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Crazy Things I Heard on the Way to White Plains

I am a right wing kook. There?s no doubt about it. I believe in small government, small taxes and big military. However, I?d like to think I?m fairly open-minded about opposing view points. It?s probably fair to say that I even prefer to sit at a table with someone who opposes my views than with someone who embraces them. At a minimum it?s more interesting. In fact, as a conservative, I kind of have to be tolerant of liberal view points because liberalism is essentially omnipresent in academia and chaffing against it would make life rather intolerable.

This past weekend in New York, however, seemed to be an unending stream of leftist thought which eventually caused me to feel like I was drowning in it. I will give three quick examples. Trust me, there were way more:

1. Key Note Speaker: Last Friday night, we listened to a keynote speaker who was supposed to speak for a half hour but ended up speaking for an hour and a half. This speaker started off her remarks by saying, ?I assume that because you are participating in the ICC moot, that you must all be in favor of the ICC.? I could tell that there were maybe two other people in the room who rolled their eyes at this assumption. If anything, the moot court has made me grateful that America has not abdicated it?s authority to such a capricious world tribunal. What red blooded American wants a Belgian or Pakistani judge deciding if America did or did not commit international crimes? It just got worse from there as this speaker (who I think was British) concluded her remarks by stating that she was quite convinced that America was guilty of both war crimes and crimes against humanity. She didn?t say why she came to this conclusion, I can only imagine that she assumed that we must all have felt the same way and therefore such a heavy charge needed no explanation.

2. Law School Professor: During a brief lunch between rounds last Saturday, many of the competitors sat around tables eating and discussing the earlier rounds. I was sitting at a table with a law school professor who was a coach for one of teams. She kind of had a Cindy Sheehan look going for her. Anyway, we were all discussing how some of the panels were ?hot? (asked a lot of questions) and some were ?cold? (almost no questions). I mentioned that, in Clarence Thomas? autobiography, he alludes to why he doesn?t ask a lot of questions during oral arguments. As soon as I mentioned Thomas? name, Cindy?s eyes lit up incredulously, ?You?ve read Clarence Thomas? autobiography!??

?Yes.?

?I wouldn?t even let that book in my house!?, she responded proudly.

I attempted to respond diplomatically, ?Regardless of Thomas? jurisprudence, it?s a fascinating story of an abandoned kid, growing up in the segregated in South, who flunked out of the 10^th grade, joins the black panthers in college and eventually goes to Yale Law School and becomes one of the most important justices in the history of the Court.?

She just rolled her eyes and remained silent. So much for open-minded and tolerant liberalism. She probably hates black people.

3. Law Student: A law student said to me during breakfast in White Plains that it was ridiculous that we were imposing economic sanctions on Iran. ?We need to engage them in diplomacy!?, she said. ?Pakistan is more of a threat to us than Iran, why aren?t we going to war with Pakistan?? It was probably a rhetorical question but I felt compelled to offer a response,

?There are some fundamental differences between Pakistan and Iran. First of all, there is no greater state sponsor of terror in the world right now then Iran. Iran funds the Maadi army, the second biggest terror threat in Iraq behind Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia. They also, of course, fund Hamas, the same group that killed almost 300 marines in Beirut and continues to sponsor terrorist attacks. Pakistan does none of those things. Also if you look only at the leadership of Iran; Ahmadinejad has publicly called for the destruction of Israel while simultaneously violating every UN law prohibiting them from going nuclear. Musharraf of Pakistan has been are ally since 9/11 and has done a lot to battle the Islamists on his western border.?

Her response was, ?Pakistan is just as much a threat as Iran.? It?s like she wasn?t even listening or acknowledging anything that I said. So I asked, ?So you don?t acknowledge that one leader?s policy is to wipe Israel off the map and the other is to fight terrorism along side us??

I won?t tell you what her response was. It?s not important. It had nothing to do with what I was saying and it was extremely frustrating; like talking to a television set and expecting the tv to respond to what you were saying instead of spewing out a bunch of pre-recorded stuff.

Conclusion: Doing moot court competitions have caused me to interact with people that I wouldn?t normally interact with. Most of the time I enjoy it. However, this weekend, for some reason, seemed to be a consistent stream of intolerant liberal demagoguery that unfortunately eroded a great deal of my patience for opposing view points. I feel I need to spend a month straight listening to Rush Limbaugh in order achieve some semblance of intellectual balance in my life.

Full post as published by SoapBox Law on November 04, 2007 (boomark / email).