After arriving at Dartmouth this past fall, I received a number of invitations to join clubs, including one from the College Democrats. I was surprised to see the e-mail invited me to stop by and "Bash Republicans." Though not a Republican or a conservative, I counted myself out. If Republican bashing was anything like gay bashing, I wanted no part of it.
The political atmosphere at Dartmouth has not been welcoming to conservative thought in recent years. The Mirror's last edition covered instances in which conservative students were disregarded for their views. But recent discussions at Dartmouth reflect a deeper issue that pervades the nation a damaging closed-mindedness that is seen in the treatment of conservatives and others who are conveniently stereotyped.
A previous edition of The Dartmouth continued a debate over sustainability. In "Sustainable Science" (Dec. 2), Joe Indvik '10 provides a rebuttal to Jasper Hicks '12 ("Cult of Sustainability," Dec. 1), offering statistics that support a consensus on climate change in the science community. But he dismisses e-mails sent by scientists at the University of East Anglia even though they state such things as, "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't," as reported by The New York Times. He then attacks Hicks directly following a pattern of behavior towards non-liberal attitudes that is prevalent at Dartmouth retorting, "Please, Mr. Hicks, don't be so ignorant."
In a video on Dartmouth's YouTube channel, Professor Donald Pease attacks the Tea Party movement as a "fantasy," proposing that a key element of their protests is the "birthers," conspiracy theorists who question Obama's U.S. citizenship. This stereotyping is hardly fair. I asked Eric Odom, executive director of the American Liberty Alliance, and a leading organizer of the Tea Party movement for his opinion.
"Sure there are likely folks within the movement who believe [Obama's citizenship] to be an important issue, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who do not. With this in mind, I'm not sure how one could draw the conclusion that the movement is made up of birthers," he said. "We have far more pressing issues to worry about and focus on right now."
Such stereotyping of members of the Tea Party protests also occurs on a national level. Shortly after coverage of the protests started, anchors on MSNBC labeled the protesters as "teabaggers" a disparaging double entendre referring to a sexual act. CNN's Anderson Cooper went so far as to say about Republicans, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging." If these news stations truly sought to provide more balanced news than Fox News which they openly contest as biased they would have portrayed these protesters in the same light as protesters of the previous administration, without using distasteful language to demean them.
Conservatives are not the only group affected by such predispositions. William Kostric, a member of the libertarian organization Free State Project, gained fame when he carried a holstered handgun to a church near where Obama was holding a health care town hall meeting. Kostric quickly found himself on Chris Matthews' show Hardball. In the interview, Matthews asked Kostric whether he questions the legitimacy of Obama's birth status. Kostric replied, "I don't." Rather than accept this answer, Matthews then repeats the question six more times.
I asked Kostric about his reaction to the interview. "In this case, since the action was perceived to be anti-Obama the tendency was to claim that I was Republican. On the other hand, when [I am] agitating for decorum or an end to overseas hostilities, all of a sudden I'm a left-winger the sad truth about political labels," he said. Matthews' misdirected hostility left viewers in the dark about the real news story.
By no means do I intend to claim that Fox News provides impartial news, or that it's performances are short of sensationalism. Nor will I pretend that the reverse of such political stereotyping does not exist in conservative, Republican or Libertarian circles. But those who claim values of open-mindedness and equality while exuding prejudice must be challenged such intolerance cannot lead to progress.
