An excellent analysis.

Yes, the problem is these young cons want to address the left but don’t realize they are the left. But like it or not, these celebrity cons matter. We need some celebrity cons who are willing to criticize the modern left and Democrats but also all the leftist idiom and mindset that infects the current “right.”

Concentrate on broadening and intensifying the conservative presence on your campus - not in the world at large. The role of student activism was thrown out of proportion by the antics of ‘60s protestors; in truth, the lasting impact of student actions is nil. Changes can be implemented if they’re focused - not diluted. Your world in encompassed by your university, like it or not, so change that, then worry about the rest of reality.

Invite as speakers those persecuted by the Left for academic heresy - David A. Yeagley and Norman Finkelstein come to mind. Show up at Leftie self-congratulation fests and ask questions; pin them to the wall, and demand their answers make sense. Don’t shy away from ridicule - nothing so upsets the sanctimonious Left than hearing snickers (they’re supposed to be the champs of political comedy).

One of the problems with the past half-century is that our defining narrative has been subsumed by the Left. Changing that stagnant backwardness must begin with changing the fundamentals of our children’s educations. For all its self-importance and self-presumed moral providence, its a dry ditch riddled with fleas. Dump these jackasses!

And also, question the movement pioneers. Move Conservatism into the new millennium. If the movement is to grow, it must change. A lot of old, unworkable baggage must be tossed.

Start slinging.

“Even if the group raises the necessary tens of thousands of dollars to bring Ann Coulter to campus”.

Yikes. Now I know that College Republicans are truly dumb. Spend the money on a boozy party instead of that old bigoted harridan.

The Berkeley College Republicans had someone from the Kuwaiti “royal” family speak at one of our functions along with one of Pat’s sisters (I cannnot remember which).  Since Gulf War I was going on, we had to show solidarity with our “partners”, right? 

She had no clue about America, the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, etc. so I always wondered what she was doing giving a speech to Berkeley College Republicans.  It’s just power brokering at work, so if you are interested in policy, ideas and principles, you have relegated yourself to the sidelines, buddy!  Just read the “leading” foreign policy mags and journals and watch C-Span when the “experts” give talks.  If you won’t suck up to the patrons of the think tanks, you aren’t going to get in. 

Until one of the hedgies becomes paleo, you’re just going to be wasting your time.  Spend your time in college drinking beer and chasing chicks - you’ll have a better chance of success and a much better time!

Bravo, Kevin.

Shouldn’t Kevin and the College Repubilcans be working as hard as they can to get McCain elected to continue the Republican Revolution?

I can see him wondering why they left Ron Paul on campus to insult the stalwart main stream party standard bearers. Paul is mocked and ridiculed by 90% of the party after all.

The problem for the right or actual conservatives is that in flapping our lips with the
genuine message it’s always difficult to tell people especially young people what *doen’t
get their endorphins going. That at least initially is an automatic ‘downer’ as the kids
used to say. For example: “Look, classical liberalism even in its purest form is bogus.
No one has ‘rights’ obviously in reality we all have powers and only tradition which has
built up over thousands of years takes that reality into consideration and thus works
more than less. While the new garbage works less than more.” [Downer.] That’s why the
messenger of old and today is usually attacked. “WHAT?” The French have a saying it is
only the truth that wounds. ... Classical liberalism has trained the culture to want to
believe we’re all wonderful & equal. How do you tell them with sufficient humor precisely
that is the Facade behind which the most nefarious deeds and frauds in history have
been accomplished at their expense. Their ears may perk up when they hear ‘at their
expense’ because then they wonder if maybe they’re going to receive a lollypop. The
context of the entire Culture is liberal, not conservative. If you’re going to
effectively spawn in that current you’ve got to be nothing less than a salmon preaching
to other salmon. No? Now that’s got some humor...so maybe it’s a little more palatable?
In the meantime it’s more like: ‘yes, I’ll have the salmon.’ And the keeping of one’s
dark sunglasses on at night?! Humans today want to ‘believe’ in the liberal, they don’t
want to become instead even more ‘depressed.’

Being one of those pesky 68’ers, I can tell you exactly what works to influence student minds:
Students political guidebook:
We don’t have any money, so we like everybody, who promises us more.
We like to become independent. So we like everybody, who gets us money without having to say thank you (it’s almost as if we earned it)
Studying is hard. So we like whoever gives us a good grade for little actual work (e.g. where we only have to parrot the political line of the professor, no matter how insane)
We are full of hormones. So we like everybody, who excuses our licentious behavior and who does declare those moral restrictions our parents imposed upon us as “outmoded and repressive”
That pesky thing called conscience asks us to do something good. Demanding that others pay with their money for things that we think are good, satisfies that demand
So far we have been deemed successful, if we get good grades. We like to perpetuate that system and will support anybody, who promises us a good income regardless of the demand for our work (University jobs anybody?)
And you think there is room for people who require responsibility, a moral behavior, and self reliance?

Kevin, what do you know about this issue? You are only an American University Graduate student getting your Masters in the one of the nation’s top rated IR programs.

I on the other hand live with my mom in the cosmopolitan mecca of Kansas City, Missouri. I go to the Ivy League institution of University of Missouri - Kansas City where I learn about growing Vegan corn. Stop wasting time writing on politics and focus on important things such as terrible hodunk Missouri bands and playing Scrabble with my mom. I’m a Winner!

I got started in right wing politics as the chairman of my local YAF chapter in the early
70’s, and I can tell you that on social issues, NOTHING has changed in 40 years. You
are completely right on that score. It’s really all a lot of PR for the wealthy oligarchs
who fund these “front groups” like Young American Foundation.

Of course, there have been TREMENDOUS changes on the economic front, the various
deregulations of the utiltiies and the finance systems, giving us among other things, tthe
S&L;bailout, the dot.CON and Enron frauds. But nothing as scary as the real estate
bubble, which is shaking the very foundations of the American economic system.

Not to mention the
dismantlement of America’s economic sovereignty, replacing actual PRODUCTIVITY with
financial speculation. Let’s not forget the effect unrestrained immigration is having on the
social fabric of the nation, including the poor latino immigrats taking all the meat
packing and construction jobs, while the H1B Visa imports from Asia and India take all the
“High tech” jobs in IT and Software development in Silicon Valley.

Of course, for all this globalization and economic interdependence, the US military is larger
then ever, and committed all over the world to enforce by the barrel of a GUN, the
“freedom” of the “free markets”...<snicker> Well, to pharaphrase Lenin, where the dollars
flow, the soldiers follow.

Of course, abortions and racial quotas and cultural Marxism domintates our college campusues,
and even our Corporate culture, so how has the “conservative” movement made any progress
in even these social issues they claim are the foundation of their political agenda?

If this is “freedom”, then I can’t see how we take much more it. I’d suggest you abandon
this futile attempt at conservative “activism” and get a job on Wall Street, or maybe
start a new business undermining American workers with undocumented freeloaders. Then
you can have the satisfaction of providing for your economic well-being, while pursuing
the political agenda of the “Conservative” movement for the last 40 years.

Ayn Rand would be proud of you then.

The French may say it is only the truth that wounds, and that is true on the one hand.
And on the other it is also a truism that only the truth is funny. I’m glad to see I
apparently encouraged the comedy dominoes to fall. I came back to my post above (and
laughed again rereading it) to see if anyone else followed up and then laughed even
harder at the subsequent 3 post following it by Werner Hoermann, Daniel, and Joe
Populist. Guys that stuff is great. It’s the perfect example also of only the truth is
funny. My blood pressure is way down I laughed so hard. Humor can do that. I’m a number
of steps farther away from a stroke than I was previously. It reminds me of the old
saying you can’t write this stuff--in other words it’s so true--ever since classical
liberalism was taken seriously; and misguided conservatives also believed it ‘included’
them. ‘If only’ we could bottle this stuff and sell it to them, we’d be doing ‘good’ and at
the same time part of the American ‘dream.’ Daniel, then as you say we’d all be
‘winners’! Cheers--err, I seem to have my own juice handy.

Dead on Kevin. You couldn’t be more right.

JP (i.e. Joe Populist) what happened to ST - a.k.a. the Saint as I kiddningly dubbed
him, and he, dubbed me i.e. ‘the W.’ ? Has he been so flogged i.e. ST and defeated he’s
recovering from his whip wounds, and his wife won’t let him post? Or was he just PW’ed
with those invisible wounds and not allowed any longer to post? Was he ‘tied to the
whipping Post’, one way or the other. JP, e.g. was he your alter-ego which/whom you’ve now
put to bed and JP won? (I can say this - I was diagnosed by a shrink once as ‘mildly
schizophrenic myself...which one of my personalities ‘denied’ and I fired the shrink.)
So you might say i’m well familiar with these issues and possibilities. (humor) what’s
going on here, has jeff w. chased everyone away from the site with his stellar
brilliance? errr… ? Say what? ‘Where have all the alter egos gone, long time ...’ I kid,
I kid. No, seriously, JP - what happened to ST? Did the non-anarchists ‘get him’?

@Daniel

What I do know is that Kevin is wasting his time. At 25 years old, he is on a path that will take him nowhere. Kevin’s entire worldview is wrapped up in a political ideology that only a small group of people adhere to, and he’s focused entirely on activities that happen on college campuses. In other words, few people are going to take him seriously. He can complain about the issues in his article, but he’s in no position to change anything. He’s a deputy field director at the Leadership Institute. Although LI claims otherwise, working there means very little. As many people say, you work at LI because you can’t work anywhere else. If you doubt that, look at how much they beg for field reps. If it was a good job, it would be competitive. Likewise, much of their staff comes from random no-name colleges that few have heard of. It’s not exactly a prestigious organization.

My advice is to get a real job and move on. Life is too short to be worrying about stupid stuff like this.

By the way, it doesn’t matter if Kevin was in an IR program at Harvard, there are many highly educated people that nobody takes seriously. Having a diploma from a good IR program isn’t going to make people say, “hey, he went to American University, I should just accept what he says as fact.” There’s a lot of highly educated loonies out there.