A reporter with Campus Reform took to college campuses to ask students which mascots were offensive, which weren’t, and at what stage university presidents had a responsibility to listen to complainers and take action — and on that last, one replied: “If one person has offended me — as president of the school — I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that one person feels comfortable.”
One person.
One person complains — and down the foundations fall.
One person complains, and out the window a school mascot goes.
If that’s the standard for changing a foundation or tradition or long-standing icon — the offense taken by a single person — well then, America is on the fast-track to Nowhereville.
It’s simple math. Doing away with all symbols will eventually lead to a state of nothingness. And that’s the point America will have to ask: What does America stand for — what does America represent?
We’re already seeing the destruction of America’s identity in the streets, with all the toppling of statues, defacing of memorials, destruction of monuments. That’s frightening enough; that’s a sad enough commentary on the state of America’s youth. But at least most of that angst and violence can be chalked up to anarchists.
What of these studious, studying students in these so-called places of higher learning?
If the anarchists are the immediate, the students represent the long-term.
And if the students being trained to accept that offensiveness is the standard by which responsible society and government decide what stays, what goes, then it won’t be long before anything meaningful is obliterated from the public sphere — and permanently so.
The “one person” offensiveness standard already applied, in these students’ minds, to the San Diego State University Aztec mascot and the George Washington University Colonials’ mascot, Campus Reform reported.
But the logic of “one person” offensiveness can be easily stretched and applied elsewhere.
Think of all the sports’ teams, all the school mascots, from elementary-through-professional. The Cleveland Indians. The New England Patriots — as if all the others were not. The Cleveland Browns — as if Blacks Don’t Matter, too? The Ohio State Buckeyes — just because. It sounds like it could sound racist, spoken in the right sounding tone, that is. And what the heck is up with those Padres? Surely San Diego could choose a name that doesn’t speak quite so loudly to the Catholic religion. Or seem to, anyway.
That’s just sports.
The one-person rule could apply to all the nation’s George Washington monuments — the face of George Washington on U.S. currency.
It could cover all the Thomas Jefferson memorials — all the structures and street signs and schools named after the founding father.
It could include all the statues, all the portraits, all the historical markers in the White House, in Congress, on and near Capitol Hill.
It could include crosses of Christianity — crosses that include the crucified Jesus.
It could include the American flag, the national anthem. The Declaration of Independence. The Constitution of the United States.
One person, offended, can dismantle much.
Anarchists in the streets are upsetting enough to America’s law and order. Antifa thugs taking over communities are disruptive enough to America’s national order. But their time will fade. Their violence will dissipate. These graduating students, however, are just beginning their entrance into society. And their “one person” offensiveness standard doesn’t bode well for the future of free America.
It’s not by the crack of an Antifa bat that our nation’s history and national identity will fall.
It’s by the appeasing good natures of the graduating classes. By the appeasing smiling graduation masses taught to believe feelings trump all.
First appeared at The Washington Times.
