Comments on: Pop Politico: “Conservative Thought?”

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:38:27 +0000

Oh, for crying out loud, Eric! You conservatives are so delusional! Just because you take in everything Rush or Hannity or Bill-o says through osmosis, and their opinion automatically becomes yours, why must you assume that every college kid is too gullible (or stupid) to develop or maintain his own political thoughts apart from the influence of some conspiratorial cadre of radical university professors!?!

During my far-too-many years of higher education I had profs who were crypto-commie crazies and loony conservatives, and everything in between--and I took in every idea and perspective espoused by every one of them and then made up my own mind. I imagine that's what every kid with half a brain does as well.

I had one comp-lit prof who was faculty advisor for the campus branch of the Communist Party; everyone wanted to take her class because her lectures were so nutty. But you know what? That commie sure could teach some comparative literature...

On the other hand, I had a few terrific sociology, science, econ and poly sci profs who had distinctly conservative viewpoints, and I took in their perspectives with just as much enthusiasm as anyone else's. Contrary to your Dear Leaders of the right, university faculties do not march in lockstep with the liberal left, or even with the Democratic Party. You don't insult us by guessing at our "underlying fear"; you merely embarrass yourself.

By: eric

eric — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:24:54 +0000

There is apparently an underlying fear that students exposed to a different worldview and intellectual analysis from a different angle might find it sensible and appealing. From one angle, that is probably a reasonable fear.

Conservatives teaching in universities??? Heavens! Heretics in the church of reason!

LOL

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:38:27 +0000

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:38:27 +0000

By: eric

eric — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:24:54 +0000

By: 1Py_Korry1

1Py_Korry1 — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:40:34 +0000

I didn't know about the Promise Keepers connection with the U, but it's unfortunate that the university prez and regents feel it necessary to do something like this based on a survey of the faculty's political party affilation.

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:07:29 +0000

Of course, at the end of paragraph two I meant “rape allegation”–though there's nothing worse among white, female collegiate kickers than a “rap allegation.”

By: kalbiqueen

kalbiqueen — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:22:23 +0000

“Conservative thought”? Now there's a fucking oxymoron.

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:05:49 +0000

This is just what we need in our hyperpartisan nation–a Fox News chair in academia to make things all “fair and balanced.” Now all the conservative kids on campus will have at least one classroom per semester in which their treasured values of rampant self-interest and security-at-any-cost freedom-deprivation will be celebrated.

It's no surprise that this would happen at Colorado, which already has a long tradition of yucky “conservative thought”–particularly in its football program, which two decades ago was run with an Iron Cross by coach Bill McCartney, one of the founders of the (shudder) Promise Keepers movement. Later, under the team's next coach, Gary Barnett, the university lured football players with sex and alcohol during recruiting visits, and the team harassed female kicker Katie Hnida, leading to a rap allegation.

Seems to me that all conservatives need to up the ante is to establish a chain of Right Wing University campuses. (Not that Bob Jones, Liberty, Trinity and others don't already qualify, but they're on the fundamentalist side.) They could have majors like Supply-Side Economics, Comparative Illiterature, Anti-Intellectualism, and of course Women's Studies (conducted in a lab or, for female students, a cosmetology studio).