Despite Madison’s progressive nature, good old country music came into fashion last week when ASM Silver member Ken Golden floated an idea to give the key to the city to none other than the Dixie Chicks.

Madison does not have much of a country and/or western music scene that I am aware of, but the anti-Bush scene is unavoidable and fashionable. Not surprisingly, the Chicks appeared on the council’s radar after they partook in some controversial Bush bashing.

In Golden’s defense, his resolution was written tongue-in-cheek, and Lord knows this city could use a little humor. Still, if the Chicks hadn’t gone after the president, they wouldn’t have gained anyone’s attention in this town.

But they did bash Bush in a public forum, and many conservative groups boycotted and even burned their CDs, which is their right. This “right wing” backlash has many in our community very concerned. Where can fellow enlightened Bush-haters turn when the rest of the country won’t listen? Madison, of course.

Golden’s more humorous resolution was eventually replaced with a broader affirmation that Madison is a “city of tolerance.” Tolerance has of course become an obsession on this campus, continuing this week when university officials announced “Days of Learning and Discovery,” their latest campus climate initiative.

For now, I won’t rip on the initiative’s happy, feel-good euphoric title. Instead I openly hope the people who attend these listening sessions May 1 and 2 take a few minutes to discuss the climate for diverse speech and ideas, in addition to the presumed attention that will be spent on the climate facing ethnic minorities.

Namely, how is the climate for conservative speech and conservative ideas on campus and in this community? No one can deny the leftward tilt of professors here. No one can deny that liberal student organizations get more university funding than their conservative counterparts.

While these facts may make conservatives “uncomfortable,” I won’t go so far as to say liberal professors and student groups create a campus climate hostile to conservatives. Conservatives attend public institutions knowing full well what they are getting into.

On the other hand, it was not all that long ago that anti-affirmative action advocate and African-American Ward Connerly was booed off of the Union stage by audience members with little tolerance for the ideas he was here to promote.

As a straight, white male, I must make it clear that I am not attempting to hijack the campus climate debate from people of color with legitimate complaints. I merely raise the issue that while our “city of tolerance” may welcome the Dixie Chicks and the French, they don’t always welcome the right-of-center. Please don’t take this as an attempt to equate the problems facing a conservative in a sea of radicals to the problems facing a person of color in a sea of white people.

And before labeling me a hypocrite, I admit that I am often intolerant. As a columnist going for that extra laugh or stinging jab, I have set up straw men and stereotyped. But more often than not, my criticisms are targeted at the truly loony left and anarchist radicals, not our city’s average bleeding heart progressive.

Likewise, I don’t expect this liberal community to read the conservative townhall.com with an open mind. But if you tolerated a Bush voter here, a ROTC student there, political debate on campus might just become a little more respectful. In return, more reasonable conservatives may stop labeling everyone in this town a dirty hippie.

But sometimes the temptation to stereotype is just too great. And if the Dixie Chicks insist on ripping Bush, I can’t abstain from one last jab at the left (with respect for their opinions of course).

There once was a town on an isthmus

Visitors took a test — a litmus

They’d be prodded and pushed,

“Do you really hate Bush?”

Incorrect answers they deported to Damascus

Governed by peaceniks and hippies

wearing hemp jewelry and khakis

They’d holler and toil,

“No blood for oil!”

While marines were liberating Iraqis’

A.J. Hughes ([email protected]) is a software developer and UW graduate.