by Rob Roper
Since the election of Donald Trump, the Left has had a revived interest in the works of George Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm. I’m not sure they’re actually reading these cautionary tales about the evils of socialism and how it destroys the human spirit, generates violence, poverty, and general misery, but I sincerely hope they do. Orwell was in many ways prescient.
Watching the antics of college students at Middlebury, where they chased Charles Murray from the stage and assaulted his host, at Berkley where they rioted against one speaker and chased Anne Coulter away before she even got there, and most lately at Notre Dame where they walked out Vice President Pence’s commencement speech, I am reminded of the dogs in Animal Farm. Here’s how that story goes….
In Chapter 3, Napoleon, the pig who represented Stalin, takes away the new puppies born to Jessie and Bluebell, “saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence.”
Let’s call that The Animal Farm college campus “Safe Space.”
Months later, when the farm animals had to vote on an issue of importance to the community, Napoleon’s rival, Snowball, was making an eloquent and inspiring speech rallying the other animals to his noble, rational cause.
But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard him utter before.
At this there was a terrible baying sound outside, and nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. They dashed straight for Snowball, who only sprang from his place just in time to escape their snapping jaws. In a moment he was out of the door and they were after him…. Then he [Snowball] put on an extra spurt and, with a few inches to spare, slipped through a hole in the hedge and was seen no more.
Silent and terrified, the animals crept back into the barn.
This could easily be a scene from almost any college campus today where a conservative speaker takes the stage. So, let’s stop referring to these students as “snowflakes,” which implies fragility and a certain amount of insignificance, and recognize them for what they are – the isolated, brainwashed, fiercely loyal, and dangerous attack dogs of an aspiring totalitarian regime.
– Rob Roper is president of the Ethan Allen Institute
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
A comparison of perfection.
Snowball and the Snowflakes. Great piece, Rob!
Rob, Graduated college in 1951. Can’t’ conceive of this kind of behavior at that time. If any of our fellow students acted up, they would have been taken to the wood shed and taught some manners by their peers AND the administration would have supported them. Now we have inmates running the institutions. Sad.