Which shining example? I've no power over anyone here, so I can't very well be doing anything that I'm condemning...

... I guess you're in the clear, then, champ

Good comeback

Maturity - 10

Yes, you're right. I was in a bad mood, sorry.

What I meant, as others in this thread have pointed out, is that very often those who complain about one side's intolerance and cast themselves as champions of freedom of thought and all that are truly no better themselves. Pate, as much as I like him, seems a perfect example. In this case, he's pretty much cast aside the topic at hand, which is lack of academic freedom in the classroom, opting to rail against one instance of "intolerance" while trivializing another.

I hate to derail the thread further by chiming in on the gay marriage thing, but I would like to add that the widespread opposition to it in this country and elsewhere is not necessarily a knee-jerk right-wing reaction to the ***s gettin' hitched. There are reasoned arguments for and against that should be examined on their own merits (and in their own thread!), and to write them off as invalid beforehand - in effect, shutting out debate, is not unlike what this scumbag professor in California did.

Better, Mikus?

Absolutely fantastic, I agree 100% I like to pretend I'm politically neutral, so it's really noticeable from both sides. What I hate is when people like Raoul Duke say "Oh it's because your liberal" when in reality your "liberalness" and "conservativeness" is a collection of inherent traits, beliefs, and values. A statement like that, to me, is the equivalent of saying "Oh you just think that because you're <Race/Gender/Whatever>" it's ignorant and rude. Disregarding a person's argument and chalking up their opinion to close minded partisan...ness enrages me to no end.

Yeah, this thread has made it overwhelmingly clear that people who call themselves liberal are not necessarily so. Liberals and conservatives each have their own set of beliefs, which may or may not line up, but labels aside people can be as open-minded or rigid as they please.

Is a 'liberal' who insists upon suppressing certain unpalatable beliefs, who wants to ban swastikas and Holocaust denial, really a liberal? Is a 'conservative' who is willing to listen to and consider other points of view, or who supports the right to freedom of conscience really a conservative?

It's a tiny community college with an angry imbecile for a polisci professor. Where's the story?

Oh, that's right. He must be a member of the vast liberal intellectual elite brainwashing the upstanding American youth, and therefore a damn fine excuse for airing out the Right's collective persecution complex. Have fun, guys.

I think I just reduced the maturity of this discussion significantly. Sorry.

I don't see what you are so mad about.

Flexor was clearly expressing a double standard. He doesn't think this professor was out of line at all, but if it was the other way around, (with a conservative prof oppressing a liberal student) then I can guarantee you he would be up in arms about it. Whether you want to admit that is up to you, but do you really think Flexor would have the same opinion if it were a conservative proffessor making his whole class write a paper about how Bush is actually the best president ever and can do no wrong? Of course not. He would be screaming bloody murder.

Yes you definitly contributed absolutly nothing to this thread. Post when you have something worthwhile to say, not just childish BS that will only drag a thread downhill.

Is anyone claiming this is some big conspiracy? No. We are merely discussing a single idiotic professor just like you say. And you talk about the Right's persecution complex? Seems to me Liberals have just as much of one. If not a lot worse.

You can guarantee nothing. Stop generalzing. In fact, stop posting.

Irony overload.

Shut the **** up.

Once again Raoul proves himself to be a skilled and mature debater.

Mikus, Raoul Duke: Cease this bickering now.

You push me to the edge with your idiotic comments.

Probably not in both instances. The problem is that people have too often disorted the meaning of liberal/conservative and they use it to define left-wing/right-wing, or affiliation with a political party.

Hey! That was MY point!

I'm all for freedom of thought; hell, some of my best friends are super-conservative... OK, just Wookie.



I don't think this is trivial at all. I think most everyone would agree that a professor telling their students what to think (instead of helping them learn HOW to think) is an ***. But a bunch of people agreeing just doesn't make a very interesting topic. It was to all the "damn liberals, telling us what to do!" posts that I was responding to.



I agree that another thread would be the best place. Sorry to all for hijacking the thread.

forewarned: I'm gon' rant, 'cause I'm a bit tipsy.

Fair enough. I don't know about Australia, as I've never been, but 'liberal' dominance of academia is a very real and tangible problem in America. I've never had a professor who holds a candle to this *******, but I have had ones who see absolutely no problem with teaching their personal opinion as the class material. Some try to separate the two, and should be commended - it is *not* easy. Thankfully, I've only had professors who welcome dissent, and again, I give them props. It seems to me like most professors, political science ones specifically, like to include a Marxist slant in their teachings but do allow you to disagree without penalty to your grade. Great. Still, while they may not fail you for disagreeing, there are a great many who in classes about contemporary Africa have no qualms with indoctrinating impressionable students about the "evils" of the American invasion of Iraq, and should be scratched from the payroll, tenure be goddamned.

It irritates me for reasons that should be obvious to most tolerant-minded individuals, but to me it presents another problem. I consider myself a liberal, and I value debate. When I walk into a political science class, I'm usually faced with a professor who espouses some form of Marxism, Communism, Socialism or some other godforsaken illiberal -ism, and of course, I don't agree. Fine. Good for critical thinking skills, right? Absolutely. But there is another way of looking at things - the professor is there to teach impressionable students how to think - and when they instead choose to indoctrinate with their communist tripe (an epithet, yes, but in this case an accurate one), I don't get out of the class what I'm ****ing paying for. I would love, just for once, to have a professor further to the 'right' than I am - one who, for example, not only embraces the notion of the War on Terrorism but also endorses shelling Islamist strongholds into oblivion ala Hafiz al-Asad and Hamadan in 1982. One who I can disagree with on principles we share. I don't know. There is definitely something to be said for learning outside of class, learning to argue, learning to counter an argument, but there is something lost when the professor does not live up to his or her obligations. Too many do not.

Heeooowww... I'm not touching this thread with a ten-foot-pole.

It exists in Australia; I'm fairly certain that part of the reason I failed the one subject I did is because I simply refused to play along with the hijacking of what the course was supposed to be about.

To be honest, the teachers I've liked the most are the ones whose opinions you can't determine, who argue theoretically from both sides without letting you know which they consider the "right" side.

I did a class on "youth media" and we watched a film that was, and I exaggerate not a whit, entirely about meaningless gay sex (and the conclusion was the main character (I hesitate to use the term "protagonist" deciding to live a life of doing nothing but drugs and having meaningless gay sex). Now, I have no problem with gay sex (as I believe I've pointed out in this very thread ad nauseum :)), but everyone got the impression that the movie was FORCED on us for some reason. None of us were quite sure what exactly we were being told to think, but we didn't like that it was happening at all. My tutor was far more on the "doesn't let you know what he thinks" side (and had cool hair), so I still enjoyed the subject, but I stopped going to the lectures.