Ben Carson supports empowering ideologically left-wing federal bureaucrats to monitor bias on college campuses.
This stunning policy could give left-wing bureaucrats at the Justice Department and other federal agencies enormous power to monitor, and then to hector against free speech with which they disagree.
Carson’s latest policy blunder occurred on NBC during an appearance with Chuck Todd. (A few weeks ago, Carson said he would support giving the Justice Department renewed power over state elections, a position Carson never publicly disavowed). Writes the Washington Post:
Dr. Ben Carson, currently running in second for the Republican presidential nomination, told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday that he supports a system under which the government would investigate allegations of “extreme bias” on college campuses. “The way that works,” Carson explained, “is you invite the students at the universities to send in their complaints. And then you investigate.”
Carson trusts federal employees to “investigate” campus biases? Oh brother.
If Carson genuinely believes that, he hasn’t been paying attention to the last decade of behavior by lawyers at the Justice Department Civil Rights Division, as documented by PJ Media and others. Simply, if my former co-workers at the Justice Department or Department of Education were to “police bias” on college campuses, Dr. Carson can be assured that the thought-policing would be aimed only in one ideological direction.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey, in contrast, has an understanding of the lawless mischief caused by the bureaucrats Carson would empower. Before Dr. Carson makes any more dangerously naive civil rights policy announcements, he should bone up on some of the expansive coverage of the Civil Rights Division’s abuse of power, under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
Here’s some pump-priming links for the good doctor: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
And these barely scratch the surface.
The author of many of these articles covering the extreme left-wing biases of federal bureaucrats was struck by Carson’s statements. According to Hans von Spakovsky, former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Justice Department:
Ben Carson displays a frightening amount of naivete.
He obviously does not understand the radical, left-wing bias and partisanship of the lawyers who work in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice or the Department of Education. Carson would give them the power of being the ‘Thought Police’ on college campuses. There is no doubt they would abuse that power to support progressive propaganda and censor conservatives and anyone else who didn’t meet their political correctness standard.
Another former political appointee who oversaw the bureaucrats at the Justice Department Civil Rights Division shared a strong reaction to Carson’s plan:
Carson’s proposal would fall squarely under the bailiwick of the Civil Rights Divisions at the Department of Justice or Department of Education, neither of which is known for level-headed, apolitical civil servants.
Do we want more thought police? And federal ones at that? Does anyone seriously think we don’t already have enough demands for political correctness?
If this latest idea doesn’t send any real constitutional conservatives running for the exit doors of the Carson campaign, then shame on them.
Perhaps Carson thinks that if he were president, he could lord over these bureaucrats and ensure a neutral administration of the federal government’s Ben Carson Bias Policing. Such confidence demonstrates an even more misguided naivete.
For starters, the bureaucrats make imposing telephone calls to targets that their career superiors never learn about, much less their political superiors.
These telephone calls can be a form of enforcement that escapes oversight. But that’s just one of many tricks and tools used inside the federal government by partisan bureaucrats to enforce their worldview.
Campus club at Wichita State University
If Carson wants to unleash swarms of federal government Ben Carson Bias Cops against ideological “biases” on college campuses, Carson must not understand what would inevitably happen if the federal government gets involved. He can be sure the bias policing would be aimed at “micro-aggressions” by conservatives, not at the actual campus culture of suffocating left-wing bias.
Conservatives have an appreciation of how power is granted, and then abused. Let’s hope Dr. Carson begins to appreciate it. Let’s also hope Carson reverses course on his latest policy blunder. Until that happens, he can probably count on the newfound support of the ideological federal bureaucrats he would empower to police what few conservative campus biases remain.
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