A friend is studying for the Law School Admission Test, and the test preparation company she is using offers test-takers a tip: Reading comprehension questions will typically have a liberal slant and a liberal answer.A student asked me the other day why I'm the only conservative at the law school. I said but I'm not a conservative. (I'm a moderate.) And the amazing thing is that I'm viewed as a conservative — even though it's easy to see from this blog that I support abortion rights and gay marriage and that I voted for Obama in '08 and have any number of liberal ideas as I'm sure my conservative readers will be happy to point out.
I had to change the question to: Why am I viewed as conservative? My answer to that was that I show respect for the conservative viewpoint as I teach and write about a range of issues. If that creates the impression that I'm a conservative, what are students hearing from the rest of the professors?
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125 comments:
"If that creates the impression that I'm a conservative, what are students hearing from the rest of the professors?"
I assume that is a rhetorical question.
The other professors are doing what fascists do: they indoctrinate. You can freely express all acceptable political positions.
Universities will not exist as they currently do after the next correction. Student loans are propping them up now, but those will end when the next correction hits because they are going to cause the next correction. Endowments are going to be confiscated sooner rather than later. The don't even let you talk about the only party that does not support wealth confiscation.
Do you really think the post Trump republican party is going to be favorable to universities? Do you think the democrats are not looking at those huge endowments with a glittering mote in their eyes?
I used to think I was a moderate but as time goes on I see myself as a conservative. I wonder if that's due to better self-awareness or a clearer understanding of where I am compared to others in our society (and the feedback I've gotten).
And when all is said and done I don't believe its my faith that pulls me rightward.
You may be a liberal, Madame, but you are not a "progressive."
And as a physician I've noticed the gradual shift left of my medical colleagues.
The left has control of the hiring and promotion process. It will take a ferocious battle to even that out. Why would a talented conservative academic beat herself bloody against this wall when there are plenty of first rate opportunities for scholarship in private foundations, think tanks etc. The conservatives have responded by creating an alternative academic infrastructure. It's still early in that game and if mainstream academia continues to permit low quality crap to infuse the system, the conservatives have a chance of winning. It's not the death of conservatism that hurts the left as much as the death of skepticism about their own beliefs. Smug is dangerous, lefties, and will bite you some day.
A liberal is a conservative in the "progressive" scheme of things.
Abortion rites and selective exclusion. Moderate? Perhaps in the twilight...
That said, you are notably tolerant of other perspectives.
It's a very simple equation for 'progressives' these days. They are moral beings of light and everyone else is scum. There is no in between, no shades of grey. Just social justice warrior or lower than pond scum. You are not even human to them.
I'm not a conservative. (I'm a moderate.)
Same thing in American politics. Our spectrum is shifted so far to the right of anyone else's that we're like the Genghis Khan of world politics.
It's a very simple equation for 'progressives' these days. They are moral beings of light and everyone else is scum.
And then there are children like you, who just let others dictate and determine their morality for them.
Christoff basically is a conservative, though.
A conservative Muslim. A conservative sexual moralizer. A conservative establishment politician booster.
Etc., etc., etc.
And almost everyone else at the NYTimes is a phony, anyways.
The closest you get to honest political analysis there nowadays is Charles Blowjob, and that's not saying very much.
I used to think I was a moderate but as time goes on I see myself as a conservative. I wonder if that's due to better self-awareness or a clearer understanding of where I am compared to others in our society (and the feedback I've gotten).
It's due to the concern you increasingly feel over not being able to control others.
I hope that last question was rhetorical. Either that or you haven't been listening around UW for a long long time.
Your colleagues and students are further Leftward than are you.
Not exactly a news flash.
Having been through law school as a conservative (and close to the founding of the Federalist Society in the mid-eighties), this angle (and Nick Kristoff) isn't very convincing. I was never hassled or indoctrinated, and I can't recall a single exam question where my politics were at stake. I expect Professor Althouse to back me up on this.
But I also expect Professor Althouse to back me up on this: there are a lot of funky things going on in law schools -- "civil rights" advocacy organizations, "environmental" law clinics, etc., etc. that are rather well-funded and well-connected to engage in actual litigation on behalf of left-wing causes. And as Justice Scalia pointed out in his series of dissents in the homosexual rights cases (Bowers, Lawrence, Obergefell), the American Association of Law Schools forbade any member school from allowing any private law firm, business, or other organization from interviewing on campus if they did not afford full equal protection to LGBTQ students. That meant forbidding the military services from interviewing law students for the JAG corps, until very recently.
And that was perfectly reflective of the general atmosphere in law schools, bar associations, large law firms, large corporate law departments, federal judicial chambers (including lots of Republican-nominated judges), and too many other backwaters and headwaters of the legal profession.
It isn't just law schools. The legal profession is a profoundly liberalized profession. There are conservative lawyers, of course. There are some Republican lawyers at large law firms. But they have to make lots of compromises. Mostly, they are not social conservatives, and if they are, they need to button it in professional life.
There is a super-talented young appellate lawyer from my state of Michigan, John Bursch. He was Michigan's youngest Solicitor General. After service in that office, he joined the Grand Rapids corporate firm of Warner Norcross & Judd. It is a mostly-conservative area of the state and the nation. Grand Rapids has sent Republicans to Washington and Landing forever. But Bursch had to take leave from his firm, in order to serve as special attorney general to defend Michigan's popularly-enacted constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Warner Norcross wouldn't touch it. They feared the loss of their corporate business, because all of those client corporations feared public backlash.
That is the way it works in today's legal profession.
A friend is studying for the Law School Admission Test, and the test preparation company she is using offers test-takers a tip: Reading comprehension questions will typically have a liberal slant and a liberal answer.
To pass, you have to be able to believe things quickly, as Vicki Hearne pointed out in Bandit.
I went to law school so long ago, I can't really relate to today's classrooms.
In those long ago days, some of the the profs at Chicago had served in the government, they all had a vital and ongoing engagement with the both the business school and the economics department, and they were mostly liberals of the "heroic" stripe--civil rights for all and adherence to the freedoms of the bill of rights. They believed in the rule of law and they liked to examine legal doctrines critically. They loved to expose anomalies. There were no "burn it down" radicals on the faculty.
How does that compare to Wisconsin today?
You can say better than I.
Leave it to Ritmo to describe our ultra left wing society as ultra right.
"And as a physician I've noticed the gradual shift left of my medical colleagues."
I've noticed this in my students and now in the young physicians I see and talk to. I've also noted that these young physicians mostly hate their practice.
40 years ago, my partner used to say, "I hope they never find out I would do this for free."
Now, they are all on salary and given thick books of rules.
Unions will be next.
To a modern leftist, Conservative ideas are akin to Nazi ideas: so inherently foul that they do not even need to be debated - the are axiomatically wrong and are to be dismissed without debate. That is why a true leftist thinks its OK to shout down a campus speaker who is from the right. Nothing is lost by silencing a conservative, just as nothing is lost by silencing a Nazi.
Michael - I still think there are people who go into medicine for the thrill of helping people. Not every doctor is either apathetic or a Dr. Mengele to be.
Leave it to Ritmo to describe our ultra left wing society as ultra right.
Lol. Society? I'm talking about what I thought mattered in politics: The politicians.
But thanks for admitting that an increasingly unpopular right-wing government has tried to take control over a left-wing public. I rather like the implications in that. ;-)
"Reading comprehension questions will typically have a liberal slant and a liberal answer."
My daughter was a freshman at U of Arizona a few years ago and I was helping her with her study guide for final exams.
In the study guide for "US History Since 1877" the study guide informed her that "The Silent Majority" referred to white people who refused to accept the 1964 Civil Rights Act."
It also informed her that settlers in the west were taught farming by the Plains Indians. The Plains Indians were, of course, hunter-gatherers. Hopi and Navajo, a tiny minority of those Indians of the west, were farmers.
Her lecturer in English Composition, an English grad student, spent the review session on a rant about Ronald Reagan and how he was an actor who read lines written by others.
Ritmo think Obama is "an increasingly unpopular right-wing government."
Now, they are all on salary and given thick books of rules.
Unions will be next.
Naaaah! Just keep being HMO employees indefinitely!
Being for gay marriage as opposed to civil unions is where Althouse parts ways with conservatives who are social liberals, and goes into tyranny.
Ritmo's educashion is showing again.
Ritmo think Obama is "an increasingly unpopular right-wing government."
No, actually I thought it was congress and the state legislatures and governors.
But that presumes you're actually able to keep things in perspective and not easily distracted by your fixation on one person. As much as he symbolizes everything you're not able to control when it comes to America.
Nice comeback, Alex. Well played.
Next thing you know they'll invite you to a debate at the Oxford Union.
Ritmo - nah I'll leave that to Russ Roberts or Milo Yiannopoulos. I'm perfectly happy munching on the popcorn like Michael Jackson in Thriller while you 'progs' implode. Trump is driving you nuts.
Her lecturer in English Composition, an English grad student, spent the review session on a rant about Ronald Reagan and how he was an actor who read lines written by others.
He was. It's what made him politically successful. The right hated how "polished" JFK looked on tv and spent a couple decades trying to see if they could get a B-list actor to do the same.
And they did. Do you not believe that his acting and line-reading skills contributed to the so-called "Great Communicator's" political success?
This is not to say whether or not the student wasted a lot of time. Just whether or not he was correct.
If he was, that's absolutely a boost for English class and the humanities and arts in general.
I'm perfectly happy munching on the popcorn like Michael Jackson in Thriller while you 'progs' implode. Trump is driving you nuts.
Choose your own reality, I say!
One minor self-correction, before Professor Althouse lowers my exam grade...
I mentioned the triumvirate cases Bowers, Lawrence and Obergefell. While those cases do form a triumvirate of leading cases on homosexual rights, I should not have placed Justice Scalia on the court hearing Bowers because Scalia was not yet on the Court when Bowers was decided.
The case I should have referenced was Romer v Evans.
And they did. Do you not believe that his acting and line-reading skills contributed to the so-called "Great Communicator's" political success?
Who wrote Reagan's lines when he was in the hospital after he was shot? Did his alleged line-writers prepare Reagan for all possible situations when he was meeting with foreign leaders?
What are you saying, Big Bowel Mikement? Just because he wasn't a puppet-robot and could actually respond to normal conversation with humor that he didn't employ his acting skills and speechwriters to the max?
Nope. Reagan wasn't autistic. But he was an actor.
He acted the role very well. And enjoyed his frozen tv dinners as best he could.
I've read your blog for years, Ann. You are liberal, but not on the left. Genuine liberals are open to finding truth in many places. The Latin word liber means free. Liberals are free to learn from conservatives. People who are simply on the left are not free; they are closed and dogmatic, and they hate conservatives. The tribe of liberals seems to be shrinking.
"As much as he symbolizes everything you're not able to control when it comes to America."
Obama and Rhodes are well matched.
No substance at all.
"Nope. Reagan wasn't autistic. But he was an actor.
He acted the role very well. And enjoyed his frozen tv dinners as best he could."
Reagan acknowledged how much his acting background helped with delivery and repartee.
Dullards like you assume that this requires reading lines. Maybe you should go to the theater some time.
Try taking the state licensure exam for teachers in a blue state if you want to see questions with a liberal slant.
As usual the language is inapt. "Conservatives" are just as interested in big government as "liberals". The only difference is in the goals of the big government. "Libertarians" are just pacifists masquerading as small government people. Liberate yourself. Become a small government person. No one will talk to you because they think you are insane.
It's a mentality of, "If you're not for us, you're against us and if you're against us, you're a conservative."
Conservative means those who are against us.
And if you're not towing the party line, Althouse, you're a Conservative.
Your reasonableness isn't going to save you. Hopefully you're old enough to miss what's coming.
"Rhythm and Balls" needs his narratives, aka false beliefs, and it is mean to confuse him with reality. Shame on you all.
Reagan just read lines, and all the private discourse he has saved at his presidential library cannot prove otherwise. Do not make "Rhythm and Balls" put his fingers in his ears and yell so he can avoid truth. He will if he has to!
Moderate is such a lame word. Althouse deserves to call herself non-ideological.
"Having been through law school as a conservative"
Nobody who's read your comments thinks you are a "conservative" in the commonly accepted use of the word.
You may be a "conservative" in the say way Andrew Sullivan is a "conservative", Bill Maher is a "Libertarian" and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a "moderate".
Kristof has it mostly right about the general bias in academia. It's not new though. Heck, Buckley detected the left-wing trend in "God and Man at Yale" way back in 1951. Add "Berkeley in the 60s" and voila, you have total LeftWing intellectual domination at the Universities.
Good for Kristof, but what does he propose to do about it?
The Left utopian is a diverse mixture of blacks, gays, feminists, Native Americans, who all think alike and want bigger government and sexual chaos in our culture. What else is new? Thank god for sports.
BTW, what kind of bias is involved when something is not clearly written?
Althouse could have tried a little harder to distinguish where the Kristof quote ends and her words begin.
Just sayin.
Ann, you are a feminist straw-man-hater.
Re Ritmo-
-Politicians don't define government ideology. The government exists as an institution or set of institutions, and also a social caste/social class of employees and affiliayed hangers-on, semi-independent of the politicians. And these are 100% leftist.
-Reagan spent eight years as governor of California, where he was an extremely active executive, and this was well known by everyone in Sacramento. He left his own writings, and many other memoirists recall his conversations, like Goldwater and Buckley or even that popular thief and liar Willie Brown. He had his own brain, even his leftist detractors have long since acknowledged, and any honest ones (honest with themselves anyway) would have known this very well in 1980. Their published opinions of the time were propaganda or the effect of their own echo chamber.
Reagan acknowledged how much his acting background helped with delivery and repartee.
Dullards like you assume that this requires reading lines.
I never said that, dummy.
Maybe you should go to the theater some time.
Maybe you should get out of your daughters', etc., house some time.
Kristof is right of course. Even at wealthy private Stanford, where I have some contacts, the faculty will buck the collective opinions only in private, with family, because it is professionally dangerous.
Conservative columnist and former Tory MP John O'Sullivan (now with National Review and the Hudson Institute) wrote about "O'Sullivan's First Law."
Which dictates: All organizations that are not actually conservative will over time become left wing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100715191034/http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-jos062603.asp
U.S. legal institutions are one of the very best examples of O'Sullivan's First Law.
rcocean: You presume to know me rather well. Simply, I presume, through my criticism of Donald Trump. Is Trump that much of a litmus test for you?
Elucidate me as to the ways in which I am not a conservative. I'm kind of curious. For my sake, see if you can do it without any reference to Trump. And only on issues.
There's always been a Stalinist side to the Left, but it was held in check by two things:
1) The much larger "Liberal" side that strongly believed in innate, natural rights.
2) The fact that the primary opponent of the USA on the world stage was run by actual Stalinists, who had done so many awful things that to openly imitate them was political death.
Now, the post-modern Left doesn't think that there are "natural" anythings. I mean, hells bells, if your genitalia aren't determinate of anything, how is there enough "nature" left to be the foundational substance for "natural" rights?
As for the Stalinists & the Soviet Union, an ever increasing percentage of the population has no memory of the Soviet Union. Thanks to a vigorous campaign of obfuscation by the self-same Lefties, even less of the population has any idea of just how malevolent the Communist regimes were to their own peoples. Thus, attacks on natural & Constitutional rights doesn't seem to carry the inherent dangers that earlier generations felt as a matter of course.
I have & have had many friends on the far & moderate Left. They are, as a group, remarkably intolerant of any dissension from Orthodoxy. And they are getting worse. I strongly suspect I shall lose a few in the coming election for having the temerity to 1) think HRC is a criminal 2) to see Bernie Sanders as a legitimate expression of revolt by the Left of the Democratic Party against the Party's political oligarchy & 3) to see Donald Trump as also an expression of the political will of a too-long ignored sizable percentage of the nation & the Republican Party.
You should bring in your husband for show and tell to make them less ignorant.
That's a good idea, show and tell, in principle.
But probably not by senior faculty.
This is a matter for students, brave ones, or at least some thrillseekers.
Quite a shortage of brave students these days.
"Maybe you should go to the theater some time.
Maybe you should get out of your daughters', etc., house some time."
?????
I have three daughters, none of whom lives with me.
I would also suggest Shakespeare for you.
Beware. As insufficiently leftist, you leave yourself open to Chinese-style Cultural Revolution struggle sessions from the feral students.
Althouse would be first against the wall, protesting her views were sufficiently Leftist to survive the Purge.
I would die with my boots on, shooting back.
I am an optimist.
It's the madison effect - 50 sq miles surrounded by reality. Only in Madison are you a conservative. Everywhere else a liberal.
Michael K wrote:
I have three daughters, none of whom lives with me.
I would also suggest Shakespeare for you.
I suspect that Michael K is telling us that, in fact, he is King Lear.
Don't be so hard on Cordelia, yur highness.
Blogger Birkel said...
Althouse would be first against the wall, protesting her views were sufficiently Leftist to survive the Purge.
Oh, that never works. To protest your innocence is to question the justice of the state. It's all transactional at that point; what can you give them in return for your life?
Bukharin committed the crime of believing the workers could judge the party. In a letter to his old pal Stalin, Bukharin plead for exile in place of execution. He wrote Stalin, addressing him by his old revolutionary nickname, "Koba." All he wanted was a little vegetable garden and a shack in Siberia, where he and his wife could finish their days.
Stalin sent the letter around to the other members of the politburo, asking their opinion. They knew what Stalin wanted, so they said Bukharin must be killed.
"I'm sorry, Bukharin, old friend, I would spare your life I could, but you have seen what the poliburo has decided."
That's the way these people work.
One of my best profs at UT Law in Austin was Lino Graglia. Once he called out the affirmative action fraud involved in Hopwood, it didn't take long for his myriad liberal colleagues lacking little grey cells to rise up and denounce him en masse.
I suspect that Michael K is telling us that, in fact, he is King Lear.
Perceptive.
The youngest doesn't speak to me but I am paying off her student loans anyway,
Obviously, libs gone wild in universities are not good. (ironically, coeds doing this is awesome).
OTOH, it could be worse. At least the lib rag of record can run things like this Kristof piece.
And, as I type this the NYT has a piece that presents how a Rand fan runs for-profit higher education. Compared to the Kristof thing, this Rand fan thing seemed like a total puff piece considering the Rand dude became loaded by selling $30M to $70M for-profit degrees where some classes involved students teaching themselves rather than school staff, and the earned credits were so flakey that they may be worthless beyond the schools doors.
Anywho, I think we can all agree that a Rand dude who became loaded by corralling government student loan dough isn't exactly purely a non-moocher. I don't think Rand had an exception for laundering moochiness.
Late to the party, and sorry to pile on, but --
"the amazing thing is that I'm viewed as a conservative" Faux amazement, right? I mean really, right? You are not actually, honestly amazed, are you?
"Why am I viewed as conservative? My answer to that was that I show respect for the conservative viewpoint" That is one reason. But you are obviously off the Prog reservation, to coin a phrase. Heretics are the worst. Thou shalt not deviate from the party line.
"what are students hearing from the rest of the professors?" Faux wonderment, right? I mean really, right?
Have you ever considered what it would take for an honest conservative to be interviewed and hired? Have you ever asked yourself or others or even your dean how the UW culture might make non-Prog students or potential faculty behave? In view of the "amazing thing," have you and your colleagues ever done anything at all to make sure you are not the most conservative person on the faculty?
I strongly suspect I shall lose a few in the coming election for having the temerity to 1) think HRC is a criminal 2) to see Bernie Sanders as a legitimate expression of revolt by the Left of the Democratic Party against the Party's political oligarchy & 3) to see Donald Trump as also an expression of the political will of a too-long ignored sizable percentage of the nation & the Republican Party.
I don't understand why you think that. My impression is that most of us agree at least with the first two, and also agree with the third item as well, at least in the sense that Trump represents an expression of the same phenomenon that we're revolting against. It's just that we don't agree with maybe a good half of his suggested remedies (or feel that he overemphasizes some of them) and also largely believe that he is probably too cagey, inconsistent and impulsive for us to have a decent idea of what he actually would do, especially with regards to a stable long-term vision.
If you can stomach the real left-wing media voices that will back me up on that, I can provide them. But I won't go dumping them here unsolicited for the same reason that I need you guys to filter to me whatever you hear Ace of Spades, Powerline and Rush Limbaugh say in order to avoid being disoriented by the strange passions brewing and swirling directly within them.
Ms. Coulter, Eh, I mean Ms. Althouse, have you read the comments on your blogs? Surely you know what kind of fellow travelers you are attracting?
Now, the post-modern Left doesn't think that there are "natural" anythings. I mean, hells bells, if your genitalia aren't determinate of anything, how is there enough "nature" left to be the foundational substance for "natural" rights?
But we believe in science, though. These genitals are not male genitals for these genetic males, so we accept that the need to define strict conventions on any aspect of identity is overblown - and yes, sometimes that could and should include gender. You'd think that conservatives or other non-liberals, who talk about how there are real psychological differences between men and women, would understand that this could affect identity as well.
Other than that, the actual liberals of the left are getting over identity politics, and want to move on to the same middle-class and working class economic complaints that Trump seeks to address as the basis for politics going forward - other than when it comes to legitimate incarceration issues. We consider the both the identity politics grievance olympics industry and appeasement of Muslim theology to be the realm of what we call "the regressive left." Those are your Stalinists, as far as we can tell. Unabashed power obsessives who refuse to move to a place where freedom and reason replace power and groupthink.
Some of them come out of the secularists and atheists who probably make conservatives uneasy, but there is convergence and good dialogue. Start with Dave Rubin, perhaps - his interviews with Gad Saad or Douglas Murray or maybe even that over-the-top Milo guy. We want PC culture to be removed from a position where it can stifle progress or the values of the free-thinking American community.
I read the Kristof piece. Two problems: he conflates liberal and progressive. He says progressives "supposedly" cherish diversity.
"identity" is not a scientific concept, R&B. Try again!
"Rhythm and Balls": "...as far as we can tell..."
And with that exception, the rule was swallowed. You are, sadly for you, only dishonest so far. You allow the caveat that exposes your attempt at deceit.
Your conscience may yearn to be free, but your intellect is fully captured, you pitiful creature of the Left.
I see liberal v conservative as power of the federal govt.
The federal govt has limited, enumerated powers. That includes SCOTUS. Abortion? The federal govt has no jurisdiction, ditto homosexual marriage. Those are the domain of the people. Saddly lawyers have ruined much. The people have the power, they only allow the power to be used, on a limited basis by the govt. But the power belongs to the people.
That's as absurd as saying that a "noun" is not a scientific concept. A noun is a real concept in that it exists. Same with the word that you got confused by, Team Hawaii.
As usual though, I'm not here to debate your distractions - but responding to YH who actually has the mind for understanding things regardless of whether his political tribe is cheerleading them. YOU OTOH are a bit too sound-bite in your grammar to get beyond what your little partisan media machine told you to think.
Listen, if you think that "identity" is not real, then I will let a lot of guys who "identify" as Islamists or jihadists to live with you in a group compound until they are satisfied with what they've made of you. Maybe provide them with an orange jumpsuit, a video camera and some interesting cutlery for them to make the point, as well.
After that, wherever your head is, I will ask it what it thinks of the real, if "unscientific" meaning of "identity" to those guys was overblown.
I'm not debating or discussing anything with you, either, Burpel. If I wanted to hear what your corporals on the right-wing dictated to the little peon they have in you in their semi-annual talking points, I would just turn them on and watch for myself. You are incapable of original or interesting thought and aren't worth listening to, let alone talking to.
"That's as absurd as saying that a "noun" is not a scientific concept."
It is not. A noun is a feature of language, not the natural world.
Don't confuse language and science, R&B.
What is the mass of identity? What is it's velocity? What is the mass of a noun? What is its velocity? There is a physics of biology. What is the physics of "identity"?
The word 'scientific' is not magical. It describes a method of observing and investigating the natural world. "Identity" is no more a scientific concept than "beauty" is.
@R&B,
We consider the both the identity politics grievance olympics industry and appeasement of Muslim theology to be the realm of what we call "the regressive left."
Where we disagree here is I probably think that the Identity Left is a far, far stronger force than you do on the Left. I think that's it's to the point that the "Classical Liberal" Left, of which you probably see yourself as a part, is an endangered species in the cultural zones controlled by the Left. There simply is no other vital ideological "action" on the Left other than post-Marxist identity theory, & a glance at any department in the Humanities in the country will bear this out. The Identity theory folks see your "Liberal" notions as essentially window dressing for bourgeois white male cultural hegemony. For them, you are a conservative Republican and just don't know it. Just like Prof. Althouse is "conservative" just for letting us "hillbillies" spout off.
If you think there's a "thinking" moderate Left, please tell me what journals of opinion they write for. It used to be New Republic & The Washington Monthly were such journals. Now, they are further to the Left. The Nation & Mother Jones are where they always were on the Left.
I'd even go so far as to say that the Moderate Left & Moderate Islam share the same foundational problem: they don't have the "language" anymore to frame their arguments against the extremists on their side, since the very terms of the discourse have been co-opted by their opponents.
Goodbye Terry. Or Terry's detached head.
You really are a fucking moron. Maybe next you will tell us that the mind is a spirit machine that exists independent of the science of how the blood flow circulating to it allows it to function.
Seriously, just get the fuck out of here. Mind and brain are the same thing, you mental masturbator. And identity is a function of them. To say science has no jurisdiction on how identity is constructed is to say that psychology should be replaced with religion. And BTW, if your own gender wasn't scientifically determined, I expect you to conform to social pressure at this very moment, cut off your tiny penis, wear a dress and march your stupid ass into the nearest gay bar and up to the first tranny you meet pronto.
"Rhythm and Balls":
Yours odds of winning a debate with me, on any issue at any level of respective inebriation, quickly approaches zero. I will let you have your necessary self-delusions because I know how useful they are to maintaining your self-anointed air of superiority.
But I am smarter, quicker, more physically gifted, more charming, better endowed and more personally likeable than I guy exactly like you in all respects. But not you, in particular. You deserve your comfortable fiction.
"It's due to the concern you increasingly feel over not being able to control others"
Yeah,that's it exactly
(Just broke my rule about feeding trolls.)
Yes YH I agree that "cultural" left is a strong force (too strong and dangerous) because of the travesty of what it's made of the universities with PC. But I am confident that it's losing out, at least from the sources I choose to surround myself with. I believe it will lose out because of the popularity of the internet and of comedy (Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock won't do colleges anymore!) and secularism ("nones" as increasing share of "believers") and rationalism and a completely natural aversion to rationalizing the religion of jihad. Weed is becoming increasingly legal and unstigmatized. People don't smoke that stuff and then think about how wonderful bin Laden and his spiritual upbringing must have been.
And it's telling that you mention print - which is obviously a dying industry anyway. It's the twitter feeds and YouTube channels of Dawkins and NDG and Sam Harris and Bill Maher and TYT where all the action is. You think the "allies" of Ayan Ali Hirsi and Majid Nawaz are on the right? That's funny. But not true.
YoungHegelian:
You think the Washington Monthly was moderate? Was that when Kevin Drum was going on about Peak Oil (also argued by Flagler in the 1880s as Yergen documented) or was that when the magazine was argoluing the factually inaccurate WMD lie?
You pay too much respect, by orders of magnitude.
Thanks, Birkel.
Make sure to show that empty, grandiose paean to yourself @10:33 to this huge entourage of friends, followers and admirers you speak of so that they can reinforce the fact-based legend of how wonderful you've proclaimed yourself to be.
The paean to yourself you wrote at 10:33 PM. On a Saturday night.
On the internet.
"Rhythm and Balls" thinks the disinvitations by universities of Ayaan Hirsi Ali prove Leftist support.
Hey, "Rhythm and Balls", try to get a single name of hers in the correct order or spelled correctly next time. It will help you sound less a mother fucking fool.
Is the string tired?
No thanks.
I will just ask to have all my rough thoughts on a Blogger comments section at almost midnight edited by you, Birkel.
Because perfect naming conventions (every time, not just once out of about ten) are really important to a guy like you.
And also, because you are "smarter, quicker, more physically gifted, more charming, better endowed and more personally likeable... in all respects."
Especially on a Saturday night. On the internet.
I have never said other than truth, "Rhythm and Balls", whether you like it or not.
"Maybe next you will tell us that the mind is a spirit machine that exists independent of the science of how the blood flow circulating to it allows it to function."
You silly goose, you are not science, or matter, any more than Beethoven's 9th is time dependent variations in air pressure.
I always show support for people by misspelling and mis-ordering their names.
That goes without saying.
It's interesting watching Birkel and Terry licking each other's balls like this.
Enjoy, boys!
So, I can add homophobic to your progressive resume, "Rhythm and Balls"?
For posterity:
Blogger Rhythm and Balls said...
It's interesting watching Birkel and Terry licking each other's balls like this.
Enjoy, boys!
Oh, so you do like licking Terry's balls, eh BIrkel!
Good to know.
But I won't judge you two for it. Hell, you two can even still use the same bathroom together. This isn't NC.
Knock yourselves out. Just take it elsewhere.
"This, students, is a conservative."
"Oooooo."
"Are there any questions? Yes, Evan."
"Does he bite?"
"No, no, you'll find he doesn't bite. Though you must approach him slowly, and it's best if you allow him to smell your hand first."
Do you honestly think, "Rhythm and Balls", that I care about homosexuality? Have you ever read a single comment of mine in which that particular aspect of human behavior animates my worldview?
I know you are stupid and witless, but please stop embarrassing yourself.
"If that creates the impression that I'm a conservative, what are students hearing from the rest of the professors?"
The mind reels.
Althouse should have! Althouse is really "fill in the blank". It's the illiberal liberal who's ruined not only education but almost all ideological conversation.
OK, following is "all about me", but late in the read and mostly unread not a problem?
Attending college in San Francisco, class of '64, I helped pay my way managing a residence club (a cross between a hotel & boarding house). Trader Vic's was in the alley behind, ritzy Olympic Club was "kitty corner", neighborhood bar my parentals frequented WWII across the street & next door a lesbian bar, lotsa lookers who let an 18 year drink so we could tease each other. Owner of residence club was gay, general mgr. was gay (they had no/nada/zero personal relationship), both invited me to dine/party with them! Adolescent I was, I often offered opinions on their current partners. All to say, when repressive government intrudes it all goes from "feel free to live as you want" to "feel free to live as we say you can"!
Do you honestly think, "Rhythm and Balls", that I care about homosexuality? Have you ever read a single comment of mine in which that particular aspect of human behavior animates my worldview?
I know you are stupid and witless,
Yeah. But you and Terry like licking each others' balls.
Animus toward homosexuals animates "Rhythm and Balls" it would seem.
Bigotry such as "Rhythm and Balls" exhibits is unseemly.
You reveal yourself, bigot.
What animus? (What a stupid word, BTW).
I'm just saying that you and Terry seem to have a very inordinate fondness for each other's balls.
A fondness that you express with each other's tongues.
animus: ill-feeling, hostility, motivation
I can see how you think it is a stupid word. I also understand why primitive people feared thunder.
If I liked to express myself orally with anybody of any gender, what reason of note is that for you, except to express hostility?
You are a bigot.
If I liked to express myself orally with anybody of any gender, what reason of note is that for you, except to express hostility?
Well, it's not. I guess.
Except that you keep doing it with Terry all over this blog and comments thread.
Very distracting.
"Rhythm and Balls" is a bigot.
If merely giving the conservative viewpoint serious consideration makes you the school's "conservative" in the eyes of the students, that seems to imply both that the other professors are NOT giving serious consideration to the viewpoints they disagree with (likely to the detriment of the students' education), and that the students have a problem dissociating representation from advocacy.
Perhaps more alarming in that kind of question is what it implies about the ability of unpopular defendants to obtain legal representation from this generation of future lawyers. Even if an individual lawyer or firm accepts clients whose beliefs they disagree with, are they going to be faced with professional shaming from their colleagues who cannot dissociate representing an opinion from identifying with it?
zactly
But I am smarter, quicker, more physically gifted, more charming, better endowed and more personally likeable than I guy exactly like you in all respects. But not you, in particular. You deserve your comfortable fiction.
He has better hair! He tells funnier jokes!
In today's political climate, conservatives/libertarians are often cheap dates. I personally am greatful that Althouse will engage in dialogue with us in which she genuinely listens (I guess that's a redundancy) even when she gets razzed (sometimes by me) for voting for Obama.
David said...
conservatives have responded by creating an alternative academic infrastructure. It's still early in that game and if mainstream academia continues to permit low quality crap to infuse the system, the conservatives have a chance of winning.
This doesn't work though. By controlling the government supported infrastructure the left has ensured the non-left pays for them leaving more money for other left wing causes. If conservatives / libertarians recreate a tiny mimicry of academia they must pay for it directly. Think tanks are smaller, less effective, and the non-left is paying for everything. It's the functional equivalent of an army invading enemy territory and living off the enemy's supplies rather than their own.
The same is true with low level advocacy via government agencies, like the government funding Acorn's children for ACA "education". It's a payoff for left wing political activists using our money.
Jason:
Sadly, I cannot claim better hair. Ha!
and that the students have a problem dissociating representation from advocacy.
The students are being taught in high school and undergraduate studies that representation is advocacy. That's the whole point of speech codes.
As for the Stalinists & the Soviet Union, an ever increasing percentage of the population has no memory of the Soviet Union.
My high school students are shocked to learn that not only were the Communists as bad as the Fascists, they were worse.....
Today teachers get fired for using the word nigger when teaching about how evil the word nigger is.
Meanwhile their students are busy "explaining" the difference between the word "nigger" and the word "nigga"....and how White people aren't allowed to use either word while Black people can.
CR said...
The tribe of liberals seems to be shrinking.
I don't think this is generally true, although they have lost nearly all their political influence. The group has fractured with those realizing their party was taken over by lunatics becoming libertarian or independent. But largest portion of liberals were relatively uninvolved politically and remains Democratic. Since they aren't involved their preferences are subsumed by the radicals, who keep them voting Democrat by fearmongering that everyone else is a racist.
The country is similar to a campus on a larger scale. The vast majority of students aren't political and so placing the blame for extreme campus antics on "millennials" isn't appropriate. Even a majority of professors aren't like this. But it's still true the radicals control the political culture and therefore the rules we all live under.
A question, Prof, that answers itself.
It's bs to suggest, as the article does, that this is something that has only been around since the early 90s. Political Correctness, the censorship tool progressives use to silence opposing views, has been fashionable amongst progressives since about 1990, but the overall leftist slant in the liberal arts and social sciences has been around much, much longer than that. Some trace it to the Frankfurt School decamping to Columbia in the 1930s, but even that is really just an another example of American academia moving left, not the cause. What makes today different is the purge is now complete. There are no conservatives allowed in the liberal arts or social sciences in American academia. And, not coincidentally, academia as an institution is in the process of imploding, and the value of college degrees in the liberal arts and social sciences, including law, have never been worth less, which is now less than zero. Funny how that works.
My Civ Pro Prof told us he was too conservative to be allowed to teach Con Law at our law school. Our Con Law prof was a very liberal, though very sweet elderly Jewish lady.
The blog "Minding The Campus" has a good interview with Prof. Harvey Mansfield on the paucity of campus conservatives, and his experience as the token conservative at Harvard. His wisdom and good humor must be indispensable assets.
Paul Krugman and others of his ilk call it "bothsidesism" when one engages with ideas of people he has already disagreed with instead of just rejecting the ideas and their proponents as foolish and ninnies. The time for debate is over. Obama pretends to engage but just sets up dumb strawman after dumb strawman, exposing himself in this among other ways as a charlatan.
"It's still early in that game and if mainstream academia continues to permit low quality crap to infuse the system, the conservatives have a chance of winning."
If colleges and universities continue their journey into costly nonsense and irrelevance, the remaining questions will revolve around whether to attempt to reform them, or just replace them with newer, more cost-effective models and methods for educating students and conferring credentials.
I can't think of another field with such a massive imbalance where the government would allow "Well, must be self-selection".
Christoff basically is a conservative, though.
*snicker*. Sure.
Other than that, the actual liberals of the left are getting over identity politics
I'll bite, when the fuck did this happen?
Does this rely on some amazing amounts of "No True Scotsman" fallacies here?
"... I show respect for the conservative viewpoint..."
How dare you, woman. Release the Kraken!
I'm sorry to inform you that when the leftist zombie hordes on campus finally go batshit crazy and turn to the unrestricted violence so common to those of the collectivist persuasion throughout recent history, you will be one of the first heads on a pike due mostly to your convenient proximity. I'm sorry, but you are playing with fire and not really calling strongly enough for fire codes to be enforced now before it's too late. If you value what I know you do, then people like you need to stand up now and demand freedom from the fascism of our time before it becomes the firestorm it has in the past. They may still listen to you, but that has an expiration date.
"... I show respect for the conservative viewpoint..."
How dare you, woman. Release the Kraken!
I'm sorry to inform you that when the leftist zombie hordes on campus finally go batshit crazy and turn to the unrestricted violence so common to those of the collectivist persuasion throughout recent history, you will be one of the first heads on a pike due mostly to your convenient proximity. I'm sorry, but you are playing with fire and not really calling strongly enough for fire codes to be enforced now before it's too late. If you value what I know you do, then people like you need to stand up now and demand freedom from the fascism of our time before it becomes the firestorm it has in the past. They may still listen to you, but that has an expiration date.
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