I wanted to fill you in on the next phase of Legal Insurrection.
The next four and one-half months will be devoted to defeating Obama, taking back the Senate, holding the House, and hopefully doing all of that in a way which puts in place a Tea Party/conservative counterweight to prevent the Republican establishment from straying once back in power. Or worst case scenario, electing Republicans with a spine in case Obama is reelected.
But that’s the short term project.
The longer term project is to start building counterweights elsewhere in society. The Insurrections are coming.
Because most campuses are dominated by liberal adminstrators, faculty, and student activists, conservative/libertarian students often feel isolated and alone, and up against seemingly insurmountable forces which wield power over their lives.
For many students, the risk/reward ratio says to shut up and just go along so as not to be singled out and targeted.
In reality, they are not alone. They are the silenced majority. They are a youthful Army of Davids. They just don’t know it yet.
So the next project will be …
Col·lege In·sur·rec·tion
www.collegeinsurrection.com
We will aggregate interesting and newsworthy articles and news reports from college conservative and libertarian publications around the country, and focus on the challenges conservative/libertarian students face on campus.
College Insurrection will be the place where conservative/libertarian students can find out what is going on with like-minded students on other campuses, and understand that they are the many, not the few, no matter what they are told.
There are some details to be worked out. The “definition” on the College Insurrection banner may or may not be as on the CI holding page now. And note that for now, the links and sidebar track back to LI, but that will change when we go live.
What is important is that I have given Ed the green light, and we are doing this.
We’re looking at a live date in about 6-7 weeks, in time for the return of students to campuses in August.
I’d welcome input from LI readers, particularly within the next two weeks.
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Comments
CollegeInsurrection sounds like a great idea, one likely to be promoted across the conservo-net. As for the call for tips… um, yes, er, well…. could we deep six the endless Bee Gee videos?
I do think this calls for another buck drop into the LI kitty though.
PONY UP, LIers! It’s for the kids! (No, it really IS for the kids!).
Noooo! Leave the BeeGees stuff up. It gives personality and individuality to the website.
Plus, I enjoy the videos. 🙂
You don’t have to look at/listen to the videos, Henry. I never do. In fact, I’ve learned to ignore that kind of stuff on all the blogs I read.
For those who like things like the videos, they’re there. For those of us who have a very limited amount of time, they’re ignorable.
Well, sure, fine, we’ve determined I’m not Cassie or Barbara, but I love the LI videos, especially the Van Morrison run and probably 75% of all the rest. The Bee Gees were OK early on, for those into falsetto pop, but they also had their…. (gagging a bit here)… disco era and I have PTSD from the disco era. I hated disco, still do, and suffer the horror of having my formative decade of the 1970s considered the ‘age of disco’ (from 1970-80 I was ages 15-25), which ignores all of us who detested, wouldn’t get caught dead in a disco, and ignores an immense amount of great rock and roll. I love playing the video while I scan the day’s LI entries. Besides, the Bee Gees are RACIST – not a single member of color!
TI gotta think the Bee Gees and Moonshine would be a potent mix. Imagine the sobs as the songs bring back youthful memories . Then the inner falsetto that every man has buried deep inside could emerge uninhibited.
If someone was truly awful you could legitimately punch them out & they would never remember it in the morning.
PS I’ve been to a few Southern fiddle conventions.
Clicking the play button on the video of the day is optional.
The Bee Gees are classic.
Don’t click if you don’t like the artist.
Oh, I don’t, I don’t, and nobody could possibly pick a video that everyone likes, nor would many expect it. But Bee Gees day in day out day in day out? It’s… it’s… torture!
Oh my! Striking at the heart of the beast. I love it.
Oooph. “LIers” means LegalInsurrection readers, not ‘liars’, of course.
Great stuff, taking it to the beast. Breitbart is definitely here.
This is a great idea.
Have someone college aged curate the video/music choices 🙂
Expansion costs money. Donation made. Who’s next? It’s OK. You can write it off because the professor is an American Samoan.
No, his high cheekbones means he’s Ashkenazi.
Lok, I’m pretty sure a professor at a major university would not lie about his or her race or ethnicity. Is there any evidence for such a thing?
In my life’s role as a student of history, sometimes with just barely passing grades, just once in a rare blue moon while, aceing it, that there has to be a catchy name, or tag, to apply to the CI’ers.
The Backwards Kid is great at that kind of thingy, as is Rags and Hawkins. My only suggestion would be “Publius” or just maybe “Federalist!”
Publius already posts at Breitbart.
Great idea, will watch closely, off to the tip jar!
having spent more than 30 years in universities and seen the evolution of the administration of these institutions become increasingly irrational as well profligate in their wasteful ways… why focus just on students? Until the administrations (and faculty) are changed (or evolved?) the students will still need to ‘fly under the liberal radar’ …
Today’s students are tomorrow’s teachers. Just as the 60s radicals got with the program, joined the system and began influencing the young and malleable minds working their way through institutions, conservatives need to be be supported through their college years and be taught to debate the issues and influence and turn liberal students to conservatism.
It will take generations – just as it took the leftists 30 years to lock its control of college thought belief.
This concept holds so much hope for “taking back our colleges” and creating hot beds of conservative thought and philosophy.
“generations” -you are optimistic today Logos. I think the whole survival of the Us is measured in decades at best & quite possibly years .
The liberal indoctrination is certainly intensive at the college level (even more so at the law schools), but the indoctrination can also be found in earnest in high school. Middle schools are also liberal pathways esp. through “environmentalism” which is really a part of the UN’s Agenda 21, grooming students to become “global citizens.”
The K-12 public schools are for the most part really pathetic and really expensive. Explaining of course why the home school movement continues to grow.
May I suggest that the new CI give some attention to these topics.
Wow, this is an excellent idea. I read a student editorial in the DP last fall describing conservatives as constrained to life in the political closet. Congratulations on the expansion too.
Very excited! So excited, in fact, that I finally created an account just to comment on this post. I hope LI continues to do great things in the future.
Great Idea! Looking forward to it.
Great idea. I look forward to Medical Insurrection. Undercut the power structure of the corporate hospitals – insurance company industry. Return Medicine to its Hippocratic roots.
My 19 yr old daughter attends liberal arts private college here in Wisconsin…and they were rocking it for Walker. She tells me when she was in HS the year of Obama you didn’t dare disagree(2008) but, something is a changin’ when she puts an “I Stand With Gov Walker” banner on her facebook page the day of the recall and gets immediate likes. We know you are right and on to something…we’ll be sure to promote it on her campus!
Great idea! Still have some friends in yaf and the CR’s back in college, I’ll pass word along to them.
No suggestions yet, but I think this is a great idea. Lord knows it’s needed at the university where I work.
I am a daily reader but rarely comment. Excellent idea. As an older student, (actually much older,) I can attest to the liberal abuse our kids endure. Liberal dogma has permeated almost every aspect of college life and I see young people routinely ridiculed if they attempt to counter what amounts to insults. I also know that there are conservatives among the faculty that do not speak out simply because their livelihoods depend on it.
Providing these students and faculty with an outlet to share their experiences would be “awesome”. Full steam ahead!
This is a fantastic idea. I just finished teaching my first undergrad course (Business IT) and was appalled at the anti-business, progressive pandering I encountered – in the Business Courses no less!
Anything we all can do to consistently provide an alternate view will be critical to the long term sustainability (despite the fact that I detest that term) of free market ideas.
Tip jar hit.
Great idea but… It may be too late for this election when one considers that the “opposition” has had years of experience dominating the college scene with left wing idealism.
Still, I think that there are conservative Republicans on nearly all campuses. And this is where grass roots efforts are incubated.
I say go for it but set expectations at a realistic level.
Great ideas. Please keep Obamacare and its inevitable Republican spin-offs in your crosshairs. I think this will be one of the most important counterweight challenges of the next 12 months or so.
Oh, Professor, what a grand idea! I will be forwarding this to our daughter, a senior at a private college in South Bend, and our son, a freshman at a private college in Dubuque. Our youngest is finished with high school, but she is 15. She will have extra time at home, I’ll require updates from the blog as required reading for her. Electoral Politics will be a class this year in our homeschool curriculum : )
O/T: Still working on student loans, my stomach is in knots when I think of what we/our children are paying in tuition costs this year. Does anyone have an idea of what will happen to the student loan program if Obamacare is overturned/mandate is overturned? Will that stay in place if only the manage falls?
Other input: Try Tumblr. The conservative presence on Tumblr seems to be growing rapidly but it’s still small. And it’s great fun. If you like blogging and you like Twitter, you’ll like Tumblr. It’s generally a young demographic so I think Insurrection on Tumblr would be an excellent companion to College Insurrection. Talk to your collegiate friends. I think they’ll agree.
Have you consulted with David Horowitz at Front Page Magazine at all on this? He undertook a similar sort of initiative some years ago.
I love it! And I can promise some enthusiastic participation by Cornell Republicans. Will alert them. jk
Dear Professor Jacobson,
Thanks for Legal Insurrection – you have definitely inspired me. College Insurrection is a great idea – I look forward to recommending your new site to my three kids in college!
We need to teach our children how to combat the guilt and lies of the liberal aristocracy – to name just a few:
• You are not “selfish” because you want to keep as much of your hard earned money as you can, rather than having the government continue to grow without limit.
• Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Clinton and their regime do not know what is best for me, I know what is best for me.
• The liberals are the true racists when they use the term “racist” to define a person that does not agree with their ideology and reckless policies.
• It is not OK for politicians to disguise their true policy intentions in twisted “hope and change” rhetoric, we need politicians that state their policy intentions with truth and integrity (i.e., Regan), so that our votes accurately direct the direction of this Country to reflect the will of the people (and not the select few that “know what is best for the little people”).
• Each and every vote matters making the integrity of the voting process an absolute imperative.
Thanks again for your dedication to this project!
Great idea and sure to succeed. A good startup may be to get Twitterers to bombard college twitterland of CI’s existence. Perhaps Twitchy could help get it going. Need some sort of Grand Opening event(s).
Long a reader but first time a commentator. I can attest to the conservative presence at the university where I work. Don’t make my opinions a secret – I tutor students who are learning English and I present my conservative views whenever possible. Lost count of the number of other tutors who come to me after our session and identify themselves as fellow travelers. Works in the faculty room too – teachers out themselves to me on a weekly basis.
I’m well-liked because I do my job well, help other tutors and teachers when asked, and am aLIlways pleasant to everyone. If I receive any negative feedback I smile and remark that America is great because people can have varying opinions and still be colleagues. This leaves liberals speachless.
4 nights a week I teach my adult students conservatism; if asked about liberal policies I give conservative reasons for why they either don’t work or why I disagree with them.
So fellow LIers – speak your beliefs, keep your senses of humor, always give logical answers to questions, and we shall eventually see results.
You are at an American university & you are tutoring students LEARNING ENGLISH?
WTF are they doing at university if they don’t speak English ?
These students are from all over the world and wish to attend a US university for a BS or Masters. In order to be admitted to a university they must show proficiency in English. Many are adults with Masters degrees from their home country and have been working in business; their companies send them to the US to perfect their English because the companies are expanding to other nations. English is the language of business and is a necessity.
Many universities around the US offer these intensive English learning programs and charge BIG money. Intensive Learning Institutes are known as “cash cows” and tutors are an integral part of the programs. My challenge is being able to explain why this tense is used instead of another and why one uses an article with The United States of America but not with Canada, etc.
This job is never boring; I need to be knowlegeable in writing, APA formatting, pronunciation and stress patterns, reading comprehention and academic vocabulary, sentence structure, US history, customs, our culture and more. Because of my business certification I get most of our business students which then adds resume writing, interview skills – everything related to business. It’s a GREAT opportunity to discuss capitalism!
I have been toying with the idea of going back to take the SATs again .. just for fun.
Likewise, for those of us who have been out in industry for a while, we have the option of going back to college for that 2nd Masters, etc. or just to taunt the professors. Nobody can intimidate somebody who doesn’t need the grade at the end. Imagine the fun of correcting those professors who have been dishing out all the silly Marxist stuff with facts that they really don’t want to presented to their young minds.
Thank you. I’ll keep you in my prayers, Wm, cuz the Communists will now definitely be gunning for you and threatening your career.
How about a tutorial section off to the side with quick access to information (founding documents, reading suggestions, etc.), mini-scripts for the painfully shy (so they can have a ready answer for the blowhard fellow student or faculty member), links to conservative fellow-travelers. Plus, it should be a welcoming place for anyone who is only beginning to discover that there is an alternative to the pablum they have been fed by their high schools/entertainment/media etc. Don’t just preach to the choir, so to speak, but do a little recruiting among the “young skulls full of mush”.
Might behoove ya to go scope out the other LI’s project on this, CampusReform.org – they’ve been doing something like this since 2009.
Pardon me if someone has already suggested this: could conservative organization Days be organized annually on campus and invite various conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity to recruit members to the Conservative College Insurrection group?
I’ve had a problem lately with video embeded in blog posts and I’ve noticed its mostly on wordpress sites…
I may be reading along on a blog and decide to pick it back up later, walk away and after a few hours some random video autoplays and comes blaring over the computer.
Fantastic idea…..
Suggestion – as soon as it’s ready post it in your Broadcast Alert box so we can help you get the word out quickly that LI now has given birth to an oh-so-cool new site informally known as CI 🙂
I think this is a great idea. My daughter has been very frustrated by the English and History programs at Pratt Institute. Very lopsided. No attempt is made to explain different perspectives or viewpoints other than the approved leftist party line. A resource like this would be very welcome by a number of students like her.
You are on the right track with a Long Game solution to a Long Game problem.
Create a Future Teachers of America web page of COllege Insurrection and train them in Alinsky tactics, which could help repel liberal attacks upon CI.
Build in social networking features into CI, a la a simplified Facebook, thus allowing direct communication among students.
Thank you. This is an excellent idea.
This is an excellent idea. My daughter recently graduated college and I held on to some of her textbooks containing blatent indoctrination, not knowing what I would do with them. Now I do. Some of it will make your hair melt.
Can GovernmentInsurrection be far behind? I hope not.
[…] requests to censor internet search results from government agencies, upset with the information we Tea Party rubes have been spreading. In the last half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content […]
I think the work is going to be done for you by sheer economics & global competition.
Children are very big on a sense of justice -from the toddler tantrums to the teenage tantrums. This seeking goes on through young adulthood.
It goes in cycles -In the 70s uni students we were all radical -then the next lot were boring then the next lot ditched social issues for IT then the next lot got lonely & developed social media.
There still are some very good jobs & rewards from liberal leanings . And much of the world is more ‘left’ than Amercan conservatives eg The Republcan Party.
Much earlier I posted that the US colege system was a luxury you cannot afford. It needs a whole rework eg cost..
But probably the main message is -from the rest of the world -is
Hey You american Kids -you ain’t so special & the sooner you learn it the better. I don’t think left or right is the problem.
Excellent idea, Professor!
Judging by the vehement hissing from my rhetoric prof in response to my paper on LI, Ace, and Other McCain, your new site will be most welcome!
Would be nice if there was insightful information for students on how to survive as a conservative in a swamp of liberals.
Might I make a suggestion for a top-tier set of groups: The Conservative Law Society and the Federalist Society at the Michigan State University College of Law, and the Young Americans for Freedom at Michigan State University.
I know they’re not all strictly “college” but these guys have been out there at the sharp end promoting individual firearms rights, fighting against illegal immigration, encouraging free speech and promoting a one-man/one-woman marriage as the basis for a stable society (I know, I was President of the Conservative Law Society and VP of Finance for the Federalists during my law school days).
I’ll give them a nudge once the leadership gets back to campus in August.
Awesome idea!
I don’t see any of the David Horowitz sites on your blogroll so maybe there are …some issues?
I’ve been watching and reading his writings since before the 2004 Election.
Campus work is one of his key areas http://freedomcenterstudents.org/
But start with frontpagemag,com http://frontpagemag.com/ then review whats there in DTN, Jihadwatch, “Wall of Truth”, “Student Center”, “Freedom Center” and “Videos” links.
In addition I like the “Pamphlets” link in the toolbar below the main bar.
You’ve got a different perspective possibly but I’m comfortable with both yours and Davids views.
Links
Frontpage mag http://frontpagemag.com/
DTN Discoverthenetworks http://discoverthenetworks.org/
Jihadwatch http://www.jihadwatch.org/
Wall of Truth http://www.wall-of-truth.org/
Student Center http://freedomcenterstudents.org/
then Pamphlets http://frontpagemag.com/downloads/
and columnists at http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/
What I really like about LI is the focus line and specific references to ‘the next election.
What I really like about the Horowitz websites is long term focus indepebdently of elections.
The long term battle is recapturing schools from Kindergarten through Universities.
Too late. Too late. Elizabeth Warren already thought of it, but calls it CI [Cherokee Insurrection].
Her mommy channeled it through the Professor to Warren. That’s how he got the idea.
Too late. Too late.
Most Excellent.
Professor-I am so glad you are doing this and may be able to help you. I know when, how, and who on the changes in higher ed. I have the documents and know the sources of what’s currently driving the poisons destroying higher ed like the rest of education.
I would especially call your attention to http://www.aacu.org/civic_learning/crucible/documents/Crucible_FINAL_web.pdf put out to great fanfare by the White House in January.
It is greatly troubling at many levels as we change the focus from knowledge to desired attitudes. If you look at page 50, you will see the request that the accreditors act as enforcers of this vision.
Then on page 70/136, we read about the piloting of the Degree Qualifications Protocol framework being pushed by the Lumina Foundation. This appears to push paper credentials in return to commitment to desired values and beliefs.
I had the Crucible Report partly in mind when I wrote http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-the-system-seeks-to-destroy-the-ability-to-think-can-james-madison-save-us/
That’s no idle problem. I listened yesterday while candidates for the state legislature and local school boards were told essentially that they had little power and would need to always defer to school officials apart from issues of taxation. Just like the accreditors had arranged for them to believe.
Making education and accreditation almost completely unaccountable but with dibs to so much of our public treasure.
Prof,
As a Current PhD student in a field largely run by crazed liberals (Bioethics/Healthcare Ethics.) I approve of this direction.
Oh the stories I could tell you about the conferences I go to (which may as well ban the discussion of religion at best, and at Worst they spend time chasing you out for being right-leaning.)
Or the stories of the relgious bioethics conferences I attend where some of the higher ups wanted to adminster a test of “political values” to ensure you’d be a good “fit” for their particular organization (Religious, Healthcare, I’ll let you guess what that organization was!)
Oh the stories I could tell! The stories I could tell indeed. But I digress. If I were you, I’d reach out to some of the more conservative/libertarian leaning professors in various fields (especially those fields that have political dove tailing) for guest posts. This serves a few purposes. 1) It gives them a platform they may not otherwise have. 2) It would encourage students who may be close to despairing to reach out to these professors, maybe start a few new projects (or if it’s bad enough transfer programs.) It’s one thing to organize the students, by themselves to prepare for the future, but wholly another to connect them to the professors who can and would help them put their ideas into the literature.
Who will Bell the Cat? Or in the words of that great Western philosopher, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
The Prime problem you will run into is the fact that the Left plays this game for keeps. The EPA administrator quote “find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them” is not an exception, it is their RULE. Their Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis stalks the halls of media, government, and culture, seeking out that which does not fit Doctrine and destroying it. The first kid in class to stick his hand up and complain about the useless psychobabble the professor is spouting, gets smashed in the grades. Researchers who point out logic flaws in highly-touted Leftist doctrine get smeared and ridiculed. (wattsupwiththat.com). And so on.
Long ago in College, I had the fortune to only have one true Lefty (google MAPJ) professor, and he was actually a member of that endangered species who believe in fairness, my grades were a true reflection of my skills at that moment. Now the campus has become a battleground of ideas, and expressing your opinions in class has become more like a minefield. Some professors are quite fair and evenhanded, most could give lessons in party loyalty to Stalin. As a student, one of the best tools I found (other than old tests and notes) to help in class was the ability to talk to a previous student who could give me an idea of what a professor was like, if they had any Hot Button issues you should not touch, or Pet Peeves, etc… (and sometimes notes and old tests : ) Sites like Ratemyprofessors.com are a good start, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, unless Gresham’s Law applies to teaching, in which case we are all (censored).
I hereby appoint you S-2 of the Conservative Keyboard Brigade. Go forth and gather Intel on the opponents of freedom and liberty, so that we may remain that shining city on the hill to all countries in the world.
Next up:
CHEROKEE INSURRECTION
[…] The LI folks are spinning off a higher ed edition, called (through the logic of brand extension) College Insurrection, which aims to: aggregate interesting and newsworthy articles and news reports from college conservative and libertarian publications around the country, and focus on the challenges conservative/libertarian students face on campus. […]
we need to get these students writing also.
I know many do not have the time or ability to maintain their own blogs/articles.
however many of us offer free manner for them to speak out.
my software allows every user to have their own blog which can be tied into forum posts, all they have to do is join its free.
maybe also getting some to submit articles at new CI site, stuff like that.
make them aware we are cognizant of the issues they are facing.
get them to help put content out there to help others.
Side questions:
# Will our LI registrations carry over to CI?
# Do you have the CI Facebook and Twitter accounts set up?
# What is the CI twitter?
Registrations will carry over. Twitter will be @collegeinsurrec, and Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/CollegeInsurrection
Wow, this is awesome news!!
I’m really looking forward to reading CI and seeing it become a force for good in academia.
Kick some butt, Professor!
This is going to be fun, if not cathartic. You are a hero!
1. The next four and one-half months will be devoted to defeating Obama, taking back the Senate, holding the House, and hopefully doing all of that in a way which puts in place a Tea Party/conservative counterweight to prevent the Republican establishment from straying once back in power. Or worst case scenario, electing Republicans with a spine in case Obama is reelected.
2. What is important is that I have given Ed the green light, and we are doing this.
We’re looking at a live date in about 6-7 weeks, in time for the return of students to campuses in August.
3. At the very least there is a potential conflict between #1 and #2. Even without the unforeseen demands that new projects usually make, you may be spreading yourself too thin. IMO the election should be the overriding priority.
4. In particular, you’ve done more than I thought possible to impede Warren, but more is needed to tilt the odds definitely against her, and more beyond that for a coup de grâce.