Do conservatives ever wonder WHY liberalism is prevalent in higher education?

[Derideo_Te]

Liberalism is forced down students throats from their first day at public schools.
Threat, humiliation, abuse and violence are used to ensure conformity.
Kids who do not conform are given lower grades until they conform.
We saw the same thing in the UK under Blair.

My daughter was an A student during her A level studies.
She held an A grade in English literature until the last few weeks of her course then was dropped to an F for " non participation" in study.

Non participation was my daughters refusal to apologise and beg forgiveness from her black classmates for the slave trade!!
That's indictrination, it's liberal indoctrination, that's why the teachers union is the most powerfull organisation in the USA.

So all those thousands of unionized Boston police officers that we saw in action on Friday and their unionized brethren nationwide are are less powerful than teachers?

 

[Liberal]

Let me tell you - it is a 100% fact that conservatives are exponentially more informed than liberals.

That's a potentially hefty statement there.

I have no choice but to challenge you with the burden of proof. Prove that Neocons are actually exponentially more informed.

Difficulty: Provide references

The "proof" was clearly listed in the rest of the post that you conveniently left out...

That was not proof.

That was conjecture, I asked for references..

Nice try.

 

[Dorkazoid_Jones]

Perhaps its because liberalism represents intellectual ideas? Perhaps something can be said why political scientists tend to be liberal.

If liberalism is intellectual than why to liberals continue to trot out the same failed ideas?? Why do they stick their head in the sand about the failure of Socialism??
Why do they doggedly stick with racist and sexist ideas such as diversity? Why do they embrace a phony equality movement like feminism which is nothing but a hate movement against half the population??? Why do they defend the community reinvestment act, which almost destroyed our financial system??? Why do they insist on a double standard in immigration where criminals are rewarded for sneaking over the border, while millilons of people around the world who follow the law are penalized???

LIBERALS DON'T WANT ANY CHANGE UNLESS THEY THINK OF IT. Anybody else's new ideas of change such as a flat tax, charter schools, or privatizing social security are mocked by the left.

LIberalism is not intellectual -- it's a cult who's tenets are the following:

1. The average person is stupid,
2. Because we can't trust the average person to do the right thing we liberals will figure out what these stupid people should do
3. When our ideas of controlling people fail, we will do rhetorical gymnastics to help us live in constant denial of our failures...

 

[kaz]

I still don't understand why a distinction needs to be made about getting an academic career verses pursuing some other career when it comes to life experience. How exactly does one define life experience based on this logic?

The distinction is that career academics are highly left and non-career academics are not.


Not really, do you know how universities are run? BTW, pretty much every academic I knew no matter how left they were agreed that university systems are modeled exactly like socialism. The only disagreement is as to whether that's a good thing.

It doesn't necessarily dispute your claim, but from what i recall, in the 2008 election voters who voted for Obama tended to have a higher education.

Not sure I believe that, but I'm not saying you're wrong. In 2008 though you had two candidates who were fiscally liberal, so it wasn't a good test. I realize you also were saying you were making no conclusion on that either, just commenting.

Its not the idea of a socialist structure that I question. I question the idea that a supposed socialist structure in universities would have any connection to the idea that is why educated liberals become professors.

What does them being left have anything to do with life experience?

Keep in mind I'm saying it's correlated, not applicable in every case. To be a professor, you typically have to go through that structure for 7-10 years. If you do not like the structure used in Universities to reward and advance people, you're less likely to stay. And vice versa. And if you stay and are comfortable, you're likely to continue to support the university using that structure and you're also likely to see it as a good "general" process, meaning government.

 

[kaz]

You say people who stay in academia have no real world experience, yet you are quick to point out your own educational achievements. Are you some exception to the rule? You have real life experience yet anyone else that achieves a degree doesn't? Why would becoming a professor mean you have no life experience? Wouldn't you agree that we need professors?

So from a conservative standpoint, there is no need to study political science?

Where are the numbers to support your claim that Republican voters tend to be more educated than the rest?

Do you understand the difference between staying in academia and using your education in the real world?

Hint, one of them gets you money, the other gets you tenure, maybe.

This logic does not make any sense. What about being a professor means you do not have life experience? Money? Really? Having a lot of money means you have life experience? You have clearly given this no thought whatsoever. Either that or you tried and failed.

We both used the term "real world" experience not "life" experience. They aren't the same. Since we're talking about government, we're referring to economics and operating in a competitive marketplace. Academia is nothing like the marketplace. Winners and losers are chosen. There are competitive factors in that, but it's a fundamentally different process than a competitive marketplace.

 

[regent]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

 

[Derideo_Te]

Perhaps its because liberalism represents intellectual ideas? Perhaps something can be said why political scientists tend to be liberal.

If liberalism is intellectual than why to liberals continue to trot out the same failed ideas?? Why do they stick their head in the sand about the failure of Socialism??
Why do they doggedly stick with racist and sexist ideas such as diversity? Why do they embrace a phony equality movement like feminism which is nothing but a hate movement against half the population??? Why do they defend the community reinvestment act, which almost destroyed our financial system??? Why do they insist on a double standard in immigration where criminals are rewarded for sneaking over the border, while millilons of people around the world who follow the law are penalized???

LIBERALS DON'T WANT ANY CHANGE UNLESS THEY THINK OF IT. Anybody else's new ideas of change such as a flat tax, charter schools, or privatizing social security are mocked by the left.

LIberalism is not intellectual -- it's a cult who's tenets are the following:

1. The average person is stupid,
2. Because we can't trust the average person to do the right thing we liberals will figure out what these stupid people should do
3. When our ideas of controlling people fail, we will do rhetorical gymnastics to help us live in constant denial of our failures...

Are you aware that your misinformed rant did your own side more harm than good? The ideas of conservatism can be attacked just as easily and do nothing to resolve the issues. Instead it makes more sense to focus on the positive ideas that both bring to the table.

What is irrefutable is that throughout history it has been the implementation of liberal concepts that has improved the lives of ordinary people. The Magna Carta placed a restriction on the "Divine Right of Kings" and replaced it with "Govern with the Consent of the Governed". This happened because education had become commonplace amongst the aristocracy and it was they who were restricting the rights of the monarch. As education has spread further so have these principles of liberalism.

The spread of knowledge is difficult to suppress. This applies to both good and bad. The knowledge of how to make bombs from the smallest to the most lethal is now available on the internet. The stark reality of this was seen less than a week ago. Attempts to suppress ideas are usually futile too. The Arab Spring was the result of the oppressed having access to knowledge and the tools to communicate their dissatisfaction with their oppressors.

So you need to decide if your objections to the prevalence of liberalism in education is because you are opposed to the ideas themselves or because you object to others having the right to this knowledge. Conservative objections to liberal ideas are usually based on aspects like money and power rather than on the merits of the ideas themselves.

 

[Oldstyle]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

 

[Oldstyle]

Perhaps its because liberalism represents intellectual ideas? Perhaps something can be said why political scientists tend to be liberal.

If liberalism is intellectual than why to liberals continue to trot out the same failed ideas?? Why do they stick their head in the sand about the failure of Socialism??
Why do they doggedly stick with racist and sexist ideas such as diversity? Why do they embrace a phony equality movement like feminism which is nothing but a hate movement against half the population??? Why do they defend the community reinvestment act, which almost destroyed our financial system??? Why do they insist on a double standard in immigration where criminals are rewarded for sneaking over the border, while millilons of people around the world who follow the law are penalized???

LIBERALS DON'T WANT ANY CHANGE UNLESS THEY THINK OF IT. Anybody else's new ideas of change such as a flat tax, charter schools, or privatizing social security are mocked by the left.

LIberalism is not intellectual -- it's a cult who's tenets are the following:

1. The average person is stupid,
2. Because we can't trust the average person to do the right thing we liberals will figure out what these stupid people should do
3. When our ideas of controlling people fail, we will do rhetorical gymnastics to help us live in constant denial of our failures...

Are you aware that your misinformed rant did your own side more harm than good? The ideas of conservatism can be attacked just as easily and do nothing to resolve the issues. Instead it makes more sense to focus on the positive ideas that both bring to the table.

What is irrefutable is that throughout history it has been the implementation of liberal concepts that has improved the lives of ordinary people. The Magna Carta placed a restriction on the "Divine Right of Kings" and replaced it with "Govern with the Consent of the Governed". This happened because education had become commonplace amongst the aristocracy and it was they who were restricting the rights of the monarch. As education has spread further so have these principles of liberalism.

The spread of knowledge is difficult to suppress. This applies to both good and bad. The knowledge of how to make bombs from the smallest to the most lethal is now available on the internet. The stark reality of this was seen less than a week ago. Attempts to suppress ideas are usually futile too. The Arab Spring was the result of the oppressed having access to knowledge and the tools to communicate their dissatisfaction with their oppressors.

So you need to decide if your objections to the prevalence of liberalism in education is because you are opposed to the ideas themselves or because you object to others having the right to this knowledge. Conservative objections to liberal ideas are usually based on aspects like money and power rather than on the merits of the ideas themselves.

Since when was the Magna Carta a "liberal" thing? Seriously...

 

[Oldstyle]

Somehow you now equate "liberalism" with knowledge. It's not. Some of the most ridiculous ideas out there right now are being put forth by supposedly intelligent liberals.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

Extreme socialism AKA communism is a failure. Extreme capitalism AKA unregulated free markets is just as much of a failure. Both have caused harm to the common worker. Well regulated capitalism with social safety nets is the middle ground that actually works best for the common worker.

 

[Oldstyle]

Perhaps its because liberalism represents intellectual ideas? Perhaps something can be said why political scientists tend to be liberal.

If liberalism is intellectual than why to liberals continue to trot out the same failed ideas?? Why do they stick their head in the sand about the failure of Socialism??
Why do they doggedly stick with racist and sexist ideas such as diversity? Why do they embrace a phony equality movement like feminism which is nothing but a hate movement against half the population??? Why do they defend the community reinvestment act, which almost destroyed our financial system??? Why do they insist on a double standard in immigration where criminals are rewarded for sneaking over the border, while millilons of people around the world who follow the law are penalized???

LIBERALS DON'T WANT ANY CHANGE UNLESS THEY THINK OF IT. Anybody else's new ideas of change such as a flat tax, charter schools, or privatizing social security are mocked by the left.

LIberalism is not intellectual -- it's a cult who's tenets are the following:

1. The average person is stupid,
2. Because we can't trust the average person to do the right thing we liberals will figure out what these stupid people should do
3. When our ideas of controlling people fail, we will do rhetorical gymnastics to help us live in constant denial of our failures...

Are you aware that your misinformed rant did your own side more harm than good? The ideas of conservatism can be attacked just as easily and do nothing to resolve the issues. Instead it makes more sense to focus on the positive ideas that both bring to the table.

What is irrefutable is that throughout history it has been the implementation of liberal concepts that has improved the lives of ordinary people. The Magna Carta placed a restriction on the "Divine Right of Kings" and replaced it with "Govern with the Consent of the Governed". This happened because education had become commonplace amongst the aristocracy and it was they who were restricting the rights of the monarch. As education has spread further so have these principles of liberalism.

The spread of knowledge is difficult to suppress. This applies to both good and bad. The knowledge of how to make bombs from the smallest to the most lethal is now available on the internet. The stark reality of this was seen less than a week ago. Attempts to suppress ideas are usually futile too. The Arab Spring was the result of the oppressed having access to knowledge and the tools to communicate their dissatisfaction with their oppressors.

So you need to decide if your objections to the prevalence of liberalism in education is because you are opposed to the ideas themselves or because you object to others having the right to this knowledge. Conservative objections to liberal ideas are usually based on aspects like money and power rather than on the merits of the ideas themselves.

One could make the case that it was excesses of the "Royals" that caused "commoners" to take back the right to rule. The emergence of a strong merchant class (people who were anything BUT modern day liberals) had as much to do with the transfer of power as anything.

 

[Meathead]

Since when was the Magna Carta a "liberal" thing? Seriously...

You have to be completely bereft of a sense of history to think that it was not. The process of giving power to the simple man did not begin with giving the serfs the right to select leaders. It began with taking power from the rulers and transferring it to the landed aristocracy. I realize it is complex proposition for those with a weak grasp of world history.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Somehow you now equate "liberalism" with knowledge. It's not. Some of the most ridiculous ideas out there right now are being put forth by supposedly intelligent liberals.

Are you equating conservatism with knowledge and the betterment of the average person?

 

[regent]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

Most industrial countries on this planet, if not all, have mixed economies, socialism and capitalism. Can you name three countries that do not have a capitalistic/socialistic economy?

 

[Oldstyle]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

Extreme socialism AKA communism is a failure. Extreme capitalism AKA unregulated free markets is just as much of a failure. Both have caused harm to the common worker. Well regulated capitalism with social safety nets is the middle ground that actually works best for the common worker.

And would you agree that it is a tendency for progressives to over-regulate capitalism as well as strive for a cradle to the grave "nanny state" that has now brought us to a point where it ISN'T working well for the common worker?

 

[Oldstyle]

Sounds like some conservatives have now expanded their fight to eliminate public education from the usual evil teacher's unions to liberal arts degrees. Their point seems to be that universities should be a form of trade school, and only teach occupations.
Why is a liberal arts education or any education not connected to a trade such a threat to
conservatives? Why is teaching ordinary students, (the non-wealthy) such subjects as critical thinking, political science, general science and those non-trade school subjects as the beginning of the end for our way of life?
This battle of the wealthy to limit education to the wealthy has been going on since some began to realize that education was a threat to wealth and title.
John Adams said in 1765: "The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

Most industrial countries on this planet, if not all, have mixed economies, socialism and capitalism. Can you name three countries that do not have a capitalistic/socialistic economy?

I've never made the contention that anyone has a "pure" version of either a capitalistic or a socialistic economy. My point is that it's laughably naive to make the claim that only liberalism has helped the common worker.

 

[Derideo_Te]

If liberalism is intellectual than why to liberals continue to trot out the same failed ideas?? Why do they stick their head in the sand about the failure of Socialism??
Why do they doggedly stick with racist and sexist ideas such as diversity? Why do they embrace a phony equality movement like feminism which is nothing but a hate movement against half the population??? Why do they defend the community reinvestment act, which almost destroyed our financial system??? Why do they insist on a double standard in immigration where criminals are rewarded for sneaking over the border, while millilons of people around the world who follow the law are penalized???

LIBERALS DON'T WANT ANY CHANGE UNLESS THEY THINK OF IT. Anybody else's new ideas of change such as a flat tax, charter schools, or privatizing social security are mocked by the left.

LIberalism is not intellectual -- it's a cult who's tenets are the following:

1. The average person is stupid,
2. Because we can't trust the average person to do the right thing we liberals will figure out what these stupid people should do
3. When our ideas of controlling people fail, we will do rhetorical gymnastics to help us live in constant denial of our failures...

Are you aware that your misinformed rant did your own side more harm than good? The ideas of conservatism can be attacked just as easily and do nothing to resolve the issues. Instead it makes more sense to focus on the positive ideas that both bring to the table.

What is irrefutable is that throughout history it has been the implementation of liberal concepts that has improved the lives of ordinary people. The Magna Carta placed a restriction on the "Divine Right of Kings" and replaced it with "Govern with the Consent of the Governed". This happened because education had become commonplace amongst the aristocracy and it was they who were restricting the rights of the monarch. As education has spread further so have these principles of liberalism.

The spread of knowledge is difficult to suppress. This applies to both good and bad. The knowledge of how to make bombs from the smallest to the most lethal is now available on the internet. The stark reality of this was seen less than a week ago. Attempts to suppress ideas are usually futile too. The Arab Spring was the result of the oppressed having access to knowledge and the tools to communicate their dissatisfaction with their oppressors.

So you need to decide if your objections to the prevalence of liberalism in education is because you are opposed to the ideas themselves or because you object to others having the right to this knowledge. Conservative objections to liberal ideas are usually based on aspects like money and power rather than on the merits of the ideas themselves.

One could make the case that it was excesses of the "Royals" that caused "commoners" to take back the right to rule. The emergence of a strong merchant class (people who were anything BUT modern day liberals) had as much to do with the transfer of power as anything.

The "strong merchant class" were educated hence their desire to control their own fate. Knowledge is power. The transfer of knowledge from the ruling classes to the masses has resulted in the transfer of power from an elite to We the People.

 

[Derideo_Te]

Why are so many of you unwilling to admit that there IS a heavy liberal bias in higher education, Regent? Anyone who's attended public high school or college KNOWS it's there. When I took economics classes at UMASS back in the 70's that department's professors were essentially socialists. At that rather naive point of my life I accepted much of what they taught because THEY WERE PROFESSORS...THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT! It wasn't until I got out of college...and started running businesses that I slowly discovered that what they really had was a viewpoint with little practical experience to back it up. Socialism is one of those things that works well in theory yet never does as well in the real world. Capitalism...for all it's faults...has given the common worker a far better standard of living than any other system.

Extreme socialism AKA communism is a failure. Extreme capitalism AKA unregulated free markets is just as much of a failure. Both have caused harm to the common worker. Well regulated capitalism with social safety nets is the middle ground that actually works best for the common worker.

And would you agree that it is a tendency for progressives to over-regulate capitalism as well as strive for a cradle to the grave "nanny state" that has now brought us to a point where it ISN'T working well for the common worker?

That is one perspective. Another is that the past 30 years of incessant deregulation have caused the economic collapse that has placed the social safety net in danger.

 

[Antares]

The obvious point I am making is that liberalism attracts intelligent people.

Not true at all, Liberalism perpetutes itself through academia.
Opposing views typically get shouted down and students get force fed these professor's leftwing views.

Anecdotally I had a black history professor who went on and on and on about the evil white man in reference to slavery.

I asked him who was the chief supplier of african slaves to the dutch...( the Zulu's were)
He didn't want to talk about that.

Nor the fact virtually EVERY culture no MATTER what race at one time or another took slaves..including his blessed ancestors.

He also did want to discuss slavery in the American Indian culture, it was disgusting.