Following a recent media announcement concerning a school abandoning prayer before the start of sporting events, a friend confessed his frustration at the decision and similar left-of-center proclamations being made across the United States. “If conservatives outnumber liberals two to one in this country”, he lamented, then why do all of these public pronouncements seem to favor secular or progressive agendas?”

Though conservatives outnumber liberals 43% to 21% in the United States, many conservatives still feel they have a small voice in the public debate. They find it difficult to understand why they keep getting beat down in the public arena, when their philosophy is more widely accepted. The simple answer is the liberal-left is very patient and long-suffering. Conservatives, on the other hand, have always sought instant acceptance.

My early college experience dates back more than 50 years. As a freshman at what was then called San Diego State College, I remember the student body had a strong contingent of both World War II and Korean War veterans. In fact, they dominated student government, social organizations and the classrooms. They were so actively patriotic that when a single member of the faculty was discovered to be a Communist, the students drove him from the campus.

Now flash forward to 1990. It was a struggle for me to gain any whisper of a conservative voice on a university campus. In fact, only a single fine arts professor stood beside me declaring his conservative label out of 350 or more faculty members. Now, there may have been a few more conservatives within that mix, but they were well hidden. Over the many years of faculty hiring and determinations of tenure, those of a progressive persuasion kept advancing their numbers until teachers harboring conservative thought were almost non-existent. When a faculty senate is 99% liberal, a conservative has small chance of them voting him or her tenure. As most people realize, with tenure comes job security on any campus and for progressives, a strengthening of their ranks.

These liberal advancements took place, not only at the University of Texas-Pan American, but also in public institutions across the United States. The progressive professors preached their gospel to politically ignorant teen-age students assembled in their classrooms. Four years later another progressive was turned loose on the country. This was particularly the case in our schools of education. Every new teacher pressed out from those molds was a carbon copy of a progressive professor.

The various schools of journalism were also targets of the liberal-left academic invasion. Schools of the early fifties taught us that journalism was a trust and that news was “a here-to-fore unreported FACT of significant interest to the public.” Those ideas of trust and fact vanished as the liberal-left captured our journalism schools and eventually dominated almost every mainstream media outlet.

By controlling both education and the media, a liberal agenda was given center stage in America. Democrats dominated the political arena for decades and still are deeply rooted inside those institutions that seek to control both thought and action.

Conservatives were almost voiceless until the dawning of Talk Radio. Fact centered media information was further advanced with the birth of Fox News. The two outlets, along with a sprinkling of news magazines and newspapers have finally given the conservative movement a voice that can be heard nationally. It is not a giant voice yet, but it is growing in volume almost daily. Is the message being heard? Well conservatives are growing in number...and the liberal-left is no longer accepted as the herald of the people.