University Students Rally for Tyranny

By John Semmens – Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent NewsThe protests at the University of Missouri that resulted in the ouster of President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin have reinvigorated student movements against freedom of speech across the nation. Brenda Smith-Lezama, vice president of the Missouri Students Association, took pride in the rising groundswell of support for censorship saying “it's about time the youth of this nation take a stand against the verbal pollution that hides behind the First Amendment. Social justice shouldn't be thwarted by slavish devotion to the out-dated idea that everyone has the right to speak his mind regardless of the consequences.”Smith-Lezama hailed the intimidation of student journalist Tim Tai as “an example of the will of the people triumphing over the sterile notion that the press should be free to oppose progressive values. The people have a right to decide what will be written about. So-called journalists can have no right to independently determine what will or won't be covered if it contradicts the aims of social justice.”At Amherst College student activists have given the administration 48 hours to comply with its list of nonnegotiable demands. Alleging that “freedom of speech is part of this nation's historic legacy of oppression,” the activists demanded that students demonstrating for “free speech” and insulting progressives with banners proclaiming “all lives matter,” be “warned that statements offensive to social justice will not be tolerated” and that “disciplinary action against future offenders be made a school policy.”At the University of Massachusetts, student protesters vowed “there will be no peace until all university tuition and fees are waived and outstanding student debt is canceled.” Chrissy Dasco, of the Center for Educational Policy and Advocacy, argued that “forcing students to pay for their own college education violates the Constitution's guarantees of liberty and pursuit of happiness. A person can't truly be free or happy if he or she is burdened with having to pay for an education. It is the government's obligation to provide a college education to anyone who deserves it. Even the citizens of North Korea have that right.”At Claremont McKenna College in California, Dean of Students Mary Spellman resigned in the face of a threatened hunger-strike by students alleging “lack of support for students of color.” The hunger-strikers contend that “the administration's refusal to assign white students to do the work of minority students reneges on the responsibility of the white race to atone for the hundreds of years of slavery imposed on blacks in America. The only way for the scales of social justice to be balanced is for whites to be forced to labor on behalf of blacks, just as blacks were forced to labor on behalf of whites before the Civil War.”President Obama praised the rising tide of student activism calling it “a vindication of my faith in the political wisdom and energy of this country's younger generation. They are breaking free of the traditional constraints of our society and creating new realities with new rules for a new future.”Swedish Court Rules Medical Personnel Have No Right to Opt out of AbortionsWhile acknowledging that the law requiring medical practitioners to conduct abortions may violate the moral objections of some individuals, a Swedish court ruled that “a citizen's legal obligation to obey the law takes precedence over a private right of conscience.”The case arose when nurse Ellinor Grimmark sought to be excused from assisting in abortion procedures. “I did not seek to impose my will upon the patients seeking these procedures,” Grimmark said. “I only sought to avoid complicity in this crime against the human rights of the little children.”Judge Lief Niflheim was not entirely unsympathetic to Grimmark's position, but averred that “membership in civil society carries the obligation to submit to its laws, heinous as they may appear from one's personal perspective. An appeal to a so-called higher morality has no legal weight if the country's law makers have decided otherwise. Order would devolve into chaos if every individual's pangs of conscience had to be taken into consideration. Until such a time as the envisioned 'higher morality' has a mechanism to compel compliance each member of society is expected to obey the laws decreed by their government.”Grimmark now cannot work as a nurse in Swden and has had to leave the country and find employment in Norway.In America, Planned Parenthood president and CEO Cecile Richards defended the practice of harvesting baby parts from aborted children as “fiscally sound. Look, mothers have the legal right to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Once the termination has been effected the baby is already dead. Refusing to sell the parts won't bring it back to life. All that blocking us from selling the parts does is deny us critical financial resources that could be used to continue and expand our services to women.”Police Dept Nixes Fitness TestsYielding to a protest by 12 obese female officers, the Colorado Springs Police Department has agreed to discontinue the required annual fitness tests it had been mandating for all personnel.Chief of Police Peter Carey defended the move as “prudent. Granted, an over-weight, out-of-shape officer might have a hard time chasing down and subduing a suspect, but realistically, that activity consumes a relatively minor share of each officer's duties. A law enforcement officer typically spends far more time filling out paperwork,than he or she does apprehending criminals.”“If we tried to fight this thing we'd be tied up in court for who knows how long,” Carey added. “Besides, we don't have the budget for it. The number of perps who might be caught even by the most fit officers is vanishingly small. If a few more escape because our force is too fat or weak to run them down, well, that's a price the community will have to pay.”Whether residents of Colorado Springs will be as blasé about the change remains to be seen. Resident Mary Jo Piccin, characterized elimination of the fitness test as “a mistake. The police need to be able to chase down criminals. Isn't that what we pay them to do? Maybe if they just ate fewer doughnuts they could run a little bit.”Trump Deportation Plan Blasted as “Voter Suppression” PloyDemocratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton blasted GOP front runner Donald Trump's plan to deport those in the country illegally as “another absurd Republican attempt to suppress Democratic votes. If these immigrants weren't the kind going on welfare, if they were self-supporting owners of businesses or skilled workers—in other words, likely Republican voters—he'd be singing a different tune.”“Deporting people is inhumane and un-American,” Clinton contended. “We have no practical experience with such a large and complicated operation. We do have a wealth of experience, however, with providing, food and shelter for the tens of millions who cannot provide for themselves. So, let's do the job we know how to do. Let's do the charitable thing and help those less well off than ourselves. If it means the taxpayers have to each work a little harder or do with a little less, well, we can afford it.”Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz called Clinton's position “unsustainable. There is no way America can support everyone who wants to come here to subsist on our welfare programs. The argument that opposition to the American worker becoming host to a growing influx of parasites is inhumane is bogus. The importation of more welfare recipients will ensure the collapse of our economy and the impoverishment of the vast majority of those living in the United States.” In related news, demonstrators in Louisiana predicted starvation if Governor Bobby Jindal's proposal to require food-assistance recipients to work a 20-hour week in exchange for receiving benefits. Louisiana Budget Project Director Jan Moller decried Jindal's move saying “some people are just not designed for work. They're physically, mentally, or emotionally unsuited for it. The Constitution is supposed to protect everyone's general welfare. It doesn't say they have to earn it by working.”MSNBC Talking Head Questions GOP Presidential Candidates' EthnicityMSNBC's Hard Ball host Chris Matthews questioned whether GOP presidential contenders Sen. Ted Cruz (Tx) and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla) are entitled to consider themselves Hispanic.“From what I can tell, neither of them fits the mold of a true Hispanic,” Matthews argued. “Their skin isn't all that dark. They're both opponents of social justice. They both insist that people ought to strive to be self-sufficient. Isn't that some sort of Calvinist concept? They both seem to be pretty white to me.”“And then there's Ben Carson,” Matthews went on. “Can we really be sure he's black? When I hear him speak he doesn't sound black. His story about being violent when he was young is, I think, an attempt to make him appear black to the unsophisticated voters. But the policies he advocates seem every bit as white as those of the rest of the GOP field.”“It isn't right that these men can claim whatever ethnic identity they like,” Matthews maintained. “If they're going to deviate from the mainstream thinking of leading opinion makers from the black and Hispanic communities they shouldn't be allowed to pose as members of those ethnic groups.”In related news, Democratic presidential hopeful, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley made a bid for the illegal immigrant vote by announcing he will be dining with with the Ramirez family in Austin, Texas. “Others may talk a good game, but none of them has shown the initiative to meet these immigrants face-to-face on their home turf,” O'Malley bragged. “I'm looking forward to chowing down on some homemade tacoritos, enchilupas, and Hispanic rice. Let it be shown that I am leading where my opponents fear to go.”A Satirical Look at Recent NewsJohn Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties our Founding Fathers tried to protect. Please do us a favor. If you uses material created by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.