November 19, 2015 --

Consider, first, the following examples of our transformed national mindset as suggested by recent events on college campuses.

Thomas Jefferson, in his First Inaugural Address, called for tolerating "error of opinion...where reason is left free to combat it." It seems, to LPR, that Jefferson's counsel has been tossed aside for this: Where correct opinion has been determined, dissent is error and cannot be tolerated.

In years past, this cry could be heard at children's playgrounds: "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never harm me."

Today, LPR believes, "names" are considered as harmful, if not more, than sticks and stones.

Once, it could be said that the freedom to swing a fist ends where another person's face begins.

Today, add to that the following: someone's freedom of speech ends where another person's sensitivity begins.

Mark Twain wrote this in his notebook: "Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense." In our transformed nation, irreverence creates unsafe spaces and must surely be suppressed.

Roger Kimball, discussing recent moves against free speech at Yale and the University of Missouri, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, November 14-15 "The Rise of the College Crybullies" -- referred to "the mendacious gospel of political correctness, according to which reality must take second place to ideology." For LPR, the adjective "mendacious" placed next to the term "political correctness" suggests an oxymoron. Something that is "correct," after all, is free of error. How can something that is free of error be mendacious?

LPR agrees with Mr. Kimball that ideology, not reality, guides the adherents of the political correctness gospel. But what is the aim of those laboring in the groves of political correctness if not to silence dissenting views as error that cannot be tolerated? Kimball concludes his op-ed by citing Aristotle's emphasis on "courage" as "the most important virtue, because without it you cannot practice the others." Kimball added: "Courage has been in short supply on American campuses." LPR would add that courage has also been in short supply in Washington, D.C., where the Republican leadership in Congress has capitulated in "cringing" manner -- borrowing an image from the Kimball piece describing the Yale administration's response to student demands--to the forces of leftist ideology or, stated differently, to political intimidation.