Dangerous ideas like the ones below the page break might corrupt American youth. Young people need to be trained to select grievances on which to build identities and claims for other people's money, high regard, and obedience. They need safe spaces against dangerous men, such as black conservatives, and dangerous ideas, such as personal responsibility.
Herewith, excerpts from Justice Thomas's dangerous and radical commencement address at Hillsdale College, May 14. You should read it.
What you do will matter far more than what you say. As the years have swiftly moved by, I have often reflected on the important citizenship lessons of my life. For the most part, it was the unplanned array of small things. There was the kind gesture from the neighbor. It was my grandmother dividing our dinner because another person showed up unannounced. It was the strangers stopping to help us get our crops out of the field before a big storm.
There were the Irish nuns who believed in us and lived in our neighborhood. There was the librarian who brought books to mass so that I would not be without reading materials on the farm. Small lessons such as these became big lessons for how to live our lives. We watched and learned what it means to be a good person, a good neighbor, or a good citizen. Who will be watching you, and what will you be teaching them? After this commencement, I implore you to take a few minutes to thank those who made it possible for you to come this far, your parents, your teachers, your pastor, your coaches. You know who helped you. . . .
Do not hide your faith and your beliefs under a bushel basket especially in this world that seems to have gone mad with political correctness. Treat others the way you would like to be treated if you stood in their shoes. These small lessons become the unplanned syllabus for becoming a good citizen, and your efforts to live them will help to form the fabric of a civil society and a free and prosperous nation where inherent equality and liberty are inviolable.
("Notable and Quotable: Clarence Thomas," The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2016)
Never heard of Hillsdale? Enjoy this quick introduction from Wikipedia:
Hillsdale College is a co-educational, non-profit liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan . . . . Most of the curriculum is based on and centered on the teaching of the Western heritage as a product of both the Greco-Roman culture and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hillsdale requires every student . . . to complete a core curriculum that includes courses on the Great Books and the U.S. Constitution. The college declines to accept federal financial support . . . .
Savor that last sentence. Do you know what declining to accept federal financial support means? For one thing, absolute freedom from all "dear colleague" letters from the federal government. For another, the college is free to judge people on the content of their character and achievements rather than the color of their skin.
Hillsdale's radical and not-so-micro aggressions against political correctness so offend the federal nomenklatura that they spend many thousands of taxpayer dollars each year trying to bring the college to heel. So far, praise God, they have not succeeded.
Never forget: A century ago, almost every college and university in America subscribed to the same curriculum. Now, in the blink of an eye, academia's once-solid foundation has crumbled -- a moral and intellectual disaster we barely appreciate.
One powerful exception to this general decline: Houston Baptist University's Honors College. The curriculum resembles Hillsdale's.
You can hear Justice Thomas's entire commencement speech here, beginning about about 27:00:
As a special bonus factoid for those who have trekked this far, the best man at Unca D's and Lady Diana's wedding in '67 would later serve as general counsel to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission for the last three years of Clarence Thomas's tenure as chairman. My friend admired his boss almost beyond measure. The same friend was also a Rhodes Scholar, which shows the high quality of Unca D's friends. So if you're one, you're standing in tall cotton.
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