Not surprisingly, the Iowa State Daily’s editorial board is once again defending the indefensible.

The Friday, Feb. 14 edition the Daily claims that GSB senators Mark Nimmer and Casey Powers cannot be trusted. Why? What reasons do the Daily editorial writers give to back up such a charge? Are Mr. Nimmer and Mr. Powers dishonest people? Does the Daily have evidence that either of these two men deceived anyone?

If the Daily does have such evidence, it was glaringly absent from the attempt to smear these two senators.

What is the real reason that the Daily charges these men with dishonesty? Read its own words. It is because Nimmer and Casey have committed the ultimate sin of being white males who dare to hold ideas at odds with the majority of today’s “intellectuals.” It is because instead of accepting an unearned guilt and passively letting the exponents of racism rule the campus (and ultimately, the world) these two men see the contradiction in the leftist idea of fighting racism by institutionalizing it.

Many left-wingers subscribe to the Marxist theory that an individual’s ideas are determined by his economic class. They merely substitute, in place of economic class, a person’s skin color. Accordingly, they hold that one’s highest expression of himself is in reference to these collectives. In other words, the individual is not to act like an individual, but must justify his actions and his life to his racial and/or economic class.

According to this view, anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his group’s ideas is either confused or a traitor. This rule is applied most viciously by the left in regard to black intellectuals with whom they disagree. Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas are frequently denounced as “sellouts” and “Uncle Toms.” A black man is told he isn’t really black if he likes the wrong kind of music or votes for the wrong candidates. The common message is; tow the party line and don’t dare think for yourself!

There are, fortunately, men and women of all races who believe that race is (or should be) as irrelevant an issue as whether an individual prefers chocolate or vanilla ice-cream. What should matter, these people hold, are one’s abilities and achievements. They therefore maintain that affirmative action and quotas, such as the reserved minority seats on the student government, are viciously racist, as they damn ability and reward the irrelevant.

Such seats tell the candidates that it is not their ideas that matter, but their skin colors and their abilities to “represent their race.” Obviously, if one is to represent one’s race (as opposed to appealing to his constituents free minds), one must not be an individual (much less a leader), but instead behave as the collective wishes one to behave. In other words, one must abandon one’s own mind and concede it to the loudest voices screaming that they are the true representatives of the group.

The self-appointed representatives of the group leave the actual individuals of that group voiceless and disenfranchised.

Who are the real racists; the idiotorialists who think that you must behave as your group declares, that you have interests with others merely because you share the same skin color — or the champions of individuality who consider you honest (although perhaps mistaken) even when, and perhaps especially when you dare to challenge the collective?

Scott Johnson

President

Objectivists at ISU