A Dose of Conservative Thought

Where is the truth?

Certainly it is not in some obscure interpretation of Marx's Capital or in the works of Trotsky or Spinoza or Friedrich Engels, Clement Atlee, Julius Nyerere or Noam Chomsky. Maybe it lies within the graves of the human beings slaughtered throughout the 20th century coerced into being equal by a government of armed thugs they didn't have a choice but to trust. Complete state ownership and collective ownership have both lead themselves down a path of good intentions to a hell so barbaric it's amazing rationalizations for their existence still exist. Especially given the empirical evidence. Your professors make the death list a cliché, a footnote and in some cases, even an impediment. Mao Zedong's butchering of 65 million people. 25 million in Bolshevik and Stalinist Russia slaughtered. Cambodia. Africa. Eastern Europe. Latin America. Your professors can hide behind textbooks and theories – even the promise of a socialist utopia – call the atrocities anti-socialist. (I could call racism anti-American and anti constitutional.) The Problem lies in their belief in this mysterious utopia which has never manifested itself ever. A belief which makes them more religious than Pat Robertson. In order to succeed, even in theory, they must confront arguments made by F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises about the inevitable failure of a controlled market. Have professors had their students read objections to socialism by Aron, Popper, Oakeshott, Sowell, Strauss, Blool, Kirk or Friedman? Absolutely not. Are your professors constituting a breach in academic responsibility by not offering you these extremely legitimate and historically proven objections to socialism? You betcha.

Have arguments been raised against these "utopian" paradises that currently exist on the planet earth anywhere at in the Academy? What about Sweden? Is this place heaven on earth or what? "Highest Standard of Living," they say. This tidbit seems to be based on wealth redistribution and median income. Not factored in are GNP, innovation or exchange rate. Neither is unemployment in the private sector (which has been close to 12%). Recent reports by the Swedish Institute of Trade indicate median income in Sweden is $26,900, compared to $39,400 in the United States. This is before taxes, and in Sweden taxes are everything. You're education and health care are certainly not "free." There is a national income tax of 55% not to mention a 22.5% sales tax on all items sold. Their socialized health care is on the verge of economic collapse, due to a funding dependency on a 30% private ownership of the means of production that is shrinking. Canada is facing similar problems. Meeting the costs of such welfare policies are barely possible in countries with 10 million people. Then how are they possible in America, with almost 300 million people?

I have seen students at the "Death of Humanity" rally as well as the extremist left-leaning conferences held throughout the month at Rutgers not address any of these objections. Should it be the responsibility of a couple of undergraduate students at THE CENTURION to challenge them? No. It should be the responsibility of Rutgers University. Professors should openly discuss both sides of the ideological coin as well as the benefits of electing both candidates for a presidential election (Especially if Students fees are sponsoring such conferences). In addition, our administration should pursue academic, conservative intellectuals to come speak who can pose defenses for our market structure, instead of conservative talking heads like Ann Coulter. It is the least they can do, if as our study indicates, the partisan ratio at Rutgers is a high as 13 Democrats to every 1 Republican.

Our Journal of conservative thought focuses upon the Rutgers Community and seeking balance within it as well as taking a stab at the current events. We recommend for students who want a conservative perspective devoted exclusively to current events read the impeccable prose of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal or the columns of the National Review. Perhaps read one of the books we occasionally suggest. The differences between us and these other journals is our distinction of having the luxury of covering things that happen on our campus. By virtue of our firm belief in individualism, morality, and tradition our main goal is to challenge the students to see things through a different perspective.

Contrary to the sentiments of the angry and reactionary academic left, we are not on a coalition against benevolent causes like supporting of the environment and the need for racial equality. Our logic dictates that affirmative action programs should be based on socioeconomic need, not skin color. The majority of our student fees allocated from us towards NJPIRG, if collected from us without our informed consent, should go directly towards environmental causes. They should not go towards liberal lobbyists who pursue things other than the environment. We will attempt place needed scrutiny upon policies such as these because others seem not to for fear of some politically correct reprisal. Why call these arguments "racist" or "pro-pollution" when they could actually increase opportunity and decrease pollution, based on an increase in efficiency?

So you may very easily reject our humble attempts at introducing you to new perspectives. Laugh at us. Mock us. Call us "clueless." Our own faculty advisor did so in his December 1st entry of his weblog listed in the margin below. But in doing so, you'd just be rejecting yourself. Because our paper is not just a collection of legitimate or illegitimate points about particular political issues, rather it is the embodiment of the spirit of marginalized and isolated conservative students whose beliefs have much in common with the majority of citizens in the United States of America. Rutgers has an unchallenged partisan majority as witnessed in our study of campaign contributions. This threatens the impressionable youth who will soon depart the ivory gates of unregulated intellectualism into a real world, where contrary to the teachings of their sociology professors, anything is possible.

There is a world out there where is punishment for people who do bad things and there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is a world out there where your theories will be governed by consequences, your hard work rewarded by success and your destiny contingent upon your actions. Because that section of the world we live in is America, our potential as human beings is infinite.

And that is the truth.

James O'Keefe

NJO: Originally printed in the December 2004 issue of The Centurion (Issue 2) and also posted on the Centurion website.

What Your Professors Don't Want You To Read, Part I

What Your Professors Don't Want You To Read

NJO: Also: Books your professors don't want you to read. Basically the same page twice, hey ho.

Up from Liberalism "If you like liberalism, You'll Loathe Buckley"  William F. Buckley Jr. 11/26/2004

The Politics of Bad Faith Horowitz attacks the Acedemic Elite David Horowitz 11/26/2004

The Road to Serfdom Hayek proves that socialism will always lead to tyranny  F. A. Hayek 11/26/2004

Why we Fight Bennet reinforces a right and wrong with terrorism William Bennet 11/26/2004

Capitalism and Freedom Rutgers '32 connects political freedom with economic freedom Milton Friedman 11/26/2004

Why the Left Hates America Flynn exoposes the left for what it truly is  Daniel J. Flynn 11/26/2004

Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man How Mikey edits those films very carefully Hardy and Clarke 11/26/2004

The Savage Nation Micheal Savage 11/26/2004

Our Character, Our future Alan Keyes 11/26/2004

Leadership Rudolph Giuiani 11/26/2004

James reacts to the 2004 election results

NJO: Source: RUCenturion.com.

The truth shall set you free

General George Patton once said "When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking at all." Throughout my life, in all my pursuits of obtaining knowledge, the one thing that has stimulated me most has been a good challenge. Everyone is in agreement that the only way to learn is through constant stimulation.

Conservatives and traditionalists are in this respect very fortunate in college. They are challenged. They learn material through postmodernism, historical revisionism and the plight of the disenfranchised. The are forced to disect morality and examine the ethical obligations of the West. They are lectured about the injustices and struggles of those who have been victim of systems favorable to those in power. They are drowned in relativism, concepts of distributive justice and redistribution of wealth. They are taught that there is no such thing as truth and you are not allowed to make judgments upon anyone or anything, except America. They are taught to be sensitive and defensive, emphasizing artifice and political correctness over fact. For Rutgers students who have not taken any classes in the liberal arts, look no further than your mandatory Expository Writing course. You read about the evils of capitalism and the gluttony of America. You read about the corruption of the elections processes which elect diplomatic morons. You learned about the consequences of globalization, the need for cultural contexts and the corruption of an all men's institution discriminating against women. Liberals are very unfortunate in college. They aren't really challenged at all.

Have advocates for progress with an alleged pursuit of tolerance ever attempted to understand or listen to their conservative counterparts, the same way they tell their America to listen to their political enemies? Have they been forced to read the Nobel Peace Prize winning works of free enterprise by Milton Friedman (A Rutgers graduate) or Friedrich Hayek the same way I have been forced to read the communist works of Karl Marx? Have they studied Ayn Rand's objectivism, Edmund Burke's belief in "sound practice" or William F. Buckley's "Up from Liberalism?" Do they see they are living in the most fruitful and prosperous country in the world, admiring egalitarian systems that in 20 th century have lead to more barbaric cruelty, famine and death than any privileged American intellect could ever fathom? Have those in academia been challenged morally? Have they studied the principles that this country was founded upon? Have they studied principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and equality, and truly compared them to the principles of other societies?

Why, in a country that is at least half conservative, do we not have this ratio represented in higher learning? Some will say conservatives shouldn't have a right to express themselves. Some say principles of limited government, personal responsibility or of an objective standard are flat out wrong. In the words of Michael Moore, "let's have that debate." But let's not have it through the filter of a professor who has endorsed a certain candidate or who always comes from a certain ideological perspective. Let Rutgers be a place as President McCormick envisioned in his Inaugural Address "where there is tolerance for the student who challenges the professor's ideas." If our arguments are so flawed, so unsound and so problematic, then let us expose them for everyone to criticize. Then we will rest our case.

There is nothing academic about an ideological majority. There is nothing liberal about a monopoly of thought, nothing enlightening about blatant partisan endorsement, and nothing equitable about discriminating against conservative students and professors because their beliefs are different than your own. Rutgers is a diverse research university with a goal not only to represent the citizens of New Jersey, but views and theories from all over the country and the world. More importantly, it is an academic institution that pursues something even deeper, beyond knowledge or ideology, beyond the rhetoric of a debate.

"Sol Iustate et occidentem Illustra." "Sun of righteousness shine upon the west also." For the past 200 years and to this day Rutgers lives by that motto. Give us virtue, give us justice, give us truth. So read about our truth to challenge yourself politically in the process. Find out that although we go about it differently, we are in pursuit of the same things you are. Disguising truth has helped every blood-thirsty tyrant and dictator keep the shackles on humanity throughout history. Let us rock the foundations of academia and challenge the thrones that have for too long indoctrinated us about our world and the context in which we live. As the Journal of Conservative thought at Rutgers university THE CENTURION will try its hardes to serve to that end. Turn the page. You may read things you agree with and you may read things that you disagree with. But at least you'll come closer to realizing your own truth, and in the words of Jesus Christ, "The truth shall set you free."

Cordially,
James O'Keefe
Founder, Editor-in-Chief
THE CENTURION
Veritas Vos Liberabit






NJO: Originally printed in the November 2004 issue of The Centurion (Issue 1) and also posted on the Centurion website.

So, some perspective.

James and some other students have just started a conservative-leaning college magazine. You pick up a copy of this new magazine, and right there on the front cover, James is telling you that if you get an abortion from an unregulated and unsafe practitioner and as a consequence suffer some horrible bodily harm which causes you to die, then as far as he's concerned it's really all a bit of a giggle because fuck you you dirty whore. It gets your attention in a trollish sort of way, so you turn to page 3, and you read the editorial above.

What are you supposed to think?

“Partial-Birth-Abortion” Ruling Kills Women

By DAVID OKRENT

NEW YORK, November 1 — Congress is again debating a bill banning partial-birth abortions. This sweeping legislation would deny women their right to terminate their pregnancies within one to three months before birth. A fundamentalist Christian doctor from a prominent anti-choice foundation claimed before Congress that brain waves, a heart beat, and complete organ systems were clear indications that the fetus is its own human being, and that anesthesia given to the mother during the procedure is nowhere near the level needed to induce a painless death in the fetus. He further argued that if a fetus is a human being, it is entitled to rights under the Constitution. The passage of this ban would open the way for increased deaths of women seeking to curb the loss of their control over their bodies by visiting unregulated and unsafe back-alley abortion clinics for lateterm procedures. Several hundred women protested outside the Capitol during the deliberations. Some of the protestors displayed coat hangers, to indicate the risky measures into which legislators will force women needing to terminate their pregnancies. Others decried the current administration with chants referring to Mr. Bush as “repressive” and “fascist.”

Continued on Page A13

NJO: Originally printed on the cover of Issue 1 of the Centurion in November 2004. The cover design took the form of a mock New York Times with a bunch of parody articles like this one, which I single out for its exceptional ugliness of sentiment and the according ugliness of character which it reveals its writer to have. The pseudonym "David Okrent" is probably a reference to Daniel Okrent, the first "public editor" of the New York Times. Whoever wrote it, James was evidently happy enough with it to publish it on the cover of his new zine, so it can reasonably be taken as an expression of his own feelings on the subject.

Liberal Award for Door

Uploaded on May 3, 2009
A receptive professor receives the Liberal Award for the "Most Partisan Faculty Door", but his answers are very negative towards the Republican Party.

NJO: Video and caption from YouTube channel RUCenturion. Images from Issue 1 of the Centurion. 

Original blurb from rucenturion.com:

Centurion presents its first "Liberal Bias" on campus award!

This month's award is presented to Dr. Gillette of the History
Department for the Most Partisan Decorations on an office door.
“As a political historian I must tell you; there is a matter of political intelligence and political stupidity.”
Dr. William Gillette