Category: Politics

Ann Coulter’s USF Visit

I think the university should not spend money to bring Ann Coulter to USF, and I think Ann Coulter should agree with my position. In a June 2005 column titled “Thou Shalt not Commit Religion,” Coulter blasted liberal (and some just-plain-stupid) speech that was paid for with tax dollars. If she is against tax paid leftist speech, she should be opposed to using tax money to pay for her speech also.

That is the core of the issue: the government placed a gun against your head and told you to give it money, and then spent the money on Ann Coulter. True, the money spent is from students’ fees; so technically, if you don’t attend USF, you aren’t paying for Ann Coulter. However, USF is a state-subsidized institution; therefore, tax dollars are being used to pay Ann Coulter.

Think of it this way: the state subsidizes university education, ostensibly because there is a public interest in having educated students. Students make a decision to attend USF based on the total cost to the student of attending, not merely on the cost of tuition. If the university did not pay for speakers, it could provide that same education for a lower total cost. The government could then educate the same number of students for a lower subsidy. Thus, the burden of payment for speakers is on the tax payer. The university even acknowledges this to some extent: the speeches are open to the public in general, not just to USF students.

If the protesters for Ann Coulter’s speech are opposed to all of the speakers paid for by tax dollars, then I applaud them. However, I think instead they are opposed only to spending the money on such a conservative speaker. What they are saying is, “We don’t have a problem stealing your money to make our views heard; we just don’t want to pass the stolen megaphone.” To this I say either, “Woe to ye hypocrites,” or in my best sarcastic and disdainful Jay Leno, “Shut-Up.”

As for Ann Coulter: don’t give the money back Ann, even if it is stolen. They wouldn’t give it back to us, but would just use it to pay some socialist to speak. We already have enough of those on campus.

This article was originally published by the USF Oracle as a letter to the editor, October 19, 2006. Discrepancies between this post and the letter are due to editorial changes I made to this post after the letter was submitted.

Is Discontent Enough for the Democrats?

Does anyone remember the newsstand from November 1994? The Republicans took the House and Senate from the Democrats, and Time ran a cover cartoon featuring an elephant charging forward, trampling over a donkey. The headline read, “G.O.P. Stampede: Special Report”.

The pundits think it will happen again – with the Democrats taking control at least of the House. This view is echoed in a front-page article in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “Support for Congress Slides Further, Dimming Outlook for Republicans.” 1 The article states: “In October 1994, with the public fed up with scandals and his party’s failure to deliver in key areas such as health care, voters said by a six-point margin – 44% to 38% – that they wanted Republicans to take control. That compares with the 15-point margin today in favor of Democrats taking the reins.”

However, there is one big difference between 1994 and 2006: in 1994, the Republicans had a message that was something other than “Not the President; Not the current Congress”.2 Today, the Democrats don’t have a coherent message beyond “not George”, and the Republicans still have a message.

The Republicans can weather the discontent if they stick to a single theme: Democrats will raise taxes.

1Subscribers to the Wall Street Journal can find the article here.

2For a good discussion of the Republican Victory in 1994, see Dick Morris’s book, The New Prince which, while I do not agree with all of his arguments in the book, makes a good case about the ‘94 election.