Posted on 12/03/2004 12:55:13 PM PST by Ramonan
In his column, "Campuses remain Democratic havens," George Will certainly tries hard to explain why faculty members at our prominent universities are overwhelmingly liberal. But as is often the case with Will, he fails to mention the obvious. These people are liberal because they are intelligent, thoughtful and well-educated. They know something of labor and social history and realize that for most people a return to conditions of the early 20th century would not be in their interest. Finally, they are unpersuaded by slogans like "compassionate conservative" and "ownership society," which are primarily a cover for the transfer of society's wealth into the pockets of the rich.
THOMAS ALDEN Borrego Springs
Demonstrating once again that you can be articulate, educated, powerful and connected yet still have no clue to what is actually going on, Will bemoans the lack of "conservative" thought on college campuses. The first thing that comes to my mind is thank God. If most professors' ideological rudders represented those of the current Republican Party, institutions of higher learning would be teaching creationism as the explanation of man's existence on Earth, ignoring more than a century of anthropological discoveries because they conflicted with biblical teachings. Government studies would renounce labor unions as pseudocommunist fronts, since businesses always do what is best for workers. Law schools would concern themselves primarily with property law, since only owners of property have rights.
CLIFF HANNA San Diego
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
"One of the biggest errors in conventional wisdom is to think academics are particularly intelligent. "
I went to Stanford, went to school with brilliant people, I'm pretty brilliant my self. While university edumacation certainly helps AS PART OF ONES LIFE SCHOOLING, it has to be tested by the school of hard knocks. So many brilliant ideas I've had which would not stand up in the real world, or were brilliant but irrelevant.
As an engineer, I always do a theoretical paper drawing, then at least a physical mockup before trusting peoples lives with it. My current hobby/invention is building a ramjet engine that works witout forward velocity, pretty cool and I've had the theory down for years. But making the damn thing work in the real world has taken many hours in the garage and talking with non-academic people worldwide, not from something the university provided.
So, my opinion is that academic brilliance merely allows one to make collosal rather than mundane blunders. Until you get out of the ivory tower, you're just smokin crack if you think your ideas are worth spit.
Besides, most of the professors on campus are in expendable basketweaving courses like women's studies, it isn't the engineers who are raving socialists.
I saw this!
Know what?
I attended my high school's 40th class reunion in October,
and out of all the guys who went into teaching, ONLY ONE
is a liberal. The others are still jocks; football coaches at universities and state colleges in CA.
The guy who was our star athlete, (QB and baseball) is in
the running for a coaching job in Alabama. Not "at" Alabama, but a school "in" Alabama. He's from ALA originally.
The one lib, is a high school English teacher. He's the one exception and that surprised me since I have known him since kindergarten.
I can't speak for the women classmates. I didn't have the
time or the inclination to talk to them...lol.
Drop one of these self satisfied, pompous jackass, academic elites on a desert island, along with one of us upon whom they sneer, and see which has survival skills and common sense enough to provide for the survival of both.
True for many of them, no doubt. But in the right hands a PhD is the key to the universe.
Okay, the Muslim girl sniffed when I said that and walked out of class never to be seen again, but I'm just a student, what do my opinions matter? I'm not even considered a sentient being by the academics since I lack my PhD.
I'm going to take that with a few grains of salt....
I am an accounting/business ed teacher at a high school and I vote REPUBLICAN. I was a financial accountant for 20 years and have now started teaching at the high school.
So please stop lumping us teachers as stupid and liberal.
As every undergraduate knows, there is a hierarchy of majors based on degree of difficulty, and the morons usually end up in education, social work and the humanities because there is no math and the grading is easy. It usually doesn't take much for the professors in these areas to convince the students they are smart -- the students are the bottom of the barrel, just as the professors were when they were students.
If you are smart enough to be a professor in the humanities, you are also usually just smart enough to know that you'd never succeed in a world based on self-reliance. Hence, you become a liberal and go about the business of manufacturing liberals in order to propagate your existence. Fortunately, the job market has figured all of this out, and most students are on to the game as very few choose liberal arts majors nowadays.
yeah, I always thought san diego was a solidly conservative and military town, but I heard it has gotten a bit wacky recently.
Does this mean you were flirting again? :^)
LOL!
Yes bourbon.
In truth, that's what I did.
But all in fun.
Liberal professors only seem intelligent because they're compared to other liberal professors.
Why professors are liberal: They're intelligentPerhaps, but it seems that they're insufficiently intelligent to be conservative.
I give you Wesley Clark. Rhodes Scholar, 4 Star General... and my favorite Wes quote.
"This country was founded on the principles of progressive taxation".
Then too, there is the strange case of Al Gore, former Vice President, and a complete moron in any field of endeavor, who upon encountering the busts of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin at Mount Vernon, remarked, "Who are these guys?"
I know. I just like to kid you about that now!
I know,
and don't ever stop!
good sport.
Let's see, I think I'm starting to learn the rules:
1) I can make fun of you for flirting; 2) DC2k can make fun of me for having a crush on exotic newsbabe Rudi Bakhtiar; 3) we can all make fun of WKB for his...ummm..."spelling problem" and for having issues with his 'ping dinger;' and 4) you can make jokes about WD's bloodthirsty, Bambi-killing ways.
I think that just about covers all the bases doesn't it?
of course, under socialism the intelligent elites run things -- any intelligent person would see its self evident and rationally satisfying superiority as an economic system... fortunately, there is always france where the intelligent elites, graduates of the best ecoles, run things.
perhaps all these intelligent professors would be happier in france, peut etre?
as for me, i'd rather have a bit of wisdom than a lot of intelligence...
ROTFLOL!
I think you've got it covered,
brilliant guy that you truly are!
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