Posted on 03/11/2010 9:24:37 AM PST by ezfindit
All across the country there were demonstrations on March 4 by students (and some faculty) against cuts in higher education funding, but inevitably attention focused on California, where the modern genre originated in 1964. I joined the University of California faculty in 1966 and so have watched a good many of them, but have never seen one less impressive that this year’s. In 1964 there was focus and clarity. This one was brain-dead.
The former idealism and sense of purpose had degenerated into a self-serving demand for more money at a time when both state and university are broke, and one in eight California workers is unemployed. The elite intellectuals of the university community might have been expected to offer us insight into how this problem arose, and realistic measures for dealing with it. But all that was on offer was this: get more money and give it to us. Californians witnessing this must have wondered whether the money they were already providing was well spent where there was so little evidence of productive thought.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativedatingsite.com ...
Campusi?
John Ellis is President of the California Association of Scholars, and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz
In short, California is a disaster for business. The state has piled up so many taxes, regulations and mandates that businesses are leaving the state.
That is why the state now has a budget crisis of staggering proportions, and why university students are seeing those large fee hikes.
California is extremely rich in state university campuses: the UC and CSUC systems alone amount to 33 campuses, about a third of them mega-campuses of 30-35 thousand students, with another 10 around 20,000. The mega-campuses completely dominate the Assembly districts they are in, and their large concentrations of students and faculty skew the district electorate not just to the left, but to the devoutly politically correct but hopelessly unrealistic left.
Califormia's univeristies, and by extension, UNIONS, have destroyed the state's economies and they're trying to extend that to the whole nation. Hoorah for socialists!! Barf...
In short, California is a disaster for business. The state has piled up so many taxes, regulations and mandates that businesses are leaving the state.
That is why the state now has a budget crisis of staggering proportions, and why university students are seeing those large fee hikes.
California is extremely rich in state university campuses: the UC and CSUC systems alone amount to 33 campuses, about a third of them mega-campuses of 30-35 thousand students, with another 10 around 20,000. The mega-campuses completely dominate the Assembly districts they are in, and their large concentrations of students and faculty skew the district electorate not just to the left, but to the devoutly politically correct but hopelessly unrealistic left.
Califormia's univeristies, and by extension, UNIONS, have destroyed the state's economies and they're trying to extend that to the whole nation. Hoorah for socialists!! Barf...
In short, California is a disaster for business. The state has piled up so many taxes, regulations and mandates that businesses are leaving the state.
That is why the state now has a budget crisis of staggering proportions, and why university students are seeing those large fee hikes.
California is extremely rich in state university campuses: the UC and CSUC systems alone amount to 33 campuses, about a third of them mega-campuses of 30-35 thousand students, with another 10 around 20,000. The mega-campuses completely dominate the Assembly districts they are in, and their large concentrations of students and faculty skew the district electorate not just to the left, but to the devoutly politically correct but hopelessly unrealistic left.
Califormia's univeristies, and by extension, UNIONS, have destroyed the state's economies and they're trying to extend that to the whole nation. Hoorah for socialists!! Barf...
Campi.
Campius?
I was in Berkeley in 1965, during university student demonstrations demanding more money, and heard Governor Reagan (on a motel radio) telling them that “The symbol of California is a bear; it is not a cow, to be milked.”
Evidently this bit of folk wisdom didn’t have “traction,” not even in the mind of Governator Ahnold.
California has approximately 30,000,000 people. 144,000 of the state income tax filers pay a majority of its personal income taxes. These folks are leaving our state at an alarming pace. The end game approaches. Indeed, it may already be here.
If I recall correctly Heinlein’s book Friday had the United States broken up and California was was its own self governing republic. Voting on anything and everything, mandating everything that could be mandated, and using money functionally worthless anywhere else in the world. It’s astounding how right he was on so many different aspects of the future.
When I returned to California in 1977 after a stint at the University of Minnesota law school, I was astounded by how large and comprehensive California Statutes Annotated was when compared to its Minnesota equivalent. It occurred to me then that the California legislature was out of control. That was 33 years ago, and things have become much worse in that regard. It is a tragedy that a state of such great natural beauty blessed with the best climate in the world and an abundance of natural resources could be so mismanaged. There can be few better arguments against “progressive” government than the current state of the formerly great State of California.
“It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that the old “shut it down” cry was somewhat misplaced when keeping it fully open was what the present demonstration was about”
;)
Super article, thanks!
Not surprising.
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and their state affiliates (e.g., CAS) are the good guys in colleges and universities.
They (I) want to teach the “exceptionalism” of Western Culture and the U.S. rather than indoctrinate students in politically correct/post-modern/Marxism-Maoism-Leninism.
Brought to us by the Roosevelt Administration's rescue of the Frankfurt School.
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