This seems to be an issue that repeats itself when the College Republicans do much of anything controversial, and Friday's
Michelle Malkin event continued this pattern. On queue, CR First Vice Chair Mattie Duppler extrapolated the behavior of some hecklers into a broad
indictment of UW's liberal tradition.
Like most conservatives at Madison, one of my main gripes with this campus is that its liberalism only applies to Liberals. Nothing could have demonstrated this better than the events on Friday night when the College Republicans brought Michelle Malkin to campus to speak on immigration. In true democratic UW fashion, there was plenty of time for Q and A afterward. At this point things, as they normally do, got interesting. The lecture had been laden with rude remarks from the audience, but nothing was more offensive than when a student used his 15 seconds of fame to yell clarification of his sources to the invited lecturer: “A review of the book, you dumb fuck.”
Something controversial happens, so a few Republicans write a piece in the Herald about how liberals on this campus are immature, and then pat themselves on the back for being civilized and espousing an alternative viewpoint. All it takes is a few detractors for Duppler, or
Kristen Wall, or someone else to cry foul, and proclaim that political discourse is going to hell because they feel discriminated against. Then we liberals – who apparently despise the democratic debate they enable – get to hear more about how infantile we are because they associate us with drunken idiots with small brains (to paraphrase Duppler). That is not to say that heckling (or the sort of ideological oppression to which Duppler alludes) ought to be permitted, but rather that the tired routine of personally condemning all of those who disagree with the College Republicans has begun to wear extremely thin, especially when predicated on the actions of a few misbehaved students.
The common feature of these incidents is that the inevitable College Republican complaints tend not to feature discussion of the sort of contribution these events actually bring to campus. Rather than rise above the heckling and prove their worth to this campus's intellectual community, the College Republican leadership spends their time calling out "idiots" or "crazy liberals", or musing that Democrats act like "immature children" for holding views contrary to established Republican dogma (e.g. the "view" that Sarah Mikolajczak won her debate with Oliver Kiefer). If the College Republicans wish to be taken seriously as an intellectual force on this campus, it's time to stop writing tired op-eds that read like a
Rodney Dangerfield routine. We would all benefit from more examination of the ideas presented at these events, and explanations for why we ought to take them seriously. One cannot "win by default" simply by berating the opposition and crying foul at your minority status.
Maybe the intellectual atmosphere would be better served by inviting academically-qualified speakers to present their side of these issues. Relying upon sensationalist punditry (see Malkin's
past behavior) to articulate the conservative side of highly-nuanced policy issues does little to advance discussion, as such speakers stand to gain from an
emotionally-charged debate focused away from the issues. They profit by catering to a class of rigidly-partisan readers and viewers who themselves have little appreciation for a meaningful exchange of ideas. I have no doubt that the College Republicans possess the intelligence and the drive to participate fully in political discourse at this University. It's time to invite qualified speakers willing to lead stimulating discussions on the topics facing our school, and our nation. Maybe then, the College Republicans' leadership may move beyond the behavior that lowers themselves to the status of the heckler Duppler speaks of.
