WAJ intro — I saw a letter Jason Morgan, a Ph.D student in History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, had written to the Badger Herald, ‘Fracas’ over CPAC trip unfounded, regarding objections by liberal students to student organization funding being used to pay for several students to attent CPAC. I invited Jason to expand upon that theme for Legal Insurrection.
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Over the past week, I have listened to the Democrats’ eructations and bloviating (surely a Lenten penance if there ever was one) concerning the folderol over Associated Students of Madison (ASM) members’ proposed Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) attendance. In spite of themselves, it seems as though our friends on the left are managing to make three passably cogent arguments, which I beg to address below.
First, the Democrats object to the fact that ASM is angling to send some of its own members to CPAC.
This argument is actually straightforward and plausible, but the rebuttal is equally plain: tough. If you do not like how the ASM representatives conduct their business, then unseat them. There is a process for doing just that–elections. Or, if you can’t wait that long, why not try a recall? I’m sure the Democrats have some drums, bullhorns, and body paint left over from the last time they tried that exercise in adult citizenship (with most of their unbiased professors signing on for the ride). But if the recall route seems so 2012, then quit whining and start grooming your candidates for the next regular election. This is, after all, what democracy looks like.
As a codicil to this point, please let me also add that if the objection is that it is bad management practice for a member of a student government body to use segregated fees to attend the conference of her choice, consider the opposite scenario to see if the logic holds–is there anything that says she must *not* do this thing, that she must *necessarily* recuse herself from attending any sponsored conference simply because she happens to be a member of ASM? If the rules say she must, then so be it. But if not, then please re-read the paragraph immediately above.
Second, the Democrats seem to say that CPAC will not benefit all students at our great university, but only the handful who plan to attend the conference.
To this I reply, Have you ever been awake in one of your classes here? Have you done any of the reading? Perhaps I’m in the wrong discipline, but “leftist hagiography” is hardly hyperbole when used to describe the readings we’re assigned for most weeks. Or, perhaps our Democrat friends were out fishing when the entire university was turned into a staging ground for the attempted coup at the other end of State Street.
Surely UW undergrads saw their TAs in the crowd, self-righteously beating on their mom’s Tupperware and shouting the latest slogans from Marx and the boys. If nothing else, CPAC attendance might inspire some brave soul, perhaps two, to answer the shrieking left and start what could turn into a nice, civil debate, much like the one in which your humble correspondent is currently engaged.
If CPAC is “blatantly partisan,” as the College Democrats semi-articulately contend, well, welcome to Madison. It’s not as though the twelve Republicans on this campus pose much of a threat to the tenured bully pulpit, or to the students whose administration forced them to click “I’m in for Barack!” in order to attend the “educational” speech by our Dear Leader here on campus last fall.
Third, the Democrats contend that the proposed CPAC attendance would violate Article IV, Section I of the ASM Constitution. (I heartily congratulate the Democrats for finally respecting at least one constitution, even if it’s just this one. Everyone must start somewhere.)
It will be noted, however, that the ASM Constitution, august though it surely is, is nevertheless not Magna Charta. And the people who wrote it, be they ever so prescient and wise, nevertheless do not have quite the same cachet as Moses coming down from the mountain.
Whatever the reach of that epochal document for the ages, I think all candid minds will agree that the ASM Constitution does not have the force of unalterable law, and likely does not extend to people who wish to attend an off-campus conference where they will, horror of horrors, be called upon to think for themselves. (I will leave for a later discussion the fact that the Democratic Party’s pro-abortion policy leads to the killing of baby girls at an overwhelmingly higher rate than the killing of baby boys, which is “discriminat[ion] on the basis of sex” of an entirely different order of magnitude than the one we’re considering today.)
One does not alter human nature by fiat; one does not moralize by majority rule; one does not substitute political point-scoring for the natural law. Let whatever legislative body you like scribble whatever they please on as many sheets of paper as they can fill, the sifting and winnowing will continue, and it will continue whether the dictatorial relativists say it can or not.
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