If Wesleyan conservatives are particularly good at one thing, it’s riling people up. You always seem willing to do things to “troll” the community and provoke a response out of an unshakable belief in the correctness of your principles. However, you also are part of this community (which is a very small one, by the way) and are socially engaged with the very people (students of color etc.) who you are willing to openly imply are less deserving of being here than you. Thus your public statements are not merely political acts, but social acts that cause real discomfort to real people who are your classmates and could potentially be your friends. This “affirmative action bake sale” was a clever idea in the abstract, but on a small campus it is polarizing and abusive to those whom it implies do not belong here.
Conservatives at Wes need to learn civility and how to be constructive members of the community, rather than attacking the values and the people who constitute it. Professor Potter’s email was sent in her capacity as an intelligent citizen of the Wesleyan community whose education and work has educated her well on problems of socioeconomic and racial disparity in our society. I hope that Wesleyan will maintain its conscience and sense of goodwill toward all members of the community, and not sacrifice the relative comfort and safety that Wes has provided for generations of students who may not have fit into the America (or the ivory tower) that some conservatives imagine or would advocate.
The kind of political grandstanding that the “affirmative action bake sale” represents simply divides the community further by creating an adversarial relationship between conservatives and other student identity groups. Whatever the left and liberal activist groups on campus may say or do, they have never implied that you did not deserve to be here.
Sincerely,
Drew Flanagan
Flanagan is a member of the class of 2010.
25 Comments
Mytheos Holt '10
Drew,
How dare you publish something this insulting not only to the campus, but to everyone’s intelligence. You know as well as I do that the calls for conservative students to shut up or transfer someplace else are as common as squirrels on campus. Maybe you haven’t read the comment thread on Wesleying regarding this bake sale? Or the ACB thread discussing it? Or perhaps you’ve failed to read the collected works of SEWI’s Kathy Stavis ’10 and John Chisholm ’09? The former of those, by the way, calls conservative ideas “ruthless, disgusting and dangerous,” and the latter openly asked why “conservative sycophants with no sense of right and wrong” would go to Wesleyan if they don’t care about beating the crap out of people with privilege. Surely YOU are the one trolling US this time. Even I couldn’t have come up with something this flatly hypocritical.
And polarizing and abusive? What do you call this sentence: “I hope that Wesleyan will maintain its conscience and sense of goodwill toward all members of the community, and not sacrifice the relative comfort and safety that Wes has provided for generations of students who may not have fit into the America (or the ivory tower) that some conservatives imagine or would advocate.” So evidently conservatives are opposed to “comfort,” “safety,” “conscience” and “good will?” If you believe this, Drew, then why on earth haven’t you called for us to leave the campus, if we’re such swine? Too cowardly to show us all what a thin-skinned little hypocrite you are, eh?
As for Claire Potter, I am fascinated at your sudden lack of care for the power dynamic. Usually doesn’t the Left stick up for those who have power over others over those without power? I suppose you’ll tell me that somehow, some non-existent concepts like white conservative seal-clubbing privilege makes a white, straight sophomore more powerful than a tenured Professor with years of experience who just happens to study Leftist subjects? You claim Claire Potter was an “intelligent” member of the community. Is it true, then, that the Cardinal Conservatives are stupid? And if this intelligent exemplar of reason was so right, why could she provide no evidence for the supposed racism of the event other than “it incidentally hurt peoples’ feelings.” Well, your Wespeak hurts my feelings, Drew, so I suppose you’re racist against skinny half-Jewish boys.
Finally, how can you expect the Cardinal Conservatives to hold activist events that measure up to the skills of activist liberals? Why, they’ve only had negative role models who are jerks and trolls! Not to mention, they’ve been so oppressed for so long on-campus. You should be celebrating their sense of social engagement – who cares about the merits of their position? They’re oppressed, they deserve it either way, and I say this as someone who supports them! It’s only your liberal privilege that blinds you from seeing this, and I’m not going to justify that statement at all except to tell you to take a class in sociology at Hillsdale College, because clearly the methodology of a demonstrably right-leaning school’s right-leaning sociology department is beyond reproach.
If the above paragraph strikes you as condescending and an insult to your intelligence, then congratulations. You agree with the Cardinal Conservatives about affirmative action, since the above is precisely the logic your ilk throws at them on a constant basis. I’m sure most commenters haven’t read this far and are busily bashing out ripostes about what a “hypocrite” I am now.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
If you are a liberal and are still reading, then I apologize for the above irrelevant sentences, but I had to be sure. You are also officially more interested in an honest intellectual argument than Drew Flanagan, who, as this Wespeak clearly shows, has not bothered to familiarize himself with one iota of the history of resistance to conservative activism on this campus, nor even with the Cardinal Conservatives’ positions.
Go back to enjoying yourself with the works of Leon Blum, Drew. You know, something you actually understand. I’ll be here, waiting for an intellectually honest response to the Cardinal Conservatives. Given the stellar performance we already got from Danny Blinderman, I expect to be waiting a long time for an encore performance. It’s sad that a freshman could outclass you on the merits of this situation, Drew, but then, I suppose thinking never was the primary concern of Leftists. Your groins and hearts appear to be the only relevant cognitive organs you use.
Love and kisses,
Mytheos Holt ’10
Stevie
Liberalism is a guise in order to preserve white supremacy in this country.
Liberals scream for diversity, yet live in their all-white neighborhoods, secretly fighting against blacks from entering their neighborhoods.
Drew, you may rest assured that we Conservatives are a minority here, but Wesleyan is not a genuine representation of the real world. You and all your other Liberal ilk are shielded from the real life, and thus most of you grow up with delusions of grandeur.
In the real world, Liberalism is dying. No one is following or listening to you guys anymore.
Also, wasn’t it reported that 1 in 5 Americans are insane? Is it just coincidence that 1 in 5 Americans consider themselves Liberals?
Oh, and this isn’t just mere speculation. Dr. Lyle Rossiter agrees with me.
The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”
Your inability to ponder and view things from another person’s perspective also fits nicely into Dr. Lyle’s theory. After all, only children are incapable of insightfulness.
And for your information, I would suggest you actually look into why Liberalism or Progressivism was formed. Just because there is the world “progress” in the word doesn’t mean jack shit.
Norman Thomas (President of Communist Party USA)
The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened… I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.
To Drew
“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”
– Winston Churchill
I say raise the voting age to 30.
It’s people like this guy who voted for Obama out of shear emotion, thinking it’ll be so great to get the first black man in the oval office.
I bet this guy still sucks Obama’s dick even though Obama is essentially Bush Jr. Jr.
Jason
“Thus your public statements are not merely political acts, but social acts that cause real discomfort to real people who are your classmates and could potentially be your friends.”
Sorry, I just took a moment to read this and laughed when I read this part. Political correctness gone wild.
The way I see it, the Conservatives made a perfect analogy about what’s going on in college admissions.
At several prestigious colleges, admissions is based on a point-scale, where getting above a certain score guaranteed admissions. At UMichigan, being an African descent was worth more than having a 4.0 GPA or a 2400 SAT score. Yes, they assigned points for being a certain raise.
No matter how much emotional pain the Conservatives may have caused you Liberals, they brought up something that we know deep down to be true, but refuse to admit, because we might hurt someone’s feelings.
Drew, you may claim that no one has “implied that you (Conservatives) did not deserve to be here”, but I think anyone with 75+ IQ knows you’re just saying that to cover up what you truly feel, that you really do want the Conservatives out, because what they say is unpopular no matter how true it is.
Freedom of Speech allows you to say whatever you want as long as what you say is true. It does not protect you or any other Liberal from hearing something true that you do not like.
If that is the case, America is not the country for you and you do not belong here. I suggest you relocate to China or North Korea. I’m sure you’ll like it better there.
Wesleyan
All commenters above me can go fuck off. Fucking conservatives.
Mytheos Holt '10
^
“Whatever the left and liberal activist groups on campus may say or do, they have never implied that you did not deserve to be here.”
I await your apology, Drew.
Jason
@ Wesleyan
Typical Liberal.
Anonymous
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sorry… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I like to laugh at both you Liberals and Conservatives for fighting like children. It amuses moderates like me.
Anyway, Liberals have to realize that they’re never going to enact radical change in our country. The people lost faith in you. Across the board, the people trust Conservatives when it comes to ethics and leadership.
The 2nd poster is right. Liberalism is dying, not just in the US, but in Europe too.
You guys need to understand that when a lot of people are gathering to produce radical change, then there is probably some one or some group out there pulling the strings of the movement for personal gain.
An example of this is feminism. Though I think it is right that women should have the same opportunities as men, the reason why feminism was formed was not because the founders wanted equality. Their intent was to get the women out of the Kitchen so they can lower the standard-of-living for everyone. Once the women are out of the house, they can set up public schools as day-care centers for children, and the schools will indoctrinate the kids into the left.
Furthermore, why do you think a lot of ultra-wealthy billionaires are Liberals? Do you really think they would vote against their best interests?
Billionare-Rich people want high corporate and income taxes, as they can afford it, but their competition can’t. Once they drive nearly everyone out of business, they can form a near-monopoly in their respective industries.
As for Conservatives, well, I don’t really have a complaint about them. Conservatives donate more, volunteer more, and just simply help the poor more.
Liberals who make >500k/year donate like $10 a year on average, yet they keep pulling crap out of their ass that the rich oppress the poor.
LOL
Let me get this straight. You call republicans trolls, but you wrote an emotional, incoherent rant about them? Why feed the trolls?
Anonymous
“[People] at Wes need to learn civility and how to be constructive members of the community, rather than attacking the values and the people who constitute it…I hope that Wesleyan will maintain its conscience and sense of goodwill toward all members of the community, and not sacrifice the relative comfort and safety that Wes has provided for generations of students…”
Couldn’t that apply to Professor Potter who did exactly the opposite? (Or the campus’ general reaction towards the bake sale?) Wow, what a self-defeating argument.
Noumaan Shamsi
Mytheos,
Wesleyan was very happy the day you left. Please keep it that way. Thank you.
@Noumaan
I was very happy the day I got to stop responding to idiot comments/Wespeaks by members of my class on the Argus website. Please keep it that way. Thank you.
George Jones
Drew,
I applaud you for having guts. Taking on the establishment is never easy and the rewards are non-existent, simply a no win situation. The war between the have and have-nots has waged since the dawn of human existence. Based on your writings and the comments on this thread it is apparent that we are in midst of “The Age of Stupid”. To claim conservative or liberal at this juncture of our evolution is lunacy to be kind. We are at ‘Critical Mass’ and our very existence hinges on the world waking up and reversing the severe damage we’ve caused our planet and its inhabitants. We cannot wait another minute! Our political leaders continue to fail us every day they decide to continue the status quo. The covenant our parents made to make this world a better place has been broken for 2,000 years. Watching our youth (our hope) bicker as the world crumbles is disheartening to say the least. If our educated youth cannot see and focus on the real problems this world faces and must prioritize there simply is no hope. Please wake up, our very existence depends on it.
@ george
I completely agree. Liberals will cause the destruction of this great country. Please wake up. Research why liberalism was formed. It wasn’t to promote equality, but for the richest people in our country to continue to hold power while fucking anyone who wants to compete with the monopolies in the ass.
Drew
I never identified myself as a liberal or raised one finger in liberalism’s defense, nor do I argue for an abstract notion of “civility”. Where you read a rant, I wrote a very focused and particular critique of your methods and how the affect the people are around you. I have no interest in debating politics, I have need only of reminding you (the Cardinal Conservatives) that your political actions, righteous or otherwise, are social actions with the chance to intimidate and to exclude those whom you are trying to educate. I allow that the idea for your protest was clever and that the ideas behind it were intellectually and in some sense morally sound, but this is not just a small matter of hurt feelings. The “hurt feelings” meme always arises when the right wants to dismiss its relative power and its potential to do real harm through demonstrations of that power. This (short) letter was not intended to start a policy discussion, only to remind us of our collective conscience as a pluralistic community and the need to be kind to one another- not sensitive, but kind. Call me a hippie, but Wesleyan’s community is like none other in the world precisely because when it comes down to it, we care about one another. By continuing to scream about politics over voices of conciliation and by choosing confrontation and insult over intellectual debate, it is you who are showing your true colors. You can talk past me all you want, but if you truly care about your campus’ culture and well-being, you will find ways to engage people intellectually without making them feel targeted. I allow that conservatives are a minority at Wes, and that they have been the target of some strong rhetoric, but my point (as you all managed to ignore) was that no one has ever told you you weren’t SMART enough to be here, that you weren’t QUALIFIED. To do so would be a lower blow than anything our sometimes misguided campus discourse could dish out.
to drew
Keep ranting, you hippie.
Mytheos Holt
@Drew:
I am sorry to hear that this is as closed to “very focused and particular” as your brain will allow you to get. However, I am glad to hear that you acknowledge that social actions that alienate one’s audience are counterproductive. I look forward to reading future open letters to the Queer Community, the Black Community, the Pro-Amnesty movement, the antiwar movement and Wikileaks making this point.
I am also overjoyed that you now care about relative power – that is, except when it applies to the eminently “intelligent” Claire Potter.
It is absolutely thrilling to know that you want students to be kind to each other. I had worried, given that you accused conservatives of being opposed to “safety,” “conscience” and “good will.”
What joy to know that Wesleyan students care about one another, and that no one should feel targeted! I am sure you would agree that standing behind a student who has been wrongly targeted with a frivolous lawsuit threat, and stopping other students from frivolously accusing their peers of racism in order to cut off debate about an issue is the only thing to do, given this.
I’m quite happy to hear that you now call yourself a voice of conciliation, but I think Martin Benjamin is still waiting for an apology for your description of him as a flaming racist and homophobe last year.
I’m so glad that I’ve never been told that I’m not smart enough to have attended this school. I could’ve sworn I read this comment on my final column from “A Member of the Faculty”:
“I thought Wesleyan let you in because you were a full payer or something. But you are an a$$hole who could use some therapy. Who you really trolled were those Argus editors who (foolishly) stood up for you.”
On the Drew Flanagan scale, may I ask how low this blow is, given that it suggests that I am not only too stupid (a “full payer”), but also too psychologically unstable to attend this school?
Finally, I’m very glad to note that you finally know how misguided Wesleyan’s campus discourse is. Just one question:
Then why the bloody hell did you contribute to it with this accusatory, incoherent, uninformed claptrap?
George Jones
Drew, asking people to be nice is like asking a wealthy man for his money. It’s just not plausable until the sheeple get that wake up call. My point is that you are wasting your time when we have no time to waste. Use your time productively. Our human existence depends on it.
@ George
I know. Drew will probably grow up to be a horrible dad.
He’ll have an 8-year-old daughter who will be molested by a man, and he’ll just stand in the sidelines protecting the man’s actions because he doesn’t want to hurt the predator’s feelings.
It doesn’t matter if you hurt someone’s feeling or not. If the person or an establishment isn’t doing the right thing, then you have every right to expose the corrupt institution (Wesleyan) and its supporters (Liberal sheeple). If it hurts your feelings, then you can go take it in the ass and shut the fuck up. As I said before, freedom of speech doesn’t protect you from hearing something you don’t like.
Drew Flanagan
Drew’s 8-year-old daughter: DADDY! DADDY! HELP ME! HE’S HURTING ME! *CRIES*
Drew: I have to be civil and a constructive member of this society. I can’t act out of rage and start beating up my daughter’s rapist. That might harm the relationship with the people (Rapist) around me. And, if I don’t do anything, it might not hurt the rapist’s feelings, so he can be my future friend. Heck, after he finishes raping my 8-year-old daughter, I’ll invite him over to my house on Saturday nights so he can continue raping my daughter every week.
@ @ george
I completely agree. Would you excuse a corrupt and unjust law just because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings? If you say yes, you’re no better than a pile of horse’s shit.
Also, to Drew,
If someone is hurt because I exposed a racist and corrupt policy and that person does not want to be my friend just because you spoke the truth, then that person does NOT deserve to be my friend and I would want nothing to do with that person.
More than likely, he is either stupid, morally corrupt, or both.
Also, LMFAO @ THE PREVIOUS COMMENT
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Oh man, that was a good laugh. A little bit too much, but funny nonetheless.
I hope you all
realizes that Liberals care more about the feelings of people than they do about fixing corruption.
They’re the nerds in 6th grade that get picked on and twirl their fingers saying, “Uhh, please beat me up and fuck me in the ass. I’m a loser and I’m too much of a pussy to stand up to your tyranny!”
How the fuck do you stupid, insane Liberals even think you can fix anything if you’re willing to bend over and take it in the ass by a 12-inch cock without even giving a fight? You’re all pussy-whipped cowards and Darwin would have considered all you Liberals as unfit to survive.
hm...
For a group of conservatives, you sure do like to talk about anal sex.
to the previous commenter
Why are you such a homophobe? A liberal’s true colors are showing.