Inside Politics: Liberal hubris

The Washington Times ^ | 11/23/04 | Greg Pierce

[Arrowhead1952]

"A successful career in academia, after all, requires a willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience,

Been there, done that. Screw your "academia". I have a REAL job, just like our First Lady had a REAL job and unlike Mama T, I know the difference.

[T'wit]

>> All these activities are discouraged and indeed ridiculed by the present Republican leadership.

And if you don't believe him, just ask the new cabinet-level Department to Promote Illogic, Unexamined Evidence, Unconsidered Possibilities, Unevaluated Eventualities, Bad Manners, Social Blunders, Red State Birth Disorder, Mass Cognitive Dissonance, and A Sweeping Denial of Minority, Gay and Women's Rights.

[Pitiricus]

Well I have a Ph. D... Took only three years, and I do make more than 90K a year... But I am an economist...

When I became an economist, the profession was different. Today it seems that the younger professors are completely brainwashed...


A pity!

[maine-iac7]

"A successful career in academia, after all, requires a willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience, along with a lack of interest in material incentives

make that:

>"A successful career in academia, after all, requires ..." that you be a democrat or you will not be hired.

This has been straight from the communist party handbook of points towards taking over the country.

I goes back to the days of Kruchev when he banged his shoe on the podium at the UN and screamed his warning: "We will bury you within 50 years and we will not even have to fire a shot!"

Other points, beside infiltrating and controlling the minds of our youths, was to destroy the moral fibre of the country, not only thru' monopolizing academia, but by destroying the fabric of our art, music, etc.

Been pretty successful haven't they -

They weren't strong enough to operate openly as socialists so they deliberately infiltrated the democratic party...now, I believe they've turned in their socialist cards for straight line communist party cards.

Never saw the MSM, aka the LSM (Lame Stream Media) report that both the Socialist Party of America and the Communist Party of America publicly supported Kerry, did ya.

[skikvt]

Bill Gates is a Republican... That moron didn't even graduate from College...

[fredhead]

I've spent 26 years as an electronics technician, 20 in the Navy and 6 years with a government contractor. I've met several "techs" who could spout electronic theory left and right, but couldn't troubleshoot their way out a wet paper bag with a charged firehose. Personally, I am weak on theory, but I have been successful as a tech.

Academics theorize about how things work, those of us who take care of it on the "deckplate" level make things work.

[Senator_Blutarski]

My own experience with academics is that they do employ logic in their arguments. The problem is with the premises on which they base their arguments. Many liberal academics are somewhat out of touch and lack grounding in "street smarts". They base many of their arguments on premises which misjudge human nature and human motivations.

Many of them also too quickly dismiss the relevance of data that conflicts with their conclusions. You can ignore conflicting evidence when your livelihood and life don't depend on your being right. That's the great fallacy of academic tenure. If you are a tenured professor, being wrong has no negative impact on you.

[JimSEA]

dittos

[An Old Marine]

My brother a dean of acedemic affairs at an eastern university and is one of these clowns.

He's never worked a day in his life outside acedemia.
I paid for his education while I was in the Marines.
He spends all his time trying to borrow money from me or other relatives.
I've actually published more books than he has in a variety of disciplines while running a successful business.
I spent more than 20 years defending this country at the minimum pay levels of the military but nevertheless have many times his net worth.

And yet.... he told me that this election proves he's smarter because of my outspoken support of GWB and my position on terror. Then he asked me if his family could use my house for his daughter's wedding since there is so little room in the cottage that his university supplies him and oh yeah could he borrow $10K for the wedding too.

Typical liberal.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Academics are trained to reason using logic, to question evidence and to consider and evaluate several possible interpretations of events," Markus Meister, a professor of biology at Harvard, said in one of two letters published yesterday.

That's a crock... And quite a howler.

Liberals absolutely are NOT "trained to reason using logic." First of all, the most popular ideologies which dominate American universities (Deconstructionism, Postmodernism, and Neo-Marxist/Germanic critical theory) deny that certain knowledge of reality is even possible. Traditional Western Aristotelian logic is hardly taught anywhere at all (if you can even find anyone remotely acquainted with the subject on most campuses). And it is ridiculed as logocentric, phallocentric, and the product of Dead White Western Males.

This dork from Harvard has quite a sense of humor. Based on his ludicrous comments, it seems highly unlikely he ever sat through a first-rate philosophy course at all(again, if one could even be found on such a campus). What academic liberals and wacko lefties do specialize in is the non sequitur, equivocation, and the ad hominem, among other rampant fallacies.

[TChris]

Those who can't teach, administrate

I believe there's another layer in there: Those who can't teach become tenured professors and perform research, leaving their graduate students to teach. Those who can't do research, administrate.

[maine-iac7]

Great Post

(and did he get the house and 10K?)

Please tell me he didn't...>b>;o0

[Still Thinking]

I like it! I'll have to remember to add that one.

[gunnedah]

Are we not selling our young people out by feeling this way. In the least we are wasting a great portion of their education.

[krb]

requires a willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience, along with a lack of interest in material incentives,"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Do these people actually buy their own stuff?!??!?

[frithguild]

A perfect example of the left accusing the right of the wrong that they are up to their necks in.

[ccmay]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach others to teach.

-ccm

[HamiltonJay]

I know PHD's that make good money, most of them I know that fit that category though don't work for Academia, and those that are are generally much older than their private sector counterparts making the same money. I broke the six figure income mark at 29, and I certainly was not on the "fast track" to get there.

I have batted around returning for an MBA or a Masters in my field, but when I looked at the numbers, I was making as much or more than most that had those... so to this point I haven't returned to school. I have successfully created businesses, invested and began creating true wealth, and God willing with continued hard work and dedication am well on my way to becoming one of those first generation millionaires.

If I do ever return to school, at least formal education it will likely be because I just choose to, not because I need to for any reason... as working for myself is now the #1 priority, and frankly making day to day WORK a completely optional thing. Once I am there, my days are my own... and I think antagonizing left wing nutballs on University campuses might be something I might find entertaining for a while. I still walk through the university in my town from time to time to remind myself of the arrogance of youth... its fun listening to 20 year olds who've lived with mom and dad, and now a few semesters of college, speak of the world, geopolitics etc as though they have a clue. I chuckle as I pass these debates, as I can remember myself being just as naive, but thinking I knew it all... Real life will slap most of them around very soon... and a handful of them will live on on the campus as academias next generation... continuing the cycle.

The reality is that you go to college and get a Degree in Business... you go get a job and likely your starting salary will be higher than an associate professors or even a professor at most universities out of the gate... you do your job well and in a few years you are making as much or more than most tenured professors with PHD's on most university campuses... and you are maybe 30 years old.

Over your lifetime you will outperform your academia counterpart by volumes on average.

I have nothing against PHD's.. I just have issue with these arrogant nimrods that make stupid claims like Conservatives and red staters are too stupid to become professors... When in reality, most of us wouldn't want to live our daily lives on the communist onclaves called universities for any price. Combined with the fact that in terms of career, the income potential by and large is far greater outside the university environment... its pretty much a no brainer... unless research and teaching is a PASSION for you, to not stay there and choose it as a career.

And if Research is a passion, private and government pay better generally than University.

[Mojave Mark]

Conservatives need to get back into academia. Maybe some freepers should teach at the local college/university after they retire from the "real world." We're losing most of our kids for their 20's and even their 30's because conservatives are grossly underrepresented in education. Eventually most people figure it out and get Republicanized after they start paying taxes but there's no need to lose one or two decades. If we just get better representation in education then people would have an easier time being conservative their whole lives. Why waste a couple of decades???

[maine-iac7]

Hmm - (I've been thinking - Oh, no, I'm a republican, I can't think...) It has puzzled, while elated, me that this election, so many college kids turned republican when the colleges have been deliberately lopsided with socialist mind-bender profs for decades.

I wonder (since I can't think, I "wonder",) if, in the past few years as the pointed-head ones have moved out of the classrooms into their oxygen deprived towers, leaving the "teaching" to student teachers in "classrooms" of 7-800 students in lecture halls - the mind control program suffered a dilution which, along with students access to information on the "information highway", aka the Internet...well, them thar students seem to be escaping the reservation...