UMass Op-Ed Points Out Stupidity of Student Protest Topics

Since the election of Donald Trump, students across the country have had a serious issue with the outcome. Protests have become common, and even violence is far from unusual. However, there does seem to be a bit of campus pushback against the worst aspects of this new college leftism.

A column at The Daily Collegiate, a publication for students at the University of Massachusetts, takes issue with the insane effort expended on relatively inane topics:

In the 1960s and 70s, student activism had a coherent and justifiable goal. Students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and across the country marched for Civil Rights causes, protested the Vietnam War and fought for the rights of all.

Nowadays? You don’t protest the potential war crimes or torture by the United States military, which continued to occur throughout the Obama presidency in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay. You don’t protest the collapse of our nation’s labor force, or the slowed economic growth that keeps millions throughout our country unemployed and struggling to get by. In terms of Civil Rights, you don’t protest the 74 countries where homosexuality is illegal, many of which the U.S. has established trade and diplomatic relationships with, or the 13 countries where same-sex relations are a crime punishable by death.

You protest the existence of a disputed wage gap between genders in this country, but fail to protest the many Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran where women are harshly oppressed. In fact, your champion Hillary Clinton even took donations to her “charitable” foundation from the leaders of Saudi Arabia, despite claiming to be a defender of women’s rights.

Instead, you fight the good fight, protesting things like the validity of electoral democracy, the right of people you disagree with to speak and demanding that UMass become a shelter for criminals. After President Trump’s election, some campus protesters justifiably protested his policies, and peacefully made their disagreement known. However, the majority of protests devolved into pathetic movements like the “cry-in” at Cornell, or the #NotMyPresident protests at UMass, where students whined about the legitimacy of an electoral college system that, while flawed, has been in place for hundreds of years. These “protests” devolved into pity parties that would make the real student activists of the ’60s and ’70s balk.

The world can be a pretty awful place, so let’s be honest: If the worst oppression you ever feel is someone not using the correct pronouns to describe you, how bad can your life actually be?

No, that doesn’t mean things are perfect here, nor does it mean there’s no reason to put forth effort to try and make things better. What it means is that it’s beyond time to quit pretending that you’re living in the most evil place on Earth. Recognize the issues, but also keep context in mind. While you may not like the admission rates for minority students at your preferred school, there are places that murder women for being rape victims.

It could always be worse.