Sometimes people who disagree with my politics mock me for referencing communism, because communism supposedly fell a quarter century ago (despite the fact that Marxism is alive and well int he minds of many, many people). But fascism fell seventy years ago… and yet, here we are, with two candidates for president who are readily compared to old school fascists (Trump’s aping of Mussolini’s style, Sander’s aping of fascist policies). And not just these two… fascism is apparently quite popular on college campii today. Witness:

Student Assembly for Power and Liberation Demands (WWU)

These Junior Fascists are demanding the creation of a new “College of Power and Liberation,” funds, physical infrastructure and the power to conduct inquisitions against students and faculty that are insufficiently politically correct. Teachers would face discipline if they main insufficient “safe spaces” int heir classrooms… in other words, if they say, do, teach anything that any precious little snowflake finds to be uncomfortable or just contradictory to their views.

Gah.

I have, from time to time, entertained the notion of wandering up to the University in Logan and finding whoever it would be I’d need to find and attempt to convince them that what the University desperately needs is a new course on “Science for Science Fiction Authors.” It would cover the basics of such things as space flight (including orbits, the actual scale and scope of the universe, propulsion systems, etc.), basic physics and relevant chemistry, biology (including “so what happens when you leave the spaceship without your spacesuit”) and so on. And a not inconsiderable section on sci-fi weapons. Lasers, KE systems, what it would actually take to blow up a planet, that sort of thing.

And every time I consider teaching such a course, I suddenly get this vision of a sizable fraction of the class, populated by English lit majors, suddenly freaking out about not feeling safe in a discussion of phaser guns. And I just can’t imagine that going terribly well, since I have, and can have, no sympathy for their position.