Date: 01/07/17
Harry Yorke, The Daily Telegraph
Students are now so powerful that university professors are afraid to teach controversial subjects for fear of being sacked, an academic conference was told on Thursday
Professor Dennis Hayes, a co-founder of
“Academics for Academic Freedom” said that universities were now ruled by a
“culture of censorious quietude” where academics were not able to discuss
“anything difficult.”
Speaking at the University of Buckingham yesterday, Prof
Hayes added: “There’s an interesting turn today, it’s not that people are
abusive, it’s just that they don’t say anything at all in universities.
“There’s
so many things that could be discussed that you dare not say. And the
consequences of arguing anything difficult is potentially that you could be
sacked.
“These are mainstream views, of the state, institutions and particularly
universities. Gay rights, feminism, gender fluidity, fear of Islamaphobia, the
belief that we are all unwell, identity-based politics, are not views that
challenge conventional thinking in the way that every university has in its
charter.
‘These are conventional thinking. You dare not say you’re against gay
marriage. Just discussing any of these things can get you in serious trouble if
not the sack. What exists in universities is a culture of censorious quietude.
“Try arguing ‘there are boys and girls’… or as McEnroe has found out, that there
are male and female tennis players.
“Things are simply not discussed. Academics
and student… they go silent. They may even take delight in people who stand up
and get beaten for their views.”
Discussing his decision to found a pro-free
speech group in 2006, Prof Hayes added that he wanted academics to feel “free”
to discuss controversial subjects on campus.
“The cry of offence, the fear of
personal emotional hurt, is now the greatest threat to academic freedom,”
he
continued. His warning came as the Universities Minister Jo Johnson warned that
the erosion of freedom of speech on campus jeopardised Britain’s standing as an
“intellectual powerhouse”.
Hat Tip/ The GWPF
In the USA all the bookburners and censors are Obama voters.
During the elections last summer the people who were violently disrupting the Trump political rallies were liberals. Just what would happen now days to the poor academic that would be foolish enough to try to seriously discussed the book “The Bell Curve” in a public lecture.
Democrats have romanced the dregs of society…..
Marty, they aren’t liberals anymore. The Left, Democrats, ceased being liberal years ago.
If this link is genuine, the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security is calling them by their correct name; terrorists.
These students are neomarxism “Red Guards”? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_(China)
and how about our now almost forgotten friend Bernie?
We can’t forget Bernie and his wife…LOL
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/07/03/sanders-blames-republicans-for-fbi-probe-wife.html
You mean Barmy.
The right label could be the Clintons and Obama’s Red Guard? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_(China)
Sorry the labor’s Red Guard.
wrong.
In 2001 the Alamogordo Christ Community Church in New Mexico burned hundreds of copies of the Harry Potter books
i do not believe those were obama voters.
it really is pointless to pretend that only obama voters are idiots – especially when you prove it by example.
Just how much money is the Alamogordo Christ Community Church trying to pilfer from the public coffers?
Oh the horror…burned hundreds of copies of some works of childish fiction out of the millions of copies in print.
If they want to waste money and time like that, why should anyone care?
Who does that affect?
No one, that is who.
To equate what is happening on campuses and in political discourse with some people burning children’s books about witches and goblins is…well, i am not going to say it, because i do not wish to insult you.
There Is no equivalence.
Besides…the Alamogordo Christ Community Church in New Mexico is not a political movement that spans the world and comprises a third or more of the adults in many previously rational countries.
How about Terry Jones?…..http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/09/11/221528510/pastor-terry-jones-arrested-before-planned-quran-burning
…
He got arrested before lighting them up, but I don’t think he would be the type of guy to vote for Obama.
short attention span, eh Menicholas?
“In the USA all the bookburners and censors are Obama voters.”
that’s what i responded to and you do your gish gallop all over the lower forty- why?
you say: “There Is no equivalence.”
but i think it’s very much the same. religious apoplexy over perceived heresy.
everything else you said is irrelevant – is it a fugue?
Michael darby
terry had the balls only trump has matched. he trolled like a boss.
gnomish, Exactly. The right has its fair share of censorship and political correctness. Both left and right have too many sacred cows.
10,000 on one side. One on the other.
Obviously there is no difference between the two sides.
That is exactly analogous to attacking speakers on campus and destroying property. It is just like throwing cherry bombs with glued on BB’s into a group of peaceful demonstrators. Yep. Harry Potter fans are now afraid to speak up or self-identify. They won’t make a movie about Harry Potter for fear of a violent backlash.
Mao’s Red Guard where finally stopped by the Chinese Army.
Sounds like Mao’s cultural revolution?
When I was in school, it was the leftists who were in danger of getting fired, and by and large did not get fired after all. The interesting thing is that the firings are at the behest of other academics, not the politicians financing the institutions.
“When I was in school, it was the leftists who were in danger of getting fired”
You must not have been attending a public university in California in the 1960s like I was.
I did graduate from San Jose State University in the early 1970’s, and there were threats ( mostly empty) by Reagan to fire a few radicals. A few private colleges did fire a few radicals, who mostly got rehired by going to court.
It would seem that the UK as well as many USA schools are having free speech and all that goes with it beaten to death with the jaw bone of an ass.
Oh! What terrible images you conjure up; violence that causes mortal harm, the decomposition of a rare and perhaps endangered species, the disrespectful dismemberment of it’s remains. Oh! Oh! someone help me. Where’s my crayons? Anyone got a security blanket they could share? Please put some soothing music or a Tibetan prayer chant on the speakers. Anybody got a match so I can light my incense? Oh! I just know I’m going to have PTSD (Positively Terminal Slobbering Dumbassedness) after this.
Do I really need a sarc/tag?
Seriously now…what is discussed in this article and what is happening in our educational institutions is not joke.
It is not funny and there are real questions about where it will take us…I do not think it will just revert to normal.
Something bad is coming.
I agree Menicholas. It’s a function carried out by collusion of some democrats and the left media. It’s becoming deadly.
yeah its ugly
so?? these “snowflake 184 wannabes” didnt just happen did they?
so I would be looking to the Primary schools “education” and the teachers promulgating this mindset IN their pupils as the place to go looking and weed them out.
in usa you have common core in aus we have Naplan dunno about yours> but ours is shit the kids are dumber than ever and just as precious! naplan from Gillard the communist of the worst type- in disguise- set ours in motion
no one had the nous or balls to can it.
as for the unis. hand em their fees back and turf the little dears out into the real world
they need reality and a decent amount of derision and other amusement as a possible wake em up moment.
Academic institutions are probably no longer places of learning, but rather places of conforming to as neutral a view as possible, in order to keep student fees coming in to pay for cushy jobs of the people who run the institutions.
Keep ’em happy. Don’t challenge them too much. Make them want to stay and keep spending their money to pay our salaries.
Heaven forbid, you mention academic excellence, or conflicts with the mission of teaching or learning. Case in point — noisy libraries. Try to call out a Library Dean for his policy of allowing noise, and see how fast he calls out campus security to assess you as a potential terrorist threat to the student body. Academic heads can readily use their powers to force compliance to mediocrity.
Mediocrity is safe and profitable for select people.
In the US, all of those self-evident truths described in the Constitution are not true (e.g., all men are not equal – ability counts for something). The Constitution applies only to the government. That means that private schools can teach whatever they want, and government schools can teach only what is allowed by the teachers, who get their direction from ignorant students.
I guess I’m too much of a stickler, but the US Constitution does not say anything about self-evident truths. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,…” is the lead phrase in the Declaration of Independence. Note that it does not say “all men are equal”.
Oooops!!! Left out something – “We hold these truths…” starts PARAGRAPH 2 of the Declaration. I’ll now seek cover before, in the course of human events, the slings and arrows arrive… Aaaaahh!!! Head for the trenches!
All men are created equal, but not all men have equal outcomes. It’s a fact that not many want to discuss.
The Constitution does however reference the Declaration, which stands at the head of the US Code. The reference is in the signature block:
“Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.”
RandyM July 3, 2017 at 1:28 pm
In effect, what it means is that all citizens should be equal before the law.
It’s flatly stupid to profess that “all men are created equal”. It’s provably untrue. Some people are born with functional deficiencies that are very well documented.
It’s simple idealism and has no basis at all in observable evidence.
The “all men are created equal” part was a bit of a poetic flourish which should have probably been thought out better. However its original purpose was to deny nobility and other caste systems wherein some have additional stature legally as a birthright. And at the time it was written, everybody understood that. The part about the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (property, originally)” is no less important. All of this was better laid out and became legally binding in the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, making these arguments about the proclamation mostly moot.
Paul,
To the Founders, the phrase meant “equally free and independent” with respect to Natural Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal#Origin_of_Thomas_Jefferson.27s_use_of_the_phrase
Much of the Declaration and Constitution contain words and phrases which had specific meanings to students of Locke and other philosophers and Blackstone’s Commentaries.
I’ve always been taught that the founders intended that phrase to mean ‘equal before the law’. I seriously doubt that people as smart as the founders (Jefferson, Franklin, Mason, etc) ever seriously thought that ‘all men are created equal’ was in the literal sense of the word.
I’d suggest you read The Declaration of Independence. That was the “conception” of the US, what any form of Government is supposed to do.
The first attempt to form a Government under The Articles of Confederation failed. While it wasn’t strong enough to usurp the Rights of People, it was also to weak to protect them.
The Constitution was “take two”. It formed a Government strong to protect, but also strong enough to usurp.
It wouldn’t have been adopted without the addition of The Bill of Rights, clipping its wings in regards to usurping.
Well said. The constitution enshrined no particular political view. Quite the opposite, it set the individual off as requiring protection from the govern and the mob i.e. from both bureaucrats and “democrats.”
Yet it appears to me that the Bill of Rights is failing in that regard in the ‘modern era’. This occurs to me because today we seem far more accepting of the tendency to use judicial ‘interpretation’ to ignore some aspects of the Bill of Rights that we find inconvenient. Notably freedom of speech and due process. The founders made a modification of the Constitution difficult for a reason.
I am so glad i got through school (and most of my life) before the PC police arrived.
I’ll second that. I would be expelled and incarcerated if I was in school now…
From the piece:
Would that make it Islamaphobiaphobia? And what would that make the fear of discussing the fear of islamaphobia? I always told my friends they should not laugh at ‘PC gone mad’: I told tham it was all part of a strategy. It is now playing out in our society and become embedded in our (made to feel guilty) consciousness.
I have a fear of taking down the 10 commandments…and adding foot baths and prayer rooms
“Islamophobia” is an utterly meaningless and purposely misleading pejorative.
“Phobia” is clinically defined as an irrational/abnormal fear of something
Fear of Islam is not irrational for anyone raised in the western intellectual traditions of individual liberty, personal freedom, personal responsibility, religious tolerance, and positive celebration of individual achievement.
Islam is based on submission to the “will of God/Allah”, on conviction of the supremacy of Islam over all other faiths, on the legitimacy of Islamic suppression of all infidels, and on the righteousness of using force and Islamic government action to subdue all infidels.
Islam is factually, demonstrably unconstitutional in American jurisprudence and in our societal traditions.
Am I concerned about the creeping acceptance/influence of Islam/Sharia in western society? Damn right!
Is that phobic? Hell no!
..+1,000,000,000,000…Etc……
Jim, don’t Catholics put the Pope on a higher level of lawmaking/infallibility than the Constitution? You ought to be concerned about Catholics for the same reason you are concerned for Muslims.
“Phobia” has been tacked on to lots of things for many years to give the impression that any opinion that disagrees or finds fault with it is an irrational fear.
No need to consider the opposing opinion.
“You hate (fill in the blank)”, “Hate speech”, etc. are used in similar ways.
(I forget what year it’ll be when “Everything you think do and say is in the pill you took today.”)
In the meantime, no need to think about it. They did your thinking for you.
Time for attitude change!
G_Jim,
However correct you are in a technical sense, you are not going to change that one or any of the odd ones here:
http://phobialist.com/
LOUIS
The pope is infallible ONLY in matters of faith.
No infallibility in science or politics or anything else, unliks Islam
Jack
Luis
Sorry about the misspelling of your name
Jack
“(I forget what year it’ll be when “Everything you think do and say is in the pill you took today.”)”
Okay then…let’s review:
https://youtu.be/izQB2-Kmiic
That would be the year 3535.
Well said, Geologyjim! So what would we call the rational fear for Islam that you are describing?
common sense.
ask dan pearl. he finally figured it out.
oh… too late…lol
Luis, in a word, no.
“There are people in this world who do not love their Fellowmen, and I hate people like that!”
Tom Lehrer.
I thought it meant the fear of ‘islamaphobes’…
Debatosis(de-ba-toe-sis) the fear of attempting to debate or discuss the human condition.
Apparently the whole PC thing is a strategy of the Cultural Marxists. They needed to create a new group of victims, since their previous group of choice (the economic proletariat) didn’t play ball the way they wanted. So now we have a new group of victims: everyone except white adult males. It’s a very large group, and that’s all according to plan. I am a little fuzzy on the next part of the strategy, though – the original aim of the Marxists was to foment revolution, so now I guess they want all the “victims” to rise up in revolt against white men, which is more or less working, but what do the Marxists themselves hope to gain by this? That’s the part I haven’t figured out.
This story is lacking in any evidence nor would there appear to be any signs that
any scientists are afraid of teaching controversial subjects. UK universities do not
work that way.
That said the headline is right – with Brexit and the UK government refusing to guarantee
rights to EU citizens who have been in the U.K. for years and who make up a large percentage
of UK scientists the threat to U.K. science is real. Plus UK universities got several billion more
in funding from the EU than the UK put in so they will lose funding and collaborations with other
EU institutions.
The Climategate emails provided ample evidence that differing views are not tolerated.
“in an odd way this is cheering news.” ~ Phil Jones on he death of John Daly
“If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” ~ Tom Wigley
What’s not to fear? LOL!
Such PCness runs deep in the Fed. The best moves Trump could do, and I do hope so, would be the disestablishment of the National Academies of Science, Medicine and Engineering, The National Science Council (and Board) and lastly the National Science Foundation.
I disagree. I understand your point, but a “purge” is the last thing that Trump needs.
These institutions should be sued for suppressing free speech. They should also be taken to task by their own membership for misrepresentation. If an organization of scientists and academics were to form in answer to these groups, Trump would be justified in transferring funding to them in proportion to their membership.
It’s time to put aside P.C. and go back to freedom of religion and our country was founded with God Bless America. Immigrants came here with the understanding that if you worked hard you would get ahead and be able to provide for your families. Kids respected their parents and their piers. A policeman was shown respect and parents supported their actions.
To all those in our country that do not want to assimilate but just want to live off welfare and our system, please go back to where you came from. All voters need to have government approved identification. Then our country will once again be governed by those elected by “the people”.
If you want to protest, OK, but if you want to block roadways, cover your face, and burn and destroy, we have a place in Gitmo where we can provide housing until you learn your lesson.
There are many things that need to be addressed to where America becomes “healthy” again.
Well said get tough and sort the mongrels out whilst you can, one can only hope your new president over time can sort it out. It is a lot of your taxes being wasted on idiots that think they are clever running many things and teaching your children from a very young age to be like them i.e. illogical. I am in my eighth decade and have seen this crap creeping through our government schools and universities. My grand daughters go to a private school that teaches the true education of learning to teach yourself.
Makes you wonder if we should rethink the entire areas of: 1) admission standards, 2) standards to receive a student loan, 3) tenure, 4) grading standards and applications, 5) affirmative action/quotas, 6) graduation standards, 7) all political correctness in universities, and 8) level of taxpayer support. Perhaps also 9) rethink ratio of graduates hired to non-university jobs/number of graduates and, 10) concept of political balance in faculty and students. Analyses of these 10 attributes and taxpayer funding levels to universities, departments, grants, and individual student support.
Grading ‘standards?’ Many institutions now have a 2-point scale: A’s and B’s!
I repeat, there are too many people at University.
That does mean the standard is diluted.
And it also means that papers can only compete for attention by celebrity or by numbers (10 bad papers are worth one good paper or a thousand brilliant, unread papers).
That leads to non-knowledge being discovered and validated.
Consider the fact that p-values were set when there were far fewer researchers,. Back then if you got a 1 in 20 result by fluke and got published it would soon fade away as no-one would replicate it.
But with every town in the west and many elsewhere having Universities there are always others who will get a similar spurious result. Or near enough.
They can publish also (as it’s new and marvellous). They can talk to each other – have a symposium – maybe from that found a journal… and their Universities have the world leaders in this new field!
The Universities will strongly defend this new field from the nay-sayers who point out that 95% of the time it just doesn’t happen.
With so much research the system is self-perpetuating without any knowledge being generated.
And so knowledge itself becomes de-valued. Stick with “facts”.
Good observations. Although in “climate science” there are few if any actual results to be checked for repeatability.
M, I agree with your observations but I can’t see a way to prevent “beetle tracking” becoming an academic discipline; if you toss enough fools into the academic system it’s going to happen. The system is self limiting though when ideas are tested and rewarded by application. If the science of “underwater basket weaving” has no commercial virtue, it dies on the vine. The study of “perambulated balloon valves” isn’t going anywhere if it has no use to society.
Theoretical fields such as particle physics face a very real threat from this test (or at least they have in the past) and “wanna be” fields of study (the health benefits of vitamin C and Snake Oil for example) aren’t always recognized quickly, but they eventually are.
It becomes difficult when funding is supplied by non-commercial, non-scientific sources, such as the Government, and there’s an opportunity to “skim off the top” presented. In that case we see the evolution of dogmatic sciences such as “climate”. There are actually a few disciplined scientists involved in that study and the field requires more, but given the propensity of government pork burners, that’s unlikely to happen; we actually encourage sensationalist nonsense.
How do we stop government involvement in the sciences?
A lovely example of Sugar Poisoning.
Why/How?
In all its forms, especially processed carbs, it is a depressant. It makes you sleepy, physically and mentally, that is the depression.
In such a state, you don’t want to think or do. You just want to remain in that nice quiet and cosy little bubble where the drug (sugar) tells yo everything is OK as it is.
And because it promotes Dopamine, makes you ‘happy’ so all the more reason to stay inside that nice little bubble. And you can always eat/drink more sugar to maintain that happy state. Legal and cheap. What’s not to like?. Epidemic of obesity anyone???
The depression brings on Magical Thinking. You think you ‘know it all’
So when someone, be it a skeptic or a professor comes along and tries to teach you things you’ve magically thought yourself into believing you know/understand (eg the GHGE), you effectively lash out or do whatever to protect your cosy little bubble.
eg again, what delights/torments have skeptics been threatened with? Apart from the endless childish ad-homs, we’ve had tattoos, castrations, re-educations, imprisonment, gas chambers. The whole lot.
But then, when *everyone* is in their own little bubble, especially our leaders and lawmakers, legal/social/politically correct procedures are put into place to protect the little bubbles.
Then technology and the MSM step in to take every challenge instantly global and hence inflict massive damage/ruination on whoever did the challenging…
That’s *exactly* what’s going on here…
……….toxoplasmosis
Interesting. I agree but perhaps you should elaborate because not many people know about this fascinating link between owning cats and stupidity. (Apologies in advance to cat-owning WUWT people- but if you’re a climate skeptic you probably haven’t been infected yet).
It really is life-threatening for mice, which lose their fear of cats. However, I haven’t heard of very many people entering cages with lions or tigers. Maybe those of us who aren’t afraid of all the prognostications by climate alarmists have been infected, however.
This leading from behind works really well, eh? I guess for 50K a year you don’t want to tell them to get lost your too stupid for college.
Gay rights, feminism, gender fluidity, fear of Islamaphobia,….and reparations
I have two blonde children and a blonde wife who hate me because I’m blonde and I’m responsible somehow for their blondness, which they hate themselves for.
I’m sorry for you. My wife , kids and grandkids are all blondes and they all Love themselves and each other.
Bartleby, Miss Clairol can fix your problem.
Well, you are half responsible for your kids’ affliction, but your wife, not so much.
Consider moving to Minnesota.
Land of 10,000 Lakes and millions of blondes.
Blondes aren’t all bad.
https://youtu.be/EkpGM_MvZ2Y
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
I do no recommend shaving like that.
Bartleby, that is so sad. Your wife and child should glory in their pretty hair and their self worth.
Gay-Lussac’s Law – there I’ve said it.
Trans fats – help me.
You can’t move on sciency Twitter without encountering this leftist bile at every turn. Often from highly accomplished professional men who start their profile with “Dad, husband…”. The women don’t virtue signal in this conceited manner so they can be slightly more difficult to spot. But it’s only a question of degree. They’re almost all lefties.
Drain the swamp, its not just for Washington
Speaking at the University of Buckingham yesterday, Prof
Hayes added:
hear hear!
Shades of the Red Guards.
In 1973 eminent psychologist Hans Eysenck was attacked by students at the LSE, punched to the floor and kicked resulting in injuries requiring hospital treatment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Eysenck#Genetics_and_intelligence
Chris Hanley- re’ Hans Eysenck- the debate is about what I say, not about what you did. In other words, the published facts, procedures, method, results, statistics, and everything else supporting your findings don’t matter. What matter is only what I say about you, you fascist pig(sarc).
Modern education seems to be only about feelings and opinions, not discussion of facts, measurements, methods, and results. Regardless of the field what matters is “my feelings” and “my opinions” not what caused or is behind those emotions.
Unless schools get back to rationality the situation will contiue disintegrating.
We are at the liberal left fascism tipping point. Liberal fascism is an weird insane mess of schemes that do not work (the schemes are protected from critical analysis by the liberal fascism) that are very forcefully pushed.
The next step will be university professors that are willing and able to tell absolute lies (you know god dam lies), as puppet support for the insane liberal fascist schemes which of course do not work (do you see a pattern here?)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-hawking-says-earth-become-134719239.html
William, no one really knows what Stephan Hawking says but his handlers; he’s a completely mediated “event” and he says whatever they want him to say. He talks through a computer.
He says what the computer says. He can’t get out of the chair. He’s a puppet in every sense of the word. Why anyone gives a hoot about what “Stephan Hawking says” is a complete mystery to any thinking person.
Stephan/Stephen was replaced many years ago. The current version is probably just robotic, it doesn’t have to do much after all, you see the odd eye move/blink, the odd lip curl and the very mechanical looking chest movement from “breathing”. Anyone who has a spare 15 minutes can study recent videos of the device/thing to see if you concur. Clearly no intelligent professor (yes we know!) could claim the earth might acquire sulphuric acid in its atmosphere following some climate tipping point as it’s self evident nonsense.
I did see the clip where the Stepthing was wheeled out for its “like Venus” shite and we were also entertained by the equally robotic Dr Brian (not Brain) Cheshire-Cat who must now be such a celebrity that he ought to be enrolled for some kind of TV game show probably hosted by Ben Shepherd.
Bart your just offensive your a Troll
Well Dave? You’re just kind of content free aren’t you? 🙂
As regards Stephen Hawking there is no need to read beyond the headline in the following article
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322228/How-Stephen-Hawking-boycott-Israel-makes-microchip-enables-talk-By-DOUGLAS-MURRAY.html
But the rest of the article shows how far UK universities had already sunk by 2013.
For those who are unaware, the University of Buckingham is independently funded and, unlike all other universities in the UK, does not depend upon government funding.
This crap really pisses me off…..we are lucky enough to be livng in the best climate this planet has ever had
….and these sick bastards are going out of their way to ruin it
I would put the Holocene Optimum as the best climate. It’s been downhill since then.
Liberal fascism is redundant.
Maybe it is time time to stop federal government funding of left wing colleges that preach hate…
A few decades ago the Supreme Court ruled that it was permissible to deny all funding (including student grants) to a college that didn’t permit inter-racial dating.
There is an Italian journalist who wrote a book on the bad stuff going to happen in EU a dozen or so years ago. She was charged and to be jailed but managed to escape to NYC where she still lives. Can’t remember her name. EU is getting as bad as Iran.
But this article is about UK! Inventors of freedom andjustice! I hope Brexit means they will change all the EU laws.
The EU is not as bad as Iran. It has good wine, culture, good food you should try some.
You are talking about Europe, not the EU! They are not synonyms.
Italy has a problem, right now, where more people are drawing some sort of benefit from the state than those paying in to it. Greece too. Same thing is going to happen to most other EU members in time.
Brilliant. Thanks.
Matt Groening (from Portland, OR) and James Brooks are both liberal Democrats, but unusual in having senses of humor.
That’s nothing new. Something similar happened across American Universities in the closing years of the 19th Century and the opening years of the 20th century. In this case, it wasn’t prejudice from the students but from the university administrators, in a campaign to bury Henry George’s ideas and impose the Neo-Classical dogma.
Nothing is happenning at universities anymore except for the business schools.
The left-wing enforcers end up with no jobs after school and the private sector goes on as it did before.
The biggest problem is not in universities, it is when the left-wing political correctness invades government that the real problem starts.
nope. those are merely symptoms.
the problem arises when you give them your money with no strings attached.
your money. you.
are you ready to discuss that hard cold fact?
Andrew Scheer, the new leader of the Canadian Conservative Party has come out for free speech on campus. link Canada also has Professor Jordan Peterson campaigning for free speech and against compelled speech. link Compelled speech, in this context, is being forced to use a transgender person’s chosen made-up pronoun. Canadian law could make it a hate crime to do otherwise. link As Peterson says, “Forced speech is forced thought.”
Most people alive today have no memory of Fascism. The millennials have no memory of Soviet and Chinese totalitarianism. Those regimes were a warning example and made us thankful, and protective of, our freedom.
The freedom to say what you like in the UK is pretty solid but I think people are afraid they may “cross the line” and there will be serious consequences. As the line is a bit blurry they err very much on the side of caution and moderate their comments or say little. This gives ammunition to the other side so they shift the goal posts a bit (with or without the help of the Badgers) and move the line. Gradually the line will become a
wall that is right in your feckin’ face. Unless you do something about it. That is step up to the line, exercise your absolute right to hold an opinion and shout it loudly so the others on the other side hear it clearly.
They won’t like it, they may call you names (remember you are an adult), they may offer threats – these are rarely real and if they do materialise there are plenty of lawyers doing no win-no fee. In short you have to stand up to what you believe,you should have already known this very important lesson from recent history and, if you are young, from what your parents and grandparents did NOT THAT LONG AGO.
You know where the “D” word comes from don’t you?
Didn’t I read a few days ago that London (sometimes referred to as Londonistan) is putting restrictions on the famous Speakers’ Corner? And so it starts…
There is a great blog by a guy on the inside called “Confessions of a College Professor” http://professorconfess.blogspot.com/
The latest post is “Left Bans Scientist Who Discovered DNA”
It starts out this way:
“Only an idiot could have thought the Left agenda of shutting down Conservative speakers on campus would stop at just those speakers. Having succeeded in making it impossible for a Conservative to show his or her (Hi Ann Coulter!) face on campus without risking violence, they now are moving on to everyone who dares to utter a word against Leftist ideas…even those who simply are pursuing knowledge and have no interest in politics.”
And yes, the post is about James Watson (one of the co-discoverers of DNA) the Nobel laureate’s talk at UI canceled after faculty backlash. The left has shut down talks by Milo and other “conservatives”, and now are shutting down technical talks (this on was on cancer research) which would only be attended by a handful of faculty and grad students.
The University is lost. The mindless have taken over. It is just one more piece in the Suicide of the West. (yes, I know, I shamelessly stole that phrase from a famous guy)
I suggest you read that short post and weep.
milo was a most entertaining pedophile.
but even breitbart had to get rid of him for it.
What was their problem with James Watson??
He once made an offhand comment about the IQ differences (the average) between the races. One may not do that without the left hating you forever afterwards.
Some have said that we can never solve problems until we honesty look at all the factors involved. I guess the left thinks magical thinking is much better.
Well I have seen some very smart people from all races that I have come in contact with over my 73 years. I have also seen some very dumb (or closed minded people of various races) people from all races. I don’t think you can generalize, despite what James Watson’s offhanded comment was…
The fact that there are very smart and very dumb people in all groups says nothing about what the average may or may not be for any group.
It’s a book by James Burnham written in 1964. link
Yep. Liberals don’t value what we have achieved. For them, it is all about victimhood.
Canada recently celebrated its 150th birthday. On the Canadian Broadcorping Castration more air time was devoted to the victimhood of the Indians, from whom we stole* the land doncha know, than to the great accomplishments that have led Canada to be arguably the best country on the planet.
*Stole the land … anybody who says that just doesn’t understand history. The reason the Indians of western Canada didn’t participate in the Riel Rebellion and were willing to sign the treaties was that they were looking south of the border.
Just like every other portion of the world, human groups in the Americas were constantly fighting each other over land. With stronger groups taking what they could from weaker ones.
I had one young liberal tell me that the tomahawk was actually a gardening implement until warlike Europeans taught the peaceful natives how to use it to kill.
Mark W
Medieval torturers had nothing on the women in the First Nations groups. They were both artfully creative. If we stole everything from the locals, I want my beads and tools back.
A good study of this topic is the region West of Toronto up to the Bruce peninsula. That land was bought (especially in the 1835 period) and the occupants removed themselves to Manitoulin Island (mostly, not all). The Oneida bought the land they occupy SW of London Ontario. They move there from Mass. They are treated as ‘First Nations’ even though they come from the US and are in fact settled immigrant farmers.
As usual, history in context is never as simple as it seems in retrospect.
Fear of being sacked for teaching children to be skeptical in science is a anathema to the subject.
As far as climate is concerned modern temperatures, sea levels, and extreme weather events are neither unusual nor unprecedented. Many regions of the Earth are cooler now than they have been for most of the last 10,000 years.
Natural factors such as the Sun (84 papers), multi-decadal oceanic-atmospheric oscillations such as the NAO, AMO/PDO, ENSO (31 papers), decadal-scale cloud cover variations, and internal variability in general have exerted a significant influence on weather and climate changes during both the past and present. Detecting a clear anthropogenic forcing signal amidst the noise of unforced natural variability may therefore be difficult.
more at http://notrickszone.com/2017/07/03/already-285-scientific-papers-published-in-2017-support-a-skeptical-position-on-climate-alarm/
Dear Tom, an oft mis-quoted scientist on this blog stated that if you really understood a subject you should be able explain it in simple words that anyone could understand. QED
Either this is obviously not true or there are virtually no teachers that understand their subjects. (I think this is obviously not true AND there are virtually no teachers that understand their subjects.)
In my Uni era, Australia late 1960s, you either worked bloody hard and maybe passed or pissed around and failed.
This can be recreated. It will be.
It is cyclic?
Just now, in USA, it looks like it is at the ugly bottom of the cycle.
Geoff
Let’s take a look at book banning in America… who is doing that?
http://lithub.com/the-history-and-present-of-banning-books-in-america/
Try to find any of Mark Twain’s books on any reading list. The reason there are only complaints against liberal books is because those are the only ones allowed. You can’t protest a book that’s already de facto banned.
The library bruhaha is mostly fiction. Local public libraries have only a small number of books of the total published. The complaints arise because some genres are represented far in excess of the community’s interests, and are contrary to the community’s values or standards, while other genres are ignored completely. The debate is more about selecting the books that appeal to the community’s interests subject to a limited budget. Put books about Judaism in a Mulim community and you will see an even bigger uproar.
Griff, no need to ban books. More books, fewer (intelligent) readers every year. Especially no need to ban those LGBQLSMFT books because they have a limited (in more than one way) readership. Usually they are used to indoctrinate and mislead our youth. Christ said something about millstones for those who would lead young children astray.
“LSMFT” <<RNFL oh south river independent.. that is cute! How terribly un-PC of you.
Tom Halla–I did graduate from San Jose State University in the early 1970’s<< mine was 77, I also remember the wonderful 'westernized' students from Iran, then the switch to calling themselves "Persian" about ~1976 to avoid the negative views of Iran, then
the Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979.