Fan Mail in the American News

Dr. Leonard Linde, a family physician practicing in Mobridge, sent this letter to the American News:

Recent American News stories, editorials and letters regarding the Tea Party movement piqued my interest.

In the coverage of the Tea Party rally in Aberdeen, Rev. Ron Parker is reported to have voted for President Barack Obama, but he has now "repented." I didn't know a revered member of the clergy held beliefs that were that capricious.

Professor Kenneth Blanchard's column of April 14 and Jim Zeman's letter of April 25 elaborate on the topic. True, democracy allows all to participate in this process, but I have concerns regarding Blanchard's and Art Marmorstein's involvement.

I wonder if their ultra-right political views are instilled in their students at Northern State University.

Zeman's letter raises the question of what angers Tea Party activists. In my view, they are not able to accept the fact that in the 2008 election, the Democrats won both the Senate and House plus the presidency, and that Obama is black. This country did a marvelous thing in 2008 by electing President Obama.

Leonard Linde, M.D.

As a regular columnist for the American News, I cannot respond with a letter of my own. So I offer one here.

Dr. Linde: would it be fair to ask you, on the basis of your letter, whether you treat all your patients with the same level of concern? Should I wonder whether you give better care to Democrats than to Republicans? In my view, it would not be fair at all. Your degree entitles you to a presumption of fairness and professional conduct. Perhaps I could expect the same in return, if only as a matter of professional courtesy.

It is not my business as a professor to tell students what to think. It is my business to present the primary questions and the various attempts to answer those questions. What gratifies me is not when a student agrees with me, but when she or he is interested enough to engage in learning and conversation.

To suggest, as you have, that a professor's public speech raises questions about his professional conduct, is to suggest that professors forfeit their right to public speech. That has the potential, as the Courts often say, of a "chilling effect" on the speech of one group.  It is also wildly inconsistent with universal practice.  Professors comment frequently on a wide range of matters across a wide range of media outlets. 

You mischaracterize my views and those of my colleague. Speaking only for myself, I am a conservative to be sure. I think that the responsibility for crime lies primarily not with society at large, but with criminals. I think that government overspending and over-regulation have perverse effects, and that they threaten the economic system and liberty in general. I regard it as a matter of some concern that we are running deficits of more than a trillion dollars a year. Those are hardly "ultra-right political views." They are mainstream opinions and, I suspect, they are opinions I share with a majority of Americans.

On the other hand, I have written openly in favor of legalized same sex marriage, in my columns and on my blog. I have written in favor of hate crimes legislation. I publicly and enthusiastically embrace Darwin's theory of evolution, and I am opposed to the teaching of creation science or Intelligent Design theory in the public schools.

To say that my political views are "ultra-right" is patently false.

Finally, to say that the anger of the Tea Party activists is motivated by partisan anger at the results of the last election or by the President's racial identification is also patently false.

In Utah, Tea Partiers have defeated Senator Bob Bennett in his bid for the Republican nomination. In Florida, Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio forced Charlie Crist out of the Republican primary. Whether this is good political strategy or not, it is clearly not motivated by anger at Democrats.

Moreover, Bob Bennett and Charlie Crist are White enough to be almost translucent. Marco Rubio, by contrast, is the son of Cuban exiles. Whatever is driving these Tea Party people, it has nothing to do with race.

Please don't mistake my tone. You wrote a serious letter, and it deserved a serious reply. I have attempted one.

Comments

[Jim Meidinger]

When there are no facts to refute a conservative message, liberals attack the messenger.

[BillW]

The college campus has long been a bastion of liberal thinking. It is a safe haven for those who need to keep their world views sheltered from reality. I have heard it said and have come to believe that a liberal is someone who stops learning when they leave college, while a conservative is someone whose education begins when they leave the campus.

I wonder if the good doctor writes letters to newspapers expressing concern for the legions of liberal thinking academics, protesting their influence on young minds; or is he only frightened by the possibility that a student might hear a rare, conservative view?

[Lynn]

The doctor is simply following the current plan of the Obama administration, and that is to paint anyone who disagrees with them as a racist. This is so patently false that it is laughable. I don't care if Obama is pink, purple, striped, or polka dot - I don't think his POLICIES are good for this country. BTW, I also disagree with Pelosi and Reid, and the last I checked they are white. This doctor needs a lesson in reality and needs to base his beliefs on policy and not implied, false claim of racism.

Just another thought, blacks DID vote 95% for Obama. Were they racist also? Just food for thought.

[Miranda Flint]

Dr. Leo Linde previously objected in the Aberdeen American News, to the interference of clergymen in medical and scientific affairs. I find it a
ironic that a doctor so concerned with keeping professions separate would try to interfere in university affairs.

I would also like to note that the great majority of NSU students are legal adults with their own minds and opinions. It is tremendously demeaning to suggest that such a student would become indoctrinated simply because he heard a conservative view point.

Furthermore, part of the reason it is important for students to attend college is that are, in fact, exposed to different opinions and views. If no professor was able to express one, students would be cheated out of one of the best parts of the university experience. I, for one, would have found college tremendously dull.

But the lovely thing about Northern State University is that the professors and students come from a variety of political backgrounds.

I had the pleasure of taking classes from Dr. Blanchard and Dr. Zeman. One is conservative, the other liberal. Both were able to engage students with opposing views, while treating them respectfully. I am better off for having studied under both of them.

I urge Dr. Linde to consider taking a class!

[BillW]

KB - While I disagree with some of the positions you staked out in your response to the good doctor, I have great appreciation for the fact that you obviously go down the list item by item and end up agreeing with Fox News on some, and MSNBC on others. Such evidence of original thought is a very rare commodity, and one that hopelessly confounds the bi-polar crowd.

The doctor and most people seem to have turned their ability, right and in fact, obligation, to think for themselves over to the propogandists on one side or the other. They get their daily dose of how they are supposed to think on the issues from one source, then do not question or challenge any of it. They apparently need to see the world in simple, crisp black and white with a bright line dividing the solutions to every issue into two choices.

You either agree with the right - down the line, across the board, all in or all out - or you agree with the left - no middle ground is possible in the minds of most folks. The notion that you might look at the ten biggest issues of the day and decide that you agree with McCain of seven of them and Obama on three so, on balance, McCain gets your vote is beyond conception.

When you blog the conservative position ten days in a row, then hit the Internet up with a leftish sort of opinion on the eleventh day, folks like the doctor are, to use a great quote with which Lincoln once described one of his generals, "confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head".

I, for one, am greatly amused by the mental image of the smoke pouring from the doctor's easr as he burns brain cells trying to comprehend what to him is clearly beyond comprehension - a Darwinian fiscal conservative??? It cannot be! Neither Rachael Maddow nor Glenn Beck have never heard of such an animal! Keep it up!

[Ivan]

I grew up in the Mobridge area. I also had Dr. Linde for a doctor a few times. There's a good reason why the good doctor spent all of his career in dead-end Mobridge South Dakota!

[KB]

Thanks to all for the support. I am sending the good Doctor a transcript of this post. Perhaps he will honor us with a comment.

Parties and group perspectives exist because people tend to clump as they make up their minds about a range of issues. This is partly because of the nature of the issues (critics of capitalism like environmentalism because it is another ground of criticism) and partly because the group you are in creates pressure to conform.

I like to think of myself as an independent thinker, but my only point above was that my opinions cannot be fairly described as "ultra-right". I am a moderate conservative with libertarian tendencies.

In fact, ultra-right opinion in the United States is all but none-existent. Who believes in the hereditary right of Kings, or believes that the government should be in the hands of clerics?

But as many of you have pointed out, the Left today has a hard time dealing with dissenting opinions. This may be true of conservatives as well, but it is less true. Pro-choice conservatives are far more comfortable than pro-life liberals.

I believe Doctor Linde succumbed to a very common temptation: he likes to believe that people who disagree with him are deficient in character.

[Anonymous]

As someone who has taken the good Dr. Blanchard's class, I can tell you something that is probably already very clear, Dr. Blanchard does as good of a job as any teacher I've had in disguising his political position and allowing students to think for themselves. Most students in his class have no idea what side of the political spectrum Ken is on. If you know what to watch for, you can catch comments here and there which may allude to his thinking on one side or the other. I am a liberal, and I disagree with many of the positions he takes here on his blog, but I will say that, were it not for his blog, I would not know the position he takes on many issues. I clearly have a different stand on many issues that Dr. Blanchard, but my questions and my comments are not stifled what so ever during his classes. I feel like an accusation of his teaching is ridiculous unless someone has actually sat through his class. As someone who has, I have the utmost respect for him as a teacher and a thinker, even if I don't always agree with his political stance.

[KB]

Anon: Thank you very much for the words. I hope very much that other students see my presentation as you do.