The Conservative Dilemma – Higher Education

On Election Day 2008 Americans came out of the voting booths and described themselves to pollsters as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2 to 1, but had just proceeded to vote for Barack Obama. In that election most of the independents or moderates voted that way, but a second and more important factor was that 18-29 year –olds supported Obama by a margin of more than that, 66-32 percent, and they comprised almost 25 million votes. They showed up again in 2012 in even greater numbers. Therein, lies the dilemma for conservatives; America’s educational system is manufacturing millions of future Obama’s and those who support his view of the world.

The political left has promoted big government for many years. Since the election of Obama, socialists and communists have infiltrated our government with ideas, and sometimes legislation, far more radical than big government. They are the product of our higher education system. A 2007 study by George Mason University found that liberal faculty members at our universities outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of 11 to 1 among social scientists and 13 to 1 among humanities professors. This can’t be a coincidence because poll after poll for the last two decades say that Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by 35-45% versus 20-35%.

Much of this trend is in schools rated among the top in the nation. For example, an analysis of Cornell University professors found 166 liberals compared to 6 conservatives, and UCLA claimed 141 liberals to only 9 conservatives. I venture a guess you will find the same at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Universities of California, Chicago, New York, etc. It’s like only liberals go into the profession or maybe that’s all they look for. At these schools impressionable students hear liberal words like tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism, collectivism, globalization, and relate them to the secular sacred cows like gender, race, and sexual orientation. Not in the context of the diversity of ideas, but the context of indoctrination. America is the problem, America is racist, America is ruining the environment, America is homophobic, America is greedy, are the continual themes.

Barack Obama is hardly one-of-a-kind, he is a product of this system, and you as a parent continue to send your children to these schools and contribute to their endowment funds. Recently my alma mater, Rutgers University, was courting me for more than a year for a large donation to Alumni Fund. After researching their faculty, student organizations, and speakers who are invited to give seminars, I could not relate to their current student body or the political bent of the school and told them so. They still persist.

For the last 15 years I have supported the Young America Foundation www.yaf.com . They work at the high school and college level to establish local chapters that support and invite conservative speakers to universities all over the nation in order to send a more balanced message to our young people. They also sponsor conferences and regional meetings where young people can hear the conservative message from contemporary political leaders. In addition, I have provided below a list of outstanding universities researched by the Young America Foundation, where your child can get a more balanced education of the political options.

Young people have become an influential voting bloc. It’s time for parents to look at this issue, for the only way that our system of government can be destroyed is from within. Our leftist educators appear to be doing a good job of just that.

List of Leading Conversative Colleges and Universities
Christendom  College
Front Royal, Virgnia
(800) 877-5456
www.christendom.edu

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri
(800) 222-0525
www.cofo.edu

Colorado Christian University
Lakewood, Colorado
800-44-FAITH
www.ccu.edu

Franciscan University
Steubenville, Ohio
(800) 783-6220
www.franciscan.edu

Grove City College
Grove City, Pennsylvania
(724) 458-2100
www.gcc.edu

Harding University
Searcy, Arkansas
(501) 279-4000
www.harding.edu

Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, Michigan
(517) 607-2327
www.hillsdale.edu

The King's College
New York, New York
(212) 659-7200
www.tkc.edu

Liberty University
Lynchburg, Virginia
(434) 582-2000
www.liberty.edu

Patrick Henry College
Purcellville, Virginia
(888)338-1776
www.phc.edu

Regent University
Virginia Beach, Virginia
(888) 718-1222
www.regent.edu

Saint Vincent College
Latrobe, Pennsylvania
(724) 537-4540
www.stvincent.edu

Thomas Aquinas College
Santa Paula, California
(800)634-9797
www.thomasaquinas.edu

Thomas More College
Merrimack, New Hampshire
(603) 880-8308
www.thomasmorecollege.edu

Wisconsin Lutheren College
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(414) 443-8811
www.wlc.edu




                                  

Rules For Politicians in Current Times

My wife always said I would be a good politician but when I looked at the current rules, I concluded I would not make the grade:

Symbolism always trumps substance.

If you give the appearance of success enough times it becomes the truth.

If you don’t respond to your opponent’s lack of civility you give the appearance of weakness.

Young voters eventually grow up and realize that politics does affect their lives.

Politicians are similar to entertainers; they are not always what they appear to be.

If you know how to yell, move your hands, and talk ex-temporaneously, you can be a good politician. You don’t have to be smart or know what you’re talking about, but it helps.

If you are a successful politician and do not leave office as a rich man, you are not very smart.

If you can socialize with someone who degrades you in public, you have the potential to be a good politician.

Being a hypocrite is essential to being a successful politician.

If you are successful, lead a good life, and play by the rules, don’t run for public office.

If you tell the truth and never pander to special interests, you will never get re-elected.


Now you know why you don’t find many quality people in this occupation?

The New American Electorate

This is the post I did not want to write. In fact, I wrote another one 5 days ago for publication today because I thought Mitt Romney would now be President of the United States. Am I despondent? No. Do I still have faith in the United States and its destiny? Yes. Have I changed or altered my conservative political bent? No. Am I still fearful of the direction of this country? Yes. Will I continue to call Barack Obama out on his mistakes and performance? You bet!

The pundits will dissect and analyze the results of this election for the next few months but one thing is sure; this is a changed electorate. Voters are impressionable and impulsive, and facts or astute analysis to solve problems is not the path to victory. It’s the way you package the message and create perceptions that count. One of my friends who reads this blog told me that, but I did not heed his warning because I am a logical businessman with scientific training. Facts may win in the long term, but perception and emotion prevails in the short term when our electorate is made up primarily of women, Hispanics, and people under 30.

Of course, the danger is that impressionable or emotional people are more prone to make mistakes or take precipitous actions, and that makes this world a more dangerous place. It also means that the less educated and less informed have a greater influence on outcomes. This means our direction as a country becomes more like the rest of the pack and our exceptionalism dissolves.

With this kind of electorate, a campaign run by President Obama works well regardless of whether most people think we are headed in the wrong direction, or the economy has not really improved, or poverty is on the rise. He did it with a negative campaign that demonized his opponent, and told mistruths and lies about him enough times that the perception was created. Also, it was startlingly that 15% of the electorate said that Hurricane Sandy impacted their vote! That’s what happens with an impulsive electorate when visual impressions are so important. What you see is more important that what you say!

I will continue to support the conservative message because I believe it is the right one. However, based on the election I am disconnected with the American public, but not by much, according to the popular vote count. Unfortunately, only 10 states dictated events in the electoral vote. So nothing much has changed, and we are headed to 4 more years of big government. I only hope that Mr. Obama take heed of the tax reform ideas of Mr. Romney to get us out of this economic mess, because he appears clueless at this point. See, I still have my spunk!