Undercover videos are almost always entertaining and the work the Project Veritas and James O’Keefe have done resonate well, for the most part. The most recent videos do not fall into this category. In fact, they hurt the conservative movement they’re supposed to be supporting.
When I first read the headline, I expected to see another major trampling upon of everything that makes this country great. I was disappointed to find out that the videos were staged in such a way that they made me question the premises upon which the organization thrives. These “gotcha” videos did not accomplish their goal. Instead, they paint the organization as one that will do anything to grab headlines rather than as a group protecting our freedoms and exposing the evils of progressive politics.
University officials agree to rip up 'triggering' Constitution in undercover video: https://t.co/4QHXk6s8yP
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) November 9, 2015
Yes, the videos technically deliver what they’re supposed to deliver. Unfortunately, the premise behind them is so cooked up that one must question whether or not they would do the same thing even if they were Constitution-loving conservatives.
Here’s the backdrop: a “student” comes to a prominent figure at a major university and tells them that they’re having psychological issues with the Constitution. They bring a copy of the Constitution and declare that it’s haunting them, even filling their dreams with negative thoughts. They then tell the administrator that they think they can be “healed” by having them rip up the Constitution.
In a court of law it would be considered entrapment. In the real world it’s asking someone to take a piece of paper that’s causing harm to another human being and ripping it up in order to exorcise contrived psychology demons from their minds. While it’s easy for conservatives such as myself to want to work with the person to prove to them that the Constitution is not the source of their troubles, I can also see how someone would take this premise and go down the easy path of ripping up a piece of paper. The same thing would have happened if it were the Democratic National Platform, the Declaration of Independence, or the administrator’s employment contract. The act of ripping it up to help another human gain symbolic stability is not an unpatriotic act.
To Project Veritas and James O’Keefe: fight the good fight. You did well with ACORN and PBS. Don’t go down this road of craving attention and catching those dastardly Democrats in acts of evil by putting together a scenario that is so contrived that self-respecting conservatives want to distance themselves from you.
Here is the videos: