Captain's Quarters -

Well, we've finally gotten all the way down to the Level of Orwell's darkness of 1984, where disagreement with the collective is officially defined as a mental disorder. I can't wait for the announcement of the first of the inevitable "re-education" facilities to be established in the countryside for all of our benefit.

There's a Gulag in everyone's future, in the Brave New World of Hamline University. Isn't that just precious?

I agree with your assesment of the way Hamline handled this. Though, I did dig up some strange things Troy said back in 2003 on an Axis History Forum discussion board (via peekyou.com) regarding Hitler and Jews..

He is user "promanure" from Minnesota.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=32970

"I guess I am not sure how "crazy" Hitler was, but if he is then I guess I am wavering on the brink of insanity. I say this because almost all his ideologies I agree with. He respected democracy per se in as much that is was in essence a good way for the people to run a government. His problem came when his country was overrun with corruption in democracy. He realized that the only way to clean out the corruption was to dictate his country's future. He believed that with corruption in a multi ruled government, people could blame each other without any one person being held accountable. We see this with the United States today. Republicans and Democrats constantly blame each other and neither care about what happens to this country. I saw Hitler's point when Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota. Ventura (an independent) tried to take the democratic approach and the corrupt parties destroyed him. Although I believe democracy to be one of the best governmental structures, I have to say that Hitler's philosophy is strong after democracy becomes corrupted. To add to this "crazy" hysteria, you have to understand that if Hitler was nuts then most of Europe was. I am unsure of any other war in history where an occupied people flocked to join the ranks of their occupiers as was seen when foreigners jumped at the chance to join the Waffen SS and fight to the death. The main reason this happened was people all over Europe were sick of the Bolshevik revolution resounding in each of their own countries. After the overthrow of the Czars in Russia and the persecution and murder of thousands of Christians under Lenin, the poison of Marxism pushed its way past Poland into Germany. This is why Hitler hated Jews and vowed to destroy Communism and the Bolshevik revolution. The persecution of Christians in modern day is not much different than in the beginning of Bolshevik Russia. By no means can I condemn all Jews, but I hardly find it coincidence that the Communist front group called the American Civil Liberties Union spends all of its efforts banning Christianity and at the same time making anti-Semitism a "hate crime." I also fail to see it as coincidence that politicians such as Chuck Schumer are following suit as seen in Waco."

There is a lot more in that post . That is just a bit of it...

Hamline is the poorer for having suspended Troy Scheffler , but I doubt it has the collective smarts to know it.

I'd like to hear more about this bit from the City Pages article:
A couple of days ago, he got pulled over for speeding. When the cop noticed the concealed carry permit, he ordered Scheffler out of the car, patted him down, and searched his car.
I'm more concerned about a government policy of treating permit holders as criminals. I wonder what police force that was.

Cap'n Ed wrote:

What is certain is that Hamline should be embarrassed to have treated Troy in this manner.

Yeah, they SHOULD be, but they WON'T be unless and until Scheffler shows up with a battery of good lawyers who will politely but firmly inform the school that Scheffler is about to sue, at which point they'll grovel, issue a half-assed pseudo-apology loaded with phrases like "inadvertent" and "unintentional", pay him some money... and then, as soon as he's gone, they'll congratulate themselves on standing up to this radical right-wing nazi gun-nut, go back to their wicked ways, step back into their lefty academic echo chamber, and wait to trounce the next poor sap who thinks he can make waves in their politically correct little democratic people's republic.

Unless and until kids stop going to these bastions of modern-day stalinism, people like Hanson, Stern, the Duke faculty who STILL insist that the lacrosse players were guilty, Ward Churchill, and others like them will continue to make our universities into academic Oceanias.

It's the 90% of college administrators who make ignorant reckless politically-motivated snap decisions like this, that give the other 10% a bad name.

It would be helpful -- for blog-readers to fully assess Scheffler's grievance -- if Scheffler's emails and statements were public knowledge. [Likewise for Hamline official's statements, but as a bureaucracy, one might expect them to stonewall until they are forced to share.]

If there is ever a case for the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education, Troy's case is it. I hope the two can connect. If they do, I anticipate the Hamline suits will come groveling to Troy with an apology and an undisclosed financial settlement.

Troy should contact the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. They are already involved in Tufts fiasco.

What we've seen (not quoted on this blog, of course) of the emails in question make them seem to be little more than thinly veiled racist rants. I'm thinking that a guy with an anti-immigration hard-on, a persecution complex, and a desire to carry guns on campus might not be a real safe person to have around.

The duplicity of offering a meeting then suspending/expelling him is particularly striking. I'd love to know the process that led to the change of position -- and hope to eventually have it all come out in the depositions and discovery for Todd's civil suit.

In contemplating legal action in these instances, the problem is that this is a private institution--no state action. But, just ruminating here, why wouldn't a breach of contract action work? Maybe even a deceptive trade practices action (treble damages). After all, he was promised a university education, which is premised on free exchange of ideas, which was denied because Hamline's conception of what that entails is significantly different of what he would have been justified in expecting. Seems plausible to me.

Hamline University downtown isn't "safe" for evening classes? Oh, please. Perhaps if the courses get over at 2AM, you might have to give a little care, but I've been in that area late in the evening not too long ago, and -- unless the area has really gone downhill in the last year -- anyone thinking he needs to be armed to get to and from his car (in the Methodist Church parking lot next door) is seriously paranoid, in my opinion.

Kurt,

Perhaps you can share his rants with us rather than characterizing them. That's what links are for.

Glenn Reynolds has a line he has been using that is both truthful and funny:

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see Americans punished for expressing their ideas. I guess they were right!

Unless you allow

Maybe you should do a little research before you take up someone's cause. Scheffler was not suspended for the email he wrote expressing his views on the Second Amendment. He was suspended for a second email in which he attacked affirmative action, expressed hostility to two of his own minority students and sarcastically mocked the idea that racism exists. You really should have made some effort to get the real story.

Let's assume that everything zimzo says is accurate -- is "attacking" affirmative action a sign of mental illness that necessitates suspension/expulsion? Is rejection of the notion of racism a sign of mental illness that necessitates suspension/expulsion? Is opposition to foreign students getting a free ride while American students pay a sign of mental illness that necessitates suspension/expulsion? I think the answer to each question is self-evidently NO.

Oh, and rings-right -- do you have any evidence for your assertion that this is Scheffler? And even if it is, how is it relevant to the notion that he should be suspended/expelled for expressing mainstream views on gun rights and affirmative action?

He was suspended for a second email in which he attacked affirmative action, expressed hostility to two of his own minority students and sarcastically mocked the idea that racism exists.

Yup, sounds like ground for suspension right there.

Let it be said that the tought police of Hamilne have decreed that affirmative action must not be criticized, minorities are to be put on pedestals and are above reproach from whitey, and racism must be spoken about with solemnity and reverence. Otherwise your entire academic career will be destroyed.

Nice.

In academia, "tolerance" is believing that racial discrimination is good sometimes (i.e. affirmative action quotas...err, goals,) and "intolerance" is defined as the actual practice of treating everyone the same. It's confusing. Especially for people who rely on old-fashioned commonsense.

I'm just saying that Captain's Ed's facts were wrong and that there appears to be more to this story than appears on the surface. Before you jump on the bandwagon defending this guy and attack the school for its actions maybe you should do a little more digging.

What do we see from the comments thus far?

Us nasty ol' conservatives who want to use the Patriot Act to lock up people for reading library books... are outraged at the treatment Scheffler received.

The tolerant, kind, open-minded libs, who want civil liberties extended to terrorists, don't really have a problem with what was done to Scheffler. See, he was a racist who (gasp!) owns guns! Obviously a threat to the safety and well-being of everybody on campus! To the gulag... er, REEDUCATION center, that is... with him!

Charles wrote (May 13, 2007 3:18 PM):

Hamline University downtown isn't "safe" for evening classes? Oh, please. Perhaps if the courses get over at 2AM, you might have to give a little care, but I've been in that area late in the evening not too long ago, and -- unless the area has really gone downhill in the last year -- anyone thinking he needs to be armed to get to and from his car (in the Methodist Church parking lot next door) is seriously paranoid, in my opinion.

I see what you are saying, but... Well, I would have said six months ago that anybody who felt a need to carry a pistol in the classrooms at Virginia Tech was seriously paranoid.

I would have been wrong. Perhaps you've heard about Suzanna Hupp. If not, she's a chiropractor and former Texas state legislator. Perhaps because she was "paranoid", she illegally carried a revolver in her purse. She went to a restaurant in Killeen called Luby's Cafeteria to have lunch with her parents on October 16, 1991. Probably because she didn't feel "paranoid" enough to carry her gun into a nice, safe restaurant, she left it in her car.

George Hennard drove his pickup truck into the restaurant, got out, and started shooting. Hupp, her gun locked in her car, could only watch as Hennard murdered her father, her mother, and 21 other people before killing himself after police arrived.*

Perhaps Scheffler has been mugged in that area. Perhaps he knows somebody else who was. Perhaps he actually is a little paranoid. It doesn't matter, really: he is a law-abiding citizen with a legal permit to carry.

And you never know when a George Hennard, or a Seung-Hui Cho is going to suddenly appear in your safe, peaceful life. You can either hope that it never happens to you, or try to be ready in case it does.

I wonder if you'd call Suzanna Hupp "paranoid"? Or any of the survivors from the Virginia Tech shooting?

-------------

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luby's_massacre

I note that the people making claims about what Scheffler said in his emails have not provided any links to sources, nor any direct quotes.

rings-right, how do we know that really is Troy Scheffler who posted on that forum under that pseudonym?

In a comment at Shot in the Dark, the "Lady Logician" makes a good point. Scheffler needs a First Amendment lawyer more than a Second Amendment lawyer. Not sure if that would help against a private institution though.

rings-right, please disregard my last message. I went to youpeek.com and plugged in his name and according to his profile, "promanure" is Troy Scheffler from Coon Rapids, MN.

Here's the link to the direct profile (which now includes this blog post) for any who are interested:

http://www.peekyou.com/US/Minnesota/Coon_Rapids/Troy_Scheffler/29220836

I wonder if these are the views which got him "shouted down" in class.

If there are any links to actual copies of the emails, and not just characterizations of them, I would be happy to consider their content.

I notice no one has links to anything tying this kid to the things asserted here.

I definitely agree he needs a 1st Amendment lawyer, though. "Gun-free zones," as stupid as the concept may be, are not a 2nd Amendment violation. If he was suspended for expressing an opinion, the institution probably violated its own rules. In that case, any good tort lawyer will do.

Currently, I am teaching college courses in Jerusalem and live in North Israel. EVERYWHERE, I see citizens carrying weapons--some on the hip and many slung over the shoulder. I see them with their weapons shopping, hitchhiking, at concerts, and praying in synagogue. No one here doubts that at any moment, some person could walk through the door of the restaurant, bus, cafe, hotel, school, hospital, or pizza parlor and open fire or self explode. It is a fact of life. Yet, people DO go to all of these public places and carry on a delightful civic life--and often disagree and get angry at each other. But the kind of interpersonal violence and mayem found in the USA is very small. WHY? Because EVERYONE knows that Average Israeli (male or female) is armed and will return fire if attacked. Perhaps that is why Hizbullah and Hamas now use rockets!

The Founding Persons felt that citizens have the right to personal protection from the various random threats in the world (and in their day, there were many). Outside of a police state, law enforcement cannot be everywhere and there is always a residual risk that someone somewhere wants to go out and hunt the "most dangerous game". In civil society, mutual respect requires that certain behaviors will not be tolerated by anyone. Certainly going "postal" or blowing away a dozen or two "targets" before shedding the mortal coil is one such no-no. This does not mean that a public exercising their second amendment franchise will stop such rare behavior. It does mean that the probability of that polity to stop cold such an outrage after the first round or two is greatly increased.

That was the intention of the Founding Persons.

We are still waiting for links to the actual emails that certain folks here characterize as threatening. Why don't you guys provide them? Or are you simply making it up as you go along?

But the kind of interpersonal violence and mayem found in the USA is very small. WHY? Because EVERYONE knows that Average Israeli (male or female) is armed and will return fire if attacked.

Maybe Americans don't want to live like armed Israelis, jumping at their own shadow and living not like free men?

Your founders are not our founders. Israel is not an American colony.

America will not build a wall around herself. America will not designate roads as Israel does -- some for Jews, some for others. America will not and cannot segregate like Israel.

America has been and will be around a lot longer than Israel too. Keep your advice friend. Our intentions are better than yours.

ps. If you'd like to open your arms in Israel and take in this guy, he might like it there and I suspect most Americans would welcome you to take him.

hey Anonymous,

How is Israel not free? And how is Israel segregated? Oh, maybe you mean the so-called Palestinian territories, which are not a part of Israel, never were, and are now separate states. Have you ever met any Israeli Arabs? Do you even know anything about modern Israel? I doubt it.

Keep plying your talking points, son, because that's all you have.

Your ignorance about the acutal Israeli society and culture is breathless. Go take Jimmy Carter's crap elsewhere.

Have Troy contact Hamline's own Joe Olson. Joe is one of the co-founders of Concealed Carry Reform Now (CCRN).

Another contact would be John Caile. John is not an attourney but is the communications director for CCRN and has a great many contacts.

Hamline's own Joe Olson would be an outstanding Attourney to contact.

Joe is President of CCRN and would at least be able to find Troy a capable lawyer.

Joe's contact info is available at CCRN's website.

anon

Since Israel is constantly facing people who hate anything Jewish and who have no problem blowing themselves up in order to kill a few Jews, I wouldn't consider Israeli citizens who carry personal weapons as paranoid; free man isn't free when they are constantly threatened with extermination.

In case you haven't noticed, America is being segregated by Cultural Marixist identity politics in which certain groups based on race, gender, sexual preference receive special rights above the other and all driven by Ivory Tower speech codes designed to keep Americans from assimulating; it is this collective illiberal ideology which thrives on racism, sexism, classism to sustain power and must kill the individual by any means necessary.

America is about individual with liberty for all, not collective groupthink without tolerance to pluralism.

If there is ever a case for the Foundation of Individual Rights in Education, Troy's case is it. I hope the two can connect. If they do, I anticipate the Hamline suits will come groveling to Troy with an apology and an undisclosed financial settlement.

I agree that it is premature to condemn Hamline before the exact contents of the email(s) is known, just as it is silly to condemn Scheffler for acknowledging what he believes Hitler did right. Hitler was evil, not stupid, and he didn't get to the position he got to by being a raving lunatic. That doesn't mean that everyone who praises Hitler is rational either, but conclusions can have treacherous footing and should not be jumped to.

Ed... I don't want students of any opinion dismissed or suspended unless they threaten the safety of students and staff. That includes students who advocate for guns rights on campus and those who advocate for Marxism. But unless you've seen the emails that Scheffler sent Hanson, you don't know what you're defending. If you have seen them, why not share them? That is the mystery here to me: why Scheffler hasn't produced the emails to let them speak for themselves. If he has, I beg your pardon. I wasn't able to find them by clicking on links.

I don't understand this.

Why does it matter what the e-mails say? There's no law against having opinions--even opinions that others don'r like.

There is no law against thinking jews are evil, whites are devils, or any of the other thoughts we so happily criminalise.

The man passed the tests and checks required to be issued a CCP. That's all that needs to be said.

And if the school has problems with his personal beliefs, and wants to act as if they have the right to criminalise the thoughts they don't like THEY should be taken to task--not him. He has broken no laws.

"There's no law against having opinions--even opinions that others don'r [sic] like."

Amen, brother Jack. As I like to say, in America everyone's free to be whatever kind of a-hole they want. That's why we separate things into legal and illegal, to provide a (supposedly) personality-free judgement of the individual and their actions.

As for the dreaded Hitler connection, I have become almost immune to using any snippet of "Hitler fan mail" as negative evidence. It seems to me that in the excerpt quoted the topic is rather specific as to an evaluation of Hitler's opinions on the political state and climate of Germany and Europe prior to and during WWII, especially in contrast to the Marxist threat posed by the USSR. It is one thing to agree with a specific historical opinion of a notorious person and quite another to agree with them on all topics.

Whenever I see a "look, he quoted/agreed with Hitler" sort of attack I am reminded of how strongly I was once attacked for a post I made about the political reasons that lead to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. For most of the people on that BBS (including a lot of WWII vets), saying that I understood Imperial Japan's reasons was the same as saying that I agreed with the action.

Jack - you are absolutely correct - which is why I did recommend that this young man get a 1st Amendment attorney over at SITD.

Whether we like what the young man said or not, he still has the right to free speech in this country. The university (as a private institution) may have rights of their own, but those rights do not include suspending a student for speaking for or against anything.

LL