For years, many of us have been writing about the decline in viewpoint diversity and the rise of an academic orthodoxy in higher education. It is one of the focuses of my new book, The Indispensable Right. Despite the calls for greater tolerance, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) just elected a new president who has been criticized for being overtly hostile to conservative viewpoints and candidates. Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist, is an ally for those who continue to oppose intellectual diversity in favor of ideological orthodoxy in higher education.Wolfson is the author of “Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left.”Given the hostile environment faced by conservatives, Republicans, and libertarians today, one would think that anyone contemplating this position would strive to project neutrality and tolerance. That does not appear to be the style of Professor Wolfson.Instead, he immediately fulfilled the stereotype laid out by Vance:
“With Vance, American Far-Right authoritarians have succeeded in elevating a fascist who vows to ‘aggressively attack universities in this country’ to within striking distance of their goal: the annihilation of American higher education as we know it.”
He added:
Vance’s labeling of professors as “the enemy” and his praise of Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán’s seizure of state universities as “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with leftwing domination of universities” are unambiguous. Should he and the dark-money funders backing him gain power, they aim to take control of American higher education and bend it to their will. Ironically, they would use fear and misinformation to turn colleges and universities into what the Far Right has for years falsely accused them of being: ideological indoctrination centers. …
While attacks on American higher education are nothing new, the scope of the Project 2025 blueprint for a Trump-Vance presidency offers a frightening glimpse into an authoritarian future that would transform American colleges and universities into thought-control factories by stifling ideas, silencing debate, and destroying autonomy. Project 2025 would roll back decades of progress on access to higher education, eliminate protections for LGBTQ+ students and sexual assault survivors, privatize student loans, end loan forgiveness, and, if we take its authors at their word, abolish the Department of Education entirely. We cannot afford to let this happen.
So in one statement, Wolfson not only officially opposed the Republican ticket as an existential threat to higher education but made defeating such views an objective of the organization.
There is not a single line recognizing the lack of diversity of viewpoints at most universities or polling showing that both students and faculty are now engaging in widespread self-censorship under administrators and academics like himself.
A survey conducted by the Harvard Crimson shows that more than three-quarters of Harvard Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty respondents identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 2.5% identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
Likewise, a study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools. Notably, a 2017 study found 15 percent of faculties were conservative. Another study found that 33 out of 65 departments lacked a single conservative faculty member.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university. So the views of roughly half of the judiciary and half of the country are treated as legitimately excluded as intellectually invalid.
Given this hostility, it is hardly surprising that polls show faculty and students are less comfortable discussing their views or values in higher education.
The study shows that 70 percent of students “believe that speech can be as damaging as physical violence.” It also shows the impact of speech codes and regulations with two out of three students reporting that they “self-censor” during classroom discussions.
Not surprisingly, Republican students are the most likely to self-censor given the purging of conservative faculty and the viewpoint intolerance shown on most campuses.
Some 49 percent of Republican students report self-censoring on three or more topics. Independents are the second most likely at 40 percent. Some 38 percent of Democrats admit to self-censuring.
These surveys and studies on the reduction of conservative or libertarian faculty show that the far left has achieved precisely what Wolfson describes as a successful effort “to take control of American higher education and bend it to their will.”
This was an opportunity for Wolfson and the AAUP to reassure the many conservative and libertarian students and faculty. In the face of dwindling numbers of conservative and libertarian faculty, they could have voiced a commitment to resist ideological agendas from either the left or the right. It was a chance to push back on the hyperbole while acknowledging that work must be done to regain the lost trust in academia, which is now at record lows.
Instead, Wolfson has doubled down on political language and orthodox policies. That could hardly come as a surprise for the faculty who elected him. Wolfson told Inside Higher Ed he wants to make AAUP “a fighting organization.”
Wolfson’s response is reminiscent of how the AAUP has solicited papers on conservative intolerance in higher education while omitting liberal intolerance. It was an almost laughable agenda given the purging or dramatic reduction of conservatives from most faculties over the last couple decades.
As my book discusses, the AAUP was once the bastion of free speech and academic integrity values. It opposed the invasion of politics into higher education. However, it has become captured by the same forces that have converted our campuses into intolerance spaces for many faculty and students.
Wolfson has been widely criticized for the move by AAUP to reverse its long-standing opposition to academic boycotts, a move that is viewed as targeting Israeli institutions. It is clearly part of his move to make AAUP even more of a “fighting organization” and he has insisted that “collective action of all sorts does not necessarily come into and undermine academic freedom.”
Wolfson’s election shows how the objections of so many at the lack of intellectual diversity and tolerance are having little impact on faculty. When elected officials threaten reductions in support, these same academics are outraged by the attacks on higher education. Many offer perfunctory commitments to intellectual diversity while doing little to achieve it. As shown here, they are continuing to maintain and expand the culture that is suffocating our scholastic programs on every level.
Here is his faculty bio:
“Todd Wolfson’s research focuses on the intersection of new media and contemporary social movements and he is author of “Digital Rebellion: The Birth of the Cyber Left” and co-editor of the forthcoming volume, “Great Refusal: Herbert Marcuse and Contemporary Social Movements.” Wolfson believes in the importance of engaged scholarship that leads to tangible action in the world, and to that end, he is a co-founder of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) based in Philadelphia, PA. MMP is an award-winning organization that aims is to use new media and communications to build a movement of poor and working people, united across color lines. MMP’s work has been supported by the Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Media and Democracy Coalition, and Media Democracy Fund amongst others.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
The best way to stop this is to not purchase their inferior educational products. If they don’t receive any pay when the universities go broke, they will have almost no platforms for peddling their sick agendas
The problem there is that their salaries are being paid not only by tuition, but by our tax dollars. If that can be stopped, your solution might work.
Only Cackles and Tampon-Tiananmen Tim can transform America into a Marxist subsidiary of China-Russia!
Cackles and Tampon-Tiananmen Tim in 2024!!!
OT
KAMALA HARRIS WON NO PRIMARIES
Donald Trump, Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, Chase Oliver, Joe Biden, Marianne Williamson, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson, Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ryan Binkley, Larry Elder, Perry Johnson, Steve Laffey, Will Hurd, Francis Suarez, Jason Palmer, Dean Phillips, and “The Biggest Loser,” Kamala Harris ran for president.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden won their respective primaries.
Kamala Harris received no money and no votes and won absolutely nothing.
Does anyone doubt that Obama, Clooney, and the Deep Deep State have manipulated “The Biggest Loser,” Kamalal Harris, into position for illicit and corrupt ensconcement?
Biden was put in to be taken out; Harris was chosen outside of the primary process to be put in when Biden was taken out.
How do all the other candidates feel about having the legitimate and constitutional election process stolen from them?
How do all the other candidates feel about having been excluded from the 2028 election by “The Biggest Loser” in 2024?
Unions are illegal and unconstitutional criminal organizations that must be extirpated.
The only bargaining leverage of unions is violation, vandalism, and violence.
Contracts with criminal organizations are invalid and illegal.
Americans are free to operate enterprises and organizations.
Americans are free to accept or reject employment.
Americans are not free to violate permits to demonstrate, trespass, commit property damage, harass, or incur bodily injury, in any amount or to any degree, or to otherwise disrupt a community.
Unions retain no weight or effect other than violation, vandalism, and violence.
If organizations and enterprises cannot hire the personnel they prefer, they must hire the personnel that are available.
The Department of Labor is immutably illicit and unconstitutional; labor is simply the effort that all human beings exert.
Karl Marx dreamed up violence, strikes, and unions; Karl Marx was nothing more than a demented and abject criminal mastermind.
Karl Marx was a direct and mortal enemy of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual, not ersatz Americans, and America.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Merriam-Webster
labor
1a: expenditure of physical or mental effort especially when difficult or compulsory
Arrest their leaders and street thugs whenever they use violence to get their way, and the problem will resolve itself.
Contracts with criminal organizations are invalid and illegal.
Let’s play a game. Who said this…
“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies,” ??????? said. “In a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. … Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.”
Who is this quote from?
And for extra credit, who is the pathological liar?
Anonymous.
Tim Walz?
Tim Walz?
Once again the elites are telling everyone the opinions of half the country are unimportant. It is of interest that these uneducated ignorant people are able to feed all of us and provide our energy. Details.
Yeah, amazing isn’t it. They can say stuff like that because free speech. Conservatives can do it too, but choose to whine and complain instead of offering their alternatives, ideas and see if the majority agrees.
A right is something that the majority can not take away – that is the definition of a right.
This country is not a democracy because historically and theoretically all democracies will fail. The greeks failed relatively quickly.
Our founders loathed democracies – Democracy does not protect individual rights. While SOMETIMES our founders used the word democracy as a synonym for self government – the word democracy does not appear anywhere in our founding documents.
In this country – and any country that has any hope of governing itself and enduring people have rights that the majority MAY NOT infringe on – one of those is the right to free speech. In fact our bill of rights explicitly states that aside from the powers explicitly given to the federal government EVERYTHING else is a right of the people.
But if you are not convinced by our founders – John Stuart Mill eviscerated democracy in “On Liberty” pointing out that the most repressive form of govenrment of ALL was majority rule. Mpnarchs have historically had to be mindful of infringing on the tights of the people.
The Magna Carte resulted from people getting pissed at their monarch. English and other single ruler systems are repleat with examples of relatively small segments of the people rising up and executing the monarch for infringing on their rights.
Ordinary people sympathise with other ordinary people whose rights are being infringed on by some distant powerful leader.
When the infringement is done by society as a whole it is far harder to generate the sympathy and resentment needed to toss out repression. In our country that is the purpose of our courts. There job is not merely to tell our leaders – you have gone to far – but to tell THE MAJORITY – no – you may not infringe on individual liberties solely because 51% of you wish to.
I would actually think that those on the left would be strongly in favor of that – because they are NEVER in the majority Though they are adept at persuading the majority to give them power. But on occasion – especially after the left Fails – which is near universal,
People have conveyed great power to someone who represses the left.
The point which you completely fail to grasp is that free speech is a right – it is not subject to the whim of the majority. You need not persuade the majority in order to have the right to free speech – you have it whether the majority likes it or not.
It does not matter whether the nmajority is on the left or the right.
Our governmetn is – or was until the left started dismantling those checks – extremely anti-majoritarian.
It requires a majority in the house, a majority in the senate, the consent of the president and ultimately a majority of the supreme court to pass a law – and ALL laws restrict liberty.
Contra those on the left it is NOT the role of our government to pass lots of laws – it was supposed to be hard.
EWithin the house and Senate lots of rules made it harder even for majorities to act. In the house nothing gets voted on unless the majority party near unaimously supports it, In the SEnate most measures must get past cloture – requiring 60 votes just to have a vote on the measure. Presidentscan veto legislation and then super majorities in the house and senate are required.
And all that goes out the window if the majority of Supreme court justices fund that a law violates people rights.
And that is just laws. Amending the constitution is far harder. Requiring incredible supermajorities lest it be too easy in a fit of poassion to do something stupid – as we did with prohibition.
All of these and more are explicitly obstacles to majority rule – specifically because as Mills notes.
No form of government is more repressive than democracy. there is no limit to the the infringement on your rights that your neighbor is willing to impose on you. Gov Walz remark that socialism is just being neighborly is correct – and it is the most repressive form of government their is.
“NEVER WAS AMERICA DESIGNED OR INTENDED TO BE A ONE-MAN, ONE-VOTE ‘DEMOCRACY'”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________________
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
_____________________________________________________
“[We gave you] a [severely restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin, 1787
________________________
Turnout was 11.6% by design in 1789; vote qualifications were established by State legislatures as, generally, male, European, age 21, withe a net worth of 50 lbs. Sterling or 50 acres.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Let’s use the word “freedom” of speech. Freedom of the written word. Freedom to listen and Freedom to read.
It isn’t about majority and minority. It’s about principles. These freedoms are principles. It is hoped that within a majority there will be enough principled people to convince or educate or enlighten others.
Imagine a majority rule in a prison population. The people must be principled people.
Speech is in the minds of people. All people have this freedom. The principle cannot be alienated without physical force and harm ultimately.
It can be taken away by swindlers, too. The truth can be swindled. The swindlers speak their truth. You have a fine suit on, John Say. We know because we made it.
It is not the duty of conservatives or anyone else to provide alternatives.
You are not free to infringe on the rights of others.
No one is obligated to provide any alternative beyond – DO NOT INFRINGE ON OTHERS RIGHTS.
This is a common garbage argument of the left – though on occasion used by the right.
There are very few real problems that do not go away entirely on their own over time. Sometimes that process is slow, but it is pretty much inevitable. a free society naturally engages in iterative refinement towards improvement.
While some of us understand that no system has ever improved humanity as fast or as much as capitalism. It is not just about free exchange – nearly all freedom leads to gradula imporvement – sometimes faster sometimes slower.
You want to end racism – leave it alone – just keep government out of it. Racism INHERENTLY harms those who engage in it. The le3ss rascist you are the better your life will be, and all of us will slowly see what works best and what does not.
No force required, no government required.
As Adam Smith noted 250 years ago.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
History has taught us that is correct.
But some never learn – the democratic candidate for president seems to think that federal laws against price gauging will work to bring costs under control. Many note that is communism and it gailed, but it does not matter what you label it – it fails
Nixons wage and price controls FAILED catastrophically – and that was a republican – allegedly conservative in the 70’s
Cuba had the 3nd highest standard of living in the western hemisphere prior to Castro.
Venezeula had the 4 hightest standard of living in the world prior to Chavez, Now BOTH are near the bottom of global standards of living.
Of course Kamala’s father is a communist economist – which alone is a huge point related to academia. Communism in even its most begnign forms has FAILED everywhere. It is well understood why it fails – for much the same reason as price controls fail.
Prices are the most fundimental signaling mechanism in the economy – they provide the information that allows buyers and seelors to decide how to allocate resources. If demand for something is too high the price will be too high and buyers will buy less or something else until demand drops and the price drops.
One of the major failures of communism is the lack of a price system. That means the economy is not self regulating, but regulated by those in government. That is horribly inefficient and with billions of products and billions of prices is highly prone to failure.
Article 1, Section 8 – 5th Amendment Self-Qualified and Absolute Right to Private Property
Congress has the power to regulate ONLY the value of money, commerce among the states, nations, and Indian tribes, and land and naval Forces.
Owners hold unassailable dominion over private property.
Wage and price controls and every other intercession and interference in freedom, free enterprise, free markets, and private property is utterly unconstitutional; it is high-criminal and actionable.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
“ You want to end racism – leave it alone – just keep government out of it. Racism INHERENTLY harms those who engage in it. The le3ss rascist you are the better your life will be, and all of us will slowly see what works best and what does not.
No force required, no government required.”
Wrong. Leaving racism alone doesn’t mean it will fix itself. Not when racists hold power as they did in the south. Things like slavery and Jim Crow laws were changed by government force. They had to be. We had a civil war and the civil rights movement forcing racist laws to be changed. Racism is taught not inherited. Leaving it alone would be a mistake.
When a small number of powerful racists govern a state the only recourse is federal intervention. Because the federal government enforces the constitution protected the rights of everyone.
Svelaz thinks the government has rid society of racism; under Democrat leadership, the aspirations went from character (merit) over color to color over character. Svelaz lies because he has nothing to offer society except blatant stupidity. That is why he wants to focus on something other than merit.
Say John, prices are set by mathematics. Variables are size of target market, Size of product being sold , optimum gain, yields price.
If that weren’t true a plumber would price a hot water heater at 2000 dollars and install one per week yielding the least work. That’s what 3rd worlds do and only the rich have hot water.
Here is George the spastic, back to demonstrate his double digit IQ by posting another complaint rife with irony and zero awareness of it.
First, he attempts to gaslight people by saying that their concerns are just whining and complaining. This type of free speech is not debate, it is meant to shut down debate. He engages in the exact behavior the anon poster described.
sure, we can belittle your concerns, now stop your whining and talk about something else
He suggests that R’s should offer their “alternative ideas” to someone who hasnt offered any ideas, but merely dismissed the debate before it started.
Just another whiney complaint from George.
Here is my favorite nugget of brilliance from this idiot.
They can say stuff like that because free speech.
George and Kamala would have an excellent third grade level conversation. “Ukraine is a country in Europe”. “AI is a fancy name”.
.
SO MANY attend college for fun and games or have no idea of what path in life they should be pursuing.
I’d rather party, learn something, get a college degree, and well paying job… than party, blow off school, end up in a dead end manual labor job, and then whine and complain I got left behind.
Or….coast thru college on rich daddy’s money and get a job because daddy is rich and powerful and wait for the inheritance money to kick in and then get elected to office.
Hunter B?
Thou Shalt Not Covet
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness
Thou Shalt Not Steal (i.e. by taxation and redistribution)
If you graduate from college and have spent a great deal of mony without increasing your value and therefore your personal ability to acheive a higher standard of living you end up burdened by debt and unable to get a job that will pay off that debt.
You can go to college, pay exorbitant fees and leave improved such that your improved productivity will give you a higher standard of living – and the debt will not be a problem.
Graduate from college as a neurosurgeon with a million dollars in debt and it will be paid opff quickly.
Graduate with 200K in debt with a dender studies degree and you can get a job as a barista at starbucks.
I note that Harris constantly describes equity as providing each of us different amounts of help such that even though we all have different starting points we end up at the same level.
Again that is litterally communism. It is an impossible idea and it does not work.
Humans are NOT ants. We are not all the same – with a few queens like Kamala mixed in
We do not start at the same place we do not end at the same place.
In our system the objective is NOT equity, There is a reason that communists all liked to wear the same mao suits – to mask over the fact that we are NOT all the same.
The objective in our system is for each of us to come as close as we can to our own best self.
We are not equally musical, artistic, athletic, conscientious, hard working, intelligent.
We are not ants and with absolute certainty without lobotomizing us all and breaking all our legs we will not all end up at the same level.
We are all better off when each of us is able to come close to the best self we can be,
That is the opposite of equity,
It is also interesting because it is NOT really what those on the left want.
If we look at these left wing young adults – they are pierced and tattooed their hair is died unusually, and their close are unique.
In 10000 ways they are screaming I am NOT the same as everyone else. The do NOT want to be a facely army of mao dolls skittering arround like interchangeable penguins. They do NOT want to end up the same as everybody else. Yet they adhere to an ideology that promises exactly that.
“ Graduate from college as a neurosurgeon with a million dollars in debt and it will be paid opff quickly.”
LOL. Not remotely true. Who gains a million dollars worth of student loans? In order ot pay to off quickly that neurosurgeon would have to live as if he was earning $90,000 a year. Housing is expensive malpractice insurance is nuts.
Jonathan: Wow! A whole column about Prof. Wolfson who was elected the new President of AAUP. So what has you so up set? You quote Wolfson extensively so I will add what he said in a statement (“Professors are Not the Enemy, Fascists Are”) when he was elected:
“The ascension of JD Vance to the Republican presidential ticket has brought the decades-long battle to define the future of American higher education to the tipping point…With Vance, American far-right authoritarians have succeeded in elevating a fascist who vows to ‘aggressively attack universities in this country’ to within striking distance of their goal: the annihilation of American higher education as we know it. All those who care about higher education, academic freedom and the future of democracy should prepare for the fight ahead by organizing their campus communities”.
Wolfson and the AAUP are not the only ones sounding the alarm about what DJT/JD Vance and Project 2025 have planned for higher education. The 1.8 million AFT has also join the fight against Project 2025. Are Wolfson and the AFT just alarmists?
In the forward to Project 2025 Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation that prepared the 900 page manual, said this: “..the entire Project 2025 is a plan to unite the conservative movement…against elite rule and the woke culture warriors…with enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error”. So what does Project 2025 say are its plans for higher education? Here’s a sampling:
—it wants to abolish the Dept. of Education and spread its functions among other agencies;
—Removing sexual and gender protection and terminating all DEI university programs;
—Taking federal education dollars and giving the money for vouchers to private and religious schools, terminating the Title I program, gutting the national free school meals program, eliminating Head Start, banning books on a nationwide basis and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery (FL Gov. DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” law but applied nationwide).
Project 2025 is a prescription for a fascist state where all power is concentrated in the President. Back on May 20 of this year DJT gave us a clue about the kind of power he wants but didn’t get in his first administration. He posted a video on Truth Social depicting his next administration as a “Unified Reich”–after Hitler’s Third Reich. So what Victor Orban accomplished in Hungary, DJT wants for himself here–all power concentrated in one man who can crack down on dissent and dismantle any semblance of checks and balances, i.e., democratic rule. DJT has told his followers that if elected again there won’t be any need for elections in the future.
The candidacy of DJT/JD Vance and its Project 2025 represents the neo-fascist bloc in this country that wants to turn back the clock–to create stability through repression, religious fundamentalism, patriarchy and white supremacy. So, yes, Wolfson and the AAUP are sounding the alarm. If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are elected that plan will fail. Lovers of Democracy should vote accordingly!
Hey Dennis, can you name one positive accomplishment of the federal Department of Education since it was established by President Carter? What I see is that it added more unnecessary bloat to the federal bureaucracy, has formulated educational rules and regulations that have resulted in worse student, especially minority student, reading and math skills than they were before the Department was established, has recently tried to defy a Supreme Court (“law of the land”) ruling that federal monies cannot be used to “cancel” college loan debt absent the passage of authorizing congressional legislation, and just yesterday was prohibited by the Supreme Court when it tried by regulation to gut Title IX protection of women from being forced to compete against men in athletics. Hey, but what can you expect from current Department of Education employees that were not taught when they were in government schools, “what is a woman”. Explain one disadvantage that would result from abolishing the federal Department of Education.
Congress has no enumerated power in Article 1, Section 8, to regulate education.
It enforced school desegregation. Because southern states continued to violate the 14th amendment. The federal government protects the civil rights of students when states violate the constitution. Abolishing the department of education would make it harder to ensure student rights aren’t violated. 14th amendment ensured equal treatment under the law.
The 14th Amendment was compelled by a gun to America’s head and is utterly antithetical and unconstitutional – dictated by Karl Marx.
Dennis – the essence of the word “facsist” is the use of violence to obtain and/o hold power. It is derived from the Latin term “fascis”, which referred to a “bundle” of sticks, sometime with an axe, that sympolized the power of a Roman Magistrate and other official to use force against citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
Since you are committed to the accurate use of language, despite your status as a troll, perhaps you can tell us when and how J D Vance has ever used violence to obtain and/or hold political power. If you cannot provide any such instances, will you agree that you and Prof. Wolfe are intellectually dishonest?
Take a half truth or two, some truth, blend it with non-truth and you still come up with non-truth. Unless you are retired and have nothing to do, I imagine you have not deeply read the whole 900 pages objectively. Albeit, those who embrace insanity will make an emphatic criticism of something they know little about.
If one cannot stop the flow of information, plan B is to poison it or twist it into slogans or simplistic symbolism. And yes, the sword cuts both ways.
Dennis – you citre Wolfson – who then does massive mind reading of JD Vance .
Wolfon has uttered lots of truly meaningless rhetoric.
Vance is an alleged fascist ? How so ? In our universities it is the left that seeks to exclude and exterminate jews.
It is the left that advocates for total governmetn popwer over everything.
Undoubtedly – Trump and Vance are threats to that. Trump and Vance are ACTUAL anti-fascists.
Clearly neither you nor wolfsom know what Fascism is.
Benito Mussolini defined fascism as “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state,”
That does not sound even a little like Trump or Vance, but it sounds an awful lot like Wolfson and Harris.
She has just come upt with SOME of her ecopnomic plan. The first major plank is price controls.
AS I have noted – EVENTUALLY Harris must say something of substance or people will abandon her, and the moment she does she will lose one part of her base. Even the MSM has 8 out of 10 “experts”
going – this is complete nonsense and will fail horribly.
Even approximations to price controls are so bad that it is near the top of things that 90% of all economists agree on – that includes those on the left.
Regaredless Wolfson sprays lots of insults and derogatory claims at Vance – free speech. he is free to do that.
But outside of unthinking left wing nuts like yourself those insults are just lunacy.
This is the common tactic of those like you – take whoever you oppose and call them racist, fascist, mysoginyst, hateful hating haters – with no regard at all to reality and you can avoid the difficult defense of your own ideas.
Wolfson is quite litterally the bully that you accuse TRump of. He is the fascist he accuses Vance of.
The core question is how did someone so clueless get the slightest bit of power.
What is the problem with Wolfson, the AAUP and the left wing nuts dominating academia ?
It is that they are failing at their job, and they are driving out anyone who might help them correct that.
I do not give a schiff about an engineer’s gender. But if they are not expert mathematicians – I do not want them designing bridges.
It is probably not critical what the balance of conservatives and progressives in college is.
It is absolutely critical that merit is more important than how you identify.
“ In our universities it is the left that seeks to exclude and exterminate jews.”
LOL, not even close. You infer that from a few students protesting against Israeli aggression towards Palestinians. Don’t be making stuff up because you don’t like what they say.
The reality is conservative ideas and values are in the minority. That’s why there are few conservatives in academia. Students are just not attracted to their ideas and views. If they want greater exposure they are going to have to bring something new or relevant to students. Not the same old ideas that enabled racism, misogyny, and contempt for the poor.
Don’t blame the left, blame the right for not adapting to younger students views and expectations. The right is all about judging others and excluding them because they don’t live according to conservative values. The right loves to dictate to others, they want to rule over others and students see it in politics and in those spewing judgements and demanding punishment because they don’t like how others choose to live outside their values.
George: Do you know why conservatives are in a minority? Because, as I have voiced on numerous occasions, there will always be more have-nots than haves; more followers than leaders; more Jugheads than thinkers; more buyers of inventions than inventors; more copycats than originals; more problem-creators than solvers; more runners than torchbearers; more average than superior; more milk than cream rising to the top.
Of course, our founding fathers knew that in choosing a constitutional republic over pure democracy.
I’m glad to know that you take comfort in the masses.
yours truly, lin.
Lin, it has nothing to so with the have nots and haves. Not a damn thing.
Not every conservative will be a ‘have’ plenty of liberals are ‘haves’. It’s the religious component that becomes the problem, especially evangelicals who believe they are the righteous ones meant to lead everyone. It’s their sense of entitlement and belief that their set of values are the only proper ones and they apply it to everything.
Our founding fathers knew full well the dangers of that kind of thought. The kind of England and the church dictated everything and they did not want that to be part of this nation. But there are still those who believe in the authoritarian mentality that evangelicals find so necessary to make sure everyone else follows their values. Anything less is wrong, blasphemy, or unamerican.
Sorry, George, but it appears that my comment went over your head. My message was simple:
strength in numbers does not equate to smarter, better, wiser, more productive, more innovative, more prepared to lead….
(your resorting to words such as “aurhoritarian, and “evangelicals” adds nothing to our exchange, indeed, detracts from your otherwise argument(s) because it points to the extremes, not the many. We can all agree that extreme postures on either side— only define us in the Media world….)
Thanks anyway.
“We can all agree that extreme postures on either side— only define us in the Media world…”
great sentence
Has anyone ever noticed that every reply svelaz posts starts with.
“Uh huh huh nope, uh nope, uh nope nope nope”
Followed by two tons of horse manure.
“Followed by two tons of horse manure.”
George-Svelaz is Mr. Ed The Talking Horse.
Yes, George, the virtues of weed and breed….
*LORETTA
The younger intelligent people simply aren’t in those schools. They’re out there.
“ This is the common tactic of those like you – take whoever you oppose and call them racist, fascist, mysoginyst, hateful hating haters – with no regard at all to reality and you can avoid the difficult defense of your own ideas.”
Strange. You don’t seem to apply it to the right when they use the same tactic. They call whoever they oppose, groomers, socialists, Marxists, communist, leftists, haters, racists, etc. with no regard at all to reality so they can avoid the difficult defense of their own ideas.
The right speaks the truth.
So, this is what my fellow taxpayers and I are paying for when our tax dollars are used to “cancel student debt”? Mr. Wolfson and his AAUP colleagues can have all the academic freedom they want, but they should not depend upon federal tax dollars, alumni donations and gifts to support their “academic freedom”. Maybe they will learn when conservative alumni donations dry up. I have stopped giving to the four institutions (undergraduate, 2 professional schools, postgraduate institution) that I have attended. Unfortunately, I can only redirect my tax dollars once every four years on Election Day.
Federal tax dollars are what helps keep tuition from getting too expensive. States have reduced their share of funding making tuition more expensive. They are called state universities for a reason, but it seems they are less and less paid by the state. So tuition goes up.
If states increased their funding to colleges and universities there would be less need for a student loan from the feds. But Republicans pushing tax cuts and paying for it by cutting funding to higher education just increases federal funding. At least they get their tax cuts so they can pay more on their student loans. Crazy
Why should colleges with multibillion dollar endowments be getting any federal or state funding at all?
Because endowments are for specific studies and fields not general funding of the schools
Federal funding and loan forgiveness are forcing progressive prices that make medical, education, etc unaffordable and inaccessible without accumulated, redistributive forward-looking debt.
No, lower state funding is causing tuition to increase. When states cut funding to schools to support tax cuts it forces schools to increase tuition.
“Federal tax dollars are what helps keep tuition from getting too expensive.”
Not according to the fundamental laws of economics. Subsides accomplish nothing except raising prices.
And that has been pricisely what they have done – we have more people in administration., We have more buildings, We have more gender studies and under wated basckeweaving programs, and students graduating are less and less competent at the tasks that a productive society needs to keep standard of living rising.
BTW we have seen exactly the same with Public Schools, and with Medicare and with PPACA and with everyuthing else government subsidizes.
Costs go up, value declines.
” States have reduced their share of funding making tuition more expensive.”
Correct – increasingly “state” colleges are nominally if at all publicly funded. Students have taken on more of the cost of their own education. At the same time – despite the fact that most state colleges are very nearly private colleges – for the most part they deliver the best value – they are lower priced that private schools – even though they have no state subsidies.
Students borrow less, more frequently graduate with degrees that reflect learning and merit.
The perfect solution would be to completely privatize them and eliminate all federal funding.
That would further mnotivate them to deliver value rather than inculcate ideology.
“They are called state universities for a reason,”
Would there be a GOOD reason ? no.
“but it seems they are less and less paid by the state. So tuition goes up” not nearly as much as the ivy;s and the other failed institutions dominated by the elites.
“If states increased their funding to colleges and universities there would be less need for a student loan from the feds.”
False. If states increased their funding these colleges would spend more to deliver worse eduucation – we have seen that over and over and over again.
We are mostly seeing states cut higher education spending – because they can not afford it – most states do not have the ability to run massive defictis forever like the federal government. Ultimately they must raise taxes if they spend – and that is a political non-starter.
Ass a result over the past 40 years states have slowly been “privatizing” state colleges. It is not working perfectly – but it is an imporvement and it is resulting in higher attendance in state colleges.
“But Republicans pushing tax cuts and paying for it by cutting funding to higher education”
Correct – though republicans want to cu nearly all government spending -0 it is nearly all wasteful and unproductive.
Further -one way of the other that is happening. Whether you like it or not – while people like free things they are increasingly realizing that they have to pay for what government delivers allegedly for free.
Please campaign on college debt forgiveness or home buyers subsidies or all the give aways you want.
Even minorities in this country have come to realize that is a LOSE LOSE.
“just increases federal funding.”
Becayuse that has EVER worked well ? Please cite any instance in which government has spent more and quqlity or services have improved ?
Government is ALWAYS the least efficient way to deliver anything. We only use govenrment to do what only government can do – like policing. Everything else is accomplished far more cheaply outside the government.
” At least they get their tax cuts so they can pay more on their student loans. Crazy”
What is crazy is that we have such a complicated tax system – that is entirely to buffalo people into not understanding the true cost of government – Sales taxes are small, regressive and on nearly everything you by.
Progressive incometaxes disconnect the poor from the fact that government choices have costs – it is always easier to tax someone else.
No p[olitical entity in the US should be allowed to have more than one taxing regime – you can have a sales tax – but no income tax or property tax. Frankly property taxes must be eliminated they are one of the largest impediments to the ability of the poor to build wealth.
Do you understand that most small businesses are started by people who bought a home have nearly paid it off and then borrow against it to start their business. Economist Hernandop De Sotto found that is the primary reason that the third world can not get ahead.
People have lived in the same houses for millennia, but they can not prove they own them and therefore they can not borrow against them to start businesses.
That is one of the great absurdities of those of you onm the left – it is Capital – PROPERTY RIGHTS that are one of the fundamental engines of the economy.
Politcal systems that eschew propetty rights fail economically – because they have less capital to invest to imporve standard of living.
“ Government is ALWAYS the least efficient way to deliver anything. We only use govenrment to do what only government can do – like policing. Everything else is accomplished far more cheaply outside the government.”
Not true. Government is actually more efficient. It’s only when those who oppose it legislate hurdles and unecessary stipulations making it inefficient. It’s actually more cost effective when government is involved.
When states provided a higher percentage of university funding in the 60’s and 70’s tuition was affordable. School loans were not always necessary. Now states spend way less and tuition grew as a result.
In the 60’s higher education in California tuition was free for in state students. Other countries manage to offer free or really affordable university education today. When states reduce support for STATE universities tuition increases.
Cite the Constitution for any power of Congress to tax for and fund “tuition” or “education.”
No level of government may deny the constitutional rights and freedoms of, or regulate private enterprise universities and colleges.
“Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution provides Congress with broad authority to lay and collect taxes for federal debts, the common defense, and the general welfare.1 By the Constitution’s terms, the power of Congress to levy taxes is subject to but one exception and only two qualifications.2 Articles exported from any state may not be taxed at all,3 direct taxes must be levied by the rule of apportionment,4 and indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity.5 The Supreme Court has emphasized the sweeping character of this power by saying from time to time that it reaches every subject,6 that it is exhaustive7 or that it embraces every conceivable power of taxation.8 Despite few express limitations on the taxing power, the scope of Congress’s taxing power has been at times substantially curtailed by judicial decisions with respect to the manner in which taxes are imposed,9 the objects for which they may be levied,10 and the subject matter of taxation.11“
16th amendment
Ummm….wow. Turley, as usual, is deliberately mischaracterizing facts. Project 2025 does exactly what it says, it seeks to eliminate the department of education and attack higher education institutions. This is why so much attention has gone to the project. Now that it is out there for everyone to scrutinize conservatives are distancing themselves from it because it’s toxic to everyone else and it has not had a good reception with the general public.
There are so many dishonest characterizations in Turley’s column that it proves why conservatives are not widely accepted in academia. Their ideas are just outdated, backwards, or out of touch with general society. Some are worthwhile and provide a different perspective and they are taught in colleges and Universities. The reason they are few is because most college and university students are just not that interested in those ideas. They see what conservatives does and acts like outside their institutions. Turley neglects the far right’s attitudes and ideas being played out by those who are in power. They are not just ‘a different point of view’ they are about attacking others they don’t like, denying rights, censoring, and legislating against certain groups they don’t like. They are clearly racist, misogynist, intolerant of others and seek to rule instead of govern.
Conservatives are not being purged. Conservatives are not being silenced. Conservatives are whining and complaining that they are not being given a fair chance to express their views, but they are doing that all the time. They have been able to do that. Turning point goes to universities and sets up a booth to challenge students to controversial conservative ideas all the time without a problem. It gets confrontational often and students heckle and shout down those individuals and they stand their ground. That’s how free speech works and that’s how students get turned off by conservatives ideas. Conservatives don’t always have the best representatives. Their ideas and views are always in conflict with the majority. It always has. It also means conservatives are always in the minority. It’s one reason why there are so few in colleges and universities. The good news is they have their own colleges and Universities. Liberty University, Prager University, Brigham Young, etc. Turley cited schools that are primarily liberal arts and engineering and laws schools which are not relevant conservative or liberal ideology. It’s math and and arts and law.
This idea that schools are purging conservatives or that they are being silenced is pure BS. Turley is pushing the victimhood-oh woe is me angle to stoke anger. Above the law made a valid point on why conservatives are not widely accepted in colleges and universities and Turley deliberately mischaracterized it or did not understand it himself.
“ Wolfson’s response is reminiscent of how the AAUP has solicited papers on conservative intolerance in higher education while omitting liberal intolerance.”
Turley does it all the time. He omits conservative intolerance while attacking liberal intolerance. It’s his bread and butter. It’s what keeps him relevant in their silo.
Conservatives don’t have a wide appeal with the general public. That’s just a fact. When they attack the vulnerable and those who are different because they don’t share their values they make it worse for themselves. Conservatives are always directly associated with religious beliefs and ideas. Now, to be clear there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, they do tend to dictated that everyone else should live their lives according to their values. Anyone else not doing so is wrong or should be seen as the enemy and that attitude is what turns off the majority of people. It’s evident in every aspect of society. Book bans, banning discussions on LGBTQ, race, ideas pointing out wrongs done in the past by conservatives, etc. Turley is wrong on why conservatives are not more prevalent in academia and his argument is to provide a dishonest narrative.
George: Whew! Glad you got all that off your chest this morning. It could become dangerous bottled up—heartburn, headache, impulsivity, etc. Take an aspirin and call us in the morning. P.S. Dennis just “liked” you.
-it could interfere with his reading comprehension.
“It could become dangerous bottled up—heartburn, headache, impulsivity, etc. ”
You left out PMS…
Constipation, I.e., being full of sh1t, is more likely.
Anonymous (Tom), glad you liked it buddy. Always there to expand your mind.
Interesting.
Why do you and Gigi both refer to “Tom?”
Is she you, or are you she?
Trying to snoop out those who call you out? You be wrong.
Tom is the anonymous commenter who pursues as hominem attacks on others. He often changes names but retains the same syntax in his comments.
“who pursues as (sic) hominem attacks”
I still havent forgotten how you cheated on me with that Trans skank at the West Hollywood Bathhouse, who gave you Monkey pox. Serves you right for trolling behind my back at the sauna as I was copy pasta Act Blue talking points for all of our LGBTQIEIEIO heathens
You never could spell correctly nor top like the bull you said you were. All bottom, no hung peter
By the way. It’s still an opinion. You know, that viewpoint diversity Turley is always talking about.
A highly partisan ‘opinion’ made of talking points and your usual BS.
An opinion nevertheless. It’s no different than John Say’s long winded opinions.
One big difference between you and John Say is
he actually makes some good points. You do not.
He also doesn’t ‘like’ his own posts like you do.
No, doesn’t make good points. He tends to ramble too much.
LMAO
Did i not just say that george’s entire contribution to the discussion is
“Uh huh huh nope uh nope uh nope nope nope”
Thanks Svelaz! I couldnt have said it better.
Its quite different. John says “opinions” are on occasion uninformed. Yours almost exclusively are.
The rest of your opinions are just someone elses opinion, parroted by you. No one is EVER going to forget you parroting Jimmy Fallons opinion of the trump musk talk.
Then there is the opinion you purport as fact. Then there are the facts you cant even get right.
You spend 5 minutes on a google search and suddenly
For instance. Why doesnt Donald Trump have a date of conviction yet?
When Donald Trump gets convicted will his date of conviction be the date of the jury verdict?
Thats you 90% of the time Factually incorrect, ignorantly opinionated, or both.
Thats the problem with having a low IQ and trying to argue that which you dont even believe yourself. It can be done well, but not by idiots like you.
I am a tenured mathematician at a PhD granting Math Department in the US. I have been raised and educated in Continental Europe and I have been working at several places, including UCLA, MIT and Penn State. I have been in the US since 2006 and I have witnessed a collapse of the mathematical education and maturity among university students. I do know many colleagues in Mathematics, Physics and Engineering that are very worried about the pernicious influence of a very ideological and misguided part of the Democratic party. I am part of the LGBT community and I consider myself waaay to the left of the most leftist in the US, but here what you call left is a complete post-modern joke in my eyes. I have seen quite a bit of capable minorities students being damaged for being inculcated woke propaganda (like “precision and hard work are white constructs!”). You have no ideas how many top mathematicians are moving to China and other places, just because of the rotting going on in higher education. About the wrongs done in the past, I see that you do not even know your own history (while I am a foreigner, I know it better than you apparently)… who founded the KKK? Who maintained segregation in the South? Which Supreme justices were part of the KKK? While I am a professor of mathematics, I know very well the “fantasy way” in which you teach history in this country. I hate Trump and the Repubs, but as well I hate and find repulsive for all their lies, hypocrisy and destruction the Democrats. Trump is certainly a proto-fascist, but as any decent historian (i.e. mostly non-American) will explain to you, it is not that Hitler and Mussolini appeared one morning out of the blue, like in a Hollywood movie or as all Facebook posts from the Dems seem to imply when they compare them to Trump. If fascism and nazism arose in Central and Southern Europe was precisely because of horrible economic conditions. Which means that if Trump appeared and has become relevant, it is because the all Hopey & Changy Obama didn’t do shit to help the working class. Of course, the root causes of this malaise were posed many more years ago, when the Dems with the Clintons pushed for NAFTA. Likewise, the WWII was essentially set in motion with the Treaty of Versaillies in 1919.
While I do not agree with Sergiu Kleinerman completely, I would rather listen to a mathematician from Princeton than an anthropologist from Rutgers: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/universities-are-making-us-dumber .
1) There is zero chance you have a PhD and are so uninformed.
2) Being a janitor at a university is technically “working” there, it does not make your opinions valid.
Interesting take. And of course you *hate Trump*…..but of course you do.
Bottom line, especially after the tyranny & lies we witnessed during Covid, to vote Democrat — for bigger, more expansive, top-down, authoritarian, totalitarian government power — is to vote for evil — and the near complete destruction of individual rights, autonomy, and freedom from government over-reach.
To save what’s left of America, of freedom, of liberty, of so-called Justice? Voting Trump is the correct choice in this election.
And a reminder…. “Tolerance” ….. is not a virtue.
I have been in the US since 2006 and I have witnessed a collapse of the mathematical education and maturity among university students. I do know many colleagues in Mathematics, Physics and Engineering that are very worried about the pernicious influence of a very ideological and misguided part of the Democratic party. I am part of the LGBT community and I consider myself waaay to the left of the most leftist in the US, but here what you call left is a complete post-modern joke in my eyes. I have seen quite a bit of capable minorities students being damaged for being inculcated woke propaganda (like “precision and hard work are white constructs!”). You have no ideas how many top mathematicians are moving to China and other places, just because of the rotting going on in higher education. About the wrongs done in the past, I see that you do not even know your own history (while I am a foreigner, I know it better than you apparently)…
1. The collapse of the sciences and maturity among univ students are not disputed. But we still have some gems in science graduate programs. For the life of me I cant see the value of non-science faculty these days esp. the likes of TODD WOLFSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF JOURNALISM AND MEDIA STUDIES AND CO-DIRECTOR OF THE MIC CENTER who earned a PhD in anthropology. There exists a glut of non-science faculty. Universities need to stop hiring them, and shrink their numbers by attrition. We desperately need more STEM emphasis.
2. There is no LGBT community. Lesbians are a somewhat tight group albeit 2 different camps, the butch jeans and flannel lesbians and the lipstick lesbians. Gays are highly fragmented, but like lesbians, they largely disavow any associations with the Trans craze.
3. Minority students suffer damage by Woke propaganda because they become gullible. Being a minority either builds character or creates a gullible fool.
3. Ive been in medical education academia my entire life, and I have met no one who is moving to China and other places. If anything Chinese grad students prefer to stay in America and begrudgingly return to China when they graduate. Most of us who see the rot in higher education stay because we dont see ourselves as warriors for an ideology, we enjoy learning from our research, and some of us do a lot of good in molding young minds, younger faculty and colleagues. Besides, working for big corporate has its own toxic environment. Been there.
4. Most Americans do not know US history. Americans have become lazy and fat, opting instead of being sheeple. The word fascist is tossed around by the Left flippantly, showing their ignorance, when it is Democrats who have married corporatism to government (the definition of fascism) just like Mussolini and Hitler did.
America will end eventually. However we can still choose to pursue our dreams, create community and live our Faith. Take care of you and let others face their self-imposed consequences.
The “sky is falling” message is passé.
George projects hos whining and complaining on conservatives once again.
I stopped reading there and save myself from losing brain cells while reading his lengthy complaint.
I only wish that all incoming students would have a mandate to read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and write how the book impacts their thinking about the world. This might go a long way toward the opening of their minds to broader perspectives. I was raised and educated as a “liberal” during the 60’s and 70’s when groupthink was unimaginable to all of us on campus. In fact, groupthink was the anathema of what we aspired to have and practice. I could have never guessed that the ideological thought curve would have shifted so dramatically as to now make me a center-right thinker instead of a liberal. Oh well, thank Dr. Turley for your steadfast scholarship and clear explanations of the law.
Some high schools do have Animal Farm as required reading. I had it. Ironically I see it as how conservatives operate. It’s not far off on how it mirrors project 2025.
“I only wish that all incoming students would have a mandate to read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and write how the book impacts their thinking about the world. ”
If you meant “incoming college students”, considering what high schools are graduating these days, the most popular answer might be “I had no idea that barnyard animals could actually talk English”…
After reading “Animal Farm”, “Atlas Shrugged” should br next
Vincente: Bingo!
thanks for that
I absolutely agree that Atlas Shrugged should be on the required reading list. Whether it should immediately follow Animal Farm, or whether there should be at least one intermediary work to ease the students into Rand and Objectivism (don’t forget, nearly all of these students are preconditioned to worship altruism) could be subject to debate. I’d love to see that debate happen, it would be a sign of tremendous progress from our utterly dismal present condition.
Does the work of MMP look anything like GARM?
Is Mao getting vindicated in 2024?
Back in the day, I recognized that there were bad cops, corrupt judges, manipulative corporations, and tyrannical censorship.
I recognized that Liberals were highly motivated to fight those things, so I accepted there was a need for Liberals in our society.
Now, I discover the Liberal/Left has become many of those things they claimed to despise.
I also discover that the Liberal/Left believes (and probably has always believed) that Conservatives and Traditionalists are completely evil and need to be wiped from the public square.
The Professor documents just a few examples above. There are many more.
I have no doubt that if the Left ever gets the power they crave, that leaves only two options for the rest of us: slavery or war.
Let’s pray the Left suffers political defeat before it comes to that. The Democrats are the real threats to Democracy. Nobody else comes close.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Two options are slavery or war you say, Diogenes?
There’s a 3rd option. Genocide of conservatives is that option by any means necessary.
And how do you plan to do that? Please share.
“Genocide of conservatives is that option by any means necessary.”
Conservatives tend to be well-armed. By all means, feel free to try to implement that recommendation personally. Do you have the spine for it? Rhetorical question, since your posts make it clear beyond doubt that you are a gutless, bile-spewing coward, unworthy of the description “human being”.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Interesting reading of what was written? Context includes Diogenes writing.
So much for that.
Total bullsh!t. The success of the United States is based on a corporate system. Yes, there are bad corporations. But they are outnumbered by many good corporations. And guess what, genius? Most corporations are politically centrist. Why? Because most of the country is centrist and these corporations have to sell to centrists. Look at tesla’s stock price crashing. Every time Elon opens his mouth he appeals to fewer and fewer people. Had Musk began this way, Tesla would have never gotten off the ground.
YOU are not centrist. YOU say extremist bullsh!t. The majority of Americans are not extremists. The majority of Americans are not running around saying Trump is a threat to democracy nor are they running around saying Harris is a threat to Democracy. The extreme left and the extreme right are and they’re out of touch. YOU are in the radical right. YOU are out of step with mainstream America.
The Democrats lied to you about the vaccine, they lied to you about Russian collusion, they lied to you about the Biden laptop, they lied to about Afghanistan, they lied to you about the lab-leak theory, and then they tried to get people fired or put in prison for challenging their lies. And this is just the short list.
They committed these lies using the most of the media, 90% of academia, and the entirety of the federal government. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, DUDE!
Trump is one man, almost 80 years old, against the entire corrupt and incompetent establishment. He may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but he’s the only one left who can challenge them.
You are not paying attention, buddy. Your moral-equivalence argument is as bogus as it is stale. Look around.
“Look at tesla’s stock price crashing.”
What on Earth are you talking about?
Six months ago, it was at $190. Today it’s $216.
Well ya. Conservatives are against knowledge and reason. Conservatives wants to destroy the system of higher education in this country. New College is a prime example of what they want, a highly regarded college turned to trash because of the anti-intellectual ideology. Look at the commentators on this page, they despise even the concept of an objective fact. Conservatism is based on patriarchy, hatred, racism, xenophobia, and religious dogma. None of which belongs in higher education. So of course there are few Conservatives in academics, because Conservatives are not qualified and their ideology is counter to the concept of education.
You would not hire someone who punts puppies as a vet, a criminal arsonist as a firefighter, a foreign spy as an intelligence analysis, a Catholic priest as a rabbi, or a Conservative for a professor.
You are a perfect example of the corrupted Left–see my comment just above yours. You have no tolerance or appreciation for other points of view. You are evil and yet you stink of sanctimony. You disgust me completely.
I am intolerant of racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and otherwise abhorrent views. So yes I am intolerant of the views of Conservatives. As everyone with morals should be.
As the progressive left has demonstrated repeatedly, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, fascism, censorship and other abhorrwent views are not just the realm of the conservatives. The progressive left have taken all these nasty behaviors to a high art form, all while disclaiming them. So, as ridiculous as your statement is – it is easily applied to the lefties running around in “blackface” masquerading as social justice warriors. All you need do is drop your own opinion and recognize what is actually happening rather than clinging to your preferred narrative.
Sammy, I suspect based on your poor writing samples that you are in the same socio-economic class as the poor white people you’ve been conditioned to hate. I’d wager you have exactly nothing in common with the affluent progressive coalition that includes the corporate elite; the credential class; academia; and government bureaucrats.
But you think denigrating the values and norms of others in your socio-economic class somehow provides you with higher status.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Anon, the response is ad homenim? Disallowed.
* hominem
*SENATOR KEELEY
Sammy must be a child? Go easy on him, Gentlemen.
Sammy says: “I am intolerant of racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and otherwise abhorrent views.”
Just stop. You lefties do not own the moral high ground. You’ve lost it. You are brainwashed and have no idea what is happening in the world. None.
You DO know, don’t you, Sammy, that there are plenty of racists, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes, and INTOLERANT HATERS, who hold otherwise unacceptable, immoral and yes, WARMONGER views —on the LEFT?
The Democrat party of today *is* the party of war, not peace.
The Democrat party is the party of racism.
The Democrat party is the party of slavery.
The Democrat party is the party of the KKK.
The party of segregation.
The Democrat party is the party of violence, not peace.
The party of Antifa thugs and Burn Loot Murder thugs.
The party of evil, not good.
The party of intolerance, not acceptance.
The party of injustice & lawlessness, not justice.
The party of unfairness, not fairness.
The party of LIES & PROPAGANDA, not Truth.
The party of coercion, not freedom.
The party of authoritarianism, not liberty.
The party of HATE, not love.
<>
In other words, “you are intolerant, so therefore I’m going to be even more intolerant, ad hominem and hostile to you.” LOL, that’s about as Trumpdarded as Trumpdard logic gets.
@ Sam, +100
Today’s non-STEM college grads are a pain in the ass.
They come in and try to change the system that a company uses to run efficiently. Too many are entering the workforce with unneeded advanced degrees which make the problem worse.
In the private sector, their job is to support the efforts of the company to make money on behalf of the shareholders. That is it. Get with the program or get out. Go “teach” instead.
“Go “teach” instead.”
Oh, please, no! We have more than enough narcissistic idiots teaching, which was the rational takeaway from Turley’s column. Allow me to fix it for you: “Go starve instead”.
Gotta love all the STEM graduates who attend Trump rallies… all 2 of them.
“Conservatives are against knowledge and reason. [. . .] Conservatism is based on patriarchy, hatred, racism, xenophobia, and religious dogma.”
To indicate how utterly delusional that is:
Daniel Boorstin was long a history prof at U Chicago, then the Librarian of Congress. He hated knowledge so much that he wrote over twenty books — including the magnificent “Knowledge Trilogy:” _the Discoverers_, _The Creators_, _The Seekers_. He is considered a conservative scholar.
Will Durant wrote the magisterial _The Story of Civilization_, 11 books that span the sweep of human history. I think that counts as a significant contribution to the stock of human knowledge. He, too, is considered a conservative scholar.
The malicious caricatures of conservative scholars are intentional. When you cannot compete on the battleground of ideas — smear your opponent as a leper. The unthinking will ship them off to an isolated colony.
I think it appropriate to paraphrase Todd Wolfson’s comments and offer this critique:
With Wolfson, it appears the far-left authoritarians of American Association of University Professors have succeeded in elevating an illiberal progressive fascist who vows to aggressively attack constitutionalists in this country to within striking distance of their goal: the annihilation of the Republic as it was given to us in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by an exceptional group of revolutionary founders who first provided all persons of the world with a representative democracy that stressed individualism, inalienable rights, self-determination, self-restraint, self-reliance, states’ rights, and a limited federal government.
Should he and those of his ilk grow their power, they aim to strengthen control of American higher education and bend it ever more firmly to their will. They would use fear and misinformation to maintain colleges and universities as ideological indoctrination centers where group thought is preferred, and critical thinking discouraged.
The shoe Wolfson prescribes fits, and he should wear it.
*SENATOR KEELEY
HEAR. HEAR,! HEAR, HEAR!
Thank you, Professor!
OT: Are Kamalatida and Tim di Tamponi dating, or running for office?? It’s hard to tell…….
(I found the taco flirt-speak riveting!)
They are doing better than Trump. Trump can’t seem to do anything right and he’s doing what he does best, alienating voters he needs to win.
Since I don’t give a hoot in hell about what you think, feel free to ignore future comments of mine.
The Trumpturd and Shady are doin’ just fine.
*SENATOR KEELEY
Cindy, the topic is ideological orthodoxy in academia as displayed Wolfson at Rutgers.
So?
Glad to see you ducking the incoming flak, Cindy.
This blog site has substantially changed in the last +/-two years since I started following it–seems like quite a few “anonymi” have tried to take over and drown out the good people like you, but it ain’t gonna happen. We’re here for you, but you don’t need us, you are doing quite well on your own. Thanks for your contributions.
lin….Thank you so much! You’re kind. Yes, the blog has changed–many more irritating people, mostly anonymouses, than when I joined in 2018 (July) ….I find that the closer I get to 80 yrs old, the more irritating they become 🙂 but still, I’m very grateful for Prof Turley, and this Blog, as I know most of us are!
Such a nothing burger of a topic. Yawn.
*SENATOR KEELEY
The Constitution is a nothing burger? It’s the law in the United States.
Education is a fish that rots from the head.
It’s infected by a disease that must be ripped out root and branch.
That’s a job 1 priority.
There is a mindset that leftist in education and the news media that they admit. This phenomenon entails a compromise of one’s principles to win at all cost. This mindset was publicly displayed in an article in the Atlantic magazine this morning saying that Kamala Harris’ plan was dumb but politically smart. Machiavelli wrote that if this is the road you wish to go down you should be careful about the kind of person you will become if winning is your only goal. It amazing to me that leftist will openly say that maintaining one’s principles is of no import if it gets in the way of winning. Here’s the article. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/harris-s-plan-is-economically-dumb-but-politically-smart/ar-AA1oVtT0
” Machiavelli wrote that if this is the road you wish to go down you should be careful about the kind of person you will become if winning is your only goal.”
Well, Harris has few worries on that account, since she already appears as despicable a hypocrite as it is possible to be and continue to breath. Probably has been that for nearly her entire life.