Note to students: Ditch the hero worship, add critical thinking

BIZPACReview.com ^ | 4/17/2012 | Kingsley Guy

[SmileRight]

Last week, President Obama brought his re-election campaign to a cheering crowd of 4,500 at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. The audience for the stump speech consisted largely of students, so the adulation came as no surprise. Hero worship tends to be a province of the young.

College campuses, however, should be places where young people develop the critical thinking skills needed to succeed in life. So here’s a suggestion to those who participated in the FAU hurrahs: Put your adulation on “hold” for a while. Then employ critical thinking skills to what the president told you, especially regarding the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which he’s making a centerpiece of his campaign.

The rule, named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett who supports the idea, would mandate that people with income of $1 million or more a year pay at least 30 percent in federal income tax. The president insists this isn’t just an issue of tax fairness or wealth redistribution. Instead, it’s about...

[SmileRight]

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that universities are teaching much critical thinking these days. We can only hope that the youth will eventually see through all the garbage Obama is spewing.

[RightOnline]

If you’re talking about “critical” thinking in regards to criticizing capitalism, our economy, conservative principles/principles of the Constitution and our founding fathers, religious/Christian principles, etc.....then yeah, they’re being propagandi.....er, taught.....VERY critical thinking.

[LucianOfSamasota]

OK, but here are some facts: The U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the Buffett Rule would raise on average $4.67 billion a year. That’s less than 1 percent of the $48 billion the Government Accountability Office estimates Medicare spent in 2010 on “improper payments,” in other words waste and fraud.

Actually, $4.67 billion is slightly less than 10 percent of $48 billion.

The rest of his argument is sound. Just need to watch the arithmetic...

[ScottinVA]

We can only hope that the youth will eventually see through all the garbage Obama is spewing.

Maybe when, at age 40, still jobless and sitting in their underpants at the computer in Mother's basement munching Chee-tos, they've decided that Gender Studies degree wasn't so impactful after all.

[T.O.K.]

I was there, and it was not pretty. These kids have NO IDEA what is wrong with Obama. . . NO IDEA!

[tophat9000]

Today's Collage

Animal House life Animal Farm indoctrination go hand and hand

[DrC]

The younger generation is being used as a cash-cow for elders: one half billion is being diverted from Medicare to bankroll expanded coverage for predominantly young uninsured folks. At the same time, said young uninsured folks are being forced to purchase coverage that is roughly 3-4 times as expensive as their expected annual costs of medical care in order to cross-subsidize older workers.

In short, youngsters are getting double-shafted. They’ll pay more than they need to for coverage while they’re young and by the time they reach Medicare age, the system likely will be broke and they’ll be left with massive health bills in their retirement years.

Yes, MUCH critical thinking is needed for this generation of students! If it ever happened, Obama’s approval rating among the young would plummet.

[yldstrk]

yeah really this cult of personality hooha has gone on long enough

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Critical thinking is so valued by the humanist school authorities that courses in classical logic were thrown out of high schools and effectively eliminated from most colleges.

This $35 book is worth more than most $200,000 liberal arts degrees:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587318083?ie=UTF8&ref=aw_bottom_links&force-full-site=1

There’s little point in acquiring facts if you don’t know how to reason properly.

[bicyclerepair]

The 3 counties in S FL are as liberal as you can get.

I live in Broward (between Dade and Palm Beach counties) and am surrounded by brain-dead morons.

[jimfree]

I used earlier versions of these two 41 years ago. Copi, and Kalish & Montague.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Logic-13th-Edition-Irving/dp/0136141390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334764479&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Techniques-Reasoning-Donald-Kalish/dp/0195155041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334764511&sr=1-1

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

——I live in Broward (between Dade and Palm Beach counties) and am surrounded by brain-dead morons.——

We have college-educated morons here in MA.

At least your weather is warmer ;-)

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

I would have killed for a logic course in high school. An English teacher spent a couple of weeks on symbolic logic, and I was fascinated.

Unfortunately, that was the extent of my formal exposure to logic (zero exposure to Aristotelean logic) and I had to spend my twenties deprogramming myself. It wasn’t easy. A lot of pernicious assumptions are absorbed, and lazy thinking habits instilled, during 12 years of incarceration.

[BuffaloJack]

If you gotta do hero worship, then make sure your heroes are real heroes.
SEALs, SWCCs, Rangers, Green Berets, military, etc.

[Billthedrill]

Unfortunately, the academic “discipline” of Critical Thinking has very little to do with actual critical thinking and everything to do with forcing a Marxian lens onto the perception of everyday reality.

[patriot08]

.

The best Obama exposure site on the net:

The Obama File
http://theobamafile.com/

The United States Library of Congress has selected
TheObamaFile.com for inclusion in its historic collection
of Internet materials

http://theobamafile.com/LibraryOfCongress.html
http://theobamafile.com/index_next_politics.html

.

[SmileRight]

I totally agree with you! Obama has done nothing in four years that would even come close to what those patriots do for us every day.