Ryan Bomberger, Founder of The Radiance Foundation, joins Dan & Amy for their Campus Beat segment and shares his unfortunate experience with Wheaton College.
[xdownload icon=”fa-youtube-play” text=”Watch the interview with Ryan Bomberger” url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSFEdvIKxEg&t=1s” target=”1″]
Author’s of The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities, Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg, join Dan & Amy to discuss the fundamental problems with Chicago’s government.
[xdownload icon=”fa-youtube-play” text=”Watch the interview with Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg” url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZAx3b6p_qg” target=”1″]
State of the Union Address postponed.
Former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, delays testimony amid claims he fears for his family.
Diocese of Covington and Bishop Roger Joseph Foys, orderthird party, independent investigation.
Waking Up in the Western Suburbs
Hi Dan,
I am a young, millennial (I guess) father of two daughters living in Downers Grove. I grew up in the western suburbs in the 80s and 90s (Burr Ridge) and attended Hinsdale South.
I was went to Trinity Lutheran in Burr Ridge through eighth grade, and was raised in a religious, conservative household. After attending college at Indiana University, I served in the Navy on a submarine for 6 years. My wife and I moved back to the western suburbs and bought our first home in Downers Grove while I went to grad school to start a family in the area we grew up in. I now work for a major financial services company in the northern suburbs. I tell you all of this because I believe it is a fairly typical (aside from military service) middle class upbringing in Illinois.
I tell you the above background to give some context to my point of views. I have always identified myself as conservative, but I have never been active in politics in the sense of being an activist. I follow politics, especially in election years, and vote for conservative candidates, but have never actively campaigned for anyone or any referendum outside of my own family. Your discussion this morning about the western suburbs really shook me. I feel now that I have do something.
I cannot just sit around and complain about higher taxes and the liberals any longer, despite it being a favorite past time of mine. Now is the time for action. The tactics being used by the left, specifically in the Kavanaugh nomination process and now in the Covington Catholic school smear have me scared for our rights. The principles that informed and designed the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and our system of government are now being branded as racist, oppressive, etc.
The combined power of the political left, cultural elite (entertainment & media), and now major corporations (aided by the information control of Google, Facebook, Amazon, & Twitter) have turned what I thought was a snowball into an out of control avalanche. I have been always been able to internalize the struggle or debate because even if not on the state level, on the national level there has always been a sort of self-regulating back and forth between the left and the right that has not allowed the left’s demonization of conservatives for political gain to have lasting traction,
I have been reflecting today on the self-imposed silence of my political beliefs to ease personal interactions and improve my career success and how the 2 have become more explicitly linked the last 10 years. Growing up, I remember discussing political disagreements in high school without fear of repercussion; once I got to college, that started to change.
What I have observed in the 4 short months my oldest daughter has been in kindergarten at Whittier School (district 58 in Downers Grove) has moved beyond a joke or something I complain about at dinner. Consrvative principles of individual liberty, individual rights, and personal responsibility are not only not taught anymore, but the antitheses are being promoted. Equal results are the ideal, the annual theme for the school is “be kind,” which as far as I can tell has nothing to with education and everything to do with defining anything that is politically correct as “unkind,” and use of technology is introduced as a young age as the unquestioned answer to everything, without defining what objective, verifiable, improved result the new technology will achieve.
There was a book sale going on during my first parent’s night at the school, and my wife and I strolled through while waiting for our time slot with our daughter’s teacher. Two books stood out to me – the one about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the one about the struggle of the modern illegal immigrant (it used a more acceptable term, of course). I turned to my wife and joked “the one about Clarence Thomas must be sold out.”
I tell you all of this because I realize now is the time for action. I am young (37), conservative, passionate, and educated. It may be personal what is spurring me into action, because I do not want my daughters to turn into one of the mindless, groupthink clowns that my peers have turned into, lacking the ability to think critically, learn from failures, learn from historical sources of knowledge and morals, etc. I want to prevent my daughters form turning into the kind of person that listens to podcasts and NPR as their main sources of knowledge and truth instead of literature, history, philosophy and religion.
What is your recommended course of action(s)? Attending school board meetings seems like a logical start, as well as campaigning for local candidates and referendums, but are there any existing local groups you recommend joining or partnering with, or should I take a more grassroots, individual approach to start and see what shakes out by me starting to either rattle the cage or shake the tree?
I have reached my breaking point, and hopefully not too late. Thanks for what you do. Your useful anger and ire has made me realize we do not have enough consrvative civic thought leaders willing to speak out in this state; you are the main if not only one. I need to step it up.
No words from Ald. Ricardo Munoz, but his soon to be ex-wife has a few for you.