It used to be the quickest way to notoriety in this country was to strip down to your birthday suit and run in front of cameras covering some nationally televised event like the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl
My how times have changed.
In the last few years we’ve seen that the quickest way to get your name in the paper and your face plastered all over TV is to be the victim of a “hate crime” carried out by wicked conservatives or, better yet, attest to some action by the Bush Administration that smacks of dictatorship.
Recently, we’ve witnessed the edifying spectacle of people caterwauling about “oppression” only to find out later (after the camera lights have been turned off) that these “victims” are lying through their teeth:
- A gay student claiming harassment and vandalism was found to be perpetrating the incidents herself.
- A black student’s apartment door is vandalized with racist comments. Guess who it turns out wrote them?
- A Muslim store is burned down. CAIR screams racism. Cops arrest Muslim store owner for arson.
- A college professor vandalizes her own car with anti-homosexual slogans. Gets a year in the slammer for filing a false police report.
- Numerous racial incidents called hate crimes that turn out to be bogus.
Hate crimes are one thing. Real crimes carried out against blacks, gays, and ethnics are diminished as a result of few liberals who want to stick it to whites, or conservatives, or just America in general while basking in the glow of their victimhood. Besides, we all know that somewhere, sometime, these incidents could have happened in America. Who really cares if liberals create some guerrilla theater to highlight the “injustice” of the system?
The latest hoax perpetrated by liberals involves a case that smelled to high heaven from the get go. A UMass-Dartmouth student claimed that she was visited by FBI agents after checking out Mao Tse Tung’s tiresome Little Red Book from the library:
NEW BEDFORD —A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called “The Little Red Book.”Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library’s interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand’s class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a “watch list,” and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
First, the myth that the Patriot Act allows the government to keep track of library loans is now so well established that it will be impossible to debunk. To those who still believe such nonsense, I suggest you get a life or, failing that, READ THE DAMN THING AND CONFIRM IT FOR YOURSELF!
Secondly, while this news story says that “DHS agents” visited the student (and that the student was male) other stories have the FBI calling on the poor kid and that the “victim” was a female.
I guess when you get right down to it for a liberal, the facts don’t matter much – it’s the thought that counts.
But man, did this story bring out the heavy rhetorical artillery on the left:
And all this seems strikingly similar to the sad and vile days of Joseph McCarthy’s communism witch hunts, where those who dared speak out found themselves under suspicion and fear ruled the day.
Illegal surveillance is one thing. An agenda to destroy generations of American Freedoms is something else.
Bubble Boy’s Uber-Monarchy just gets curiouser and curiouser.
There is only one problem with this story; it is almost certainly a hoax:
Complicating matters has been the student, who so far has refused to talk. Boston FBI spokeswoman Gail A. Marcinkiewicz said she has been unable to find evidence that FBI agents visited the student.“We don’t have interest in what people read,†she added.
UMass-Dartmouth is investigating and has interviewed the student but denied in a statement having any contact with federal agents. The book was requested from UMass-Amherst
While probably not carried out by the kid in question, the hoax appears to be the work of some professors who seem more than eager to push the idea of academic freedom under assault in the age of Bush.
Academic freedom is all well and good. But making up a story about anyone in the domestic intelligence apparatus being interested in a student who checks out a discredited tome by a long dead Marxist loon just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Here’s a DHS spokesperson:
Kirk Whitworth, a spokesman for the DHS—the U.S. cabinet department that oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the Secret Service, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, among others—said in the December 21 Standard-Times that the story seemed unlikely. “We’re aware of the claims,†he said. “However, the scenario sounds unlikely because investigations are based on violation of law, not on the books and individual[s who] might check [them] out from the library.â€
And Goldstein nails it:
Of course, when lying liars lie about what they are lying about, the only thing that suffers is TRUTH! And whether the facts of this particular story turn out to be true or not, one thing is certain: somewhere, right now, DISSENT IS BEING CHILLED.
Fake but accurate, you know. So please—take the denial with a grain of salt.
Liberals just are not happy unless they are under attack for their beliefs. It is a pathological manifestation of a gigantic need for attention that causes them to mount the battlements, waving the bloody shirt screaming at the top of their lungs “LOOK AT ME! I AM SUFFERING FOR MY BELIEFS”
The Christ complex these loons have is insulting to them, I know. So instead, let’s substitute the actions of 12 year old little girls who constantly play the martyr over the trials and tribulations in their lives.
Liberals are teenage drama queens in disguise. The difference being they aren’t half as cute.
UPDATE - WITH A GREAT BIG BULLET
My apologies to the professors for accusing them of carrying out a hoax. As it turns out, it was in fact the student who made the whole thing up:
The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for “The Little Red Book” by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.(HT: Michelle Malkin)Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.
But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand to Dr. Williams, Dr. Pontbriand, university spokesman John Hoey and The Standard-Times, the student added new details.The agents had returned, the student said, just last night. The two agents, the student, his parents and the student’s uncle all signed confidentiality agreements, he claimed, to put an end to the matter.
But when Dr. Williams went to the student’s home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.
Now watch the left criticize Bush for making the kid cry.
6:15 pm
This isn’t even imaginative. Whenever there is the need to create an oppressed class for political expedience there is a variation of this myth. At least most of the time in the past it has been through artistic liscense. There is an episode of “Good Times” where the father loses his job, because his son is doing an essay or some such on communism, and decides to check out. . . . well the exact same book. When the book puts up a flag, the FBI decides to visit the employer of the father, and ask questions, resulting in the fathers dismissal. The end of the show has one more hokey joke, followed by the morality play of governmental abuses.
There is also a BRADY BUNCH episode, that I can’t recall specificaly. There is likely an episode that revolves around this exact myth in every long running TV series or sitcom.
But this one, reads IDENTICAL to the “Good Times” episode. Maybe these reporters and proffessors should put down the lube they use to stroke eachothers ego’s and take a bite out of pop culture to realize how easy it is to fool the elite.
Go Bears! Yay Sox, and what on earth is Daley thinking asking for a second football team? Like every member of the second team, and their fans wouldn’t be regularly pants’d by the entire populace of this great city, misnamed “second.”
11:25 pm
I wonder if there would be an uproar from the MainStream Media if a young kid got sent to a “Guidance Counsellor’s” office for trying to check out a copy of the Holy Bible from a public school in San Francisco. Someone call Nancy Pelosi, stat!
7:45 am
This thing had the feel of a profressor-generated urban myth from day one; as you mentioned, the gender of the student is unclear and the name is missing. I give this one a “fake but accurate” rating.
The irony in all this is that the list of Communist agents in our government touted by Sen. McCarthy has been largely verified by the declassification of cold war intelligence files, yet unhinged liberals continue to use the term “McCarthyism” anytime that a leftist’s judgement or patriotism is called into question.
Being an academic in this country is a lot like being a reporter- you never have to worry about the facts getting in the way of your story.
12:48 pm
Shocking what people will believe. Almost as bad as the sillies thinking that Swift-Boating actual hero John Kerry was wrong.
We love Big Brother!
2:14 pm
I get a kick outta the fact that he/she/it’s name has not surfaced – this is a false accusation which is in fact a crime—he/she/it is 22 years old which eliminates any immunity protection based on age—he/she/it is a criminal and his/her/it’s name should be publicized. If he/she/it was 18 and had been at Abu Grave—would we know all the details??? hummm???—name, name(s) and residence of parents, all the romantic details of his/her/it’s life – or lack thereof—interviews with everyone who has known/seen or claims to have known/seen him/her/it – since diaperhood.
6:14 pm
“actual hero John Kerry…” LOL. He was a hero all right, to his fellow veterans’ enemies.
It figures that the Democrats’ idea of a war hero is someone who is honored by the North Vietnamese for his help in defeating America.
He was a traitor then, and Democrats were traitors for nominating him as Commander in Chief of the armed forces he once slandered and met with the enemy to defeat.
2:00 am
Rick, the professors seem astonishingly credulous, and the story as to how Prof Williams just happened to be called by a reporter and just happened to mention it, has a whiff of disingenuousness to it. I can’t believe they fell for this story , and if they truly did, they are the most naive of men without a clue about the Patriot Act or their government.
And like Glenn Reynolds, I wonder why the student’s name has not been disclosed. He/She is 33, for Heaven’s sake.
11:50 am
Hub:
I let the first comment go but your second comment had absolutely nothing to do with the posted article.
Write all you want to on your own crappy site. But if you are going to comment here, please directly address the issues raised in the article.
12:32 pm
I meant twenty-two, not 33—Numbers dyslexia, I suppose.
2:22 pm
Lying Leftists And The Seditious Anti-American Lies They Lie.—Part 3,517,849
I’m sure you’ve heard the one about the student questioned by the student in Massachusetts who was questioned by the FBI regarding a request for Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. And you may have even read the piece by Senator…
7:17 pm
The ironic thing, was that wasn’t even an original choice for a banned book. Carlos
Marighela’s “Manual for an Urban Guerilla”
would be a better choice
2:37 am
Of course, when lying liars lie about what they are lying about, the only thing that suffers is TRUTH! And whether the facts of this particular story turn out to be true or not, one thing is certain: somewhere, right now, DISSENT IS BEING CHILLED.
DISSENT is just dying off, the public understands that the USA need to fight terrorism and teh filth of islamic fanaticsm. In this conflict liberals ideas on such things like multicultralism are irrevelant in the face of these terrorist freaks.
11:26 pm
Been out of town, now back and reading this article and wondering where that fool JASON is. Why hasn’t that idiot posted regarding the info contained here? Hey ye, Jason of small brains and other parts, why no post?
12:15 pm
alaska salmon fishing
salmon fishing lure