In continuing the tradition of Accuracy in Academia’s summer symposia, we sought to give college students information and perspectives on events current and historical that they are not likely to get from mandatory campus anti-war rallies and college lecture halls. From what we heard from attendees, we succeeded.
The students who attended AIA’s annual conservative university conference gave us high marks on the conference program’s content. “In particular, the U. S. Army representative talking about media in Iraq was exceedingly good,” Jason C. Dombrowski of American University wrote.
That Army representative, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, has worked in public affairs at both the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib detention centers for prisoners taken in the war on terror. Of the former facility, the subject of much recent controversy, Lt. Col. Johnson notes, “They have a long list of routines to go through to even move someone from their cell.”
“Most of the journalists I took on tours of Guantanamo say, ‘What is the big deal?’” Lt. Col. Johnson also talked about the situation on the ground in Iraq, where he is due to return on another tour of duty.
On the domestic side, students also got to hear speakers discuss an issue of growing importance to the young that few college professors will acknowledge. That issue would be the impending collapse of social security and the manner in which personal retirement accounts can prevent it.
The government already raids social security to fund other government programs, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., points out. Rep. Ryan concludes that private personal retirement accounts that only beneficiaries can draw from will go a long way towards ending this practice initiated by outgoing President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
“One out of eight dollars that poor women earn now goes into social security,” policy analyst Carrie Lukas observes. Lukas works with the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), which supports private retirement accounts.
That position puts the IWF at odds with the feminist movement represented by groups such as the National Organization for Women that most students are exposed to on their own campuses. “I call them dependency divas,” Lukas says, “They push for government programs.”
“They are against school choice,” Lukas adds. “They are against personal accounts.” Interestingly, feminists are divided on embryonic stem cell research: Many see it as the “harvesting of women’s bodies.”
Phyllis Schlafly’s conservative Eagle Forum is opposed to embryonic stem cell research. Jessica Echard (pictured)of Eagle Forum pointed out that embryonic stem cell research has yet to produce a disease cure. Adult stem cell research, meanwhile, has. “Laura Dominguez is a successful adult stem cell beneficiary,” Miss Echard told students at Conservative University.
Miss Dominguez, who testified before a U. S. Senate committee a year ago, averted paralysis after surviving a car accident when she received an adult stem sell transplant.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
