For many Americans, March is a month of warm sunshine, clear skies, and the refreshing languor of Spring Break. But leave it to liberals to turn a pleasant time of the year into a month of anger and resentment. Since it is during March that Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced four years ago, leftists around the world will commemorate the month by denigrating the United States and its troops, — and what better way to observe liberals in their anti-American Rite of Spring than being a student at UC Berkeley?
Our university wears its turbulent history like a badge of honor, but I’ve always questioned whether an age of Molotov cocktails and burning ROTC buildings is something to be proud of. Many alumni look back at those days and long for the return of noisy riots and hostile confrontations with the National Guard, lamenting the relative calm of today that most students exhibit when March 20 rolls around. Perhaps the only tribute that Cal students are paying to the ’60s is through their student government, the ASUC. On Page 8, Michael Klein and Derek Yee tell us how students’ “high times” and youthful indiscretions could pay off.
Meanwhile, protestations against the war from Cal students have been confined to the classroom, where our classmates pass off their hatred for the president and the American military as critical academic thought. It’s quite obvious that their nuanced analogies comparing Bush to certain German dictators are merely talking points from fringe leftist groups like Code Pink and A.N.S.W.E.R. Of course, their assertions are never challenged by their own professors, who have dedicated their careers to bringing down President George W. Bush, no matter how many dubious comparisons it takes.
Regardless of what you are learning about, your liberal classmate is desperate to find a link to the Iraq war. Silly leftist arguments regarding the war aren’t just confined to your Political Science class; they are professed in nearly every department, from Astrophysics to Yiddish. The Doe Library will only encourage them, where one artist’s depictions of Abu Ghraib have been compared to Picasso’s “Guernica.” On Page 13, Alex Marlow tells us what artist Fernando Botero and the university really think of this country.
The prevalence of dialogue on campus, albeit delusional, is somewhat encouraging. Though much of the faculty believes the opposite, the absence of tear gas and broken Sproul Hall windows are things that we should be even prouder of. For the most part, Cal has abandoned that ugly period and has left the troublemaking in the hands of aging hippies and wistful professors. That is why people over the age of 40 dominate the branches of the Memorial Stadium oak trees. While a good portion of our classmates have yet to outgrow their violently pacifist tendencies, Sproul Plaza isn’t the war zone that it was in the 1960s. To get a sense of the bad old days, an anti-war protest is just a BART ride away.
San Francisco remains the site for old-fashioned protests. Once you find yourself in the middle of a boisterous crowd of communists and terrorist apologists, you begin to wonder if common sense exists anywhere in San Francisco. And if you do ever find yourself observing a less-than-peaceful demonstration, grab your checklist on Page 14 to discover that the anti-war crowd needs some new ideas. Those same old puppets and slogans are due for retirement.
From all the yelling, chanting, and middle-finger waving, the point of all leftist protests becomes evident: Making a lot of noise feels good. As Ronald Reagan described the demonstrators of the ’60s, these modern-day rabble-rousers are just a “noisy, dissident minority.” They may be ineffective and bothersome to others, but making a lot of noise gives them a sense of worth, even when they are cheering for the terrorists. Fortunately, someone out there understands the jihadist threat; on Page 24, Aditya Kashap explains why Fox’s “24” gets it right and our loud liberal counterparts have it all wrong.
One television show, however, isn’t enough to keep the far left at bay. The appeal to “support the troops” may sound clichéd, but as our neighbors in the Bay Area and the Democrats in Congress strive to do the opposite, it is now more important than ever. The Patriot will certainly do its part.
Your Compatriot,
Andrew R. Quinio
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