You want more speech? You got it.


I kind of despise Turning Point USA. A few students splatter their stupid, shallow red, white, and blue slogan signs all over campus, and what can you do? They just sit there all trite and jingoistic, but students get to use that space as they see fit.

It turns out, though, there is something our smarter students can do: they can splatter back with signs refuting Charlie Kirk’s idiotic propaganda, and this year they’ve been doing that. Everywhere there’s a TPUSA sign in the science building, there’s another sign or two right next to it.

Once again, our students earn my affection.

Comments

  1. Akira MacKenzie says

    Socialism: You make it. They take it…

    …then they give it back to you in the form of civilization.

  2. Akira MacKenzie says

    “Freedom. Not free stuff.”

    Also, if you can’t afford food, clothing, shelter, or health care. You also have the freedom to die in the streets. (Just not in front of my mansion.)

  3. brett says

    That second TP poster is very Bioshock. “The parasite hates three things: free markets, free will, and free men”. Good for the students in creatively responding to these.

  4. asclepias says

    I need to move to Minnesota. Cheyenne, Wyoming is shockingly devoid of people like these (as in, people I want to meet). Bravo!

  5. Saad says

    Socialism: You make it. They take it…

    That works perfectly for the definition of capitalism though.

  6. nomdeplume says

    Sad to see university students falling for right wing crap. But I guess there have always been a few on every campus, even in the sixties.

  7. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Nomdeplume, yes even during the radicalization of campuses during the ‘Nam War, there were right-wing assholes and their slogans (most famously, America, love it or leave it).

  8. Porivil Sorrens says

    I do have to say, these are remarkably tame compared to the ones we had at my alma mater, which were like “Hand-wringing jewish caricature next to a picture of the US with a crosshair explaining why the ZOG wants to destroy america with mass immigration”

  9. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I will add, that a lot those using that slogan and supporting the war were either using or buying their draft deferments, and not placing themselves in harms way by being drafted or volunteering, and perhaps going to ‘Nam.

  10. Ed Seedhouse says

    @14

    Nope. Janis didn’t write the words or the song, Kris Kristofferson did. And Gordon Lightfoot sang it better.

  11. jrkrideau says

    @ 11 Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls

    (most famously, America, love it or leave it).

    Hey, it worked. We picked up a lot of good people that way.
    I understand a lot of our recruiters headed South as soon as the 2016 US election results were in. Well, some were already in position.We even changed some of our visa regulations.

    those using that slogan and supporting the war were either using or buying their draft deferments, and not placing themselves in harms

    But some probably suffered debilitating handicaps such as heel-spurs.

  12. emergence says

    “You make it, they take it” works much better when “you” refers to workers and “they” refers to the executives, board members, and other higher ups who underpay the former.

    I have this suspicion that a lot of the government programs that jackasses think “give people free stuff” wouldn’t be necessary if working-class and lower-middle-class people were paid what their labor was worth.

  13. Pierce R. Butler says

    Looks like that line about thinking alike came from Walter Lippmann, not that Einstein fellow.

    Albert may have originated the nationalism/measles line: the linked Q&A attributes it to a casual translation from a 1929 AE interview by George Sylvester Viereck.

  14. Pierce R. Butler says

    (4th try: the FtB software swallowed my first upload of this, then tells me “Looks like you already posted that!” Will this preface de-fool it?)

    Looks like that line about thinking alike came from Walter Lippmann, not that Einstein fellow.

    Albert may have originated the nationalism/measles line: the linked Q&A attributes it to a casual translation from a 1929 AE interview by George Sylvester Viereck.

  15. Pierce R. Butler says

    The FtB comment software wants to throw glitches again: it swallowed my first posting of this comment, then repeatedly told me “”Looks like you already posted that!”

    And I couldn’t get past it by adding a prefatory note kvetching about its misbehavior.

    So here’s a total rewrite, except for the links: Einstein may have said that bit about nationalism & measles, but it might have gone through some changes as translated by George Sylvester Viereck in a 1929 interview.

    Howsomeverwise, the link about “thinking alike” seems to have come from Walter Lippmann.

  16. Pierce R. Butler says

    I ran those two purported Einstein quotes through a web search, then tried to upload a comment about my results here and ran into a repeated FTB software glitch (which swallowed my first try, then scolded me “Looks like you already posted that!” at each re-try, even with practically everything changed but for names and links.

    So now I’m reduced to suggesting y’all try your own searches, and that you’ll probably find that Albert E may have said that disease part or it may have been attributed to him by an interviewer playing loose with translation – and that the “thinking” one-liner we probably owe to Walter Lippmann.

  17. whheydt says

    Re: Nerd of the Redhead @ #11…
    And the answer to “America, love it or leave it” was “America, change it or lose it.”

  18. Akira MacKenzie says

    I have this suspicion that a lot of the government programs that jackasses think “give people free stuff” wouldn’t be necessary if working-class and lower-middle-class people were paid what their labor was worth.

    The trouble is that to them paying labor what it’s worth means paying the lower and lower-middle class workers a pittance.

  19. Porivil Sorrens says

    Yeah like, these sorts legitimately think this chinless CEO class contribute value commensurate with making more revenue than the GDP of several nations.

  20. methuseus says

    The biggest problem with “America, love it or leave it” is that it’s expensive to move to a different country. Otherwise lots more people would have left in late 2016 / early 2017. Honestly, if they really believed that and bankrolled so people could afford to leave, it wouldn’t be good for the American economy.

  21. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    And the answer to “America, love it or leave it” was “America, change it or lose it.”

    I remember hearing “Fix it or fuck it.”

  22. susans says

    @Ed Seedhouse, I saw Janis sing that song. Twice. Gordon Lightfoot was was just playing with words.

  23. says

    More speech is good. Cogent speech is even better. Sorry folks labor doesn’t create value. Demand does. This has been your update from about about 1900.

  24. emergence says

    Mike Smith @27

    I sincerely doubt that the work put in by your average CEO or board member is worth a salary anywhere near what most of them are given, if that’s what you’re suggesting.