Shutting Down Discussion!

! Politicians and pundits of all stripes are falling all over themselves to outdo one another condemning Cliven Bundy for crudely wondering how much better off many black people are from the days of slavery. His critics are using terms once reserved for people who wore hooded robes and burned crosses.! ! Bundy isn't the only one being shouted down. Paul Ryan is still being excoriated for stating the obvious on the connections between poverty and disproportionate incarceration rates, and the breakdown of two parent families in the inner city. Will we ever have a productive civil discussion about race or poverty in a climate like this?! ! It isn't just race. Pick any topic with politically correct overtones. Defend traditional marriage as a vital social institution and you risk being branded a homophobic anti-gay bigot. Question the role of anthropomorphic causes in global warming and you are a climate change denier, with echoes of the holocaust and calls to be thrown in jail. Advocate for improved vaccine safety and efficacy, voice the opinion that vaccines may be connected to an explosion in the incidence of autism and be called a menace. Just ask Jenny McCarthy.! ! It's the campus environment that disturbs me most. Brandeis University invited Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak, then uninvited her when students and faculty objected to her views on oppression and violence against women and girls. Now I don't agree with blanket indictments of Muslims because of the extremism so often practiced in the name of Islam. The Muslims I know, admittedly not very many, are responsible citizens who just don't fit that image.! ! But Ayaan Hirsi Ali does have a point. It is unlikely her life would be in danger if it were any other religion she was criticizing. If we are ever going to work out a peaceful relationship with the broad Muslim world we aren't going to do it by ignoring the elephants in the room. I probably wouldn't have invited her, but once invited she should have been allowed to speak. Those who consider her an Islamaphobe would have been perfectly within their rights to say so, even demonstrate if they could manage to do it peacefully.! ! Colleges are places where we expect our children to develop some facility in critical thinking, an ability to see both sides of an issue, not be indoctrinated into a settled world view. These kids are going to have a lot of work to do. They are inheriting an unfinished world with lot's of mechanisms for progress, and lots of impediments to that progress. They need to be able to speak openly and honestly.! ! What are we going to do about the flaws in our health care system, flaws exposed but not fully addressed in the Obamacare brouhaha? How can we reform immigration policy? Can it be done humanely and in the best interest of society at the same time? Can we help lift the world's poor into the middle class? Or are we going to let billions die of hunger and disease in some Malthusian quest for a pristine environment?! Norman Roberts Page ␣1 of ␣2 April 27, 2014 ! All of these and many more are complex issues with passionately held positions on each side. I think they all have reasonable solutions if we could just sit down and listen to each other calmly. In my mind a good place to do that is in the American university system. But first we are going to have to change some attitudes.! ! In the meantime maybe we could cut Cliven Bundy some slack. He doesn't have much to contribute to the national discourse on race but then neither does anybody else if we can't talk about it. Bundy does have some questions, however offensively put. They deserve better answers. Norman Roberts Page ␣2 of ␣2 April 27, 2014