Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The UNC Attack: Wingers and the Loony Left in the Aftermath

Well, that title is probably a bit too inflamatory, given that it's tough to tell what's going on down there. The DTH reveals that Taheri-azar planned the attack for two months, and carried pepper spray and a knife with him.

According to this report from the LA Times, there has been political bickering between the left and the right in the aftermath of the attack. If I had to reconstruct what happend from the scanty evidence available, here's what I'd guess:

The Republicans went to the Pit, handed out flags, and, I'd guess, said a bunch of things that pushed in the direction of their general line. They say they were just handing out flags and urging unity, but we all know that that's ambiguous. The flag has, sadly, become a symbol of nationalism and conservatism--it shouldn't be that way, but that's a fact. And appeals for unity from Republicans these days are thinly-veiled appeals to support Bush as often as not.

These guys might have really been doing something non-partisan and completely innocent, of course. I put the odds of that at about 2 in 5, the odds of them doing something fairly blatantly partisan at about 1 in 5, and the odds of them doing something obviously ambiguous at about 2 in 5. This unclear-but-possibly conservative message drew out the campus loony left, which is way present but usually mostly under control at Carolina. My guess is that most of the folks standing around were just listening and trying to figure out (a) what was going on and (b) who was right.

According to the story, the lefties objected to the use of the term 'terrorism.' This objection is, of course, idiotic--but such idiocy is par for the course for campus (far) lefties. Spend any time on a major university campus and you have to get used to the lefties making objections that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. That's what makes them so infuriating. There's nothing like aggressive incoherence to piss one off.

According to the Times:

Mann's group was met at lunchtime by a boisterous, impromptu group of counter-demonstrators who argued that the rally wasn't helping to heal wounds. Especially insensitive, they said, was the insistence on calling the incident terrorism.

"This isn't community building!" a man shouted.

Jonathan Pourzal, an Iranian American, said: "You're strengthening the prejudices people have against Muslim people."

Sara Aghajanian added: "I am an Iranian American, and [the suspect] does not represent me at all, OK?"

Mann, surrounded by about 100 people and a number of news cameras, stood his ground firmly and politely. But in the end, he seemed exasperated:"OK," he said to the opposing group. "If we don't call it terrorism, what do we call it?"

Such sparring over the semantics of identity politics has long been a staple of life on U.S. college campuses, including UNC-Chapel Hill, one of the nation's top public universities.

Yup, those are the lefties I remember. Egad. It's like a flashback. My favorite part? "This isn't community-building!" That's the kind of bullshit one encounters from the campus left. One could go on and on about what an idiot it would take to make a comment like that under these conditions, but I'll limit myself to a couple of quick comments:

(A) Community-building is not the only good. Just because you're not accomplishing one particular good at one particular time doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Telling the truth, for example, is at least as important as "community-building."

(B) 'Terrorism' is a perfectly reasonable description of what happened.

(C) So running people down with an SUV is community-building?

(D) Does "community-building" require that we refuse to accurately describe crimes?''

(E) Bite me.

My God...think about that first criticism: "this isn't helping to heal wounds!" Jesus H. Christ...as if this was--or should have been--the point! That criticism is so deeply stupid that I can't even write about it without throwing stuff across the room... When women point out that they have endured oppression for all of human history should we respond "that's not going to heal wounds!" Oh, the stupidity...

Sorry...flashbacks to graduate school...must calm down...

Some of you may not be familiar with the tone of vicious self-righteousness with which such claims are almost invariably made...so you're probably missing an important component here.

But, look, you can't reason with campus lefties. Most folks who frequent this blog know that I'm way more liberal than conservative...but take it from me: the most unreasonable people I've ever met bar none have been campus lefties. Jeez, they're even a little worse than fairly serious christian fundamentalists. They're not liberals--they're no closer to me on the political spectrum than is, say, Rick Santorum. They're largely illiberal, irrational, intellectually dishonest ideologues who read a little Foulcault somewhere and like to play the radical.

And, incidentally, they're responsible for making conservatives out of a large number of college students who'd otherwise end up liberal.

Anyway, I should probably note that these folks are an aberration at Carolina which is, in fact, surprisingly reasonable for a major research university. I'd guess that most student there know what's what with regard to this incident.

Also anyway, it's good to see everybody, er, coming together in Chapel Hill's first real act of terrorism since those toothless mutants in the Klan marched through back in the late '80's.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about "attempted terrorism", since this seems like such a half-assed attempt. Pepper spray? Running people over with a lousy jeep at low speed? I'm not complaining, exactly, but I wish more dangerous loonies looking for a cause to act out on would spend their rage in a similar way.

(Guy has nothing on Malvo, Unabomber, Rudolf, Mcveigh)

11:32 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yeah, maybe 'wimperism' or 'scare-erism' or 'gave us rather a start-erism'...

But I agree, mac--there's no denying that it was a lame-ass example of the kind.

Anyway, I think 'attempted terrorism' is pretty accurate.

See, YOUR worries about the use of the term are perfectly cogent...unlike "that word fails to make us feel better and hug"...

12:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And, incidentally, they're responsible for making conservatives out of a large number of college students who'd otherwise end up liberal."

Winston,

This sounds a lot like what happened with David Brock. Was offended with the immense self-righteousness he encountered in college (Berkeley), and became a conservative activist.

After a few years of that idiocy, he finally came to his senses, and is now what you'd probably call a 'sane liberal' or 'left of center'. Which I permit myself the conceit of believing I am too.

You should read BLINDED BY THE RIGHT if you haven't already.

4:14 PM  
Blogger rilkefan said...

Don't get the problem with a) asking people not to use inflammatory language at a tense moment and b) considering "terrorism" unwarranted, esp. as the facts currently stand - for the moment I suspect it's just another nutjob. Re b), I hear people are tailgating Priuses around here - is that terrorism? Is every hate crime? Domestic violence? Terror is usually understood to be directed against societies or govts - I doubt "vengeance" applies, or "wanting to scare those conservative jerks down at the Pit".

6:04 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

LC,

I agree about Brock ca. _Blinded by the Right_, but dunno where he stands now. It's a damn interesting book. Every conservative should read it.

Rf,
Well, as I said above, I think Mac's point is perfectly reasonable...that is, there ARE some grounds on which one might sensibly question the 'terrorism' characterization...but I don't buy the ones given by the UNC students at all. I agree with you about the use of sensitive terms at sensitive times, but can't see how 'terrorism' can be such a term at such a time.

Priuses???? Um...why, pray tell, are people tailgating Priuses? And why isn't this just tailgating?

8:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is no 'just' tailgating, Winston. It's all unjust.

Maybe if you were focused more on community building and healing wounds you'd understand that.

;-)

---Myca

9:39 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

hoo hoo!

He'll be here all week, folks

Try the veal

7:11 AM  
Blogger rilkefan said...

Prius drivers flaunt the fact that they're driving hybrids - obviously looking down on all the gas-guzzlers out there.

Also apparently they drive slower, because the cars show gas mileage (which falls with velocity), and do so in the carpool lane.


I don't get it - until it's clear an act committed by a member of a profiled group is an instance of terror, calling it that is a bad idea in my book. It would be like calling every instance of white-on-black crime a hate act.

5:18 PM  
Blogger rilkefan said...

Oh yeah, re "why not just" - I think the local paper did a study comparing driving at 60 in a Prius vs in a sedan, and found the former evokes worse behavior than the latter.

5:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Followup:
'Sara Aghajanian added: "I am an Iranian American, and [the suspect] does not represent me at all, OK?"'

That doesn't sound particularly radical, either right or left. In fact, she just sounds generally, righteously, pissed off.

4:57 AM  

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