Posted on 02/11/2004 9:35:38 AM PST by Helms
Perfectly put AV.
No flames from me. In some schools most would be appropriate.
Myself included!
In my parents' generation, I think a college education generally meant something.
Rush once posted an eigth grade test from the 1890's or some such. Very few of today's college grad's, let alone high schoolers, could pass it.
Academia is so inbred, it borders on nepotism. Making your conservative politics known prior to tenure and full professorship is the kiss of death on your academic career.
Why would anyone want to redirect the urges of someone who seeks to destroy "art" created from corrogated steel and cinder blocks?
And what would the first theory and first counter theory be whan analyzing the rationalization for anarchy? How on earth could anarchy be rationalized before or after the textbook theories are applied, anyway? Apparently, the brilliant professor cannot even see the two oxymorons contained within one title.
What intrigues me, though, is that the entire concept begins with the premise that destroying lousy art is an act of rebellion against law and order. How obtuse.
(Are we having fun, yet? Let's make that challenge to Duke!)
LOL! ;>)To bad that you are a FORMER teacher. We need GOOD teachers but I'm convinced that those Colleges of Education found on most University campi today is NOT where we will find them!
The trend seems to be that right thinking folks entering the teaching profession these days are short lived because they just CANNOT adapt to the environment! REALLY a sad state of affairs if you ask me.
Truer words than these have never been spoken and most of those those WITH tenure are SO afraid of becoming social outcasts that they continue to "toe the line".
"We try to hire the best, smartest people available," Brandon said of his philosophy hires. "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.Well, here's the exact quote from Michael St. John Packe, The Life of John Stuart Mill 454 (1954), quoting Mill's letter in whic he said this:
"Mill's analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too."
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the aw of the constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honourable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . . There is so much defense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power."What's more, here's the original statement to which he was alluding, from his Representative Government:
The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence the stupidest party, have much the greatest sins of this description to answer for: and it is a melancholy truth, that if any measure were proposed, on any subject, truly, largely, and far-sightedly conservative, even if Liberals were willing to vote for it, the great bulk of the Conservative party would rush blindly in and prevent it from being carried.Mill never said that stupid people are generally conservative -- he said that stupid people in the England of his era belonged to the Conservative Party. Mill, as a partisan, wrote a partisan rant about the Conservative Party; he said nothing about conservatives generally. It's hard to see how his comment has anything to do with conservatism in 2004. (Note that the problem can't just be explained as an error on the part of the Duke Chronicle; even if Prof. Brandon said "Conservative" and the reporter wrote it as "conservative," the problem is with Prof. Brandon's using a quote about a particular party as if it were a quote about conservatism generally. Nor is it easily dismissable as an obvious joke, especially given Prof. Brandon's talk about "Mill's analysis.")
Conservatives are generally stupid!
We stupidly believe that our dignity and principles have an intrinsic value which should not be sold to the government in exchange for a little more supposed security.
We stupidly believe that a dollar earned is worth ten pilfered from other hard working individuals.
We stupidly place our faith in the wisdom of the common man making free and open choices.
We may be stupid, but at least we can take comfort that we live our lives in honor and not as as some two-bit sycophant who constantly has figure out what his boss thinks before he can develop his own opinion.
Finally, we are stupid enough to believe that as individuals we are responsible for our own happiness. Now for a stupid question. When is the last time you saw a happy liberal?
Oh how right you are there!
. In fact, most of the "Elite's" are incapable of doing anything but working as proffesors. Without the educational establishment to keep them in a job, it's a good chance they'd be part of the homeless community.
It also explains why the left are so consistent in their demands for more government spending on education. Hey: they gotta live you know!
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