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Check This Question Out From My Professor Regarding Communism

Posted on 12/13/2009 9:13:48 AM PST by My Favorite Headache

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To: My Favorite Headache
He's trying to propagandize you. The favorite tactic of the Left is to focus on some "victim" and induce you to identify with them.(The predictable "perpetrator" then is easier to label as a result.)

It is a deliberate attempt to appeal to emotion and bypass critical judgment.

This is an unethical "professor" you have here, who's intention is to brainwash, not educate. Unfortunately their number is legion, so just sit tight and wait out the term, and use your head to research and form your own opinions.

41 posted on 12/13/2009 10:10:55 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: My Favorite Headache

“This is just pure indoctrination every single day. Every day I turn around he is asking me another question to try and denounce Communism to which he always finds a route to bashing America in the end.”

Yes, it is. And remember the Constitutional Republic in the US is great because of the individual freedom to provide for your own well being. It has promoted entrepreneuralism, free markets and trade, competitiveness and a williness to better ‘self.’ Instead of being forced and stolen from to provide for the lazy.

No other society on the planet has been more generous, and more self-sacrificing trying to lift up humanity and bring the same freedom to others. Without the ideology of this Constitutional Republic there is no free world.


42 posted on 12/13/2009 10:11:59 AM PST by RowdyFFC (The opinion of a wise Welshtino woman...)
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To: My Favorite Headache
...stripped of their ancestral possessions and reduced to slave labor in some sort of agricultural or industrial 'farm'.

Sounds exactly like communism.

43 posted on 12/13/2009 10:12:46 AM PST by Yardstick
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To: My Favorite Headache

This email from Professor Collins seems to cross the line into personal harassment. Your professor is taking your disagreement with him very personally. I would show this email to the dean (if he also is not a leader of the communist cadre at your college).

Good luck to you. Your two choices seem to be for you either to tell him what he wants to hear, or assert your position to the best of your ability. At this point, it seems that he would not believe you if you played his game.

On the other hand, it is easy for those of us who do not have to bear the consequences to give you advice: “let’s you and him fight.”

Good luck to you.


44 posted on 12/13/2009 10:13:46 AM PST by Piranha (Obama won like Bernie Madoff attracted investors: by lying about his values, policy and plans.)
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To: Navy Patriot; My Favorite Headache
Absolutely agreed.

While these are pressing matters and important, it is easy to lose track of the fact that your opinion does not matter to your professor. By virtue of the professor's position, having earned a degree on the subject, the professor does not see your views as being of equal merit. It does not matter if you are right - as far as a professor is concerned, these questions are settled in higher academic settings between people who already have their degrees, not students who are questioning their professors' methods. You're not likely to change his mind and you're also not likely to change the opinions of others in the classroom. I've learned this after long efforts of my own at being outspoken when my professors were clearly wrong.

Instead, I think Navy Patriot's approach is the best one to take. You can't change anything by speaking your conscience wen you're not perceived to be an equal authority but you can turn this against the system down the line. I like the idea of saving all your emotions and what you know is right for a parting shot. It makes your point all the more powerful when you do it that way.

45 posted on 12/13/2009 10:15:28 AM PST by MWS
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To: My Favorite Headache
Regarding Ho Chi Minh and whether he was a communist or not, you might remind your professor that Ho was a founding member of the French Communist Party when he was studying in Paris back in 1919 or so. True fact.

Sure, he wanted the Japanese, then the French out of Indochina, and us too; if you want to call that "nationalist" fine, but only so he could achieve a communist VietNam.

46 posted on 12/13/2009 10:16:56 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: My Favorite Headache; LS
So, this guy is also apparently an apologist for brutal communist dictators, wanting his students to believe that communism was simply the outlet for their "nationalistic" tendancies?

What absolute rubbish.

Well, have him try this on for size regarding Ho.

Following the 1954 Geneva accords that split the country, there was something like a 300 day period where people could freely move to either of the two resulting Vietnams. Over a million Vietnamese, mostly Catholic, left the North for South Vietnam during this time. A much smaller number, mostly communists, left the South for the North. Some observers reported that there were even more citizens in the North who wanted to move, but were forced at gunpoint to remain in the north against their will.

Immediately afterwards, Ho Chi Minh, implementing Stalinist and Moist communist doctrine, initiated so-called land reform where hundreds of thousands of people in the North, who were accused of being "landlords", were gathered up and either summarily executed or tortured and starved in North Vietnamese prisons. This caused almost another million North Vietnamese citizens to flee to South Vietnam.

Ask your prof if that gives him any indication whether Ho was simply Nationalistic, or a hard core communist?

...and he appareently thinks he can silence or embarass you by indicating you are a Glenn Beck fan? With no indication one way or another. Sounds like he is already starting the Alinsky treeatment.

I have pinged Larry Scheiwkart, a noted history professor, a best selling author, and a respected Freeper, to the thread. too. Perhpas he has some further insight.

47 posted on 12/13/2009 10:21:04 AM PST by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free...never has been, never will be. (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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To: Piranha

I have discussed it early on with the Dean. He said everything goes “under review” at the end of each semester with regards to complaints and concerns from an academic stand point. He calls this kind of talk “healthy debate” with his students.


48 posted on 12/13/2009 10:21:15 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
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To: MWS

Great post. And BFL to a thread with a good many other fine posts.


49 posted on 12/13/2009 10:24:19 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (Voters who thought their ship came in with 0bama are on their own Titanic.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

First if all, the premise of the question is ridiculous. History is not a sporting event in which onlookers are supposed to serve as cheering sections.

The underlying assumption of the question is the fallacy that indigenous peoples lived in peace and harmony with nature and each other until The Arrival Of The Evil White Man. This is grossly ahistoric, to say the least.


50 posted on 12/13/2009 10:32:31 AM PST by denydenydeny (The Left sees taxpayers the way Dr Frankenstein saw the local cemetery; raw material for experiments)
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To: My Favorite Headache

I think my response would be along the lines of:

It seems irrational to me for any group that has been oppressed to seek a system that would increase their own oppression. It would seem much more rational for the oppressed group to seek a system that would allow as much freedon as possible. It is noteworthy that some former colonies did exactly that—i.e., not all formerly oppressed peoples opted for collectivist systems.

To highlight the danger of irrationalist thinking in this regard, one need only look to a nation like Zimbabwe; which in an ostensive effort to “liberate” its citizens has allowed the emergence of a brutal dictator whose collectiveist political and economic ideology has destroyed what was once the “breadbasket” of Africa.

Can I understand why some might turn to communisim? Yes, in the same way I can “understand” any individual or collective shift toward irrationalism.

[Feel free to use any of my ideas or words]


51 posted on 12/13/2009 10:38:26 AM PST by sand lake bar (Obama: Take away my 1st Amendment and you'll force me to use the 2nd.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

It’s 100% obvious that this professor is a screwed up mess. It’s an inappropriate email, the Glenn Beck line in particular. If the dean has an iota of professional integrity he’ll see that this guy is a problem. I doubt anything would come of it, but maybe it would go in his file or something. If more people complained, maybe something would happen (and hopefully it wouldn’t be his getting promoted to department chair).

That said, I see an opportunity to taunt him over his Glenn Beck line. Tell him there are piles of prominent conservative thinkers who have opposed communism through the years and ask him why he jumps to Glenn Beck. Ask him if his knowledge of conservatism goes deeper than what he sees on TV.


52 posted on 12/13/2009 10:40:20 AM PST by Yardstick
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To: My Favorite Headache
I would seriously answer this way:

Class, can you, as a historian, have empathy for those countries that toiled under colonial oppression?

No I can't. I'm a white male descendent of the colonists you're talking about. Thus I have no compassion at all. We know that empathy only comes with a dark skin tone - the darker the better.

Moreover, can you see why some of the people of these captive countries may have embraced communist ideology?

No.

I notice that in a lot of these countries, Communism has been forced on the population. And despite benevolent Communist rule, the lives of the people in said nations doesn't get any better. For example in Cuba where despite 50 years of fair rule, the people poorer than ever and even risk their lives sneaking hundreds of miles through shark infested water to escape.

If you didn't want my opinion, why did you ask?

And flunking me when you ask for my opinion and I answer honestly is hardly open minded and tolerant. (If the guy is white, I would add.) But intolerance and prejudice is to be expected, because you're white. I forgive you.

I would seriously answer this way. When I was in college, I wrote a paper for one of my feminist professors and told her exactly what I thought of feminism. It was the most well graded paper I've ever written. I think she wrote more than I did.

I got a D- and my pride to show for it.
53 posted on 12/13/2009 11:08:37 AM PST by Tzimisce (No thanks. We have enough government already. - The Tick)
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To: My Favorite Headache

I would wait until you get your grade, then I would go straight up to his face and tell him to F-off.

Hee needs to be reminded that it is not his job to push Communism or anything remotely close, and that he also would not earn his “tenure based” high professor income in a communist society.

I would probably expose him in a public forum somewhere if the college does not reign him in.

Sorry, but the only way to combat these people is by fighting fire with fire....


54 posted on 12/13/2009 11:15:43 AM PST by neverbluffer (But,)
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P.S. I find your arguments resembling Glenn Beck. Do you watch or read him often?

Geez, I see where this is going. Why not just come out with a ideological purity test in order to gain college admission. Oh wait, once the government seizes complete control of grants and loans, they probably will.

55 posted on 12/13/2009 12:49:45 PM PST by thecabal (Destroy Progressivism)
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To: My Favorite Headache

The lot of academia are flaming Commies.


56 posted on 12/13/2009 2:30:56 PM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country! What else needs said?)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Ten reasons why your prof is wrong:

http://offgridblogger.wordpress.com/


57 posted on 12/13/2009 3:22:49 PM PST by grumpa (VP)
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To: My Favorite Headache

The problem with Communism is the word “I”.

In order to achieve true communism the will of the individual must be removed and replaced with the will of what’s good for all.

Communism is only attractive in a “anything but what I have” “grass is greener” jealousy sense. In order to get to the level where you willingly submit that which is good for “I” in favor of that which is good for “all” a person must be broken. Beaten down physically or emotionally. Only once broken can that person can be re-built. Those that do not break wind up in mass graves.

Those people had their cultures ripped away from them. They are willing to submit because of that.

I empathize with them in that they have been broken down so far that they’ll accept this ideology just because it’s different. I do not think that means they are acting in their own best interest by doing so.


58 posted on 12/14/2009 7:43:54 AM PST by Personal Responsibility ("In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" - Orwell)
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To: My Favorite Headache

I had lots of liberal Profs and they never held my opinions against me. State your facts clearly and with a good attitude. I found most of them were afraid to argue back, fearing that they might lose respect in the eyes of their students if they either lost the debate or appeared overly aggressive in silencing opposition. I went far enough out on a limb that my fellow students felt comfortable offering their own opinions knowing that if the prof retaliated against anyone it would be me. One of my Profs taught a course that should have rightly been titled “I Hate George Bush.” He was the easiest to debate because he didn’t know history and he substituted the New York Times interpretation for actually reading the documents he pretended to summarize for the class.


59 posted on 12/14/2009 9:23:45 AM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Make all taxes truly voluntary)
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