The Young (Collegiate) Left

Michelle Malkin has an excellent website, and a great deal of contacts and information on a variety of subjects.

I was interested to read her post about students that questioned Supreme Court Justice Scalia the other day. It seems that these students had no outside understanding of anything at all - they were just repeating non-question liberal talking points at Scalia. Such things as "I hear Dick Cheney's not such a great shot." "You want to impose your view of natural law on me." "Quail err quail..." "Illegal war in Iraq." None of these things had anything to do with Scalia's speech - it just appeared that these students "knew" all of the "right" things to say but had no idea what they were talking about.

This idea that young liberals, especially in US colleges and universities, are completely clueless about the issues they are supposedly passionate about is becoming more and more prevalent. As I saw at my own campus, liberal-minded students sometimes have a difficult time separating themselves from talking points they watch on CNN and how to address an opportunity for an intelligent conversation with someone with opposing views.

In the past two weeks I had someone at school tell me that "hunting is always stupid" and that the "crazy pro-lifers" were at it again in South Dakota. This first comment I let slide, however the second I directly addressed and found that the individual had no idea 1)what the South Dakota legislature had decided, 2)how a lawsuit attacking the new law would work, 3)how the country's abortion laws stood before Roe vs. Wade, and 4)what it meant if Roe vs. Wade would be overturned. Upon explaining to her that if Roe was overturned all power to regulate and legislate abortion would fall again to the states the person replied, "Oh - I would be against that!" I decided there was little point in me asking why.

Some people are annoyed when others make comments like "Bush lied" and "we're in Iraq for oil" and "Bill Clinton was the greatest American President ever." I feel bad for these individuals - they obviously have a fairly weak grasp on reality and when confronted about their regurgitated declarations they are usually quick to fumble, counter-attack, or simply walk away.