I love Republicans. As much as I hate to admit it, I really love Republicans. It’s not a popular stance amongst my friends, but there is a certain childlike charm to quite a few of them. Granted, you have to look passed the manipulative, ignorant, and self-serving stance the majority of them often take. But aside from that, I really find Republicans to be a source of a lot of humor. Look at television shows like The Daily Show or Real Time with Bill Maher. Without Republicans, these shows wouldn’t be nearly as funny.
It’s when they get into power that their antics become less amusing. But I digress.
Take Alec Mouhibian, the “conservative” columnist for UCSB’s student newspaper, The Daily Nexus. Mouhibian wrote a rather hate-filled, sexist, and overtly offensive critique of gender studies, and the Daily Nexus chose to publish it in their April 19th edition. Now if you can stomach reading it, you may not find it all that funny. And apparently, a number of women and men were understandably offended.
So where’s the humor? There is the fact that Mouhibian wrote things like this:
“I’ll readily admit that the word ‘rape’ kind of turns me on, but that’s only because it rhymes with ‘ape’.”
“But an honest and healthy understanding of rape would undermine gender feminism’s morbid Marxist ideology and its dogmatic agenda to de-penisize society.”
“The numbers [9 out 100, according to Mouhibian's "survey" ] at least suggest that academic feminism is only relevant to a tiny number of women, the type who mistake Lynyrd Skynyrd for a dictionary.”
Yes, he actually wrote these sentences - for publication, for people to read, with his real name attached to the article.
My favorite part, however, of Mouhibian’s article is this:
“I surveyed 100 random women on campus to ask whether they ever attended or benefited from the Women’s Center in any way. Exactly nine said yes.”
It’s comments like this that make me love Republicans. If I went up to 100 random people and asked them if they use either ROTC or the Department of Military Science, could I even get five people to say “yes”? Never mind that it’s an idiotic way of determining the validity of a department or center. I’m sure Mouhibian didn’t even think about the consequences of his supposed litmus test to the programs he assumably supports.
It should be noted that Mouhibian is also the co-founder and chairman of the local chapter of Students for Academic Freedom1. Like most right-wing movements, the Students for Academic Freedom came up with their name from the “calling-things-the-opposite-of-what-they-are” technique of naming (i.e. “No Child Left Behind”, “Clean Air Act”, etc.), and is an organization that attempts to attack professors with a supposedly liberal bias. They have a web site for people to post incidents of said bias, and the professors that committed the offense. If the posts to the web board are any indication, they are also an advocate for idiots obtaining Bachelor’s degrees.
Mouhibian’s article was published on a Tuesday, in the week of the yearly campus-wide elections. Two of the issues the students were voting on were the reaffirmation of the lock-ins for the Women’s Center and the Women’s Commission on campus. Lock-ins are fees the students vote on to fund various groups, and all require a reaffirmation vote every two years. Like most student groups that receive lock-ins, the annual budget for Women’s Center and the Women’s Commission is significantly comprised of money from these lock-ins. (The Women’s Center vote was actually to increase the amount of the lock-in fee, not just a reaffirmation.)
Now here’s the punch line.
Clearly, Mouhibian’s intention was to impact the votes for the Women’s Center and Women’s Commission. Perhaps, he did. The Women’s Center was lock-in fee increase passed by an almost three to one margin (63%), and the Women’s Commission was reaffirmed by over a three to one margin (71%).
Absolutely hilarious.
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[1] If you want to find the web board for the Students for Academic Freedom, you’ll have to do a web search. There’s no way in I’m linking to such an absurd organization.
