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“It is no longer a celebration when you have people getting shot” Milwaukee Police Captain Michael Young.

For those of you who missed the launch of the summer festivals, RiverSplash, consider yourself rather lucky. Not that I was shot at personally but it was a disturbing situation. By the time I got to Splash it was absolutely chaotic. Unlike Friday night, there had to be double the number of people and it was not a good situation to be had. I and fellow gop3-er Brian Collar were smart enough to get out of there by the time we saw the undermanned security trying to break up one of the countless fights. I am still baffled at what would attract so many people to RiverSplash. It couldn’t have been the bars because they weren’t in there, they were all outside fighting and shooting each other. The Journal has been trying to piece together some of last night’s events.

Allan Laird, who said that as a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher he is not easily intimidated, told how he, a woman friend and their two teenage children feared for their safety as they tried to leave the festival about 11:15 p.m.

“My son said, ‘We should get out of here, someone might have a gun,’” Laird recalled.

About 25 minutes later, according to Milwaukee police, multiple arguments broke out among crowds of people N. 3rd St. and W. Highland Ave. and an 18-year-old man was shot in the foot.

As his group walked north and west of the area, Laird said, he saw groups of males “play fighting” and some males trying to pull females out of cars that were stalled in traffic. Laird said one male tried to scare him by swinging a fist over his head.

That just screams class doesn’t it? In fact I think it’s real important to attract more of this type of crowd.

Police described a chaotic scene shortly after the festival closed at 11:30 p.m. The streets were filled with people who were “drunk and scared,” Milwaukee police Captain Michael Young said.

Young said he did not have figures of the number of arrests made, but that numerous arrests involving disorderly conduct were made.

Marsha Sehler, a spokeswoman for RiverSplash, said the shooting and bottle throwing are a concern, but they should not be a black mark on an event that has generally been very safe.

Yeah Marsha, there is absolutely no crisis. The event is generally safe, minus the countless arrests, out of control fights, bottle throwing, drunken rowdiness, SHOOTINGS, and how many other crimes will go unreported. Yeah I felt really safe. I guess it shows that people like Marsha don’t actually attend their own events. Or the leave at 7pm before stuff gets out of hand.

RiverSplash spokes people remarked later “What? The guy can’t take a gunshot in the foot?” That’s generally safe part of the body to take a bullet.”

Ald. Robert Bauman, who represents the area, called the incidents “extremely disturbing” because RiverSplash has been so safe in the past. He said the city would review what happened to see if any changes should be made at RiverSplash or at other festivals that will be held this summer.

“We’re going to retrace our steps to make sure nothing’s been overlooked and that security is as strong as possible,” Bauman said

Thanks Bob!

I would not disagree with figuring out a way to charge people to get in. That would keep the crowd a bit smaller. Eliminating the event should always be on the table after what happened last night. I will say this though, I commend all the bars for having a stringent carding policy. And especially to the bouncer at McGillycuddys for realizing that a girl born in 1984 is not 22.

Today, my brother and I were exchanging emails about the Supreme Court and he told me he just figured out that five of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Catholic (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy). All of them are the more conservative justices on the Court. If I remember correctly, during Alito’s confirmation, the MSM and the blogosphere addressed this. For a long time, Catholics were a religious minority in the U.S. (and sometimes an un-welcomed minority) so it is interesting to see that Catholics now hold the majority on the Supreme Court.

I also was just perusing the news and started reading more about Bobby Jindal, Louisana’s new (young) governor who is very conservative. Conservatives rave about him. I think Rush Limbaugh called him the next Ronald Reagan. I learned that he is Catholic. Dinesh D’Souza, a political commentator, is also Catholic. So is Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review. Both Indian-American Catholics.

Now my point is not that the Court is going to be overrun with Catholics (though that is an argument some people make and I understand why) or that all Indian-Americans tend to be Catholic and conservative. My point is that it seems many of the conservative movement’s most important leaders and most ardent followers are Catholic.

First, as a short side note about the Court and Catholicism, the influence of the justices’ religions leanings is an issue that I am NOT addressing. It is a good debate/discussion to have, but just elsewhere. My point is, certain Catholic justices, particularly Scalia and Thomas, are viewed as major contributors and proponents of the conservative movement, and the fact that they are Catholic in the first place is worth noting.

Second, to clarify what I mean by the conservative movement: I do not mean the Christian Right (i.e. Jerry Falwell and the likes). I mean something very different; think Heritage Foundation, National Review, talk radio (Dennis Prager not Rush - disclaimer: Prager is Jewish not Catholic), and the like. I have always had issues with the Christian Right being associated with or called “conservatives.” I don’t think they are “conservative,” which is also a different topic in itself. But for the sake of brevity, by “conservative” or “conservative movement,” I do not mean those individuals or groups of people.

So in my view, without a ton of preliminary/background research, the most influential and prominent leaders of the conservative movement were and are predominately Catholic. The late William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review, was Catholic. So was Russell Kirk, another giant in the early conservative movement and author of The Conservative Mind (he converted). Eric Voeglin, an extremely influential 20th century political philosopher, described himself as a “pre-Reformation Christian.”

At the Heritage Foundation, where I interned last year, I was pleasantly surprised to find out so many scholars, employees and interns were Catholic. Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, is Catholic. So is my boss, Dr. Lee Edwards, as was Dr. Matthew Spalding, director of the Center of American Studies. I could list more, but I think you get the point. Several interns were Catholic.

National Review also is home to many Catholics: Kate O’Beirne, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Ramesh Ponnuru, and others (can’t think of more at the moment).

Others: Michael Novak, journalist, author, AEI scholar; L. Brent Bozell Jr., a conservative activist through the 1970s; Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speechwriter and WSJ columnist; Henry Hazlitt and Murray Rothbard, famous economists and staunch advocates of free markets; Pat Buchanan, syndicated columnist; Sean Hannity of Fox News. Many of the European emigres (who came in the 1940s-50s) who helped shape the intellectual underpinnings of modern conservatism were Catholic or converted to Catholicism.

In our very own political science department at Marquette, Dr. Hanley, Dr. Dobbs, and Dr. Wolfe, all known to have conservative bents, are all Catholic.

I know there are so many others, but these as just ones from memory.

I think noting the influence of Catholics in the conservative movement is important for a couple of reasons. First, I think it has implications about Catholic teaching on many subjects (theological, social, political, economic, etc.) and how various Catholics interpret it, especially on subjects like social welfare, pro-life issues, and the role of the state. This also has serious implications for American politics in general. Second, Catholics were an important element in the Democratic Party from the rise of the urban political machines in the late 19th-early 20th centuries when there was heavy Catholic immigration from Europe, and in the establishment of the Roosevelt Coaltion and support of the New Deal. However, after the 1940s, there seemed to have been a major shift in ideological alignment among Catholics due to the rise in anticommunist sentiment in the U.S. and from the Vatican. I don’t remember exactly which pope it was, but whoever was pope in the 1950s was extremely anticommunist and many Catholics followed. Probably more often than not anticommunists tacked on to a political philosophy that later became known as modern conservatism.

I was also looking online to see if there was any literature on this subject and was delighted to find a book by a man named Patrick Allitt: Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America.

George Nash’s book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 also gives some insight on this subject, but not much.

Catholics in general still tend to vote more liberal/Democratic, surely not all of the conservative movement’s important leaders are Catholic, and there are probably very influential liberal leaders who are Catholic. What I am saying is that the role of Catholic individuals in shaping and sustaining the conservative movement is monumental and I think should be more highlighted. I hope to do so in later posts.

Since this is just one blog post, I don’t want to get too detailed yet since there are so many specific topics that can be further discussed and debated. The point of this specific post was to note that several of the most prominent and influential conservative thinkers and writers are Catholic and I think it is worth investigating why. These people are deeply moved by their religious convictions, so why would they identify themselves as conservatives and why would they promote the conservative movement?

Hopefully I’ll have more posts up about this soon.

So usually I would just write a post about something like this myself especially since I was present at the occurrence, but Dr. McAdams has already done so on his MU Warrior blog. His post is a summary and an analysis of what happened in Dr. Snow’s Philosophy of Crime and Punishment class on Thursday, April 3. That class is a prime example of the viewpoint discrimination that is extremely prevalent at Marquette and at other institutions of higher learning around the country, which is why I wanted to link his post here.

I was present in Dr. Snow’s class when my classmate, Greg Karge, was intellectually assaulted in class based on his comments on race and the police. Overall, this class is very discussion-based, which I really do enjoy; however not all viewpoints are equally respected.

As a side note, I wanted to support Greg, but I was afraid that my opinion would also be unreasonably criticized and suppressed. So after the class, especially when I saw the professor pulled Greg aside afterwards and after receiving his “apology” email, I felt that I had not only let Greg down, but I also had failed to stand up against viewpoint discrimination.

And vote smart on Tuesday.

My wonderful conservative friends, do the intelligent thing and vote in the Democratic primary, not the Republican primary. McCain has the GOP nomination in the bag. Voting for Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee (gag) might give you more ideological satisfaction, but having someone like Barack Obama as president could prevent a solid conservative from being in the White House for a long time. Your vote would mean a lot more by voting for the weaker of the two Democratic nominees. This is code for: VOTE FOR HILLARY.

There is method to this madness. Barack Obama is clearly a more formidable candidate and would have a greater chance, I think, to win the presidency against a Republican like McCain. Obama is a lot more liberal than Hillary and is crazy enough to think he is “above politics.”

I have become convinced that an Obama presidency would be far worse than another Clinton one. If Hillary does get the nomination and the presidency, I don’t think she would change all that much despite some of her rhetoric. She has an agenda and I think will be forced to negotiate. Of course she will stump for socialized medicine and universal health care but I do not think she could push it through if people really urged Congress to vote against her proposals. I also think this could give the GOP an opportunity to put a better conservative candidate up in 2012. And I’m sure many of you know who I have in mind!

Hillary is such an extremely divisive figure that I think she could get trounced in the general election. So many people have such a visceral reaction to her that they would never vote for her no matter who the opponent was. She would lose the women vote. In Iowa, the only women group she won was the 60+ years bracket. So for those of you who can’t stand the idea of her in the White House can maybe rest easier. McCain is more popular among moderates, independents, and Democrats and is a less polarizing figure. I think he has a great chance of being elected over Hillary, and less so than if he were put up against Obama.

Finally, as a side note, John McCain does not stand for conservative values or governance. He is on the wrong side of a few very key issues (immigration, poltiical speech, etc). I personally would rather have four years of crappy Democratic policy via Clinton than four to eight years of pseudo-crappy McCain policy and then have liberal Democratic administrations for the next four election cycles.

For several of you, I have already pitched this proposal and a few of you are already doing what I plan to do. For those I haven’t talked to, hopefully you consider this option. But of course the most important thing to do is just vote on Tuesday!

Mark Steyn had a great article on Barack on Saturday. Read it - hopefully it gives you a better idea about what Barack is about.

So if anyone had a chance to look at Marquette news briefs from yesterday (January 14) you would have found out that the University has completed its property purchase, including the buildings at 1202 and 1222 W. Wells St, which is right across the street from Al McGuire Center and from Haggerty’s Pub. Finally something will be going in there. I’m hoping a few franchises. It was always a pain to walk from Carpenter to Marquette Gyros, or take the bus to Chipotle or God forbid we could actually get a legit grocery store? (when I say legit, I mean one with more variety in fruits and vegetables than in beer) Something closer would be great. I’ll have to suggest this, but how…?

However what went unmentioned is the fact that Sweeney’s Book Store is in one of the properties that was purchased. And now one of the biggest suspicions on Marquette campus is true: Marquette University will not be renewing Sweeney’s lease which expires in September 2008, effectively bouncing the long term competition of the BookMarq. Isn’t it great to know that come fall Marquette will have cornered the market on campus books?

From my personal standpoint this is obviously terrible. I haven’t been to BookMarq since I was a freshman and didn’t realize there was competition on campus. Sweeney’s has nearly always been cheaper and the service has always been better and I haven’t purchased books at any place since. Yeah I know people can still go online for books and I encourage every at MU to try that but, sometimes given shipping costs Sweeney’s can still compete.

Tonight is the 2007 Debate on Health Care, sponsored by the College Republicans and the College Democrats. It is currently taking place in AMU 254 and started at about 7pm. The panelists are: Leah Vukmir, representative of the 14th district in the Wisconsin State Legislature, Jerry Frye, President of the Benefit Services Group, Dr. Robert Kraig, program and communications director of Citizen Action, and Dr. Therese Lysaught, associate professor of Theology at Marquette University.

I am currently taking notes on the debate and will post them shortly.

There will be coverage on the debate. MUTV is currently filming and the Tribune is covering the debate.

Two things first: 1) I have not blogged in over six months - I apologize. 2) For those of you who have been reading for a while, you may know I am pretty obsessed with the idea of Newt Gingrich running for president.

I have not been paying much attention to the 2008 presidential race up until trecently. On the Democratic side, I am pretty sure it would be next to impossible for Hillary Clinton to NOT be the nominee. On the Republican side, things are a little more interesting, but I would say a little bit pathetic. Every few months, there is a new craze over who will save the party and stand up against the Hillary machine. First it was Rudy Giuliani, then it was Mitt Romney, now (and soon to be not) it is Fred Thompson. The election is a little less than 14 months away and we’re already trying to choose our candidates.

I still think it is imperative for Newt Gingrich to run for president. If he does, he could serve the country, the conservative movement, and the Republican party in a similar way that Barry Goldwater did in 1964 when he ran against LBJ. But instead of making conservative values popular for the first time, he’d reinvigorate those values, make them popular again, and translate them into effective policy solutions.

To be honest, I think the ills within the Republican party were self-created. After the 2004 elections, it seems to me that Republicans got complacent with having the power in all three branches of government, did not get anything done, and lost a bunch of key political battles. Along with recent scandals and some ineffectiveness of the Bush administration to communicate policies to the public, the Republican party in general also really just abandoned their conservative ideals of small government, lower taxes, and individual liberty. At this point, there is little substantive difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

With that said, I believe that Republicans are most likely going to suffer more losses in 2008, including the White House. Hence, I think it would be best to put up a nominee like Newt who could reinvigorate and excite the conservative base of the Republican party and clear the way for a more conservative candidate in the years to come (maybe as early as 2012). Republicans have been forced to promote candidates who are not really even conservative (i.e. Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Ron Paul, the outspoken libertarian and foreign policy appeaser) and candidates who have no idea what they’re doing (i.e. Fred Thompson, the next “Reagan” who cannot even verbally distinguish his views from those of the other candidates). Newt, not Thompson, would fill the conservative void in the race. He has the practical political skills and the innovative ideas. He is the best among both parties in communicating his stances and policy proposals.

Despite his skill and potential, Newt’s chances of winning against Hillary are slim. Politically speaking, Newt has some political baggage (stepping down as Speaker, marriage issues) that might hinder his chances of winning. Hillary’s campaign machine is extremely well-organized. Nevertheless, it would be best to put up a candidate who actually stands for something and could be an effective leader. I’d rather put a candidate like Newt and lose than put up a candidate like Romney or Giuliani and lose.

In 1964, the Republican Party had a choice between Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York and the longtime leader of the GOP’s liberal-moderate faction, and the conservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. The party chose Goldwater who stood for principles of small government, individual liberty, lower taxes, ones that were beginning to become more mainstream after over three decades of the FDR liberal establishment.

Goldwater was not elected and America barely got through the disasters of the LBJ/Carter years. I think we could tolerate another Democratic administration. I think if a Democrat got into the White House, especially if it is another Clinton, then the conservative movement and the Republican party will work harder to fight for sound public policies and to win political battles. Republicans need to re-learn that conservative ideals are American ideals and that leftist liberalism is completely out of step from the American mind and political tradition.

Win or lose, a Newt Gingrich bid for the presidency would be transformative for the American political process, general political dialogue, the conservative movement, and the Republican party.

Did you see this new initiative, “The Elders” ? It was announced last week. ABC News reports:

The Elders, a new alliance made up of an elite group of senior statesmen dedicated to solving thorny global problems, unveiled itself today in Johannesburg[, South Africa]. The rollout coincided with founding member Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday.

There are ten elders: former South African president Nelson Mandela; Desmond Tutu, South African archbishop emeritus of Capetown; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel laureate and founder of the Green Bank in Bangladesh; Indian microfinance leader Ela Bhatt; former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland; former Chinese foreign minister and UN ambassador Li Zhaoxing; and Nobel laureate turned human rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

According to the Elders’ website, “We are moving into a global village and yet we don’t have our global elders. The Elders can be a group who have the trust of the world, who can speak freely, be fiercely independent and respond fast and flexibly in conflict situations.”

Is it just me, or is that an acknowledgment? that the United Nations has been an utter failure? Isn’t this why we have a UN? To respond to conflict situations around the globe? To intervene in internal conflicts? To mediate? To provide human rights leadership? Aren’t they proposing to pick up the slack of what the UN ought to be doing already?

Listed previously on Daniel Suhr’s thorough summary of upcoming campus events is Saturday’s Diversity Conference. Sponsored by MUSG, the conference would not have made much of an unusual call to my attention had it not been for the ever-informative Facebook News Feed.

It called loudly. If the title of the conference is any indication, the focus will be going “Beyond Tolerance: Moving Toward Acceptance and Advocacy.” From the event’s Facebook page:

On Saturday, April 14, MUSG will host a diversity conference entitled, “Beyond Tolerance: Moving Toward Advocacy.” This This is an exciting event that will integrate interesting workshops, inspiring media presentations and a thought-provoking keynote.

Two notable workshops will be “Hurricane Katrina: A Man-Made Disaster” and “Racial Aesthetics: The Standard of Beauty in a Racist World.”

The conference will also feature screenings of Media that Matters short films, which are geared toward social justice oriented topics from gay rights to economic justice. The screenings should spark worthwhile discussion and foster meaningful social action and advocacy.

Carlos Andrès Gòmez, an award-winning poet and actor from New York City, will give the keynote address. Carlos is also a former social worker and teacher and will speak about his experiences with social advocacy while integrating poetry and style.

This title alone is quite curious. There is nothing about diversity that requires acceptance, much less advocacy. While tolerance is the essence of a diverse community, approval and encouragement of all differences from all parties results in an actual stifling of diversity. In fact, true diversity is impossible if it calls for these things.

Alas, a frequent problem with promotions of “diversity” is that advocates of certain groups believe that we must go beyond tolerance. The title of MUSG’s conference is a blaring endorsement of that ideology. It should be noted, at the least, that the organizers deserve credit for publicly proclaiming this viewpoint rather than backhandedly promoting it.

Of course, it’s important to go beyond the title, too. As Daniel also notes, the MUSG website explains that the conference’s purpose is “to challenge participants to move beyond indifference and tolerance and toward becoming active agents of positive change against oppression.”

This indicates the larger agenda of the conference, focused on ending oppression. A complete listing of the topics and events is not readily available, but those mentioned in the Facebook blurb appear to be from quite a short, homogeneous (irony anyone?), liberal-favorites list. What does look particularly interesting and not nearly so politically slanted, however, is the fact that “the conference also seeks to examine racial issues that permeate the metropolitan Milwaukee area.”

Further, while there are no details on what types of social advocacy experiences keynote speaker Gòmez will discuss, a search of his website reveals that his poems have been included in such socially active publications as this one.

I hope to attend on Saturday, if possible, to see how closely the content of the conference matches up with the title. It would be refreshing to see diverse viewpoints represented in the presentations given.

Speaker Pelosi is allowed a vacation like every other working person; however, while her colleagues in the House are working for their constituencies and spending time with their families during the recess, Pelosi is defiantly pursuing her own agenda. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the Middle East during the spring recess of Congress this week. She is meeting with dignitaries such as Syrian president, Bashar Assad, and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Our government was formed by a Constitution of enumerated powers. This means that the Constitution delegates power in the affirmative, and Congress is only allowed to exercise those powers stated in the Constitution.

According to the Constitution, the president is given the power to “receive ambassadors and other public ministers” (Art. II, Sect. 3). Also, the president appoints United States ambassadors to work in his stead with the advice and consent of the Senate (Art. II, Sect. 2). As far as I can recall, Speaker Pelosi is not the president nor is she an appointed ambassador of the president. So, why, then, is she acting as an ambassador to a nation (namely Syria) that the elected President of the United States has decided to ignore?

Regardless of whether the President’s decision to isolate Syria is a good one or not, Speaker Pelosi is over-stepping her bounds as Speaker with her out-right defiance of our Head of State. Her actions show that she has very little regard for the Constitution and American government as an institution.