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Posted on December 13, 2014 by Paul Mirengoff in Higher education, Leftism, Political correctness

Conservative Muslim’s opinions produce “existential worry” at University of Michigan

Omar Mahmood, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan, is a conservative. Worse, he expressed his conservative views as a columnist for a school publication.
As a result, Mahmood was subjected to vandalism. Messages were left on his apartment door calling him obscene names and telling him to “shut the f*** up.” The vandals also left a picture taken from Mahmood’s Facebook profile with his eyes X’d out. This page contained more obscenities.
The identity of the vandals is unknown. However, their political persuasion can be inferred. They left one of Mahmood’s columns, a satire of campus political correctness, at his door with yet more hateful language scrawled on it.
The vandals aren’t the only ones persecuting Mahmood. According to NRO’s “College Fix,” after publication of the satirical column in the Michigan Review, the Michigan Daily told Mahmood he must either resign from the Daily or from the Review.
Mahmood says the Daily’s editor explained that he had created a “hostile environment” among the editorial staff and that someone felt threatened because of what he wrote. Here is Mahmood’s “hostile” column. It simply mocks political correctness, incantations of “white privilege,” and the culture of victimization. See if you can find anything that can be construed as “threatening.” I can’t.
I doubt that the complaining school newspaper staffer could either. More likely, he or she just invoked the magic words necessary to punish someone whose views he or she doesn’t like.
But sadly, we can’t completely dismiss the possibility that the University of Michigan has descended to the point where Mahmood’s satire — which attacked no race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or creed (other than mindless liberal dogma) — is too upsetting to handle for those who live in the cocoon of soft campus leftism.
Perhaps the offended Michigan Daily staff member will seek to have his or her exams postponed.
If anyone should be “existentially worried,” though, it should be the satirist whose residence was vandalized.
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  • Arnold Townsend · Top Commenter · Fairmont High School
    Oh my God. The "Plowed Up" phenomenon is back in full force. Now it's the word "existential" that is going to pop up everywhere until it is bleached of what little meaning it has.

    Let's ask an academic the difference between just plain "worry" and polysyllabic "existential worry".

    None. No difference. If you're a rube in flyover land, "worry" is all you're expected to have -- but if you're one of the New Nobility -- academics who've rarely left campus ever -- then it is something more regal and august -- "existential worry".

    Lions. And Tigers. And Bears. Existential! Oh, My!
       
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    • Ed McMerty · Top Commenter · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
      They really don't love diversity after all, do they?

      The irony here is rich:

      The "soft campus leftism" is really fascist.
      The "hostile environment" is not for the whiny wussy staffer; it's for any who challenge the "group-think" of political correctness.
         
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      • Dale C. Wyckoff · Top Commenter
        Further brownshirt infestation of our politics. Anybody who dares speak against the Liberal Establishment must be punished. Ask former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. History repeats.
        • Tracy Thompson · Top Commenter · Elk River, Minnesota
          Even that woman at Sony who made jokes via email about Obama's presumed taste in movies is seeking redemption from Sharpton and Jackson. I'm sure a hefty donation will ease their existential worry.
          Reply · Like
          · 3 · 2 hours ago
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      • Dave Anderson · Top Commenter · Eveleth High School
        I've abandoned the word "conservative" It all depends on what you want to conserve.

        If you want to conserve the ethic of Arabia circa 620 count me out.
           
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        • Kenneth Moberg · Top Commenter · Boulder Creek, California
          He just needs to issue a 'Fatwa' and then all of his enemies will crawl back in their holes. Because, at the end of the day, all progressives are cowards.
          • Jay Comeau · Top Commenter
            I mean, really! It's not like he's some white guy who has no victim card to play. Just go all Muslim here and watch the little pukes run for cover.
            Reply · Like
            · 3 · 12 hours ago
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          • Steve Baker · Top Commenter · Hibbing, Minnesota
            Better yet, get a Fatwa issued against himself. He can then get rich, live a life of leisure hobnobbing with the global elite, and even be married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, (who could also cook!), for a while. Like Salman Rushdie.
            Reply · Like
            · 1 · 6 hours ago
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        • Steven Litvintchouk · Top Commenter · Columbia University in the City of New York
          A lot of conservatives like myself figured that the Left wouldn't dare to ostracize a known Muslim the way they ostracize Christians.

          Looks like we were wrong.

          The Left, buoyed by the knowledge that they finally have a President and Attorney General who's just like them, don't mind taking on Muslims who stand in their way either.

          Their "Right Side of History" hubris and arrogance is totally out of control now. They're acting like a bunch of army ants, devouring all who stand before them.
             
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          • Clark Dahl · Top Commenter · Minnesota State University Moorhead
            I guess honoring diversity only is effective when there is some form of perversity attached to it. Free speech is disallowed if it offends liberals and a free, open educational system is dead at Michigan (okays its dead just about everywhere in academia). What shameless cowards they are.
               
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            • Dennis Boone · Top Commenter
              Sounds like someone's going to have to spend some time in the box to get his mind right...
                 
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              • Wendy Johnson Allen · Top Commenter · Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
                His article is hilarious. As one of those lefthandyed victims of oppression there is an irony righties don't appreciate. The entire world is built for them...desks, scissors, golf clubs, knives, and the recent studies showing lefties earn less than women...as a lefthandyed women, guess I am doubly burdened.

                Yet, I never lived my life as a victim..used two desks in college so I could write, endured my grandfather's criticism of my feeble attemp to be a righthandyed golfer, and persevered in the face of right handed privilege.

                That he should be so condemned for pointing out the irony is its own ironic window into the world of victimhood...
                   
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                • Todd Foster · Top Commenter
                  Very similar to this.

                  http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/10/university-of-iowa-pulls-anti-racism-dis

                  Only the head of the Journalism Department at Iowa takes it Full Fascist, and calls for an end to the First Amendment because too many U of Iowa students are too stupid to comprehend an art piece.

                  Journalism is the only profession where most of it's practitioners are threatened by smart people.
                     
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                  • Ted Ung · Top Commenter · Mesquite, Nevada
                    Even in the dim past when I studied business administration, graduate schools were hotbeds of new jargon. Apparently, motivated to gain notice and warm over "surveys of literature" by claiming that term *X was insufficient, thesis writers then insisted that only their term *X' was okay. Since "fear for one's life" has a definite meaning, these timmies (H/T Johnny Carson) can invoke "fear for life" sanctions for whatever "existential worry" might entail this week.
                       
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                    • Gregg Anderson · Top Commenter · Amherst, Massachusetts
                      When stories like this emerge about lefties my first reaction is "hoax". Are we jumping to conclusions here, too? Just asking, as this fits my narrative of what goes on on college campuses- caution is warranted, I think.
                         
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                      • Dan Shapiro · Top Commenter · San Diego State University
                        Mahmood is going about this all wrong. He needs to strong arm rob a liquor store, or sell loosies out of his dorm room. Having done that, Holder's DOJ will come rushing in to investigate the "hate" crime.
                           
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                        • Ray Zacek · Top Commenter
                          An example of the tolerance (lack thereof, egregious in its absence) of the Academic-Industrial Complex.
                             
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