Libertarians at the University of Oregon are feeling mighty oppressed — not only does the school ban open or concealed carry of firearms on campus, but the student government wouldn’t fund an event the group held to protest the school’s policy. To help make their point, the event was a Poker Night in which the top prizes were three guns. So to prove their displeasure at the unfairness of Big Government, the “Young Americans for Liberty” group is suing Associated Students of the University of Oregon (ASUO) to get their hands on some of that sweet student government cash. Libertarians demanding a government subsidy is not hypocrisy at all, because as Sally Brown put it so eloquently, “All I want is what’s coming to me. All I want is my fair share.”
I supposed this one could be find under “C” for “chutzpah.” Libertarians, who pride themselves on being rugged individualists, believe government is inherently evil and virtually any problem can be solved by the free market and personal initiative, are demanding a government subsidy in order to pay for a gun giveaway on a campus that bans open carry.
Ah, the irony…or, more accurately, hypocrisy. They expect to be respected and taken seriously, yet they see nothing amiss with engaging in the sort of hypocrisy and inconsistency that make most Libertarians laughing stocks. They demand that government get off their backs and leave them alone…until they want or need something. Then they have no problem demanding that government come to their assistance post haste.
When said student government declined to fund the Young Whiners for Liberty poker night because of the gun giveaway, the butthurt could be heard from the Idaho border to the Pacific Coast.
After UO student government refused to pay for the event, Young Americans for Liberty asked the conservative group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to step in.
“ASUO’s refusal to fund a poker night hosted by UO’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) expressly because it disagrees with the event’s message amounts to constitutionally prohibited viewpoint discrimination,” FIRE said in a statement.
“Prohibited viewpoint discrimination?” What is it about Libertarians that allows them to define the word “NO” as somehow discriminating against their point of view? Student government is under no obligation to fund an activity simply because someone feels entitled. Like any organization charged with doling out funds, ASUO has criteria they use to determine if an activity meets their guidelines and is worthy of being funded. In this case, ASUO decided the Young Whiners for Liberty poker night did not meet their criteria and declined to provide funding. ASUO was within its rights to do so; I suspect if they provided funding for every request they received, they’d run out of money pretty quickly.
Young Americans for Liberty were not nearly so sanguine about being rejected.
The UO campus president of Young Whiners For Liberty, Thomas Tullis, told the Eugene Register-Guard that in the wake of the mass shooting at nearby Umpqua Community College, it’s especially vital to change UO’s policy on campus carry:
Tullis said his goal is to reverse the UO’s policies that forbid firearms on campus — either openly carried or concealed — because, he said, the policy makes the campus a dangerous place.
“Clearly, campuses are being targeted by mass shooters,” he said.
Right…even though Tullis’ argument is B.S.- armed students at UCC just down the road decided to shelter in place during the attack rather than taking a chance on getting shot by a SWAT team. Yep, only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a…oh, never mind….
This would probably be where someone more cynical than myself (as hard as that might be to imagine) might tell the Young Whiners for Liberty to fall back on their Libertarian rugged individualism and raise the money themselves. Depending on government for money seems…oh, I don’t know…kinda anti-libertarian, knowhutimean??
The truth is that the Young Whiners for Liberty gun giveaway had nothing to do with promoting safety on the University of Oregon campus. If they were truly concerned about safety, there are many other far safer and less controversial ways to help that by trying to introduce guns to the UO campus. Then again, someone more cynical than myself might just start thinking that mayhaps these Heroes of Libertarianism were simply out for some cheap publicity. Just sayin’….
