Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


A large majority of today’s college students think blacklisting is a good thing

The user manual for the modern generation
The user manual for the modern generation

The modern dark age: Old-fashioned Americans, who believe in free speech and tolerance, often assume that the spate of cruel blacklisting stories that now dominate our society are merely the actions of a few isolated individuals who have happened to gain a position of power and are abusing it.

This assumption could not be more wrong. We are entering a future where blacklisting, censorship, and the abuse of power will become the norm, because apparently the new generation thinks such things are always justified, if they have been offended in any way. From a recent poll of 2,000 students at 130 colleges:

In one eye-opening finding, 74 percent of undergrads endorse the view that a professor who says “something that students find offensive” should be reported to the university. By a majority almost as lopsided, 65 percent believe that a fellow student who says something they consider offensive should be turned in. That informers’ mindset is especially pronounced among students who identify themselves as politically liberal, fully 85 percent of whom would report a professor who offends them. But even among self-identified conservatives, a solid majority, 56 percent, are of the same mindset. [emphasis in original]


None of this unfortunately is breaking news. In 2017five years ago — FIRE (then called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education but has since changed its name to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression because it found the problem of censorship to have expanded beyond colleges) produced a video report describing the hostility to free speech at Tufts University, with this quote summing up what was learned.

The climate at Tufts embodies several trends FIRE has seen growing in recent years. There is a shift away from the heavy-handed administrators posing the biggest threat to free speech on campus. Now the loudest calls for censorship are coming from the students themselves. … And in some cases like we saw first hand at Tufts, students are equating offensive or uncomfortable speech with violence. [emphasis mine]

Back in 2017 the evidence was clear. New students were coming into colleges already convinced that free speech was wrong and that they had the right to blackball and censor anyone for saying anything they did not like. The indoctrination in the public schools by the left, now a big issue from parents but long ignored by them for decades, had apparently succeeded in producing a new generation of eager brownshirts.

Today’s strong pushback by parents against elementary school indoctrination and the introduction of the queer sexual agenda is gratifying, but it appears it is happened too late. Parents are attempting to close the gate after the animals have already escaped. Their kids no longer believe in freedom, are well trained to push hard-nose radical ideas, and worst of all, are willing to team up as mobs to destroy anyone who challenges them.

The battle for freedom and individual rights is not over, but we can no longer assume that the American citizenry of the future will be its standard bearer. Freedom-lovers worldwide must recognize this, because the first step in winning any battle is to know one’s enemy.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

17 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    Don’t you understand. 1984 is about a Right Wing dictatorship. Jeeze, I was taugh that sixty years ago, where have you been….

  • Robert Pratt

    It’s not too late, one has to start somewhere. Maybe we have a lost generation, or two, but we have to start with one not yet lost. Let’s see more and more homeschooling too.

  • Alton

    The only way—-
    that will work is to start blackilsting the students now and as they pass Into the workforce.

  • RCMoeur

    From observation as a parent, I think the explanation is simpler. “Anti-bullying” measures. There’s a strong argument that more than an entire generation has been conditioned to think that the appropriate response to anything that makes them feel bad is to report it to an Authority Figure, who will then make everything better.

    Why should this thinking stop upon leaving high school?

  • Max

    2+2=4?…. it equals what the party says!

    How many fingers am I holding up Winston? “1984” 8:31
    https://youtu.be/brm7iK-MtZs

    The distortion of facts, where the children are taught that they know more than the parents, where reality it’s not what is, but what you believe it should be or want it to be. Reality is fluid, history is a lie, happiness is obedience.
    Where the very words we use to communicate do not mean the same thing to everyone… where what you say is not as important as “how you say it”. The distortion of our culture, were “sticks and stones can break your bones”, but words cause irretrievable damage! Pain to the psych of the snowflake/Karen’s resulting in uncontrollable rage which is acted upon as a form of social justice (whatever that is ) no compassion or restraint, actions without any consequences,.because it was done in the heat of passion…. They were “Triggered!”
    Freedom of speech is violence!

    In a world with no rules, no rule of law, school boards can groom children with pornography in their library‘s to prepare them for what it’s not natural, where abuse will be excepted as normal… where are the FBI arrest parents for trying to stop it! Eventually, in the end, this will lead to another dark age… and the burning of witches! (we’ve seen it before)
    When there’s problems to solve, it doesn’t matter “what you do” makes the problem worse… It only matters that you “do something”, anything, even if it’s the wrong thing!
    It’s OK as long as they promise us it will solve all our problems. It doesn’t matter how many lives must be destroyed, as long as they had good intentions…
    Good intentions is the road to… More witches to burn!

    What is the “definition of a woman” when “belief” trumps hard science? A man declared woman of the year? Madness!
    It’s the ultimate “patriarchy”, where the men are men, and the women are men too. (all women are doomed, Suffrage put back 100 years)
    Can a man have a baby? our best and brightest PhD‘s and doctors believe so. At least they are requiring pregnancy test for men also… More madness.
    All whites are racist… privileged, evil. Only black lives matter, but sequestering carbon matters more!
    You can perform attempted murder of a politician on camera, and be released without posting bail.
    Be imprisoned for years with the empty accusation of an insurrectionist/terrorist, for “trespassing” in a public area.

    A world where the only science that is recognized by politicians and the fact checkers is political science, Scientology, and science fiction.
    Where the politicians believe they can change the weather if they throw enough money at it… that if they destroy all the fossil fuel generators, that a new power source will spontaneously appear!
    And when everything is destroyed, burned to the ground, the people who are left will find the “always normal” weather is declared normal again… our self proclaimed all powerful leaders will claim victory! see what we did? we saved you! (Statues will be erected, halos will be worn so the slaves will know who to worship…)

    Where we are told that we cannot believe our lying eyes, That the story is not true, unless it’s approved by the “Ministry of truth” and with glee, properly proclaimed on the nightly news.
    that up is down, peace is war, love is hate…

    And then we’ll face our next crisis… (we have always been at war with Eurasia) perhaps a cure for conservatism (which we all know is mental illness) a vaccine that changes your DNA. A new and improved human, designed for this worlds future needs. A vaccine that will cure everything! But does not prevent you from getting sick. (The vaccine is perfect! if it didn’t work, it is because “you” are the problem!) An ongoing experiment that will never end… A boot on a human face forever…

    How many fingers am I holding up?

  • wayne

    “All Hail Oceania!”
    https://youtu.be/5qhaI5djt78
    1:33

  • Cotour

    Orwell was soooo prescient:

    YOU ARE BEING CONDITIONED AND PROGRAMMED
    (Well maybe not you perse, but your children and their children are)

    And who you ask is doing this conditioning and programming you? Those who control media in all of its forms.

    Like: Hollywood (D), Google (D), Facebook (D), Tick Tock (Communist D), Twitter (D) and your friendly Globalist, “Climate Change” “Progressive” nut (D).

    Protein is protein you know, and you will in time be made to comply. What do you think a story like this is about?

    You or more correctly your children and their children will in time comply or die, it’s your / their choice. (That is how the extreme Left, radical, “Progressive”, (Democrats in Congress) Globalists think anyway)

    And this is for you, the common people, the masses, and not for them of course.

    And it will be pushed forward saying that this is necessary in order to “save the planet”. Doubt me?

    You keep watching. Got vote?

    https://yournews.com/2022/06/28/2368259/canadian-company-pledges-to-produce-two-billion-bugs-per-year/

    Lupita Nyong’o eats fruit sprinkled with ants (pagesix.com)

    https://apis.mail.aol.com/ws/v3/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-_95qz8vtNQnj2guvJpSi615JXjYizy9bcZuM2MCqJDk8zBIwKj0CmLH_qmCDE5NsTJVJXmOu9vG5vVhaOWavzw/messages/@.id==AMo1-w1wbFd9YtvrAAh0EKOdl3Y/content/parts/@.id==2/thumbnail?appid=AolMailNorrin&downloadWhenThumbnailFails=true&pid=2

  • John

    It isn’t just old fashioned Americans who believe in free speech, it’s ingrained in our national fabric. There are peoples around the world who censor and turn in neighbors, but not Americans. So they may have been born here, and they may have citizenship, but they are not Americans.

  • pzatchok

    I can see it now.

    Remember the part of the story Starship Troopers that in order to vote and hold public office you first needed to be in the military?

    Well instead of being in the military they will have to have been working members of an approved charity.

  • pzatchok, that would be an “approved NGO” … it is too charitable to call some of those a “charity”.

  • “Speaking truth to power” is such a rush for some, that they forget to include truth in the recipe … as in, those self-evident truths.

    The generations that didn’t get to watch Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf respect each other off-the-clock, have been led to embrace a fundamentalist approach to imposing their worldview …. and it looks like, either in self-defense or because of not absorbing the lessons of Sam and Ralph, some on the Right are now going down that path as well.

    This is disturbing, for those of us for whom the 1970’s were are teenage years saw the overreach of the 1960’s Left and turned away from it (keeping only the cool music). I don’t know if our current young generations have the open minds to perceive their peers’ overreach – be they Progressive, or their mirror-image on the alt-right who would co-opt our institutions to impose their command economics and collectivist views on race.

  • sippin_bourbon

    We have gotten here because they have convinced people, bit by bit, to accept a lie. One small lie at a time. And when the lie was widespread enough, and “common knowledge”, they got people to repeat the lie, to be part of the lie, to buy into the falsehood. Once they get people to buy into one lie, the next lie is easier.
    Then the next lie. Then the next.

    We are now at the point where men are women, women are birthing people and yes, the argument is made that we should accept that 2+2=5 and if you say otherwise, your being violent, because speech is violence, but actual violence is protected speech, and feelings are more important than facts. Any disagreement makes you a Nazi fascist, and that accusation alone allows any for action taken against you. It does not matter how awful it is, it is fair, and you will be made to accept it.

  • sippin_bourbon: We have gotten here because they have convinced people, bit by bit, to accept a lie.

    And here is the first lie you refer to – and the antidote to it:

    “You expect your government to be your caretaker in all areas, instead of focused on keeping you free so you can take care of yourselves and your neighbors. That is why things are not working. Walk BESIDE us and take back control of your life.”

    Unfortunately, I have yet to see even Trump make this clear, much less the GOP wing of the professional/political complex.

  • Edward

    Jester Naybor pointed out: “The generations that didn’t get to watch Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf respect each other off-the-clock, have been led to embrace a fundamentalist approach to imposing their worldview ….

    The leftists are also the ones who complained loudly when religious people would only ask people to join them. The leftists do not ask but demand that everyone follow what they want, believe, or pretend to be. It isn’t just acknowledgment, which was the starter drug for them, or even acceptance but it is now required that we all participate in whatever delusional idea they have. Today. Because tomorrow they will have a different politically correct requirement.

    For example: what once was called “politically correct” is now called “woke,” which really means that we must now participate in a dreamland where fantasy is decreed to be the new reality, and fantasy is now known as “the science,” which must be followed no matter how damaging it is in reality.

    Someone is teaching our children very poorly. Rather than requiring them to live in the real world, they get to live in someone’s fantasy world, most likely the fantasy world of that bad teacher.

    In the olden days, someone living in a fantasy world would need psychological counseling, but these days it is the ones who live in the real world that require the reeducation.

    This is why we have supply shortages, inflation, high gas prices (and a president asking our enemies to supply us with fuel rather than asking our states or friendly neighbors), and why we left our citizens and tens of billions of dollars worth of useful military equipment behind enemy lines. Our leaders’ fantasy world does not work in the real world, and our enemies benefit from our suffering.

    This is what we get when the left does not learn how to play nice, like Sam and Ralph, but learns to be selfish and greedy, like three-year-olds.

  • Jeff Wright

    1984 was fiction because it had the one Big Brother.

    Today, we also have a lot of nosey little ones….Burroughs was right…we’ve become a nation of finks.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Jestor,

    You can shorten that to the modern phrase “I am from the government, and I am here to help”

  • TallDave

    the dictators of tomorrow turned out to be in HR, not management

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *