Menu
What's new
Troll Kingdom

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Has Number_6 abandoned us?

Number_6 said:
Calculating or no, they are pushing a totalitarian regime.
Click to expand...
Taken to the extreme, I would agree with you.

Moderates, such as I, are advocating a more human-centric way of life. When presented with a totalitarian option, I'm willing to venture that most liberals in America would reject such a regime.
 
WordInterrupted said:
In this case, a change in strategy is a change in agenda. Liberal legal activists have used the courts to defend and expand civil liberties. Defedning free speech and protecting the rights of the accused are worthy goals, to be sure, but they are not the stuff of broad-based popular movements. Even when popular movements do grow up on the left, such as the civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's or the pro-choice movement in the 70's, supreme court cases like Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade make them unecessary. If liberals pursue a strategy based in popular democracy, they'll have to turn to issues that are not within the purview of the court, such as economic fairness and equality of oppotunity. That would mean a huge change in the political agenda, because those subjects are barely even discussed at present.

What exactly do you mean when you claim the Supreme Court has "forced" its agenda on people? It has forced majorities to respect civil liberties by preventing them from passing laws that, for example, segregate public schools or deny voting rights. However, even if the court diminishes the democratic perogative of the majority by protecting civil liberties, it is at the same time freeing people from government coersion, allowing them to live as they choose and participate more freely in the democratic process. The court is a paradoxical institution: it's anti-democratic in that it forces majorities to accede to its will, but it's democratic in the sense that it protects the right of the individual to vote and participate in politics. This paradox makes it difficult to dismiss liberal politics as mere totalitarianism. Defending the rights of the individual against the encroachment of government is not a totalitarian project.

This whole argument is kind of strange because the era of liberal activism on the supreme court has been over for a very long time. Both Clinton appointees are moderate justices who think the court should defer to the legislature as much as possible: Ginsburg was actually opposed to Roe when it was decided (she only supports it now because of starre decisis) and Breyer has just written a book arguing for judicial moderation. If you look at their records, both are much less willing to overturn the will of Congress than arch-conservatives like Scalia and Thomas, who would strip congress of most of it's power to make laws democratically if they had the chance. The activist judges on the court today are conservatives.
Click to expand...


You might notice, windbag, that I was talking about education, not the court system.
 
You might notice, windbag, that I was talking about education, not the court system.
Click to expand...

I might have noticed if you had once mentioned education in your response to my post. If you were only talking about education, I'm confused by your claim that the left is "anti-democratic." What does it mean for education to be democratic?
 
WordInterrupted said:
I might have noticed if you had once mentioned education in your response to my post. If you were only talking about education, I'm confused by your claim that the left is "anti-democratic." What does it mean for education to be democratic?
Click to expand...

Well, it might mean worrying about a diversity of points of view, rather than diversity in skin colors, genitalia (and what genitalia they interact with), surgically altered genitalia, etc.

Of course, you start bringing in people who worry about empirical evidence and such, and the left's stranglehold on the academy will soon end . . .
 
It was before the ComicCon idiots came. But, what do expect from adults who still read and argue about comic books?
 
Comics take themselves far too seriously, these days. And in their quest to become more "adult," they've simply become sad pretenders to serious literature.

But the dysfunctional ComicConners have definitely changed this board for the worse.
 
Well, it might mean worrying about a diversity of points of view, rather than diversity in skin colors, genitalia (and what genitalia they interact with), surgically altered genitalia, etc.
Click to expand...

I'm certainly in favor of diverse points of view. My main criticism of you has always been that you are intolerant of people who don't share your point of view.
 
No, I'm intolerant of the academic left, of which you are a member, because they have silenced dissenting points of view.

I'm also intolerant of ideas born of ignorance, like social construction theory.
 
There's a difference between disagreeing with someone and being intolerant of them. If you only disagree, you might think they're wrong but still be willing to show them some respect. If you're intolerant, you'll denigrate them and attack them personally. If you think your liberal colleagues should be able to disagree without being intolerant, you should live by the same standard you set for them. Otherwise you're just a big hypocrite.
 
Save for the fact that there are facts, something some of my leftist (not liberal, my dear) colleagues refuse to acknowledge. I'm not going to be tolerant of people who spin bullshit out of their ass in support of a political agenda when that bullshit has absolutely no grounding in the empirical world. No academic or intellectual should tolerate sloppy methodology, or the willful persistence in disseminating lies, like the anthropologists and their unwillingness to acknowledge the invaildity of Margaret Mead's research and conclusions in Samoa, or pretending like that Rigoberta Menchu crap is true from a particular point of view, even though the whole fucking book is a lie.

If you think we should tolerate this sort of crap, you're an idiot.
 
We're always going to encounter people who make really bad arguments. If we're going to respond to them at all, the challenge is to do it in a way that best demonstrates why their argument is wrong. Calling your opponents idiots, casting aspersions on their character, or making similarly intolerant personal attacks will neither prove your position, nor make a bad argument less socially acceptable, nor accomplish any other useful purpose. You can make intolerant attacks on other people if it makes you feel better, but don't pretend that it serves any purpose, or that I (or anyone else) am obligated to join you in your vicious personal hatred.
 
Right now, the bulk of the humanities and the social sciences are based on assumptions that have been proven erroneous, time and again.

Arguments to the contrary of conventional "wisdom" in the academy, whether civil or not, are responded to with the usual leftist claims of racism, sexism, classism, etc.

The so-called intelligentsia is anything but, and they need to be called on their stupidity.

Most professors and graduate students in the humanities and the social sciences are closer to religious cult members than they are to what we would commonly define as intellectuals. They have created a dogma, and they are merciless to those who refuse to buy into it, much like the Inquisitors of yore.

If you are really a liberal, then you will have noticed this, and you are concerned by it.
 
I can't make judgements about all of academia, but the vast majority of professors I've interacted with personally have been intellectually honest and non-dogmatic. They've been more interested in providing a balanced view of the subject matter and incouraging a spirit of critical inquiry than in pushing some bogus political agenda. Of course, this is only my expereince. Your experience in a different department and in different universities may very well be different.

I do think that elite universities would benefit from a wider range of political perspectives among the faculty and students. There's not nearly enough fighting over politics on campus for my taste.

Right now, the bulk of the humanities and the social sciences are based on assumptions that have been proven erroneous, time and again.
Click to expand...

What assumptions do you think underly the social sciences?
 
Uh, the Standard Social Sciences Model? Still going strong, from what I've seen, despite massive evidence to the contrary.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top