I totally understand what this kid (bigwall) is saying.
I made a return to college after several years away from school.
I constantly have to listen to the political views of kids that havent even moved out of their parents house about how evil America is, how Bush sucks, you know the rhetoric.
It’s annoying to say the least. The professors encourage it too. They tell these kids that they are “liberated” and “thinking for themselves”.
It’s not that I am a Republican (I’m pretty much apolitical) but I just don’t want 18 year old kids preaching to me about anything, much less something as complex as politics.
Dear Jeff:
I’d start by taking her for a nice long walk in a park, and try to not say anything too stupid. Hold her hand, when she …ooops. Wrong thread.
Dear Liberals: Come to Canada, where you will be called the Anti-Christs, by anyone living west of the North/South median of Winnipeg. Dear Conservatives: Come to Canada, where you will be all grouped together with a former Jay-Leno look-alike-contest winner, who just happened to make a few bucks by betting on an airline.
Dear New Democrats: Come to Canada, and encourage everyone to not work, grow weed, and live off the few hard workers, educated or not, who show up for work on time and don’t smoke away their monthly cheques “because they deserve it dammit”…
Sorry for the off-off-topic rant. No offense meant to anyone who moved to Winnipeg recently from a city built to look like Dallas only with snow and a large saddle to skate around in.
You basically have a few options here:
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Switch departments – at least after you get out of the basica required classes. You will find a lot more balance in economics and the hard sciences, to the extent politics is covered at all (less so in macro economics, but the stuff I was taught in macro a few years ago was based on discredited Keynesian ideas leftover from the '70s when my profs were grad students…)(However, this will not help you with the hippies who hang out and protest things, which they have time to do as they are not in economics or hard science);
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Research the information behind what is going on, understand it, and get in a position to make your voice heard once you have formed an intelligent opinion on the issue in question (I highly recommend writing opinion pieces for the school paper) – in other words, do something about it;
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Ignore it to the extent you can, get your grades and get out to grad school or a well paying job.
Note – these choices are not mutually exclusive. You can also find like-minded folks or explore other avenues of thought by looking into politically oriented student organizations.
BTW, if you don’t believe him re: professors trying to indoctrinate students, just read this little piece from a professor in the NYT complaining about students refusing to be indoctrinated:
(I think NYT links are generally at least good for a couple weeks, and this was in this Saturday’s paper)
Apparently Ms. Garelick equates democracy with feminist awareness and liberal politics, although there are some among us who might take issue.
Also, check out this site, for an organization that is dedicated to making certain that professors don’t use their platforms and grading power to indoctrinate their students with politics rather than teaching them the material:
I have a hard time believing that anyone in academia said that only racist rednecks are republicans.
The major media news outlets go very easy on the Bush administration. FOX worries liberals because they own such a strong majority of the ratings and push such an unquestionably biased agenda.
Our president is an idiot.
How can you watch The Daily Show and FOX news and not get sick at one or the other?!?!
Oh, and this just in…
Federal deficit: $477 billion.
College Professors are not the most intelligant people if they were they wouldnt be college prefessors. They would be out in the real world making 10x the cash, and being a useful part of society, but then who would be there to make college so fun!
Mitch Green
Mitch Green: Do you think academics go to school for 5-8 years of graduate work to become professors for the money? Sorry my friend, but not everyone is fully satisfied by making lots of dollars. My impression (I’ve never conducted a study on professors intentions) is that they choose academia because it affords them certain possibilities, such as maximally pursuing their chosen field of study.
Of course, plenty of professors seem to be short a few marbles, but many of them deserve plenty of respect for their intellectual prowess.
Since this is already hijacked:
Bush does spend too much – mostly on domestic items. How does this play with the criticisms of the President that he is underfunding education, services, etc.?
BTW, the biggest piece of spending that has added to the projected deficit is the prescription drug benefit package – should we repeal that? How do you feel now about health care for everyone?
Also, if you care about the deficit, did you read that each and every Democratic candidate, if allowed to enact his economic plan that he has been touting while campaigning, would have higher deficits than Bush? Who are economic conservatives, which I assume you are since you care about the deficit, to vote for?
Pork spending is up 5 times what it was under Clinton.
Under Clinton- 2 billion on pork
Under Bush- 10 billion on pork
Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill yet, which is a first I believe.
That is true, but did not at all address the point. If all the Democrats’ spending proposals would create larger deficits than Bush’s projected deficit, and you care about the deficit (assumed from your critique), for whom will you vote? Bush, the candidate with the smallest projected deficit? A Libertarian who won’t win?
Don’t watch the news. I am blissfully uninformed.
personally i think that just being able to be around college age chicks and possibly being able to bang them is good enough reason to be a professor. fuck the 10x more money!
If you took out Social Security, Clinton was running a deficit too…
“Pork”…the other white meat.