Quote:
Matt Shaffer
<<SNIP>>
My freshman orientation at Yale was disillusioning. I thought I would learn something about the kind of education I could expect over the next four years, but I was sorely disappointed.
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FWIW, Mr. Shaffer has recovered from the disillusionment he encountered as a freshman. Since then, Mr. Shaffer has re-discovered his youthful confidence, embraced student life at Yale, and learned to manage his expectations. Or has he?
In 2007, Mr. Shaffer lobbied before the Yale Political Union to expand the number of residential colleges from ten to twelve. He said:
Quote:
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A Yale degree is not a yacht by which we can coast and sail on the lazy river of life the rest of our lives....And that is why I say open our doors to new competition, new faces and people whose SAT scores are not quite as high as ours.*
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The next year, Mr. Shaffer become the chairman of Yale's Party of the Right <<
LINK>>. During his chairmanship, he offered these comments in his annual address to party members.
Quote:
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Ladies and gentlemen, you have been told that we are a Party of obstructionists, of romantics, of reactionaries, and of extreme right-wingers. [You have] been told the truth....The truth is, the Party of the Right is a very dangerous organization. We are like the Spartan soldier at Thermopylae who, when told that his enemies had such great numbers their arrows would darken the sky, said, ‘Then we shall fight in the shade.’ We are indeed fighting in the shade, ladies and gentlemen, for amid a crumbling society that worships mediocrity, we alone are committed to making great men....If it is Fascist to believe that unlimited license makes men less free and not more free, then we are Fascist.**
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This past November, Mr. Shaffer abstained from voting in the 2008 presidential election.***
One wonders what Mr. Shaffer really wants. (He offers hints
here and
there.)
__________________________________________________ _
^ <<
LINK>>. Language warning.
* Source is
here.
** Source is
here. According to this source, the use of "Fascist" to describe the Party of the Right is an established convention practiced by all chairmen in the annual speech. However, coupled with his speech's militaristic imagery
, that dubious tradition may have been ill-served by Mr. Shaffer. (Maybe, and it is just a hunch, the POR would not be accused of being Nazis if they stopped advertising themselves as Fascists.)
*** Source is
here.