On Charles Braun’s letter:

Hello, ISU, it’s been a while. As a student at UNI, I don’t live too different of a life from any of you, but this, this is unacceptable. You’re allowed free thought in America, but you are not free from criticism. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to criticize this writer. It means I’m going to criticize his arguments. Riddled with fallacies, misinformation and a failure to attempt any sort of objectivism in the argument, Charles Braun has failed to bring a good argument to bear. Here’s an itemized list of the things he said and why, paraphrased for length’s sake.

1. ISU is thought-controlling you by making you believe that diversity and sustainability are good, and discrimination is bad.

This is a clear example of what many would call, a straw-man argument. Complex ideas have been taken and reduced to simple ones that are easy to attack. Yes, the words have associations, but that’s language. I could type “xadfewq” and say it means a well-cooked steak, but that doesn’t make it true. Likewise, the words of any society are based on the meaning they carry. This is like saying “it’s just a word” in reference to someone using swearwords in a public setting. It’s just flat out incorrect.


2. Christmas trees are bad and the zodiac is OK.
 First off, only one of those religions is actually practiced today. Second, ISU is a public university. It’s legally inclined, as per the First Amendment, to keep religious symbols off of its property. There would be just as many complaints about Muslim symbols being put up during Ramadan.

3. Free condom buckets are a problem, but abstinence is the way to go.

Let me explain something here: abstinence education does not work. It never has and it never will. It just exacerbates the problem, as all studies and data show. Second, calling people who like sex “trained monkeys” is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with any libido. This is a little concept referred to as “opportunity cost” in economics, or risk/reward, in most cases. Comparing the chance that I might get an STD and the even smaller chance that I will get one that’s actually a threat, is not worth cutting an intimate relationship with someone I have legitimate feelings for.

4. Transexuals are just mentally ill. It’s called “alien limb syndrome.”

Classic cherry picking of detail. Leaving out the fact that the penis, if a man, and the breasts and vagina, if a woman, are the only parts of the body that are directly linked to your sex is a large omission. Not to mention, many people come out of the closet as transgender, meaning they identify as the opposite sex they were born as, but haven’t necessarily undergone the changes to transform into the sex they identify.

5. Saying pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality and incest are part of the LGBT community

It’s called consent. That thing you have to give for sex to be OK. If you’re a child, you’re not able to give consent because you very well may not know what you’re getting into. If you’re dead, you can’t say yes. If you’re an animal, you can’t say yes. Notice a trend here? The fact of the matter is bigotry toward the LGBT community is very much an issue. There are states passing anti-gay laws very reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws by allowing businesses to turn people away based on if they’re gay or not.

6. Conclusion and on political correctness

Political correctness is being aware of your situation and keeping your tone appropriate. What’s described as political correctness here, however, is what’s called being a decent human being. To quote one rather infamous politician who’s made his campaign running against political correctness, “The problem is, people don’t want to hurt each other anymore,” Donald Trump said. That’s not a problem; that’s called not being a sociopath. That’s called having a sense of empathy, because I don’t like it when people say mean or hurtful things to me, and I don’t like seeing other people hurt because of me. The point is, as this is quite clearly a right-wing argument, either get out of our bedrooms, or don’t complain about the government being in your wallet.