Young Americans for a Little More Freedom for People Who Think As We Do

As promised, the Southern Poverty Law Center has placed MSU's chapter of Young Americans for Freedom on its list of hate groups.

But this makes two YAF chapters I've been in close proximity to whose actions have been questionable at best. And the last time, at OU, the chapter won an award for being the best chapter of the year (or some such...) at their big conference.

(I've had one go-around with them thus far. they wanted to shut down the vagina monologues, so I told them to stick it. As you can guess, the show went on.)

I do think that YAF is a hate group, but not for the reasons the SPLC would tag them. YAF exists to get people to hate leftward, progressive politics, and to despise people whose opinions run counter to theirs. They don't do a very good job of encouraging debate or providing a contrary opinion to the "wisdom" of the Left. But they do an excellent job of smearing and sneering, not to mention creating silly and demeaning political stunts to draw attention to themselves (and often shoot themselves in the foot).

Of course, the University seems more upset that their YAF chapter was tagged with this label than they are at having such a group on campus. It goes without saying that they have a right to be there, speak their minds and so on, but just once I would love to see MSU's president go on record as saying that in any marketplace of ideas, some ideas are much less constructive than others.