Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Patrick X. Coyle, the vice president of Young America's Foundation. Human Events named Mr. Coyle one of the top ten young conservative activists in the nation, citing his success in bringing thousands of high profile conservative speakers to college campuses. He is also co-editor with Foundation president Ron Robinson of The Conservative Guide to Campus Activism and he wrote the Campus Conservative Battleplan, both of which are published by Young America's Foundation. His success has made him a target of a radical leftist website that has published his home address and phone number in an attempt to stop his conservative activism.
FP: Patrick X. Coyle, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Coyle: Thanks for the opportunity.
FP: Tell us about the “Victims of Che” poster. Who devised the idea and what occasion helped launch it? (To view the poster, click here.)
Coyle: Young America’s Foundation president Ron Robinson, came up with the idea, and we then worked with Humberto Fontova, author of Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, to secure the photos that are used in the poster. All of the photographs used are of individuals who were murdered by Che and the Cuban regime.
We decided to launch the poster in conjunction with Freedom Week 2007. Each year Young America's Foundation helps students mark the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Veterans Day with activities that remind students of the failures of progressive ideas and how to honor those who have died protecting our freedom. We sent copies of this poster, free of charge, to more than 120 campuses participating in Freedom Week to expose the real Che Guevara.
FP: Che is obviously an icon on American campuses. What reaction did you get when the posters started going up across the country?
Coyle: We have received an enthusiastic response not just from students on college campuses in the United States but also from people around the world. We have received requests for the poster from Spain, France, and South America. Many have requested that we translate the poster into Spanish for wider distribution in Latin America.
FP: Expand for us on what the poster says and tell us more about Che – who he was and his crimes.
Coyle: Che was a murderer. He killed his friends who didn’t completely reject democratic ideals; he supported Castro’s violent revolution of Cuba; he murdered children, without trial, in his guerilla camps for stealing food, and he authored the book Guerilla Warfare, where he explains the best methods to murder people. He said, “The solution to the world’s problems can be found behind the iron curtain.” This is the same Iron Curtain that forced people into a “gulag” existence. These facts need to be brought out, and young people need to be educated about Che Guevara’s fight to bring communism to South America.
FP: Why do you think the Left pushes Che’s image so much?
Coyle: Many of the Left’s heroes have been discredited including Mao, Lenin, and Stalin. Che is still obscure enough that the Left can push him as a “martyr” and plaster his face on t-shirts worn by young people across the country. The Left hails him as a hero since most students know little about his true history.
FP: What do you hope to achieve with this poster?
Coyle: Young America’s Foundation plans to utilize our network of students on more than 2,000 campuses to place this poster in dorm rooms, lecture halls, student union buildings, and even faculty lounges. Students need to learn about Che’s legacy of violence. Unfortunately, most professors won’t accurately teach about Che’s past, so Young America's Foundation has to fill this void by distributing this poster.
FP: What future projects do you have?
Coyle: We have a full slate of programs and campus initiatives for 2008. Young conservatives across the country will be implementing many of the month-by-month ideas offered in Young America's Foundation’s Campus Conservative Battleplan. These include challenging racial preferences and other race-based programs and sending conservative speakers including Ward Connerly, George Allen, Michelle Malkin, Dinesh D’Souza, John Ashcroft and many others to campuses nationwide. High school students will have a chance to participate in our second annual Reagan Ranch High School Conference which is held February 28 – March 1 at our state-of-the-art Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California. Conference attendees will tour Ronald Reagan’s beloved ranch, Rancho del Cielo as well as learn more about conservative ideas. Finally, Young America's Foundation will be celebrating the 30th annual National Conservative Student Conference this summer in Washington, D.C. This event brings together hundreds of conservative students for a week-long program where they will hear from more than forty speakers. This year we plan to schedule several unique events in honor of the conference’s 30th anniversary.
FP: What were your thoughts on Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?
Coyle: The threat from Radical Islam is a threat we cannot ignore. David Horowitz should be commended for bringing this issue to the forefront on college campuses. It is a shame that so many on the Left and many Muslim Student Associations could not calmly debate the issue and subsequently disrupted lectures featuring David or intimidated students from trying to discuss this issue. As you know, The George Washington University Young America's Foundation chapter was targeted by leftist agitators who posted fliers that read, “Hate Muslims, So Do We!!!” and falsely attributed them to our club. The fliers were created and distributed in response to David’s upcoming appearance. The leftists finally admitted they posted these fliers, but sadly, the GWU administration only gave the students a slap on the wrist—probation and a $25 fine. A parking ticket at GWU costs more.
FP: What are your thoughts on these Gestapo tactics of the Left on campus? Why do you think the Left is so totalitarian?
Coyle: Leftists are not interested in promoting all ideas; they only want to advance their own liberal viewpoints. Ironically, conservative students have become the new rebels at most colleges. They are fighting against an entrenched liberal establishment that, time and again, creates administrative roadblocks to prevent conservative ideas from being heard. Left-wing administrators are scared that their monopoly is being challenged, so they attempt to squash any conservative programs and groups before they gain traction.
FP: Tell us about the Campus Conservative Battleplan.
Coyle: The Campus Conservative Battleplan is released annually and provides campus conservatives with specific activism ideas that they can organize on their campus each month of the school year. The overall activism philosophy of the guide is to encourage students to follow the Ronald Reagan Model of Campus Activism. President Reagan won the Cold War by not appeasing the Soviets as so many of his predecessors tried to do. His goal was to defeat them through accurate descriptions of their flawed system in his speeches and by challenging Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. The Campus Conservative Battleplan provides students with unique ideas and strategies to aggressively advance conservative ideas on campus and follow the Reagan Model of Campus Activism.
FP: What is it that drove you to become an activist?
Coyle: The pervasiveness of political correctness on campus first motivated me to get involved. I was tired of hearing about our “racist” Founding Fathers and the “evils” of America and capitalism from my professors. I wanted to advance the ideals that made America great—individual freedom, free enterprise, traditional values, and the importance of a strong national defense.
FP: What price have you yourself paid for being a conservative activist on campus?
Coyle: I have been targeted by the Left for bringing conservative speakers to campus. The left-wing website, One People’s Project, includes me in their “rogue’s gallery,” and they have published my home telephone number and address.
FP: Patrick Coyle, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. And once again, for those readers interested in viewing the Che poster, click here.
Coyle: Thanks again for all that Frontpage does.