American_Jihad
Flaming Libs/Koranimals
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Stephen Miller: A Second Thoughts Warrior
Why the Trump team is different from all others.
February 8, 2017
David Horowitz
Stephen Miller is President Trump’s senior advisor for policy and has been my friend since he was a student at Santa Monica High School in 2001, taking on his teachers and administrators for failing to respect country and flag in the wake of 9/11.
Steve was raised in a liberal Democratic California household and his second thoughts politically constitute one of the bonds of our friendship, which can serve to illuminate the unique character of this White House – widely misunderstood on the left and right – whose president and chief strategist, Steve Bannon, followed similar paths.
In the fourth year of the Obama era, I was the subject of a leftwing profile in Tabletmag.com titled, “David Horowitz Is Homeless.” It was an early example of what would now be called a “fake news” story, portraying me as a hapless figure suspended between the warring camps of left and right, unable to find a place in either. The false narrative was easy to expose. Through the David Horowitz Freedom Center my efforts were financially supported by over a hundred thousand conservative donors while the Restoration Weekend I hosted featured dozens of prominent conservative figures including now Vice President Mike Pence and soon to be Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Like all effective hit pieces, the Tablet story contained a kernel of truth. While conservatives and Republicans were generally supportive of me and my work, they also took a noticeable distance from the confrontational stances and actions that became my political signature.
In 2002, for example, I launched a campaign to end the leftist stranglehold on the curricula of our major liberal arts schools. I organized chapters of “Students for Academic Freedom” on college campuses across the country, and called for an Academic Bill of Rights that would require professors to present students with two sides of controversial issues in a fair-minded manner. This modest proposal was viciously condemned by the academic left, and in the heat of the battle that ensued, I found myself pretty much alone. Republicans and conservatives failed for the most part to rally around the proposal and mainly avoided association with the effort. After seven years of futility and isolation, I was forced to acknowledge that I had failed.
I had come into the political right vowing to be as aggressive in defense of America as we leftists had been in attacking her. What struck me at the outset was the absence of a war mentality among my new political friends – a mentality I knew as second nature for the left. Democrats were relentlessly on the attack, framing moral indictments of their political adversaries and denouncing them as oppressors of the weak and vulnerable.
By contrast, Republicans addressed their adversaries in the language of accountants complaining about tax-burdens and budget overages. I noticed, too, how thoroughly intimidated Republicans were by the left’s moral attacks; they seemed temperamentally incapable of returning fire with fire. While Democrats routinely referred to them as racists, sexists and homophobes, conservatives responded by calling their assailants “liberals.”
Unassimilated as I felt to this political environment, I was never entirely alone. Like-minded conservatives were attracted to my work, especially younger conservatives who had been schooled by their leftist antagonists in the art of political warfare and were ready to fight back. One of these was 17-year-old Stephen Miller.
XXXX -- Mod Edit American_Jihad You've been asked several times to just clip "fair use" from copyrighted sources. That's less than about 25% of the article.
University campuses are so dominated by a potentially violent political left that I am unable to visit them without bodyguards and a campus security presence. Without such protection, I could never get through a speech and never be sure of emerging from the event unscathed. This is not personal to me, but is true of all conservatives targeted by the left, many of whom like me have been physically attacked. When I do speak, I am always mindful to point out, however, that the vicious verbal attacks directed at me are really intended to intimidate my student hosts, who are regularly called racists and Islamophobes for inviting me and have to live with these stigmas long after I am gone. These slanders are an injustice to me but an even greater one to the students. Unfortunately, in the present political climate there is no campus authority – faculty or administrative – who will defend conservative students and their right to have their own opinions.
...
Over the years people would refer to my Freedom Center as a “think tank” and I would correct them, “No, it’s a battle tank,” because that is what I felt was missing most in the conservative cause — troops ready and willing to fight fire with fire. The Trump administration may be only a few weeks old, but it is already clear that the new White House is a battle tank. I am as proud as could be that my friend Steve Miller is one of its generals, and I no longer feel in any way homeless.
Stephen Miller: A Second Thoughts Warrior
Stephen Miller: A Second Thoughts Warrior
Why the Trump team is different from all others.
February 8, 2017
David Horowitz
Stephen Miller is President Trump’s senior advisor for policy and has been my friend since he was a student at Santa Monica High School in 2001, taking on his teachers and administrators for failing to respect country and flag in the wake of 9/11.
Steve was raised in a liberal Democratic California household and his second thoughts politically constitute one of the bonds of our friendship, which can serve to illuminate the unique character of this White House – widely misunderstood on the left and right – whose president and chief strategist, Steve Bannon, followed similar paths.
In the fourth year of the Obama era, I was the subject of a leftwing profile in Tabletmag.com titled, “David Horowitz Is Homeless.” It was an early example of what would now be called a “fake news” story, portraying me as a hapless figure suspended between the warring camps of left and right, unable to find a place in either. The false narrative was easy to expose. Through the David Horowitz Freedom Center my efforts were financially supported by over a hundred thousand conservative donors while the Restoration Weekend I hosted featured dozens of prominent conservative figures including now Vice President Mike Pence and soon to be Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Like all effective hit pieces, the Tablet story contained a kernel of truth. While conservatives and Republicans were generally supportive of me and my work, they also took a noticeable distance from the confrontational stances and actions that became my political signature.
In 2002, for example, I launched a campaign to end the leftist stranglehold on the curricula of our major liberal arts schools. I organized chapters of “Students for Academic Freedom” on college campuses across the country, and called for an Academic Bill of Rights that would require professors to present students with two sides of controversial issues in a fair-minded manner. This modest proposal was viciously condemned by the academic left, and in the heat of the battle that ensued, I found myself pretty much alone. Republicans and conservatives failed for the most part to rally around the proposal and mainly avoided association with the effort. After seven years of futility and isolation, I was forced to acknowledge that I had failed.
I had come into the political right vowing to be as aggressive in defense of America as we leftists had been in attacking her. What struck me at the outset was the absence of a war mentality among my new political friends – a mentality I knew as second nature for the left. Democrats were relentlessly on the attack, framing moral indictments of their political adversaries and denouncing them as oppressors of the weak and vulnerable.
By contrast, Republicans addressed their adversaries in the language of accountants complaining about tax-burdens and budget overages. I noticed, too, how thoroughly intimidated Republicans were by the left’s moral attacks; they seemed temperamentally incapable of returning fire with fire. While Democrats routinely referred to them as racists, sexists and homophobes, conservatives responded by calling their assailants “liberals.”
Unassimilated as I felt to this political environment, I was never entirely alone. Like-minded conservatives were attracted to my work, especially younger conservatives who had been schooled by their leftist antagonists in the art of political warfare and were ready to fight back. One of these was 17-year-old Stephen Miller.
XXXX -- Mod Edit American_Jihad You've been asked several times to just clip "fair use" from copyrighted sources. That's less than about 25% of the article.
University campuses are so dominated by a potentially violent political left that I am unable to visit them without bodyguards and a campus security presence. Without such protection, I could never get through a speech and never be sure of emerging from the event unscathed. This is not personal to me, but is true of all conservatives targeted by the left, many of whom like me have been physically attacked. When I do speak, I am always mindful to point out, however, that the vicious verbal attacks directed at me are really intended to intimidate my student hosts, who are regularly called racists and Islamophobes for inviting me and have to live with these stigmas long after I am gone. These slanders are an injustice to me but an even greater one to the students. Unfortunately, in the present political climate there is no campus authority – faculty or administrative – who will defend conservative students and their right to have their own opinions.
...
Over the years people would refer to my Freedom Center as a “think tank” and I would correct them, “No, it’s a battle tank,” because that is what I felt was missing most in the conservative cause — troops ready and willing to fight fire with fire. The Trump administration may be only a few weeks old, but it is already clear that the new White House is a battle tank. I am as proud as could be that my friend Steve Miller is one of its generals, and I no longer feel in any way homeless.
Stephen Miller: A Second Thoughts Warrior
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