So after I went to Hollywood, I quickly got out of town. Seriously. I took a drive up to Bakersfield, CA which took me almost 2 hours there and only about 90 minutes back. Once you get out of L.A., you just fly… and you go through some very scenic mountains, with almost no population. Then, you get to Bakersfield, which proclaims that it won an award for some kind of emblamatic American city. Sure.
I met up with Travis Ratliff, who leads an ISI associated group, the “Bakersfield Reagan Students.” I’ve gotten to know Travis over the last 9 months or so, at conferences, in DC, and have communicated with him frequently about the things he’s had to deal with as a leader of a conservative group on campus. From what I heard, things sounded almost out of control, with the university violating his freedom of speech and putting up many road blocks from allowing his group to even form.
After hearing all this, I was expecting a much different campus scene. When I arrived, I arrived onto a commuter school campus late in the afternoon with students mosying about. Didn’t look very political one way or the other. I thought to myself, “This is the campus where the PC police were going crazy?” Unreal. I think when professors or people on faculty have a problem with conservative ideas on their campus, no matter where it is, they take over some sort of power control over the small little area of the world they control. As David Horowitz likes to call these Leftist ideologues, “they are totalitarians.” I can see why Horowitz uses such crass language.
Travis invited me to speak at a meeting of his growing student group. About 8 students showed up, mostly of hispanic origin. Travis told them about many different opportunities members of his group would be informed about and how they could take advantage of those opportunities. As the speaker of the idea, I introduced them to the world of ideas and the world of ISI… they all signed up for ISI membership and seemed excited about the possibilities. It was really great to see Travis taking the initiative to get students on his campus involved in his group. At commuter schools, trying to get people to get involved with anything is a challenge… and the student leaders of those kind of groups really have to be up for the challenge.
After I visited Cal State-Bakersfield, I headed back to Beverly Hills. (It’s not every day you get to say that). And, I had myself a burrito at a local establishment and then said good night. It had been a long day and it was starting to feel like a long (yet enjoyable) (yet tiring) 2-week trip. Just 2 days to go.