It’s apparent that the sort of bareknuckle, in-your-face ideological battles that his fellow College Republicans are waging is too much for Wingfield.
Some may recall that Wingfield was the head of the Reformed Christian Fellowship at Brown University, which was suspended last year. Wingfield perservered and, with the help of FIRE, they were reinstated. Wingfield’s resignation seems to indicate that -when it wasn’t his ox being gored–he wants to be “moderate.” He stated, “We are conservatives, not liberals. Use wisdom, and be virtuous when you exercise free speech.” Wingfield is correct that College Republicans should use wisdom and be virtuous, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be tough or humorous. Unfortunately, “being nice” isn’t going to get you noticed on college campuses. If College Republicans want to make a mark, they need to select a replacement for Wingfield who won’t be so skittish about taking the battle to the ideological opposition. It looks like there may be a couple people at URI or RWU who may fit the bill.
UPDATE: Contrast Wingfield’s free speech construct with this from Andrew Klavan’s (via Dale Light):
The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace.
Of course, like everything, this candor has its price. A politics that depends on honesty will be, by nature, often impolite. Good manners and hypocrisy are intimately intertwined, and so conservatives, with their gimlet-eyed view of the world, are always susceptible to charges of incivility. It’s not really nice, you know, to describe things as they are.
Then again, I forgot…Wingfield is a Chafee Republican, not a conservative.
[Open full post]Ethan Wingfield has resigned as chairman of the State College Republican Federation (h/t the RI Report website). Mr. Wingfield’s resignation letter includes this vague statement on freedom of speech…
As I leave this post, College Republicans around this state have created multiple controversies by exercising our liberty of free speech. We are conservatives, not liberals. Use wisdom, and be virtuous when you exercise free speech.If Mr. Wingfield has problems with positions expressed by other Rhode Island College Republicans, or with how they’ve been expressed, he should challenge specifically what he finds to be objectionable — and do it in a way without recommending that campus Republicans limit themselves to speech that it is, in a literal sense, politically correct. [Open full post]
From Randal Edgar of the Projo…
The University of Rhode Island Student Senate last night backed away from asking the College Republican club to apologize for advertising a “White Heterosexual American Male” scholarship, but the club is being asked to send clarification letters to the 40 people who applied.At least one student senator reveals that more debate, more speech, and yes, more satire will be necessary to drive home the point the College Republicans were trying to make…
The letters are to explain something that many Senate members felt was not clear in the one-time ad that ran in the collage newspaper last fall — that there was no scholarship and that the ad was meant to be a satirical statement on affirmative action.
The outcome followed nearly two hours of debate by the Senate, which occasionally discussed the matter directly with Ryan Bilodeau, the Republican club’s chairman.
Bilodeau, who made a formal address to the Senate and continued to insist that the club was not willing to apologize, said afterward that the Senate decision was a good way to put the matter to rest.
“We have said all along that we were willing to compromise,” he said. “The only thing we will not do is apologize.”
Some Senate members opposed the bill, saying it let the Republican club off too easy and ignored a violation of Senate bylaws forbidding student organizations from discriminating or impeding equal opportunity based on race, color, gender, sexual orientation, national origin and other “non-merit” factors.[Open full post]
“I am personally offended by your event, not your ideology,” Senate member Cristin Langworthy told Bilodeau. “You’re not making a progressive statement, you’re discriminating.”
While the Roger Williams University radio controversy rages on, the URI Senate is deciding whether or not to de-recognize the URI College Republicans. Here’s a press release from Ryan Bilodeau, Chairman of the URI College Republicans:
[Open full post]Kingston, RI – April 25, 2007 – Displaying a dramatic disregard for students’ constitutional rights, a committee of the University of Rhode Island (URI) Student Senate voted to de-recognize the College Republicans student group. For months, the Student Senate has demanded that the group publicly apologize for advertising a satirical $100 “scholarship” for white, heterosexual, American males. In response, the College Republicans refused to apologize.
Tonight the URI College Republicans face a vote in front of the full Student Senate on whether or not they will be de-recognized.
The ACLU, University President Carothers and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education have all spoken out in favor of the College Republicans.
University students and members of the media are invited to attend tonight at 6:30 PM in the Student Senate Chambers of the Memorial Union.
Protesters are expected to attend.
What: URI Student Senate De-Recognition Meeting
Who: University of Rhode Island College Republicans
Where: University of Rhode Island Memorial Union Student Senate Chambers
When: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 6:30 PM
First it was the URI College Republicans, now a couple conservative college radio hosts have been “fired” from WQRI, the Roger Williams University student radio station. Their offense? Repeating the Don Imus “nappy headed ho” phrase on the air while discussing the incident itself. Call it second-hand censorship.
Now, I believe that because RWU is a private institution, 1st Amendment issues are not necessarily applicable, as they are in the URI case. However, given the “mission” of free and open discussion that most liberal arts schools claim to promote (though RWU’s stated mission is not quite so explicit), there can be little doubt that ideological based censorship lay behind this action. That being said, RWU is proud to claim that it upholds the ideals of it’s namesake, explaining:
The University has dedicated itself to the ideals advocated by Roger Williams himself: education, freedom and tolerance. Through his scholarship in language, theology and law, Williams’ life reflected the value of learning and teaching. The University honors his legacy by modeling a community in which diverse people and diverse ideas are valued, intellectual achievement is celebrated and civic responsibility is expected.
Well, apparently not all diversity–like intellectual or political–is equal. The students weren’t being intolerant by repeating the phrase that set off a media controversy, but Roger Williams University certainly appears to be.
If they haven’t already, the students should contact FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) to help them with their case. They’ve certainly helped the URI Republicans (even if the Student Senate still refuses to budge–more on that here).
FYI, Dan Yorke is promoting an interview with the students this afternoon.
UPDATE: First, I appended (in the extended entry) the press release that the hosts of the conservative talk show “Morning Again”, Dana Peloso and Jon Porter, issued. Second, apparently they were directed to not use the term at all and then used it 30 times in a 25 minute period. So, there are some management issues here, too. However, it also appears as if the station administration hasn’t been able to get their story straight. In short, it looks like Peloso and Porter purposefully provoked the situation…but is that cause for firing, when the usual action would be a suspension? Or did they cross a line and deserve what they got? More to come.
UPDATE II: Alex Kuffner of the Projo reports on the story here.
Building on Andrew’s post (and apparently this is a case of lunch-hour, blog-posting serendipity) Jim Baron of the Pawtucket Times reports:
Secretary of State Ralph Mollis has assembled a bi-partisan “Voters First Advisory Committee” — which includes the woman who ran against him in the November election – to hash out a list of 10 election-related issues.
The North Providence Democrat says he wants the panel’s input on those matters so they can be addressed with laws to be crafted by his office that he hopes can be in place for the 2008 election.
Some of the Mollis proposals the group will look at are sure to be controversial – such as his call for all voters to show a photo ID a the polling place.
“The lack of a photo ID system creates the perception of voter fraud, shakes voter confidence and leads to lack of voter participation,” according to materials distributed by the secretary of state’s office. “A fair and equitable photo ID system that would stand the test of our judicial system and address the concerns of our community needs to be established.”
The photo ID requirement was one of the grounds for agreement between Mollis and his Republican opponent last year, Susan Stenhouse of Warwick.
Stenhouse is now a member of the commission, as is GOP Sen. June Gibbs. Other members include Woonsocket Rep. Jon Brien, Providence Rep. Joseph Almeida and Providence Sen. Juan Pichardo, all Democrats, as well as Ken McGill, registrar of the Pawtucket Board of Canvassers; Robert Kando, executive director of the state Board of Elections, and Jan Ruggiero, director of the division of elections in the secretary of state’s office. Mollis will be chairman of the committee.
“It was a little weird when I got the call,” to be on a panel of advisors to the man who defeated her, Stenhouse confessed in response to a question. “I almost fell out of my chair.” Nonetheless, she said, “these are issues I am passionate about and I have always felt you don’t have to have the title to make a difference.”
Good for Mollis and a smart political move, too. Now, let’s hope this actually goes somewhere.
[Open full post]According to Elizabeth Gudrais of the Projo, Secretary of State Ralph Mollis has announced his plan to improve the voting process in Rhode Island…
Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis yesterday announced his ideas for improving the integrity of the voting system and increasing convenience for voters.The usual suspects object to the photo-ID requirement…
Among those ideas: requiring photo identification at the polls and allowing voting over several days.
In particular, the groups — which included International Institute Rhode Island, the local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rhode Island Disability Law Center — called the photo ID proposal “an overreaction to a largely nonexistent problem of alleged voter impersonation.” They ticked off statistics to show whom the measure might disenfranchise: More than 3 million Americans with disabilities do not possess a driver’s license or state-issued photo ID; 153,000 seniors who voted in Georgia in 2004 don’t have a government-issued photo ID; A 1994 study found that African-Americans in Louisiana were four to five times less likely than whites to have a photo ID.Isn’t there an obvious compromise here, i.e. Sue Stenhouse’s proposal to issue voters photo-ID cards at the time they register to vote? (Former Councilwoman Stenhouse has been named the commission created by the Secretary of State to address election reform, and is therefore in a good position to advocate for her idea.)
The remainder of the Secretary of State’s proposals are…
I know that a few of these proposals, like adding curtains to voting booths seem trite. And Secretary Mollis is something of a controversial figure in Rhode Island politics. Still, I don’t remember the previous office holder paying quite so much attention to the basic duties of the Office of the Secretary of State. [Open full post]
- Consider easing the requirements for absentee voting
- Look at ways to clean up the voter rolls, such as decreasing obstacles to removing voters who have died, have moved or are registered at more than one address
- Consider ways to increase voting booth privacy, such as adding curtains to booths
- Consider expanding the no-canvassing zone around polling places from the current radius of 50 feet
- Standardize training and compensation for poll workers across the state
- Revisit the voter registration form, and consider requiring additional documentation and proof of residency
- Examine poll opening and closing times, and
- Study expanding in-person registration of voters by trained and authorized canvassing agents
Add East Providence to the list of Rhode Island communities with structural finance problems leaving them no longer able to afford their existing school programs. From Alisha A. Pina in today’s Projo…
Three of six options proposed by [East Providence] Schools Supt. Jacqueline Forbes two weeks ago included consolidating Martin Middle and Riverside Middle school students into one building, yet none of the options would fully resolve the $2.9-million deficit she projects for the School Department at the end of the next fiscal year….[Open full post]
The savings from the various options range from $26,500 to $948,000, not including the potential revenue from selling or leasing the various school buildings.
Blogger Mickey Kaus calls a news item directly impacting multiple blog-topics a “harmonic convergence” of issues. I think it’s fair to consider this news from Wal-Mart a harmonic convergence within the Rhode Island blogosphere…
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., intends to contract with local hospitals and other organizations to open as many as 400 in-store health clinics over the next two to three years, and if current market forces continue, up to 2,000 clinics could be in Wal-Mart stores over the next five to seven years, Wal-Mart president and CEO Lee Scott will say in a speech later today at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. The clinic program’s expansion is just the latest in a series of moves by Wal-Mart to help implement customer solutions to America’s health care crisis, including the $4 generic drug prescription program, health information technology and participation in a major coalition supporting comprehensive healthcare reform by 2012.Wal-Mart puts appeals to all kinds of health policy wonks into their press release…
Scott notes that surveys in existing clinics revealed more than half of those who visited a clinic said they were uninsured. Nearly 15 percent of customers said they would have gone to a hospital emergency room for their care — thus increasing the burden on already strained community health care institutions — if they could not have gone to the clinic inside a Wal-Mart.(Note that this part of the Wal-Mart proposal is different from CVS’s description of its in-store clinic plan, which mentions only nurse practitioners.)
The providers running the clinics will determine what services to offer, which will generally include preventive and routine care for conditions such as allergies and sinus infections, as well as basic services such as cholesterol screenings and school physicals at affordable prices. They will be staffed by either certified nurse practitioners or physicians.
“We also think there is tremendous potential with local hospitals as partners for some or all of these clinics. Patients trust the role hospitals play in providing quality medical care. They have the medical experience and expertise — and the larger network if more serious treatment is needed,” Scott says.Related items:
The clinics will post clear prices for services and procedures, helping to bring much-needed price transparency to the American health care system.
Scott highlights Wal-Mart’s work on health information technology, pointing to Wal-Mart’s partnership with other corporations to start Dossia, an independent, non-profit group that will provide safe and secure electronic medical records to their employees and retirees. Wal-Mart recently joined with the University of Arkansas and Blue Cross Blue Shield to create the Center for Innovation in Health Care Logistics, a new research center focused on improving health care delivery through information technology.
Wal-Mart is also working with leaders in business, government, labor and public policy on the “Better Health Care Together” coalition. The goal of the coalition is to assure that affordable, quality health care is accessible to all Americans by 2012
- Anchor Rising on in-store health clinics here.
- Anchor Rising trying to understand the emergency room crisis here.
- Anchor Rising on universal healthcare here and here.
- RI Future’s disdain for all things Wal-Mart here and here.
The evidence indicates that the “surge” is working, at least in terms of improving the quality of life for the average Iraqi. Here’s a firsthand report from Rocco DiPippo, published in the American Thinker….
Two weeks ago, I took another trip through Baghdad. I then headed south and eventually north to a small town close to Iran’s border. In all, I traveled approximately 400 miles. At no time did I feel threatened, either when approaching checkpoints, (all of which were legitimate and well-manned), or upon exiting my car to visit a few reconstruction projects, each in separate towns miles apart.From a more official source, the leader of the Iraqi Red Crescent doesn’t think that withdrawing American troops, or setting a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops, will help the humanitarian situation in Iraq (h/t Instapundit)…
There were other stunning differences between that trip, and the one I’d taken in December.
On the December trip I had seen abandoned shops and frightened people. On the latest one I saw many shops opened and people going about their business in what appeared to be a relaxed manner. On the first trip I saw cars and trucks in gas lines that stretched for miles. On the latest trip, though gas lines existed, they were far shorter, and looked about as long as those experienced by Americans at the height of the 1970s oil crisis. On the first trip I saw nothing but ruin: houses and other buildings in derelict condition, most appearing unfit for human habitation. On the latest trip I still saw many houses in poor condition, but I also saw homes being built, and a good number of existing houses and storefronts being repaired.
The president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the only relief organization operating in Iraq, is calling on the Democratic-led Congress to rethink its troop withdrawal strategy and recognize that Iraq suffers from a worsening humanitarian crisis.So why is it that Democratic leaders insist, contrary to the evidence from the front, that the presence of American troops is not at least temporarily of benefit to the people of Iraq? Do our political leaders really believe that the quality-of-life of average people in other societies is not a part of international relations, world politics, and the harmony of the world in general?
His call follows on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) announcement yesterday that Appropriations Committee conferees will set a non-binding goal, as part of the 2007 emergency war supplemental, of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008.
Congressional leaders find themselves in a continuing stalemate with President Bush, who has vowed to veto any measure that contains a withdrawal timetable. Bush has the support of most Republicans on Capitol Hill.
In Washington for a series of advocacy meetings in Congress, Said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, expressed concern that by setting a withdrawal timetable, the U.S. would abandon Iraq at the height of a humanitarian crisis.
“It is important that Congress identifies that there is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq,” Hakki said in an interview with The Hill. “If they agree there’s a crisis, let’s not have America be a problem but the solution.”
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society or Organization, as it is often referred to, is an auxiliary arm of the Iraqi government and is a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
More likely, what Democratic leaders like Senator Harry Reid, and even more sane ones like Congressman James Langevin, really believe is not that American can’t help the people of Iraq, but that America shouldn’t help the people of Iraq. They believe the cost in blood and treasure of repairing the broken societies of the Middle East is too high. That is a legitimate “realist” and/or “isolationist” position, akin to the position the U.S. Government took with respect to Rwanda in 1994, deciding that preventing the massacre of 850,000 people was not worth deploying the few thousand troops that probably could have stopped it.
What is not legitimate, however, is pretending that the future of Iraqi society and governance from this point onward is set in stone, when it is not. Senator Reid has adopted his war-is-already-lost meme…
“I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and — you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — [know] this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday”,…because he is trying to avoid responsibility for the course of action he seeks to impose. He wants to pretend that walking away from Iraq is not his choice, but the only choice. He says the war is lost — even though the reports from the ground consistently say that the increased American troop presence is having a positive impact — because he wants to hide his actual position, that the U.S. should no longer try to win the war in Iraq, behind rhetoric intended to convince people that the further decline of Iraq is now inevitable, because of forces beyond anyone’s control.
Men who want power but not responsibility for their decisions have no place as leaders in a democracy. [Open full post]
