Shades of the 1960's? Or more indicative of the "narcissism and self-absorption" of some of today's youth?
The issue isn't free speech, or the draft. The issue in California where students from UC Berkeley and UCLA occupied various campus buildings is an increase in tuition.
Anthony Dick writing at NRO applies the necessary spanking:
First and foremost, the protests are about privileged kids demanding subsidies from working people. The UC system will continue to be heavily subsidized by taxpayers, and the students who attend are among the most naturally gifted, with the highest future earning potential, in the country. This is especially true at the system's flagship schools of Berkeley and UCLA, where the protests have been most intense. Narcissism and self-absorption are the norm on college campuses, but it really is pushing the limits to throw such a tantrum at the idea that you will be getting a smaller amount of free money taken out of the paychecks of strapped taxpayers, most of whom could never dream of the advantages and opportunities you enjoy.Second, these protesters claim the mantle of the free-speech movement, but it is a betrayal and a subversion of the principles of free speech to forcibly occupy a school building and block out its rightful owners and occupants (including other tuition-paying students). The very idea of free speech is to facilitate the peaceful exchange of ideas, without allowing the use or threat of force to distort the process. The whole enterprise suffers when thugs begin breaking out the chains and barricades and committing property crimes in order to get their way.
Not that they'll listen. These are kids who feel entitled to tax payer money and therefore, believe those who work for a living should pony up just to make their lives a little easier. The increase is not going to prevent poor kids from getting in to these schools - many of which are sitting on hundreds of millions in endowments, building funds, and the like. Their protest is petulant and childish.
Perhaps they should all be forced to take a current events class where they might discover that their state is in a fiscal crisis and that the only way out of it is if everyone sacrifices. But that would be too real for these brats, bursting the comfortable bubble in their ivory tower existence.
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