articles and make a stronger union. The Founding Fathers decided to submit a new frame of government and do away with the Articles.

After many suggestions, arguing and four compromises, the Founding Fathers hoped the states would ratify the newly-written U.S. Constitution. The new government, called for in this new constitution, went into effect March 4, 1789.

This government provided for a president and vice-president. Everyone knew George Washington would be the first president. In fact, he received every electoral vote from the Electoral College. No other president has received a unanimous electoral vote. There were no nationally-organized political parties until Washington and John Adams, his vice-president, took office.

Those who supported the new government were called Federalists and those who opposed the new constitution were called Anti-federalists. During Washingtons first term (1789-1793), political parties began to develop.

The leaders of the Federalist Party were Alexander Hamilton and Adams. Washington believed there was no need for political parties. He felt parties would harm the United States. Those around him considered him to be a Federalist, but he claimed no party affiliation.

The Federalists attitude toward the common people was summarized by John Jay when he wrote that those who own the country are most fit persons to participate in the government of it.Federalists blatantly stated that they were the party of the rich, well-born and able.

The Federalist Party only won the presidency one time. Adams was the only Federalist candidate to become a president. In the election of 1816, the Federalists nominated their last presidential candidate Rufus King, of New York. After this election, the Federalist Party virtually disappeared.

Thomas Jefferson left Washingtons cabinet and, along with James Madison, co-founded an opposing party to the Federalists. This opposition party was organized in 1793 and called the Republican Party out of respect to the Romans. This new party appealed to the small farmers, frontiersmen and small shop keepers not the rich, well-born, and able.

The Federalists, believing only they should govern the country, derisively called the Republicans Democratic-Republicans, affixing the Greek Democratic to Jeffersons original name of Republican.

Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe successfully won the presidency as Democratic-Republicans. When Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828, he dropped the word Republican and his party was simply called the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party divided into factions under Jackson, Adams and Henry Clay. The men who drew up the constitution did not forsee the rise of the two-party system, but its beginnings were found in the debate over ratification of the constitution.

The election of 1824 was the second instance where the results of the Electoral College did not produce a president. The two-party system had died and all of the principal candidates claimed to be Republicans.

In this election, state legislatures nominated men from their geographic regions (favorite son candidates. At the outset of this election, 17 candidates were considering running. Actually, there were six serious candidates left. One of the serious six, William Lowndes, had been nominated by the South Carolina legislature for president in 1821. He died at sea in 1822 and the field was narrowed to five.

The favorite of the five candidates was William H. Crawford, Monroes secretary of the treasury. He had been nominated by the King Caucus method. King Caucus was a method where members of the same party met behind closed doors and nominated men for the presidency and formulated policies.

Crawford, who was the official party candidate, was given the wrong medicine and suffered a paralytic stroke in 1823. One would think that a candidate who was half-paralyzed and half-blind would drop out of contention. He stayed in the race, but never did fully recover. With Crawford refusing to withdraw, the other four candidates would realistically seek the presidency.

From the west came two favorite sons. From Tennessee came Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans. He was the common peoples choice. His enemies considered him a hothead and called him a murderer. From Kentucky came Henry Clay, the Cock of Kentucky. He was a powerful speaker of the House. His enemies accused him of being a gambler and drunkard. He lost the presidency three times.

The favorite son of New England and New York was John Quincy Adams, son of Federalist president John Adams. He was Secretary of State and had a wealth of education and experience.

Lastly, there was John C. Calhoun, the favorite son of South Carolina. He was secretary of war from 1817-1825. After seeing Jacksons popularity, Calhoun consented to be nominated for the vice-presidency, willing to wait his turn. He would serve as vice president from 1825-1832.

The results of the election of 1824 were inconclusive in both the electoral vote and popular vote. Electorally, Jackson had 99, Adams 84, Crawford 41 and Clay 37. In the popular vote, Jackson had 154,000, Adams 109,000, Crawford 47,000 and Clay 47,000.

Not one candidate had an electoral majority. It took 131 electoral votes to become president. The 12th Amendment of the Constitution stated that, without an electoral majority, the top three vote getters names would be deliberated upon in the House of Representatives. Henry Clay was eliminated.

The House vote would occur on Feb 9. Each of the 24 states had one vote to be decided by the majority of the states representatives. The candidate who received 13 state votes in the House would be president. Results in the House would be affected heavily by the New York delegation and a man named Stephen Van Rensselaer III. The House of Representatives would elect a president on the first ballot.

Van Rensselaer (1764-1839), of New York, was part of his states delegation in the House of Representatives. He owned vast land holdings in New York, was lieutenant governor of New York and major general of the New York militia at the beginning of the War of 1812. He was very wealthy, extremely religious and was a proponent of higher education.

The word spread around Washington that the House delegation from New York was deadlocked 17-17. As a member of the House, he said he would vote for William H. Crawford as he had previously pledged. Speaker of the House Henry Clay felt Rensselaer could be persuaded to change his vote. When the New York delegation arrived on Feb. 9, 1825, Clay and Daniel Webster took Rensselaer into the speakers room and used their powers of persuasion.

Clay and Webster failed. Van Rensselaer was very nervous and confused just before the balloting. Before he cast his ballot, Rensselaer bowed his head in prayer and sought divine guidance about his vote. When he opened his eyes, he saw a slip of paper with John Q. Adams name on it. This was a discarded ballot. Rensselaer took this scrap of paper to be a sign from God. Rensselaer put the scrap of paper in the ballot box, broke the 17-17 tie and made Adams President of the United States.

An ardent Jackson supporter, George Kremer, screamed the term corrupt bargain, since Adams named Clay to be his Secretary of State. They had met on a Sunday, but little is known of what happened between them. Adams famous diary was totally silent.

This charge of corrupt bargain influenced the Tennessee legislature to designate Jackson as its presidential choice in 1828, and so the campaign of 1828 really began in 1825. Calhoun became the Vice-President as he affixed his name to both Jackson and Adams prior to the election of 1824.

The Founding Fathers had thought that the Electoral College would fail to elect a president 19 out of every 20 elections. They were in error. Only three times (1800, 1824, 1876) has the Electoral College failed to elect an American president.

Bob Leith is a retired history professor from Ohio University Southern and The University of Rio Grande.

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Strange But True: Lone vote broke deadlocked of election of 1824 - The Tribune | The Tribune - Ironton Tribune

Marxism, Anarchism, and the Black Radical Tradition, Witchcraft and the Cultural Imagination, Trans-bodies in Horror Cinema, The Problem of Whiteness, and Transnational Queer Politics and Practices are not course titles invented by The Babylon Bee to mock the state of Americas universities. Rather, they are real classes I came across this year while scrolling through the course listings for the University of Chicagos winter quarter.

As a senior, I had flexibility in my schedule to take a class simply for the joy of learning, irrespective of whether it fulfilled a graduation requirement. This should have been an enjoyable experience. Instead, the process left me fearful of the close-minded young people being inculcated by my school and so many other academic institutions.

As a politically conservative student, I am accustomed to being in the classroom minority. To be clear, I was not looking for a course that would reinforce my conservative beliefs (even if I was, conservative classes simply do not exist). All I wanted was to take a class that was not explicitly partisan by its very title or course description.

I desired to be in a class where I would actually learn, with the help of a fair and open-minded professor who is intellectually confident enough to include multiple perspectives in his assigned readings. Unfortunately, it was incredibly easy to find swaths of leftist courses but quite difficult to come across classes aimed at genuine intellectual exploration.

There is a reason explicitly leftist courses like The Problem of Whiteness are prevalent, but it is impossible to take conservative classes and hard to even find open-minded ones. In recent years, conservative or middle-of-the-road professors have been weeded out or forced into self-censorship by a rigid, punitive academic culture. If a professor does not agree with the majority of his colleagues or dares to depart from left-wing orthodoxy, he is threatened and punished by fellow educators and students (even in the STEM fields).

While it is demoralizing for conservative students to never have our views and ideas discussed, much less validated, we at least have the advantage of constantly being intellectually challenged. Sadly, I cannot say the same for my leftist peers, who can fill their entire course schedule with classes that reaffirm their preconceived worldviews.

Graduating after being virtually unchallenged for four years is not only a disservice to students; its dangerous for our country. A 2017 study by P. J. Henry and Jaime Napier showed that education is related to greater ideological prejudice, finding that the higher ones education level, the stronger his political intolerance. This is the obvious byproduct of leftist thought saturating the academymore time spent there necessarily fosters a one-sided sense of intellectual superiority.

A more recent 2021 study done by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education found that 66 percent of students said they supported shouting down speakers. Shockingly, 23 percent of student respondents support using violence to stop a speaker. Both numbers have spiked since 2020.

By indoctrinating and coddling young people, American universities are breeding intolerance. We are already seeing the effects of this indoctrination. Young leftists have disavowed our founding documents and fathers, and they censor, fire, harass, and publicly slander anyone who dares think differently from them.

Consider that our federal bureaucracies, the chambers of Congress, and the boardrooms of Americas most powerful corporations have only received the first wave of woke young people. Subsequent waves will be even more intolerant. Thanks to their immersion in the left-wing academic monoculture, the next generation will undoubtedly cement the downfall of the American mind and limit frighteningly more liberty in their wake.

This story was originally published in theChicago Thinker.

Evita Duffy is a senior contributor to The Federalist, co-founder of the Chicago Thinker, and a senior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evitapduffy@uchicago.edu

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Crazed Left-Wing Courses Signify The Downfall Of The American Mind - The Federalist