The False Ideas Intellectuals Peddle at College Campuses

From The Daily Signal.com (Oct. 11):

As George Orwell said, “some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”

Many stupid ideas originate with academics on college campuses. If they remained there and didn’t infect the rest of society, they might be a source of entertainment, much in the way a circus is.

Let’s look at a few stupid ideas peddled by intellectuals.

During the Cold War, academic leftists made a moral equivalency between communist totalitarianism and democracy.

Worse is the fact that they exempted communist leaders from the type of harsh criticism directed toward Adolf Hitler, even though communist crimes against humanity made Hitler’s slaughter of 11 million noncombatants appear almost amateurish.

According to Professor R.J. Rummel’s research in “Death by Government,” from 1917 until its collapse, the Soviet Union murdered or caused the death of 61 million people, mostly its own citizens.

From 1949 to 1976, Communist China’s Mao Zedong regime was responsible for the death of as many as 78 million of its own citizens.

On college campuses, the same sort of equivalency is made between capitalism and communism, but if one looks at the real world, there’s a stark difference.

Just ask yourself: In which societies is the average citizen richer—societies toward the capitalist end of the economic spectrum or those toward the communist end?

In which societies do ordinary citizens have their human rights protected the most—those toward the capitalist end or those toward the communist end?

Finally, which societies do people around the world flee from—capitalist or communist? And where do they flee to—capitalist or communist societies?  [read more]

Walter E. Williams who wrote the commentary also goes into other false ideas like multiculturalism, and white privilege. Interesting article.