Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.
During the third hour, Carmichael referenced a book and an interview with author John Ellis called The Breakdown of Higher Education and later weighed in on higher education’s programming and use of propaganda to indoctrinate young students into the left-wing mentality.
Leahy: Crom, do you think we’ll make it through the rest of the year?
Carmichael: Well we’ll get through the rest of the year. (Leahy laughs) It has been just the craziest year. It’s the craziest year I have ever experienced and I’m not a spring chicken.
Leahy: It’s crazier than 1968 I think.
Carmichael: Yes. 1968, 2008, 2009 it’s just been the craziest year we’ve had. I saw a program with Mark Levin had a fellow named John Ellis on. John Ellis is probably in his early 70s. So he’s been in higher education for a very very long time. He’s written a book called The Breakdown in Higher Education.
What they went over was that 50 years ago when colleges did more or less an assessment of the ratio of liberals to let’s call them conservatives on college campuses as professors. And it was three to two. And then they started looking at the hiring practices and it grew to five to one. The hiring practices today are Michael is 48 to one.
Leahy: Yes. That sounds about right.
Carmichael: 48 to one, liberal to conservative. Here’s my question. Under the civil rights act and all these rulings handed down by the supreme court, if a conservative female or conservative Black person or Hispanic person or conservative gay person is turned down for professorship because they are conservative, do they have any protections?
Leahy: Interesting question. Do you think that they do?
Carmichael: I would like to think that they do especially since the stated goal of higher education is to provide a place of ideas and where people who are around 20 years of age can learn to think.
Leahy: This is the key. Learn to think. This is not happening.
Carmichael: No. Of course, it’s not.
Leahy: It’s K-12 and higher education. These kids are not learning to think. They are learning what the accepted propaganda is.
Carmichael: They are just being programmed.
Leahy: Tell me the answer you want teacher.
Carmichael: It’s worse than that. Because if you tell me the answer that you want implies that you know that there’s another one. (Leahy chuckles) And they are just being programmed to think only one thing. If you watched a debate where two people who are debating took the same position and then you are asked to pick which side won the debate, there’s only one side that’s presented.
It doesn’t’ matter which one you pick. You’re going to pick the same argument. That’s what we’re seeing in colleges and it’s been going on now starting in K-12. Higher education then came a little bit behind it. But now you have in K-12 you have people trying to push the 1619 Project which is just pure propaganda.
Leahy: Yes. The 1619 Project pushed by The New York Times which basically says America has been institutionally racist for 100 years since 1619. But it ignores all sorts of counter-evidence and factual evidence.
Carmichael: Yes. What I’m saying is that it is fundamentally anti-American.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: And Americanism is a set of values.
Leahy: It’s an idea.
Carmichael: It’s an idea.
Leahy: Liberty. Individual liberty and accountability.
Carmichael: Yes. So if all of those things therefore according to the 1619 Projects are wrong because they are racist. So the argument is that anything that is racist is wrong. So then anything that I define as racist is automatically wrong.
Leahy: And everything that conservatives think is racist.
Carmichael: Yes. By definition. So in higher education, they are not being taught the same thing. If you look at the places where people go to get information or even to get ideas you have television. You have Hollywood which I’m separating television from movies. You have K-12. You have higher education and social media.
And you used to have sports where you had competition. I’m waiting for the determination to be in sports to be the goal for every game to be tied at the end. And therefore all of the participants will be deemed to be equal. In fact, that ought to be something that Republicans should push in legislation just because it’s so ridiculous on its face. See if Democrats would sign up for it.
Leahy: Yes. We are talking about the sports industry and the sports groupthink going on right now. When I was growing up right now the term you would call somebody who played sports that didn’t think a lot a dumb jock. Remember that term?
Carmichael: Oh yeah.
Leahy: Now the term is not a dumb jock, it’s a non-thinking compliant jock like Drew Brees who bent the knee because he once said, oh, everybody’s lives matter. Now he’s going on his apology tour and Coach K is part of this crowd.
Carmichael: It was more that he wouldn’t dishonor the flag.
Leahy: Yes. Now he has to abandon that principle to protect his livelihood.
Carmichael: He’s got plenty of net worth.
Leahy: But he doesn’t have the courage. He should have had the courage for his convictions. He should have basically retired and said I cannot play in a league that will not honor the flag. But he won’t do it because they are all group thinkers, unfortunately.
Carmichael: And he wants to play. Playing football matters more to him than his…
Leahy: Than his principles.
Carmichael: Than his principles. Too bad. And that’s just the way it is. Now in sports, you now have the political correctness taking over in sports. And I really think that there is an opportunity here. And the owners of the sports seem like they are in a real quandary.
Leahy: They are in a terrible spot.
Carmichael: Because they know that they have to placate Democrats. They know they have to do that because all of their venues or almost all their venues are in cities controlled by Democrats.
Leahy: Right. And it’s paid for in many cases by the taxpayers in those cities.
Carmichael: Sure. That’s what I mean. So they need to placate the Democrats and they can’t play sports right now because it’s more important to toe the line on COVID and then it is to play sports. They are giving up a whole season of revenue.
Leahy: I think the NBA is coming back. And the NFL is coming back. Major League Baseball may be coming back.
Carmichael: Major League Baseball is talking about playing 60 games but it will hardly have any fans. It will be televised. The NBA is trying to come back but that’s even kind of iffy.
Leahy: By the way, I know this will really be delightful to hear that icon left-wing progressivism, LeBron James the guy that wants to make sure Laura Ingrahm gets off the air. That guy. He’s a far far left guy. He wants to intimidate everybody to bend the knee to his view of the world. He’s spending 100 million dollars on establishing a new media empire so he can change the culture.
Carmichael: That’s interesting. He’s putting up 100 million dollars of his own money. We’ll see how that fairs. He’s in a very competitive landscape.
Leahy: It’s entirely predictable. It’s not just LeBron James. It’s the coach of the Spurs, Popovich. He’s a left-winger.
Carmichael: Is he part of the LeBron James initiative?
Leahy: I don’t think he’s part of it but he’s aligned with it. Steve Kerr. These guys are far-left progressives. Spoiled brats basically who are being paid multi-million dollars to play a game. They condescend to a majority of their fans by trying to tell them what to do. It’s really disgusting.
Carmichael: It kind of reminds you that line in the Russell Crowe in The Gladiator. Are you not entertained? (Leahy laughs) When he was standing out there as a gladiator. He just killed a bunch of other gladiators and the crowd was clapping for him. He wasn’t a gladiator. He was the warrior that was captured.
Leahy: The military guy.
Carmichael: We’ll see. There’s a lot of competition.
Leahy: So you were talking about Dr. John Ellis who by the way is professor of literature of the University of California Santa Cruz. Now there’s a far left organization right there.
Carmichael: Really?
Leahy: Oh yes. The most far left. The University of California at Santa Cruz. The most far-left institution.
Carmichael: He must then be an island.
Leahy: He is an island.
Carmichael: He’s been there for a very very long time and he wrote the book…
Leahy: The Breakdown of Higher Education: The Damage it Does and What Can be Done.
Listen to the full third hour:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
