I was reading tv host Pat Sajak's commencement speech entitled "The Disconnect Between Hollywood and America" to a graduating class at Hillsdale College in 2002. It's a good speech; I liked it. Though it was made over a decade ago I believe it still holds strong in its convictions and (accurate) accusations.
I googled it to get some responses, not fishing or snooping for any negatives, but to just get some thoughts on it. A link led to a U2 fansite forum. I quickly read some responses, but one particular user stood out:
It would come to no surprise that whatever the poster heard of Hillsdale College was blatantly negative and the usual "right wing crazy" BS that is the norm amongst more political knowledgeable non-conservatives.
I've noticed that non-conservatives, at least those non-conservatives who seem to know about niche conservative institutions, seem to hold unusual disdain for such things. I didn't know Bob Jones University existed until a classmate of mine did a quick "info" presentation about it in one of our classes (I did the University of Chicago). Whatever conservative publication or institution or "not the usual" conservative" is receiving waves in the conservative world, modernity will find out about it, zero in, and try its best to disparage it. They did it with Thomas Sowell. They did it with Mia Long.
Honestly, knowing about Hillsdale College, unless the poster has some background with it, and speaking about it in that way is just creepy. More people know about Brown University and its overtly liberal atmosphere than Hillsdale, yet when people talk about it there's no where near the contempt for it (if any) as shown by that one poster when talking about a tiny (conservative) college in the Midwest. Its existence just angers him.
I remember reading on another forum when a poster wanted suggestions for political journals, or something of that matter, and one response suggested City Journal. City Journal has a conservative outlook. The poster that responded to that suggestion showed great anger over it. It came across as something very personal. I, too, experienced something similar. I was on a site dedicated to fashion and the topic was suggesting a magazine/newspaper subscription as an "alternative gift" idea for your husband or boyfriend. In the combox, people listed NYT and poetry magazines like Granta and Paris Review. For the most part, all decent suggestions. Then I suggested the WSJ amongst others, like Harper's. Let's just say it wasn't met with warmth. I was then later accused of being biased, when defending WSJ, and accused of "making it political."
What's amusing is that poster "melon" seems to believe that Hollywood is constantly under attack by ... I don't know who. I guess when people like Sajak accuse the entertainment world for belittling middle America it doesn't sit too well with the melon's of the world. Unless the things Sajak said about the industry were false or misconstrued to fit his narrative (which isn't the case), I see don't see Sajak's speech as "out of line."
The complaint just comes across as butthurt. What's also amusing is that the poster dismisses Sajak's speech (I'm not sure if he comprehended it fully) on grounds that the man is upset his politics are the minority in his industry (to tone I get isn't of a man upset; the gist of the speech is captured in the title alone and that's what Sajak concentrates on) and later goes on to complain about "Christian bigotry" (with no examples). This stuff irks him.
Sajak did confess on a Hoover Institute interview that he has friends of indescribable income (in the entertainment world) and "high places", and that he is constantly surrounded by liberals when he goes to work, so the the poster's suggestion for Sajak to do some "outside venturing" is not needed since his work environment is that "outside venturing."
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