Joel Mathis

No. But I think Atrios is missing something with this : The obsession of our pundit class with elite college generally, and specifically the idea that lefty college kids are the greatest threat to free speech ever known to man, is completely bizarre. I know that sometimes well-meaning college kids can be dumb. They are 19! They also don't have any power. Sure everybody can have a bit of power over someone or something for a moment, but structurally...college kids have no power. Even Harvard kids. The $30 billion endowment has power. Our pundits punched hippies when they were in college (show me where the hippie hurt you, Jon) and they can't stop punching them now. It's so weird. I suppose I'm one of the hippie punchers in this scenario. But here's the thing: College is a place one goes to learn habits of mind and habits of how to act on the ideas of what your mind generates. The students in college will, in not too long, be the folks running our offices and our

Some angry talk these days from my conservative friends about ESPN's firing of famed pitcher Curt Schilling after Schilling posted some anti-transgender comments to social media the other day. "Progressive America is sending a message," National Review's David French wrote . "In the institutions it controls, there is no distinction between the personal and professional. Keep dissent to yourself. All your words belong to your boss." I don' think that's quite the lesson to draw here. This is what Curt Schilling posted: It's a distasteful, near-pornographic image — one that, even if it said something like AMERICA IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD or VOTE FOR BERNIE SANDERS might've caused most people a bit of faint-heartedness. Now, understand too: Schilling had already been suspended last fall for THIS post: Too me, the sentiment is objectionable without being pornographic. This is the incident I might've criticized ESPN a

This is being presented by some of my lefty friends as good and laudable: Here's an explanation from Tulane's " The Tab ": Members of the Tulane football team were seen removing the sandbags as frat members yelled at them  This past week Kappa Alpha fraternity placed a wall of sandbags around their house as part of their annual fraternity tradition.  A member of the fraternity then defaced the wall, writing “Make America Great Again” on it. I'm no Trump fan, but this stinks. Let's be clear: It's not freedom of speech to tear down somebody else's property because it says something you don't like. If this is the road we're going down, democracy is screwed. Football players versus frat boys? Forget principle, we're just seeing who can turn out the biggest douchebag bullies. Guess what liberals? That's a battle you're probably going to lose. Don't go down this road.