Presumption of Shared Goals...Or, the Ridiculous-ness of an Auto-reply From an Elected Official Who Knows That You Know That He Knows He is Full of it...

Ah yes, the bureaucratic auto-reply of thoughtlessness and double-speak.
I believe Hannah Arendt referred to it as the "banality of evil." 
It's cool though because Mr. Senator respects the deeply held beliefs of...blah, blah, blah. 

Dear Mr. Malcolm:

Thank you for contacting me to share your views on abortion.  I do appreciate hearing from you.

Illiberal Liberalism

Or, "Why the Totalitarians of Thought are Blind to Their Own Illiberalism and Why Their Tactics Will Cultivate an Increasing Atmosphere of Violence Which is the Very Problem They Purport to Avoid."

George Will describes the campus atmosphere of in which suppression of free inquiry and open expression is the norm...fostered by both faculty and students but apparently a trait practiced more openly on behalf of liberalism, (ironically).

Combox replies as usual are useless and demoralizing...consisting only of either disagreement based on ad hominem or denial that suppression is problematic. Lord have mercy if we actually have to consider the issue. The reader is trained to obsfucate first.

However I think Will's article doesn't go quite far enough...it superficially blames the left, yet neglects to reach the substance of the problem. It is merely an anecdotal commentary that comes off as moralistic to the people he would seek to correct.

The problem is philosophical...and it is a philosophical error that is taught..explicitly. We have here a problem of education.