The following Opinion Editorial was submitted to Montana1stNews; the author of the piece is Roger Koopman.

Friends of freedom, greetings!

(Via Koopman) The attached guest column was just sent out to Montana’s media. I’m guessing you’ll enjoy reading it. It deals with one of today’s most misunderstood (and intentionally twisted) ideals: The American Dream.

“This piece was prompted by a major public “Symbozium” on the subject that the Bozeman Library hosted last week. Predictably, the four featured “experts were 100% leftists, and the audience of this so-called “community conversation” was not allowed to speak. Questions were sent up to the moderator (an MSU professor) on tiny cards, which he proceeded to run through his ideological filter. No conservative questions were read.

Here’s an example of one of the censored questions I submitted: The great economist Thomas Sowell once stated that “The American Dream is alive for those unversed in the ideology of victimhood.” Do you believe it helps or hinders a person to be told that because of their race, color, gender, or ethnicity, the deck is stacked against them? Here are a few of the “brilliant” — and totally unchallenged — ideas of the mono-minded panel (comprised of one Indian, one Black, one Hispanic, and a token white from Harvard):

1. The American Dream is fading for the younger generations. The government must provide an opportunity for all citizens with various interventions that create upward mobility.

2. It doesn’t matter how smart, talented or hardworking you are if you come from a minority neighborhood. We need to look at multitudes of people instead of individuality.

3. As an Indian, the American Dream didn’t pertain to me. Indian kids weren’t a part of that.

4. We need to separate dreams from colonialism. America has had the colonial perspective of manifest destiny, which simply means taking what you think is yours. America has too much consumption.

5. The problem is “meritocracy.” There has been a terrible pushback against Affirmative Action, which we need to bring back. Reverse discrimination is a fallacy. Many (minority) people just don’t have a chance. In my case, I was just “lucky.”

6. The American Dream has been seen too much as an individual dream. Where do communities fit in? We (the gov’t.) need to invest in communities, fighting entrenched poverty and its causes.

7. The American Dream doesn’t apply to people over 50. It is a luxury. We (meaning the government) don’t take care of our elderly. They are on their own or it is up to their families. We need government policy interventions for the elderly.

8. Our economy requires that many more people go to college. People without degrees are worse off than ever and will have a very hard time getting ahead. We also need to greatly increase the minimum wage.

9. All of America’s resources are going to one tiny group at the top, while the lower 50 percent haven’t seen any gains in income and upward mobility. Our nihilism is causing people to come together and fight for change.

10. It’s not fair for people with the hardest, least desirable (manual labor) jobs to be making the least. We need to reverse that and have them making the highest amounts.

I think you get the picture. Not a single member of the panel disagreed with any of the above absurd statements, and the moderator censored out all the contrary questions. And they called this a “diverse, participatory civil discourse.”

[Editor’s Note] This Op-Ed was written by Roger Koopman