RUTHFULLY YOURS

With each passing week, more proof mounts that the world of Higher Education is, as I note in the title to my book on this subject, Higher Miseducation.

It’s also an increasingly dangerous place for conservative students.

Unfortunately, it is not an exaggeration to say that violence against the person and property of conservative students has become something of a commonplace on college campuses.

This should (but, regrettably, most assuredly will not) shock the moral sensibilities of remotely decent people everywhere, irrespectively of their political partisanship.

The College Fix, a student-run publication dedicated to drawing the public’s attention to the systemic and systematic undermining of the University’s historic mission by political ideologues, informs us of the violence, the mob violence, to which conservative students and speakers are routinely subjected.

At Ohio University, Kaitlin Bennett, a conservative activist in her early 20’s who regularly records her exchanges with left-leaning students at college campuses around the country, was besieged by a mob—yes, a mob—of at least 100 students who attacked her and the rest of her crew—including her bodyguard (that one young, petite female even needs a bodyguard on a college campus for daring to express her conservative views speaks volumes).

The Fix refers to the footage of the “huge crowd of students…yelling and screaming at Bennett” as she tries to film a video.  Also captured on the latter are the members of the mob who “eventually began throwing things at Bennett, her bodyguard, and her team from Liberty Hangout.”

The watchdog publication adds:

“The harassment and rowdy behavior continued even as Bennett and her team left the campus, with the crowd throwing several things at the pick-up truck she was riding in. Along with bottles and liquids, several in the crowd threw toilet paper at her.”  

School administrators and campus police representatives maintain that the only thing to have occurred is that “strong language” was used and someone “alleged” to have had water splashed upon them.  Other than that, there was no trouble and the OUPD “protect[ed] everyone’s rights and safety.”

The video proves that, unsurprisingly, Ohio University and its police department are dishonest.

Kaitlin Bennett was the victim of a mob, and Ohio University, it is clear from the available video, is not unlike far too many other colleges and universities throughout the country insofar as it is, apparently, at the mercy of a mob.

The OUPD said that there were “no reported injuries or violence, and no one was arrested during the event.”  This statement is not only disingenuous; it begs the question.

First, it is precisely because no arrests were made that the victim in this case is as outraged as she is.  It is because there were no arrests made that any and every decent person who views this video will share in her outrage.

Second, just because there were no actual injuries certainly does not mean that the conduct of the mob wasn’t potentially injurious.  And that these potentially injurious actions didn’t lead to actual injuries, while possibly owing to a stroke of luck or the Will of God, is in no way due to the action—or inaction—of the OUPD.

Moreover, a lack of injury is not equivalent to a lack of violence. That a person may not sustain any injuries—any physical injuries—upon being assaulted doesn’t mean that she wasn’t assaulted.  It is both immoral and illegal to assault a person for any reason other than self-defense, and neither the immorality nor the criminality of an assault is in the least mitigated by the fact that the person who was wrongfully assaulted didn’t suffer any physical injury (psychological injury, on the other hand, need not be accompanied by its physical counterpart).

Third, violence is not limited to immediate physical contact.  That neither Bennett nor her team were literally struck by fists, kicks, etc. is neither here nor there—something, one would think, that police officers as much as anyone, and more than most, should know.  In fact, as I’ve been learning from my own instructors (who are veteran Marines) during my combat training at Warrior Way Combatives, the premier training center of Warrior Flow, the combat art founded by retired USMC Lieutenant-Colonel, Al Ridenhour, the fight begins well before the first blow is launched.

And once a hostile agent proceeds to enter into one’s “sphere of influence,” one’s “space,” then, by that juncture, “the fight is on,” for one has every reason to think that the aggressor means to inflict physical pain upon oneself.

That Kaitlin Bennett and her people were targeted with violence by an ugly, hate-filled mob becomes obvious once anyone with a scintilla of objectivity views the video and asks him or herself: Would I worry for Kaitlin’s safety if she was my daughter?

Hell, people can determine readily enough that there was indeed violence at Ohio University the day that Kaitlin Bennett decided to visit by inquiring whether they would worry for their own safety had it been they who were surrounded by legions of hostiles, as Kaitlin and the handful of people who accompanied her were surrounded.

A final point: There were numerous attempts to assault Kaitlin Bennett and her team.  Some were successful.  As was mentioned above, they were deluged by bottles and fluids by hordes of cackling, shrieking, cursing, and threatening punks, at least some of whom entered Kaitlin’s space and screamed in her face.

The police above all should know that.  As one site that exists solely for the purpose of “exploring” the laws and penalties for various types of assault that are on the books in most of the states informs us:

“You can…be charged with simple assault without even hitting or striking the person.  If you take a swing at someone or throw something, that can be assault.  If you throw something very light, [something] that wouldn’t cause any damage even if it hit them, [something] like a wicker basket or a banana, that still counts [as assault].

 “If you spit at someone or…hit them with any kind of fluid, [then] that will be an assault charge also. Even if you miss, and there was no harm done!

“Of if you lose your temper, and throw something, you can be arrested for assault.  Threats can also count as assault.”

It is undoubtedly high time for the community of Ohio University to acquaint, or reacquaint, itself with its own state’s laws proscribing assault.