New Civility Update: Columbia University Students Heckle Purple Heart Veteran
**Written by Doug Powers
This is hardly surprising since we’re talking about the same university that invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but even still, words escape me:
Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.
“Racist!” some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.
Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about the war. It doesn’t matter how you feel about fighting,” said Maschek. “There are bad men out there plotting to kill you.”
Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds.
Pathetic, but predictable. The inexcusable treatment of Anthony Maschek by people who won’t understand or appreciate the US military until there are Chinese tanks sitting in the lobbies of their dormitories and suicide bombers in Schermerhorn Hall (and probably not even then) isn’t necessarily because he’s a military veteran — it could be because his name isn’t Bradley Manning.
**Wasn’t the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” supposed to open the arms of the left toward the military?
**Rhetorical question, no need to answer
I note that this is also more evidence that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was just a lame excuse to cover for generic hostility to the military, something made clear by numerous speakers at the event including some Columbia faculty. I also note that in these days of constrained budgets and an angry, aware electorate, heavily subsidized sectors like higher education — and Columbia, despite its private nature, is itself heavily dependent on government subsidies — should think twice about appearing anti-American. It’s not the 1960s anymore.
Maybe we should add Columbia to the “defund-a-palooza” wish list.
I’ll close with an observation from Jammie Wearing Fool:
This is where we are now in America: People laugh and sneer at wounded veterans. Yet go and make fun of a liberal and it’s basically a hate crime.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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It’s now racist to be a veteran???
Kids are being taught to hate their own country by the marxists in charge of education.
Sad that their addled brains couldn’t recognize that the young man standing before them, barely older than they, was ten times the man they are. Also, that men like him make it possible for them to have the freedom to disrespect his honor and courage. I would be ashamed to own up to being the mother of any of those spoiled, ungrateful children.
I wonder how their parents feel about such bad behavior…
Nothing new there.
That’s been going on for more than 40 years.
***
Colombia University stands for the enemies of the U.S.A. It is as pro communist and anti-American now as it was during the Vietnam era.
***
Defund Colombia U. of any government grants or benefits. Let the commies pay for them. Get them off the taxpayer’s dimes–and out of our wallets.
***
John Bibb
***
Anthony Maschek, don’t worry about them.
The parents are in Wisconsin comparing Walker to Hitler and haven’t noticed…
Methinks Columbia has been this way for awhile. The adolescent in the White House went there.
“In 1981 [Obama] transferred from Occidental to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations and graduated with a B.A. in 1983.”
Speaking of “marxists in charge” – there you have it.
This is the same institution (double-entendre intended) that allowed the invited speaker from the Minutemen to be assaulted before he had a chance to speak, and weeks later gave a standing ovation to Ahmedinajad.
The bi-pedal vermin that infest Columbia are so utterly vile, detestable and despicable. Bastards.
You can’t tell that to the faculty of 99% of the institutions of “higher learning” in this country. They’re still living in the salad days of their youth. Emotionally and intellectually they haven’t progressed a day as evidenced by the fact that they still listen to the same old outdated teeny-bopper protest music. Unfortunately, they’ve destroyed the educational system to the point that most of today’s young are being thoroughly indoctrinated in the same socialist mindset.
To the left, dictators like Sadaam Hussein or Khomeni are a novelty, much like Hello Kitty.
The left exhibits rabid dislike at the DADT policy of the military yet invites a man, in part at least, responsible for the execution of homosexuals in Iran.
The left has no principles except those that serve their own selfish interests.
Missing
The left makes up words like homophobe and islamaphobe, so we need some to fit them. How about freedomphobe, and selfdefensephobe and vetphobe or how about just coward?
I like freedomphobe. I am going to start using that.
…and when these foul, pathetic students graduate with honors and the post-graduate degrees, they will move right back into Mom and Dad’s house. Primarily, because they haven’t learned anything of practical use.
DITTO # 6 !!
we and our parents have allowed the ed system to be ‘marx-ised’ for 80 + years-
it is time to take it back—
let us start by –
defunding all anti American universities and the public school system—
and FOLLOW through–no matter how long it takes-
the marxists follow through -why can’t we!
C-CS
Too bad Columbia University isn’t taller than the World Trade Center towers were.
There you go again, namecalling just like a regular liberal…….
Only in their imaginations.
The left heralded DADT back during the Clinton administration as a nod-nod, wink-wink solution to queers being discharged from the military.
Now it is a symbol of homophobia to the Left. DADT was the camel’s nose under the tent.
I read that article in the WSJ and agree with many of her points. Though I have to agree that delaying marriage, especially for men, is a good thing. The problem lies in the lack of expectations of responsibility. The military is a good proving ground for this.
I think they will end up working for the government.
You reinforce my opinion of women with such a statement.
The party of peace, tolerance and diversity lives up to it’s brothers in arms well deserved reputation the religion of peace, muslims. Yes, if you do not believe EXACTLY as I do, I have the right to kill you for you are an infidel. And if you do not believe EXACTLY as I do, I have the right to denegrate and label you with the most heinous names in our society.
Sometimes it sucks to be right, doesn’t it.
The scum that rioted in Chicago in 1968 are now Federal Judges, work for the State Department and DOJ. They are EPA officials and trial lawyers.
All our engineers are supplied by China and India.
For decades, Columbia has been ranked the top Journalism School in the nation and their students are highly recruited by the MSM. Too bad the students dont realize that their freedoms, like Freedom of the Press,are protected by the miltary defenders they mock.
Which is?
I met many a parent from Wisconsin and Illinois that taught their children this bad behavior and worse. Living in Chicagoland, mid way between Chicago and Milwaukee was like reliving the 60s. I could tell stories….. like how “upscale” Highland Park High School got thrown out of Rivinia because the behavior at graduation got out of line and the parents would not control their kids. Then there was the powder puff football game hazing which caused an IL high school to cancel the prom, but the parents wouldn’t hear of it. So the parents rented a bus and filled it with alcohol and sent all the kids to Wisconsin Dells for their own private prom.
It’s no surprise why Pravda is more truthful these days.
Correct if I am wrong, but if I understand your previous post, you suggested that men don’t behave in a responsible manner while in the initial years of a marriage due to a lack of maturity on their part.
If I am reading you right, then as I said, your propensity to look at men as being immature and therfore by implication, your perception of women as behaving in a more mature manner, reinforces my opinion of the opposite sex as it relates to marital relationships.
Even though you might not admit it, I think your post proves that Oprah and women on talkshows such as The View have gotten to you. You have sipped the gender kool aid and you seem to like the taste.
Pampered rich kids whose only tangible accomplishment in life is the soccer participation trophy everyone got in grade school and mommy still proudly displays on the book case.
All they showed by their comments is their stupdity regarding the real world and that they will never measure up.
Don’t mean nuthin.
Easy enough to fix.
No ROTC = no federal funds of any kind.
Give them 30 days. At the end of that time, if there isn’t a fully-functioning ROTC with the same rights and protections granted to it that there are to any and every other group and/or organization on campus (such as hamas or peta) then they are totally cut off from federal funding. No research grants, no Pell grants, nothing.
They don’t like it – too bad.
Quite honestly, the rest of us out here and in the military deserve a higher caliber student and person than Columbia is capable of delivering. Begging to be allow to have ROTC on the Columbia campus? Forget it, Columbia University should be begging to have its graduates allowed in the military. The military of today is far more sophisticated than the pseudo-sophisticates of Columbia can handle.
Really, the self-educated redneck is the salvation of this country. By this I mean street smart, innovative, self-reliant and educated outside the mediocre standard of traditional schooling. Glenn Reynolds often depicts the situation of the “education bubble.” Most of the bubble involves character and principles; Columbia and the like have long since had their bubble burst by leftist pseudo-intellectuals.
You should be careful of your assumptions about someone you do not know, I have never watched The View or Oprah, and don’t intend to ever, unless Obama announces his resignation on either show, then I may make an exception. My post was based on the observations of someone who has raised two sons, 25 and 23, and two daughters, 18 and 15. I didn’t mean to imply that men are irresponsible, initially, in marriage, just that boys and girls reach maturity at different levels and that marriage is best delayed until that maturity is reached. That maturity is best achieved when the children are raised by parents who expect responsible behavior, such as consequences for wrong choices.
That is exactly how the debate should be framed. Perfect!
Sorry, 123, but your post bothers me. We are not on these threads to psychoanalyze each other. We are expressing our opinions and we are all different. You sounded like you were trying to get into flmom’s head and that is disturbing. Maybe I am taking it wrong, but that is my opinion.
A bubble is nothing but a translucent skin with a lot of air inside. More or less like the average intellectual head.
Thanks, that was my take too. Though he’d have a hard time getting into my thick skull.
What flmom said, etc.
My son enlisted at age 31. He hung out with his friends (some with a college degree, some not) and when he joined and went to basic and then Iraq, the one with the degree called me and said wistfully, “He is the only one of us who has done something”.
The service turns these young people into mature, clear thinking people who are serious about planning their future. My son has a girlfriend who was in the Marines for 4 years. She is only 23, but I said in Marine years, she is really 29. They are also using their GI benefits wisely. God bless them.
BTW, I don’t watch the View or Oprah either.
floridaobserver
Thank you for affirming my point.
My advice would be to transfer to Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. A good conservative education and you’ll be appreciated, too.
To Anthony Maschek I say with deepest respect, thank you for your service to our country, from a retired Naval Officer.
I wish to add my endorsement from a retired Polaris bubblehead.
If I could, but for a moment, ask Anthony Maschek which is more painful -
-his war wounds
-or his treatment by fellow Americans at Columbia
Columbia, where our president went to school; where Richard Cloward of Cloward and Pivens, was a leading light; a university that is a disgrace to academia.
…a pox on their house! Cowards!
Hangfire
That’s not hard, betrayal is hard to swallow.
Same caliber of ingrates as the Code Pink fools, protesting at Berkley, who became nervous b/c a guy they were shouting at actually stopped his car and got out….
as I recall, they begged the very Marines they were protesting to come an protect them….
HYPOCRITES OF THE GRANDEST SCALE…until now!
Li Lu, of Tiananmen Square fame, is a Columbia graduate. Most of the other famous alumni are not so shining.
Shouldn’t this also be posted under “They don’t support the troops”? If ever a post was appropriate for that category…
Under the eeevil Bush Regime we were told over and over again that the left supported the troops, but not the war. What happened? The truth finally came out.
Unless we acknowledge we are in a war against an army of radical Muslims and act accordingly, there will be more attacks in the US. Considering they favor NYC as a target you would think New Yorkers would be more supportive of the military. If it has to happen, and I sincerely hope it does not, it would be poetic justice if Columbia University was ground zero.Even so I would willingly deploy to avenge the attack. Stupid Yankees, but unfortunately also my countrymen.
He looks pretty resilient to me. A man among boys and girls.
I’m impressed that even with his injuries, he still had the stones to go into enemy territory like that.
Cameron-#58
I’ll even bet that William Wallace is smiling down from heaven that seeing that Anthony has a set stones that rival a Scotsman in the face of adversity.
GSP
Scrappy, it sounds like both you and flmom completely missed 123upnorth’s point.
It was not about you or flmom actually watching the View. It was a comment on the widespread anti-male sexism in the culture.
Young women do tend to sound more responsible. Females tend to be more verbal. However, reflect on the 53 million dead babies. Who made the decisions to kill them?
The fish rots at the head.
My oldest (a homeschooled sophmore) got a letter from Columbia last week suggesting he might be “competitive for admission to Columbia University.” They included a SASE so he could send for more info. Thankfully, the kid is smart enough to know to pass on their oh-so-generous offer. We’re thinking of printing out this article and sending it in the SASE.
(Dh has gagged the whole way through the letter at the blatant snobbery and self-congratulations. Here’s a line to make you all snort: “You want to surround yourself with students who are different from you on one of the most diverse college campuses in the country.”)
they need a couple hours in the hurt locker
I’d like to see them pull that bs with Gunnery Sgt. Hartman.
I’d love to see him have them choke themselves on his hand, one at a time.
They can work as community organizers and run for president.
The beauty of calling oneself a ‘community organizer’ is that you have a title for yourself, but you get others to do any actual work.
Yet another generation of bottom feeding scum treating our warriors so shamefully. Sadly my days of being able to punch out such punks is passed but several times in the last few years I have seen a uniformed person, sometimes with family or spouse, in a restaurant and grabbed their check. I hope to do it anonymously- they don’t need to know it was me- they just need to know there are people in America who respect and cherish them.
These left wing bottom feeding scum are every bit our enemy and need to be fought.
===
Cut the budget:
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
should be a convenience store,
NOT a government agency.
It seems to me as though these students are just following the example set my mommy and daddy. Their parents probably got where they are through connections, and schmoozing the right person, so these kids think they can just buy off the islamofacists.
Big mistake, but I never said they were smart.
I did get 123upnorth’s point, and it was a knee-jerk reaction to a simple statement that is based on observation and biology. Males reach maturity later than do females. It’s not anti male, I didn’t say that males are never mature enough for marriage, just that they reach that stage later than females. Females are biologically programmed to procreate within a limited window of time, that’s a biological reality. Men can procreate, that is, their sperm is viable way past the time a female can produce eggs for fertilization. This is how we are created. 123upnorth was quite clear about assuming my views were shaped by Oprah or The View, and in doing so, stereotyped me as a female sexist. As did you. I shape my views through my experiences not in lock step with the female fashions du jour. I am actually a traditionalist and believe that there are some things a woman is biologically not wired to do as well as a man. Germaine Greer would hate me.
Sad to read this story. I’m at a loss as to the reason why Anthony Maschek was called a racist. Wonder if when the “hecklers” look in the mirror if they see an ungrateful, hate filled, anti-American, hypocrite looking back at them and IF they recognize him/her self as such.
Wonder what the world would be like without brave men and women in uniform protecting all of us in some way, shape or form, be it overseas against the terrorist minded misfits of the world or criminal minded misfits of our neighborhoods. Short answer: bloodshed everywhere.
We always knew the new-found (since 9/11) liberal honor, respect and love for military service members was nothing more than lip-service and posing.
Now let all see their true colors and what is actually in their hearts.
Hoplophobe – one who has an irrational fear of weapons.
Hoplophobia – an irrational fear of weapons.
from Greek “hoplos” – tool, weapon
(See liberal, progressive, gun grabber)
Hello! I’m a new commenter, and a liberal.
These students’ behavior disgusted me.
ArizonaNeanderthal, I love that idea of anonymously picking up the check for someone in uniform. Thanks!
Where do you think most of these snot nosed little brats got their attitudes about America? These little turds are products of the grand parents and their children of the 60′s campus radicals. You know the one’s they are running our giverment right now.
When I was young people looked up to and admired the military. Compare out history to the Romans, we’re on on way in high gear. When the military is not respected it’s only a matter of time.
Compare the response to Staff Sgt. Maschek by Columbia students with their response to Professor Madonna “The Noose Is Loose” Constantine a few years ago. Poisonous contempt for the returned American war hero; sanctimonious weeping and breast-beating solidarity for the corrupt plagiarist and race-baiting charlatan.
A “Bad America/Bad West” narrative has long polluted the academy, wherein priorities, values, and even facts are merely functions of the modern progressive geopolitical worldview with its entrenched identity-politics victimhood hierarchies. As always, in the supposed pursuit of equality among peoples and ideas, some prove to be a good deal more equal than others.
I think re: males vs female maturity: the big problem is that far, far too many of both never mature.
I can’t see anyone reasonably pointing fingers and claiming superiority on this point.
Oh, they recognized his superiority, were made ashamed by their lack, and therefore had to destroy him to preserve their self-images.
What’s sad is that we give our children to the Leftists to raise, and then wash our hands of them.
Why should we be surprised at this when they learned it from their parents back in the 60′s and 70′s. These will be the first to cry out for help if they were being attacked.
what pathetic little weasels. it’s long past time to clean up the mess that is our “elite” (ha, ha) universities. never happen at an sec school. who are the parents of these cretins?
This is just pathetic. Shame on Columbia University for this.
The left admires the “Greatest Generation”. What would they think about this?
Insensitive and ignorant; time to reinstate the draft to give them a reality check.
Happy and flmom: Please look at it from my point of view.
As a white, heterosexual male between the ages of 18 – 54, I am constantly under attack by anyone else who doesn’t belong to my demographic, and more importantly, sees me as the dominant segment of society.
Minorities claim me to be a racist, women claim me to be a sexist, gays try to label me as a homophobe etc. I see these attacks to be based on a special-interest type of mentality motivated by the greed of one group trying to unfairly gain an advantage and/or take away the property of the group that others classify me to belong in.
Your comment about men being immature versus women reminded me of the gender war that the left often uses to gain an unfair advantage in the battle for societies resources.
I have always behaved in a more mature fashion than the female counterparts I have been involved in a relationship with.
My first girlfriend of 6 years dumped me because her parents promised to buy her a house and business if she married a Korean boy instead (she is of Korean descent).
My second major relationship consisted of a women who demanded that I do everything for her while she sat in front of a computer and read gossip stores on the internet. I worked 5 years straight, almost every day, and no matter what I did, she was not happy.
My male friends are very similar in nature to myself. They try to honour the woman they are in a relationship with and they do everything for the beterment of their families. I don’t see male immaturity on display as you claim it to be.
How about Responsibili(ty)phobe?
Columbia University is where many of our future “teachers” graduate from to continue the tradition of poisoning young minds. It’s an ugly cycle.
In the words of the immortal Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means!”
Do they know what the word “Racist” means?
The fact that folks don’t call out their worldview’s outright hypocrisy amazes me still. For people who speak out against value judgments so vehemently, they sure do make a lot of them. By what standard can they claim that certain ideas or behavior are wrong? They claim that no ideas are intrinsically true, yet claim other ideas, which cannot be proven logically, are true. As C.S. Lewis pointed out: “Either the premisses already concealed an imperative or the conclusion remains merely in the indicative.” In other words, nature itself has to tell us we ought to do this or that, or else the conclusion is merely a state of fact and not a statement of ought. Small problem: nature speaks to is but not ought. Their whole worldview falls apart at this one point.
Is this another fine example of the adults sitting down and having a civil adult conversation???? Where is Pope Pelosi with her crocodils tears about the rhetoric? Unfortunately, one of the changes that have taken place in the past two years plus is that the progs have changed the meaning of so many words: racist, homophobe, islamaphobe, bigot….now they are synonyms for “shut up and sit down, you don’t know what you are taking about since you don’t agree with me.”
not sure what can be said….just shake your head in disgust.
This is a sad story. So much for civility.
To Anthony Maschek: Thank you for your service and sorry for what you had to go through.
AMEN!
Being a veteran who was also injured while in service, I cannot adequately express my acrimony towards this University and those students. I have a Master’s from Columbia, but am so ashamed of that place that I am now seriously comsidering tearing up the degree and sending it to the president of the university with a note suggesting what can be done with it…
ci-vil-i-ty
noun, plural -ties.
1. courtesy; politeness.
2. a polite action or expression: an exchange of civilities.
3. Archaic . civilization; culture; good breeding
To all you libby students at Columbia,
try practicing it.
NUFF SAID
I saw this same disgusting behavior during the Vietnam era. I still remember with great sadness how I was treated but had hoped today’s soldiers would be better treated. Apparently the same cowardice and ignorance still exist — shame on those that don’t understand that their liberty and freedom comes at a price paid by the military.
The kids who said those things to that vet are the same ones that demand everything be handed to them for free for life. Spare the rod indeed.
Absolutely discusting.
The liberals who say they support the troops, but not the war have been successful in convincing Americans that they give a damn about our servicemembers…it is BS whenever they say that and gives them cover. They are just a bunch of lazy, cowardly, users who have never made a sacrifice for anyone or anything. Dr.Jeff21 – you earned your degree and your honor–I thank you for your service and incredible sacrifice on behalf of our nation.
Despicable, disgusting bunch of creeps.
My Dad used to say that when he got back from WWII (European Theater), he couldn’t
buy a beer in the local bars for about two months. No one bought me a beer when I got back from Nam, but no one spit on me either. Just not the thing to do in a place like Nebraska.
Love the pic of this brave, young hero and his babe. Wish him the best.
I guess Columbia hasn’t changed much since Barack Obama and I attended classes there together. So mad about this I’m going to burn those transcripts he gave me, along with that birth certificate he said I could have as a “souvenir.” Screw him!
Well that narrows the field a little.
My advice? Don’t listen to them.
Good for you.
You’ve been unlucky in love, I pray you’ll find the right person, just don’t project your disappointments on one anonymous person who happens to make a statement that opens some old wounds.
Reminds me a bit of the students the UC Santa Cruz campus back in the day when I was stationed at Fort Ord.
Which is why, as I pointed out earler in the thread, there is a posting category on this site called “They don’t support the troops”, which is there this blog entry definitely belongs. I hope Doug’s reading this.
(and by the way, Doug, the “colombia” category is for the country Colombia)
In the years right before retirement traveling into theater and back in uniform, those people were definitely still out there. For every great group of Americans who would literally grab you by the ear and take you into an airport restaurant to by you lunch, there were always a few who would sneer and make a big deal out of walking to the other side of the concourse to avoid you. People hate Ted Rall and Joel Stein for their venom for the military. At least they call it the way they feel it.
The bottom line is though, that Columbia and other Ivy League schools will never invite ROTC back. The bar will constantly be raised.
And thanks for the open registration and forum Michelle. You are a great American.
Wonder how many of these hecklers would run for the military to pay for their education should the federal government cut off all their subsidies forcing the school to raise their tuition.