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I was in junior high when I asked my dad a question. The Vietnam War was on, there were protests in the streets, and some young men were fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft. My father was a World War II veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy.
Having watched the news about the Vietnam situation, I asked Dad, “What would you do if one of your sons went to Canada to avoid the draft?”
He looked at me for a moment and said, “Well, I guess that young man would no longer be my son.”
I would not avoid the draft, and, in fact, I would enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps just a few years later. But it was clear to me that such actions would have consequences should I choose to follow that path.
Fast forward to the present day: Students from colleges, “elite” and otherwise, are, once again demonstrating on campuses and in the streets. I for one have no issues with peacefully advocating for the Palestinian people. Free speech is an American right.
What is not a right is the destruction of property, the threatening of Jewish people (or anybody else), vandalism of private and public buildings, the accumulation of tons of trash following these demonstrations, trespassing, ignoring lawful orders, and obstructing other people who wish to go to class or elsewhere. That is just being a thug and a nasty person.
What I also object to are those college students who, demonstrating either their ignorance or rank stupidity, align themselves with and show sympathy toward the terrorists, murderers, rapists, mutilators, child killers, and kidnappers of Hamas. These students are cut from the same bolt of cloth as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party.
My wife and I agree that if one of our children were still in the university and were among those doing these dastardly and despicable deeds, all funds would be immediately cut off until their brains began working again and their actions and attitudes changed.
The university leadership bears a great deal of the responsibility for this mess. Antisemitic professors should be fired. Inept and feckless college presidents should be given their pink slip. The students who commit the crimes stated above should be arrested and permanently expelled from the university. Corporations and donors should cease supporting those universities who permit this kind of bigotry and lawlessness.
Those students, professors, and others who openly support Hamas and their genocidal agenda should be put on the government terrorist watch list. Universities who continue to openly allow antisemitic activities on campus should lose their federal and state funding. All of it. Employers should refuse to hire college graduates who have been openly supporting Hamas.
Imagine if such vile rhetoric were aimed at black or Native American, or Muslim students. Imagine if gay students were subjected to such threats and intimidation and crowds called for their extermination “from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” Imagine if conservative students put liberal students in fear of their lives.
Actions have consequences. Too many of our so-called modern “elites” have never learned that lesson. Some students have realized that just maybe there could be a problem with their actions and are demanding, not requesting, that the university grant them “amnesty” for their unconscionable words and behavior.
Too harsh? Too “un-Christian?” Too “un-pastoral?” If enough German citizens, priests, and pastors had stood up early enough, if enough of them had voted differently, if enough had said, “These Brown Shirts and this hate-filled man shall not have their way,” then maybe, just maybe, tens of millions world-wide would not have died.
Mike Tyson is reported to have said, “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” In the real world, if not in the ivory towers of the universities, there are consequences for both words and actions. Those who spew antisemitic and genocidal ideas need a few rounds with Mike Tyson.
[David Epps is the Rector of the Cathedral of Christ the King (www.ctk.life). Worship services are on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. and on livestream at www.ctk.life. He is the bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-South (www.midsouthdiocese.life). He may be contacted at [email protected] has been an opinion columnist for The Citizen for over 27 years.]
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