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Sowell: Wimps Versus Barbarians
Creators Syndicate ^ | May 21, 2013 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 05/20/2013 10:34:19 AM PDT by jazusamo

An all too familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4th to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that dealt in fossil fuels.

As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object.

Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had the guts to put a stop to these storm trooper tactics. Nor is it likely that there will be any punishment of those who put their own desires above the rights of others.

On the contrary, these students went on to demand mandatory campus "teach-ins," and the administration caved on that demand. Among their other demands are that courses on ethnic studies, and on gender and sexuality, be made a requirement for graduation.

Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok? At a prestigious college like Swarthmore, every student who trampled on other people's rights could be expelled and there would be plenty of replacement students available to take their places. Although colleges and universities across the country have been giving in to storm trooper tactics ever since the nationwide campus disruptions of the 1960s, not all have. Back in the 1960s, the University of Chicago was a rare exception.

As Professor George J. Stigler, a Nobel Prize winning economist, put it in his memoirs, "our faculty united behind the expulsion of a large number of young barbarians."

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academia; education; energy; envirowhackos; highereducation; indoctrination; sowell; swarthmore; thomassowell

1 posted on 05/20/2013 10:34:19 AM PDT by jazusamo
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
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2 posted on 05/20/2013 10:35:36 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo

The good news is that Swarthmore won’t exist in five years after the student loan collapse.


3 posted on 05/20/2013 10:37:28 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("“Somebody has to be courageous enough to stand up to the bullies." Dr. Ben Carson)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

If that comes about there may be a lot of those liberal profs looking for work, maybe they’ll become professional protesters.


4 posted on 05/20/2013 10:42:20 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo
maybe they’ll become professional protesters

They've been that all their life.

5 posted on 05/20/2013 10:51:05 AM PDT by ThomasMore (Islam is the Whore of Babylon!)
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To: ThomasMore

You’re so right. It’d be great to see them on street corners with signs saying “Will Protest For Food.” We can dream.


6 posted on 05/20/2013 11:05:23 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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Please bump the Freepathon or click above and donate or become a monthly donor!

7 posted on 05/20/2013 11:13:50 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo

NOTE TO SELF: Don’t consider any job candidates from this “Swathmore” college (or whatever its’ called).


8 posted on 05/20/2013 11:15:31 AM PDT by The Duke
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To: jazusamo
I have a slimy rat mask that I used with a sign, Will Vote DemonRat (Often) For Cheese. Interesting reactions.
9 posted on 05/20/2013 11:18:49 AM PDT by Little Bill (A)
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To: jazusamo
“...student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object...”

This IS the Nazi ‘style’. If you read ‘The Three Faces of Fascism’, you will see the author (Ernst Nolte) VERY ably and exhaustively details every aspect of the fascist campaign in Europe.

It's all there, from students misbehaving (an excessively generous word for some disgustingly ugly behavior) to Hitler Youth, manhandling pedestrians at will and trashing businesses...

Who said there is ANY difference at all between THEIR behavior and the spoiled and ignorant children who call themselves 'students' and who ought to call themselves lucky to even BE on a campus? What's the difference between these 'students and the fascist animals who put on their swastikas, broke windows, publically struck and abused the elderly, and who spat on their opponents in the street?

10 posted on 05/20/2013 11:20:58 AM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: Little Bill

LOL! That’s great.


11 posted on 05/20/2013 11:22:55 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: jazusamo

Are there ANY alumni of ANY of these universities who are conservative? Heck, I would settle for even a middle-of-the-road liberal who has not yet descended into the madness of left-wing fascism! Is there not ONE Alumnus who, having a modicum of critical thinking, will call upon the trustees of these institutions and say, “NO MORE Money, Endowments, Donor Dinners, Grants, or Scholarships will be forthcoming until these activities are banned, and the perpetrators expelled.

My late husband was a graduate of Northeastern University, and we received “begging letters” from them every year for 40 years, so it is reasonable to suppose that they rely a lot upon donations from their Alumni.


12 posted on 05/20/2013 11:24:52 AM PDT by left that other site ((Ban the ubiquitous and deadly solvent, Di-hydrogen monoxide!!!))
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To: SMARTY

I see little if any difference in the radical lib students and the Hitler Youth.


13 posted on 05/20/2013 11:27:40 AM PDT by jazusamo ("Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." -- Adam Smith)
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To: SMARTY

It is not just Nazi style - it is the style of all types of Marxist ideaology - whether it is communism, national soclialism, socialism, marxism, facism. Read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Riech” by William Shirer. In the 20’s, when the Nazis were getting revved up, this is what they all did at each others meetings and against the legitimate German government.


14 posted on 05/20/2013 11:38:50 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: jazusamo

Not to mention, of course, the Doberman puppies from “Animal Farm”


15 posted on 05/20/2013 11:41:09 AM PDT by ez (Muslims do not play well with others.)
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To: jazusamo

More likely to become dogfood.


16 posted on 05/20/2013 11:49:57 AM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: 7thson

I read that years ago and I remember what he said


17 posted on 05/20/2013 12:38:42 PM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: jazusamo

If I had a child going to college whose tuition I was paying for, the financial assistance would totally be dependent on what the child’s major was. Anything in the area of women’s, minorities, sexual studies, etc. would not get a penny from me.


18 posted on 05/20/2013 5:34:49 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: driftless2

“If I had a child going to college whose tuition I was paying for, the financial assistance would totally be dependent on what the child’s major was. Anything in the area of women’s, minorities, sexual studies, etc. would not get a penny from me.”

The social sciences, education, librarianship, education have become nothing but propaganda mills. The only hope of learning factual material is a major in the hard sciences with the full knowledge that the academic survival “global warming” mythology has to be addressed with critical thinking skills. One professor I heard years back at a private university summed up what two courses every student should take before all other courses: 1) Logic 2) Statistics.


19 posted on 05/20/2013 7:17:06 PM PDT by Seeing More Clearly Now
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