Comments on: Unsafe at any grade

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:00:30 +0000

By “actually written” I mean to not just rely on a saying from the past - but to EXPLAIN IT.

I’m not interested in statements that solely state, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” I know that and I can defend it. But if you state it… can you defend it? Especially in economics, which is what this election appears to be about? Can you not merely state the platitudes but forcefully defend them?

The platitudes won’t get us anywhere. DEFEND the statements, in my mind. Don’t just state them.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:50:52 +0000

“Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was “fascist demagoguery.” Then, after consulting a physician about “intellectual distress,” she cancelled classes for a week.”

What in the WORLD is “fascist demagoguery”?

Besides, a group of listeners whom disagree with you, that is.

Oh, the distress! (and oh my, the response… including the lawsuit!)

If I said, to my students, that the foundation of liberty and freedom was property rights, and they rose up en masse and said, “No! No! No! The foundation of liberty and freedom is to have free health where others pay, to buy your house on loan and have freedom from having to pay, and to have food at prices you demand to be fair! And to use energy in whatever way you deemi fit”…

Well, I might reply that the foundation of security and peace is to have comfort with food, housing, and energy. Bit what has that to do with freedom and liberty? What would be their response?

I would not sue. I might just walk away from them. But it seems to me that we Americans are at the point where we EXPECT security and peace in the form of comfortable delivery of food, housing, energy, and health services. I UNDERSTAND this! Don’t you? Life has been so very easy that it seems reasonable to demand these things. But they are demanded only in crisis. And what shall be the result?

At the risk of alienating my colleagues here, I fear that Republicans have lost sight of the fact that their goal is to ensure the pursuit of happiness for ALL the American people, not just the best fit of those people. This is dangerous ground, to succor and comfort only the elite. We are at risk if we do not return to core American principal values, which ensure that what makes all Americans great makes all of America great. There’s a difference. I might be unsure here, but I challenge those who would disagree with that to explain their differences, so that we may judge all our words as worth what is actually written.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:51:28 +0000

This is not a right-left issue, people. It is one thing to hear nonsense from someone with a high school education, and another thing to hear it from someone with a Ph.D. Seems to me that there are more educated fools on the left side, more uneducated fools on the right side. What’s even worse is that the educated fool who subjected Dartmouth students to her nonsense has a master’s degree in genetics!

By: echeccone

echeccone — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:46:09 +0000

McCarthy’s quote, by the way, applies equally to the “militant left wing stranglehold” on East Coast elite universities as well as to the anti-elite ignoramuses that deny everything from Darwinistic evolution to modern economic theory. This is not a right-left issue, people.

By: echeccone

echeccone — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:43:37 +0000

“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.” - John McCarthy

By: Tap

Tap — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:50:19 +0000

“Scientific facts do not conform to a natural reality…”

I’m sure there are exceptions to this rule of hers….like evolution.

By: Jewel

Jewel — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:17:36 +0000

My favorite quote concerning the militant left wing stranglehold on education comes from Frankie Schaffer, son of Francis Schaffer:

From Sham Pearls for Real Swine: “Learning about literature, art and music via the post-modern marxist feminist is like learning about sex via rape.”

By: Zhombre

Zhombre — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:40:30 +0000

I graduated from a state university with a degree in English in 1978 and made the decision not to pursue a postgrad degree and go the PhD route, even though a prof I had was willing to help me get into a prestigious school in Chicago. I’ve never regretted the decision. The academic environment, I felt, was deteriorating back then. I thought literature, which I loved, was being embalmed by graduate studies. Now, thirty years later, they’ve become even more atavistic and have devoured the corpse, vomiting out all these absurd literary theories mixed with political bile.

By: Allen

Allen — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:46:32 +0000

“Scientific facts do not conform to a natural reality…” There are people who believe this bilge? That’s hysterical, her car only works because of a social construct. Gravity is a heteronormative concept. People used to laugh at people with these kinds of ideas, now we pay them to prattle away in public.

By: spiff580

spiff580 — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:02:39 +0000

I always hated the general education requirments; most of those classes would be empty if not for that requirment.

Another reason to go to a state college. At least at a state college you’re not paying big bucks for this type of silliness.

Spiff