Raising the Level of Discourse

A UCLA alumni group, the Bruin Republicans, has come up with a McCarthy-style list of the university's 30 "most radical" profs and is offering students $100 to record their lectures for the purpose of "outing" them for using the professorial bully pulpit to criticize Bush. According to the Bruin group's website, they are "are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior," adding, "We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things." Yeah, because what they are doing is so professional.

Professionalism aside, we think it un-American to spy on your neighbors, professors, and friends. On the other hand, the Chinese endorse the practice; the Shanghai police have rigged up a cutesy little "big brother" and "big sister" icon (right) that shows up on every page hosted in their precinct. If you see, horror of horrors, anything objectionable on the web page you're surfing, click the cutie and report it. What's more, they are presumably logging what you surf, so later, if they find that you surfed something "radical" without reporting it, well, don't say we didn't warn you.