Supple Cow

I'm not going to outline all my thoughts on this since most of them have already been expressed, but I just want to say something about this:

At my university, "conservative" is like a bad word, not to mention a synonym for "heartless", "racist", "elitist" and/or "evil". As a student who leans ever so slightly liberal in the land of the radical left, I can attest to this sort of experience and it isn't one of those extreme scenarios people invent to make a point.

I'm used to everybody at school more or less agreeing with my politics. When I was challenged to evaluate the reasons for my political beliefs by a friend at another school, I realized that I didn't spend a lot of time thinking and that I spent a whole lot of time reacting and espousing ideals I never once questioned. Ever since I realized that, I have noticed a sharp behavioral change toward some of my ideas in both students and professors. A professor who had previously been nothing but polite and friendly with me joked to the class that I must have been on something when I defended my Republican classmate's statements one day. Some of my (now former) friends even made a point to make more conservatives-are-incogitant-and-moronic jokes in front of me at parties.

I don't say all this to whine about my situation; I say it more to express my surprise at the amount of discouragement a student can receive at a top-tier university for simply having thoughts. Isn't that why I took out several grand in loans to be here?

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)