High School Contest Winner: Kai Sherwin, Grade 11, Greenwich High School “What is the Greatest Threat to Free Speech” “If […]
Author: bmarrow13
BM: What exactly do you see as the relationship between extremism in the Middle East and Islam?
AM: Well, what they are extreme about is Islam. It is a pretty direct relationship. It’s complex because it doesn’t mean that that it is the only way of interpreting Islam, but it is the dynamic Islam of the Middle East, and it’s a shame that when we say extremism, we say it mindlessly, because there is something specific that they are being extreme about.
BM: You’ve written a lot on social welfare and how it pertains to race and the problems associated with it. At heart, what is the bulk of the problem? Is it with the structure of the laws themselves or is it with their implementation?
JR: I think the biggest problem is the incentives that have been put in place in the name of helping. They have been counterproductive and I’m speaking specifically of the government efforts that began in earnest with the Great Society Programs of the 1960’s. If you look at what has happened to the black family since then in terms of illegitimacy rates, in terms of crime rates, in terms of incarceration rates, even in terms of poverty you see that the government’s efforts to help have not done so.
Overview
Last Friday the Buckley Program welcomed Peter Collier to campus to speak with fourteen Buckley fellows over a lunch at Mory’s. Mr. Collier was invited by the Buckley Program to talk about his book Political Woman: The Big Little Life of Jeane Kirkpatrick but provided many interesting insights regarding the modern day political spectrum.
Mr. Collier began by giving a short history of Jeane Kirkpatrick and the political landscape that brought her and Ronald Reagan into contact. When Reagan was the Republican nominee in 1980, Kirkpatrick, a born and bred Democrat, was invited to work for Reagan after he read a piece she wrote regarding the double standard of dictatorships. However, Mr. Collier said that once Kirkpatrick and Reagan were in the same room, talking about foreign policy, they instantly clicked; “love at first sight,” he chuckled.
The Buckley Program’s recent guest speaker, Christina Hoff Sommers, gave a lecture on her vision for “freedom” feminism, and sparked an important conversation around campus about feminism and women’s rights. In the hopes of providing a small snapshot of this reaction, The Beacon features both an opinion piece of a current Buckley fellow, Karina Kovalcik, and an official statement issued by the Yale Women’s Center. It is our hope that these two responses foster additional discussion and reflection.
Opinion Piece by Karina Kovalcik
On Thursday night, Christina Hoff Sommers came to Yale’s campus and gave a talk on modern-day feminism. Since Yale is a breeding ground for motivated, driven, and strong, independent women, a feminist coming to give a talk doesn’t seem that out of place. However, this event was not a typical talk on feminism, and Christina Hoff Sommers is not your typical feminist (on the surface anyway).
buckleybeacon.com 