The hearings and the rationalisations of hatred against jews are starting to make news even here, despite there being no domestic shortage of palestinians and other arabs and islamonazis and wokeommunists spouting stupididity.
The statements of Liz Magill especially, by the way.
All societies have some sort of ruling class and all complex societies develop some level of bureaucracy, but in modern America ours is distinguished by one bizarre and possibly unprecedented feature:
Our elite ruling class absolutely brazenly despises its own country, people, culture, history, traditions etc and believes they have been blessed with the divine right to tear down all that came before to remake it in their own ideological image, to re-educate and reprogram all of us until we all parrot their One True Faith (or else!)—and then to lie in our faces when we catch them or try to wriggle out of reality by emitting a word-cloud of moralistic jargon where all propositions end with them being Wise/Good and the rest of us being Stupid/Evil.
Some day the Social Justice Revolution will fail and collapse, some day our mendacious commissar class of Identity Marxists will be treated to the same scorn and mockery as all their ideological progenitors, and I really hope I'm alive when this day comes.
My husband questioned why I spent the pandemic reading the multiple volumes of Solzhenitsyn’s Red Wheel series. I said it was to be prepared. I wish there was a way to translate the incredible tales into TikTok video?
I think it’s fairer to say the Jacobins started the Revolution several years ago, and now it’s “Robespierre’s” turn in tumbrel. Personally, I’d like to see them actually use a guillotine in Harvard Square.
I don’t normally get SO exercised, but to have worked so hard to treat people of all races equally well, and then have Frankfurt School “critical theorists” blithely wipe it all away, AND BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY by Thomas Sowell’s “Anointed” is unbearable. The schoolyard was so much simpler – the asshole got a pop in the mouth, and his behavior reformed.
Very well put. Those you so effectively describe are a symptom of our cultural disease. The disease produced the "mendacious commissar class" among other agents of our cultures' destruction. Our culture has produced so much wealth it was able to squandered it over generation after generation without consequence. Power dripping with blood from tooth and claw leans forward as it scans the horizon looking for the slightest shift in position it did not initiate so as to pounce. The need to keep the blood dripping is the only need.
For me, the worst part about these last four years is seeing just how incompetent our leaders really are. I never used to worry about wars, economic upsets, etc. because I thought that highly qualified people were keeping a lid on everything. But now that faith is lost. It's like a Camus novel or something.
The alternative is mass murder. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot. But lots of true believers and willing apparatchiks are needed for that, and while they certainly exist in the US, I see no leader of that murderous caliber. Hillary was ruthless enough but didn’t have the manipulative chops. Her husband did, but in the end he just wanted to have fun. Obama is likely ideologically committed, but has always been a front man, willing to do the song and dance but not willing to make any sort of personal sacrifice. But it’s still going to get ugly, unfortunately. Zombies can create quite a bit of havoc.
Wait until these aparatchicks run the machine into the ground and food security becomes a real issue. Most cities are three days from starvation. The machine is running on momentum with very little energy being added.
Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name.
And what you're seeing now is what it looks like when the classroom has nobody left they can cheat from.
While certainly open to question, you have to be enough of an optimist to believe that the very long arc of history results in progress ( even if not in a straight path) toward more individual freedom which will result in future progress ( not necessarily defined only in economic terms) . To me, the most worrisome threat to that further progress is the complete madness regarding the supposed imminent apocalypse caused by global warming redinfed as climate change to include every possible weather disaster whatever the cause. The elites are determined to use it to increase their power and limit the freedom of “ the unwashed and ignorant masses “ . I am sometimes disappointed, but my optimism is an essential element of my enjoyment and of life. Despite my occasional brief bouts of concerning the date of our politics, I am an 81 year old who would rather be alive today than at any previous time in history.
You highlight THE quintessential truth: Unity comes from external threat. Peaceful times yield discord as individual wants rise above group needs. It doesn’t take a big machine to stop another big machine – all it takes is some sand in the gears. This latter point is the difference between the individualist and the traitor.
Kudos for your spirit! I am no such optimist, and do not believe in beneficent progress. I think the long arc of history is generally toward the loss of the individual freedom we once enjoyed, and for that reason consider the islands of liberty we still have to be precious. Despite the gloom, I still enjoy life, and consider it much preferable to the alternative.
What you need is to "have a Dream". (as the saying goes). And this is it....if anyone sane ever gets any real political power again, their no.1 priority should be to shut down all non-STEM academia. Shut it down, no ifs, no buts. We don't need it and would be way better off without it. Anyone who actually Wants to educate themselves can do it in the internet age. They don't need any 'HELP' from second-rate groupthink merchant 'professors'. End of rant.
Keep in mind that the important milestones of liberty were not written or achieved by STEM graduates. (Admittedly, Geo. Washington started out as a land surveyor.)
We can achieve your objective almost instantly by requiring student loan applications be supported by Dept of Labor wage info for each degree field. The student is welcome to pay cash for any degree not eligible for a loan. Much of the last 50 years of additions to the “Humanities” will disappear overnight.
The result will be college of, by, and for ONLY the rich. Not sure of the point of teaching cost/benefit to a student who cannot possibly afford a cash-only tuition plan.
The core issue is there’s no required connection between how much is borrowed and the wages the student can earn after graduation. THAT’S a subject worthy mandatory coverage in junior year of high school.
Why should that be the case? Private lending institutions would be free to make loans based on the elected major and the likelyhood of the student earning enough to make payments. Useless degrees would be difficult to secure a loan against, as it should be. Students would be able to find excellent career opportunities in skilled trades and many other fields and less costly schools. Over time, the "elites" would adjust their pricing to reflect the new market. With government out of the way private funding of all kinds, including grants, would likely be made available. Students would flourish and the colleges might actually recover some of their lost credibility.
“Free to make loans” – like Operation Chokepoint? Or the current personal de-banking fad? Or Larry Fink’s hard-on for ecological measures that the rest of the market values at $0?
A discussion of how to reorient one segment of lending to 100% free market principles (as it ought to be) seems out of place against the totality of current distortions. I don’t think I could explain to a hardworking poor kid that he can’t get a school loan to become a CPA, but Solyndra can borrow $535M and 100% default on it 17 months & 10 days later.
JG - I agree with you that the answer is major reform to how higher ed is financed rather than the more colorful "torch all the humanities programs" approach. But removing govt distortions ("guarantees") from that financing market would not result in the dire "college only for rich people" situation you suggest. There are a wide variety of degrees that represent a great economic trade for the student because they are highly needed/valued by the market. Remove the artificial dislocation caused by govt guarantees from the financing market and new paths to those degrees will form; be it private financing, employer sponsorship, ISAs, or a host of other possible innovations.
“…rather than the more colorful ‘torch all the humanities programs’ approach…”
Oh darn! And I was looking around the barn for my pitchfork & something to use as a torch… I have to admit a decidedly uncharitable desire for a reckoning with our gratuitous torturers. I learned the appropriate skills in the Army to deal with such people, but they would collapse in incomprehension & fear if faced only with the possibility of such consequences. In their world, the worst punishment is ostracism, for they are nothing but what strangers think of them.
I am talking about the situation NOW.... not the 300 year history of the Enlightenment. The trouble NOW is that, in order to rescue the universities to sanity and enlightenment, you would have to clear out around 80% of the sheep-dipped groupthink lefties that now work in them. And you would also struggle to replace them with genuinely educated, independent-minded replacements.
STEM & Business are “hard” subjects with objective rules. People who specialize in these areas do not subscribe to bullshit like DIE. Lip service to such things will die as the extortionists in the Humanities Dept depart from campus headed for the unemployment line. Make no mistake – there is one thing these sophomoric academic leaders cannot slack off on – academic revenue. When demand drops, they’ll cut an entire department’s nuts right off.
I find it hopeful. Half the power in this cultural revolution has been the element of surprise. Once you name it you take away it's power. Think of how it disarms the enemy to understand his tricks, that's not depressing.
Indeed. I can’t laugh at the Grear Dumbing Down that produced Clownworld anymore after a family member was indoctrinated into the Flat Earth crowd. It hurts too much…
I feel like the flat earth stuff is more of a rejection of normality, or a rebellion of sorts, than any kind of real exercise in rational thinking. But people are 85-90% ruled by deeply ingrained habits and emotions. We, as a species, are barely capable of overcoming this condition. Takes massive effort. Ultimately people believe what they want. Usually what gives them comfort.
It sure isn’t rational… in this case, it seems to be an over-reaction to discovering the depth and breadth of the Covid lies as the individual in question fell for the jab hype.
It sounds like their mind is kind of broken. A very traumatizing experience. Finding out everything you thought was true turned out to be a lie. I hope they will be able to recover with a better perspective. That they recognize the cynicism of giving in to irrational thinking is not the solution to their problem.
Yes, it’s like being raped. The experience is a trauma that destroys trust - some people never trust again, which causes more heartbreak and spreads the evil beyond the original contact point. Healing takes time, am hoping (and praying) for the best. In the meantime, will have to be very patient and careful with this person.
LOL I have a couple excellent videos in my article today that back up your point perfectly. In what world is it acceptable that the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights division of the DoJ has never heard of Missouri v. Biden?!?!
I am proud to say I have no respect for Ivy League schools and never will. My experience with "Ivy League" graduates dates back to my time at a NJ state environmental regulatory agency in the mid 1980's. I graduated from a state school (now considered a university) in PA. The Ivy graduate was had a year or two levels of experience so he was a level above me in the Civil Service system. Everyone constantly commented on how smart he was, because he graduated from Yale. His reports were impressive, they bordered on novels but frankly, simply stating a 55 gallon drum of acid observed leaking onto bare soil would have sufficed for enforcement purposes which was really the focus of our job. In a moment of my PA common sense pondering (it was required when I grew up in the Commonwealth of PA pre-Fetterman days) I recall questioning his intelligence if he was one level higher than me in a governmental agency. I realized all those years ago, that the only thing the Ivy schools offered were a wealthy alumni base to perpetuate the myth that Ivy schools were special and the myth was bullshit. A few years later, he transferred to the State Attorney General's office in the environmental crimes unit. He was so proud to carry a gun for his job. I suspect he "advanced" to one of the three letter federal agencies because of his "intelligence". Me, I got the hell out of government when I heard 30 old people talking about how great the pension was when you retired. I mean 30+ years of that BS would have driven me insane.
How can anyone vote for these people? You made my head hurt listening to these people, Chris. The Long March is over; I surrender just never make me listen to them again. And I thought Wes Moore was bad...
you do know they're laying the tracks for more "justified" censorship and more division via this latest grenade of antisemitism accusations, don't you? It's ALL theater for the agenda. She should've been standing up without question for free speech and the constitution and the value of learning from varied viewpoints and that that is absolutely 100 central to education and the once vaunted institutions like Penn. She should've challenged everyone there to recognize that as a truth we've fought for since George Washington. She should've asked why are we afraid of speech now -- afraid of one mean comment on social media -- when those who fought the Revolution faced down the greatest empire on earth to ensure it was free to speak your mind in this country? Then she should've walked out of the room. So over these conjured incendiary false dramas and the meek people pretending and playing along.
Did you read the thing I wrote at The Blaze? Exactly this. Horrified to hear Elise Stefanik and other conservatives demanding that hateful speech be banned -- how can they not see the trap?
They are terrified of being labeled as antisemitic for defending hateful, though protected free speech. I’m Jewish, and abhor censorship. Anyone who claims to believe in free speech, “but,” doesn’t believe in it at all. All my life people have made vile comments about Jews to my face, either not knowing, or worse, forgetting that I’m Jewish. Neighbors, co-workers, ostensible friends and acquaintances are all in that club. Once, a young car salesman invited me to sit down and run some numbers on a new Toyota I was interested in. He promised a good deal as he “wouldn’t try to Jew” me. Of course I walked....and bought a Honda. But thanks for speaking freely, dude. I prefer knowing who the idiots are around me. Censors think that if you can’t see the turd it doesn’t smell, but it’s still somewhere in the room and it reeks. It’s easier to avoid with the lights on.
I didn’t watch the hearing and have only seen the clips of her humiliating the Stygian witches, but did Stefanik actually call for speech to be banned? In the clips I’ve seen — admittedly a tiny fraction of the six-hour hearing — she was asking whether the calls for genocide against Jews & hateful pro-Hamas rhetoric on those campuses violates their speech codes or student codes of conduct.
It might sound like a distinction without a difference but I don’t think it is. I’ll admit to mind-reading here but I got the impression that Stefanik’s intention was twofold: to force those ladies to publicly admit, in so many words, that their institutions’ speech codes are enforced ideologically rather than neutrally & impartially, and to expose the extent to which Jews are disfavored and even hated as a matter of course at this country’s most elite colleges.
To my ear it didn’t sound like she was putting pressure on them to ban speech, which I would oppose for the same reasons Suzanne mentioned above and which you outlined in your Blaze piece. I think she was instead trying to make very clear that campus speech codes mostly serve as an asymmetric ideological weapon that the woke use to silence opposition & criticism and intimidate everyone into at least appearing to conform, while reserving the right to projectile-vomit their own hatred in every direction with impunity.
Assume for a minute, as I do, that these three university presidents and their peers will never, ever publicly enforce their speech or conduct codes with punishment when the violators are members of woke client groups. Having been frogmarched into Congress in their prom dresses and drenched in pigs’ blood in front of the whole country, they are now in a very weak position to continue weaponizing those codes against dissenters from the woke campus monoculture — also assuming, that is, that Congressional Republicans are willing to keep an eye on these schools and drag their presidents in for another public dressing-down if they dare sanction a student for speaking out against radical trans activism or saying that Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was correctly decided. Hypocrisy is just about universally understood and despised.
If Stefanik did in fact explicitly call for hate speech to be banned and I just didn’t see it, then please forget ever having read the foregoing.
This is all excellent, and these thoughts are much appreciated. She said the words, "Is that allowed?" But I agree that she may have been playing a deeper game, and the STUPID ASSHOLES will face these questions every time they (for example) deplatform a conservative judge. Ohhh, so SOMETIMES you enforce speech codes. Campuses are a disaster.
I could easily just be projecting my own hopes & desires onto Stefanik and her colleagues. In my more cynical moments I remember that modern Republicans are good for composing sternly worded letters and delivering righteous theatrical performances during Congressional hearings and not much else. Actually following through and *using* political power at the federal level? We leave that to the Democrats.
My concern is that she's not aware that she could've been misinterpreted. If indeed that's the case, she needs to go on the record to clarify. If she doesn't understand why she does then she needs to be told to do so by leadership.
The reason politically to clean this up is that, even IF the Republicans have a strategy to exploit this, it's a tactical mistake that undermines the strategy and becomes weaponized by Dems and the media.
It also is contrary to what the majority of Republicans believe about free speech. And it makes her (them) look out of touch. You'd think they would've learned their lesson with how long they went on prattling about "the moral majority" and how that turned out. Plus everyone should be a 1A absolutist, it is the glue that binds us and holds our sovereignty affixed. I don't know why there's any confusion about this.
The Founders made three things VERY clear, above all others, because in their wisdom (and from the historical record) knew that tyranny yesterday will look the same as tyranny tomorrow:
1. Free speech is the front-line bulwark against tyranny. They are terrified of free speech because they know it is both offense and defense against them taking power and keeping power. This is exactly why a tyrant always stifles it first so they can turn the media (or word of mouth) into their propaganda arm, thereby keeping the people ignorant by controlling the flow of information. The alternative is 2A, which should also be absolute, is in case of emergency when 1A fails. Free speech is sloppy, but 2A is sanguineous. Pick your options people!
2. Never trade freedom for safety. 1A is a front-line bulwark against that too - as well as every tyrants wet dream, apathy. That is why "consensus" was used as a cudgel and a muzzle during covid. It happens fast and before you know it people will willingly cover their faces with propaganda, walk down one-way arrows, stand in 6 feet circles, abuse children and take an experimental drug...and do it indefinitely without free speech....and then forget why they're doing the absurd or immorality.
3. There must be separation of power in order to prevent the most likely future tyrants from taking the power from the people so they are no longer burdened by who The Founders intended to be the real boss, and precisely why they were the first three words in the preamble to the constitution:
Yes we should not be demanding any speech be banned— but we should be demanding that rules or laws surrounding bullying, harassment, stalking, etc be upheld to the fullest extent of the law. It’s fine if students at these universities want to express their support for genocide in a social media post, a debate forum, or otherwise. When a mob chases students into a library, however, we can and should come down on them hard. Free speech does not permit mob-like behavior.
I agree, as long as it's enforced impartially. But the political climate at those places, and the fecklessness or bias of the administrators, makes it pretty likely that the institution will immediately be condemning the victim and licking the feet of the mob that bullied them, if the mob is the one upholding the Narrative of the moment.
Oh I agree. That’s a large part of the problem, that the rules are NOT being enforced impartially.
The Left seems to think that they can behave however they like as long as their view is on the “right side of history,” but we need to be teaching young people that no, HOW you act matters, and that the ends do not always justify the means.
That's a very good point, and one that needs to be articulated more. A lot of people convinced their cause is objectively "right" don't appreciate procedural morality in an environment in which not everyone favors their crusade.
Have to ask - is "Very Good Authority" anything like the "experts" who can't predict this weekend's weather, but are absolutely certain that polar bears are gonna be extinct in 31 years?
Yes I did see it shortly after I made the comment. Yes 💯 agree. Makes me believe even more firmly that there’s much more controlled opposition than we realize.
If it weren’t for the millions of muzzies now going to colleges only the subsidized can afford, there probably wouldn’t be so much Jew hate. And then the mopes that support the haters,like faggots for palestine. The whole thing needs a reset. Maybe an emp isn’t such a bad idea.
When you say they’re not diverse, I don’t understand how that could be? They have vaginas! Some of them have brown vaginas! Yet others have vaginas which prefer sexual relations with other vaginas. I’ve been led to believe that a brown vagina is the pinnacle of diversity (especially one with a preference for another vagina), and, also, it’s our greatest strength!
Im stunned to discover that a shallow focus on inherent physical characteristics as a replacement for competence could be anything but progress!
As De Maistre said, viewing the dexterous of the French revolution, "People in democracies get the governments they deserve". I know you love your home state, but all these cretins were voted into office over the last generation, so the people of California who did so, or don't bother to vote, have earned this abuse. If it's any consolation, they are ubiquitous.
My sympathies to you and other thoughtful patriots out there for having to live with these anarchist/communist/fascist idiots. Place your faith in God, but keep your powder dry. Things are not going to get better for a while. Keep up the good fight!
Update:
Harvard president now also finds piece of paper with words on it saying she is very upset about what she accidentally said to Congress:
https://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1733115812330783146
The hearings and the rationalisations of hatred against jews are starting to make news even here, despite there being no domestic shortage of palestinians and other arabs and islamonazis and wokeommunists spouting stupididity.
The statements of Liz Magill especially, by the way.
All societies have some sort of ruling class and all complex societies develop some level of bureaucracy, but in modern America ours is distinguished by one bizarre and possibly unprecedented feature:
Our elite ruling class absolutely brazenly despises its own country, people, culture, history, traditions etc and believes they have been blessed with the divine right to tear down all that came before to remake it in their own ideological image, to re-educate and reprogram all of us until we all parrot their One True Faith (or else!)—and then to lie in our faces when we catch them or try to wriggle out of reality by emitting a word-cloud of moralistic jargon where all propositions end with them being Wise/Good and the rest of us being Stupid/Evil.
Some day the Social Justice Revolution will fail and collapse, some day our mendacious commissar class of Identity Marxists will be treated to the same scorn and mockery as all their ideological progenitors, and I really hope I'm alive when this day comes.
1917 Russia revisited
Going to be like the French Revolution.
My husband questioned why I spent the pandemic reading the multiple volumes of Solzhenitsyn’s Red Wheel series. I said it was to be prepared. I wish there was a way to translate the incredible tales into TikTok video?
Yes. That would be tough but worthwhile.
just stupider
I think it’s fairer to say the Jacobins started the Revolution several years ago, and now it’s “Robespierre’s” turn in tumbrel. Personally, I’d like to see them actually use a guillotine in Harvard Square.
Pay per view.
I don’t normally get SO exercised, but to have worked so hard to treat people of all races equally well, and then have Frankfurt School “critical theorists” blithely wipe it all away, AND BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY by Thomas Sowell’s “Anointed” is unbearable. The schoolyard was so much simpler – the asshole got a pop in the mouth, and his behavior reformed.
The high tech version
Let them eat cake!
Very well put. Those you so effectively describe are a symptom of our cultural disease. The disease produced the "mendacious commissar class" among other agents of our cultures' destruction. Our culture has produced so much wealth it was able to squandered it over generation after generation without consequence. Power dripping with blood from tooth and claw leans forward as it scans the horizon looking for the slightest shift in position it did not initiate so as to pounce. The need to keep the blood dripping is the only need.
For me, the worst part about these last four years is seeing just how incompetent our leaders really are. I never used to worry about wars, economic upsets, etc. because I thought that highly qualified people were keeping a lid on everything. But now that faith is lost. It's like a Camus novel or something.
The Irish "elites" are giving it a run.
The alternative is mass murder. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot. But lots of true believers and willing apparatchiks are needed for that, and while they certainly exist in the US, I see no leader of that murderous caliber. Hillary was ruthless enough but didn’t have the manipulative chops. Her husband did, but in the end he just wanted to have fun. Obama is likely ideologically committed, but has always been a front man, willing to do the song and dance but not willing to make any sort of personal sacrifice. But it’s still going to get ugly, unfortunately. Zombies can create quite a bit of havoc.
Wait until these aparatchicks run the machine into the ground and food security becomes a real issue. Most cities are three days from starvation. The machine is running on momentum with very little energy being added.
“Deplorables of the World, Unite!”
Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name.
And what you're seeing now is what it looks like when the classroom has nobody left they can cheat from.
lol RG 🤣👍🏼🎯
Wow! What an apt description! 🦧⚡
and today, their kids are using AI to write their papers.
I’m trying to figure out how someone can read this and not be really depressed about the future of this country. Let me know if you’ve figured it out.
I have not.
Me neither , but not slicing my wrists yet …. I want to see how this shit show plays out .
While certainly open to question, you have to be enough of an optimist to believe that the very long arc of history results in progress ( even if not in a straight path) toward more individual freedom which will result in future progress ( not necessarily defined only in economic terms) . To me, the most worrisome threat to that further progress is the complete madness regarding the supposed imminent apocalypse caused by global warming redinfed as climate change to include every possible weather disaster whatever the cause. The elites are determined to use it to increase their power and limit the freedom of “ the unwashed and ignorant masses “ . I am sometimes disappointed, but my optimism is an essential element of my enjoyment and of life. Despite my occasional brief bouts of concerning the date of our politics, I am an 81 year old who would rather be alive today than at any previous time in history.
Check this out from Canada— https://worldfreedomalliance.org/au/news/trudeau-installing-weapons-armouries-interrogation-rooms-for-ministry-of-climate-change/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Shocka!!
Right on. It’s worse than we thought a few years ago, but worse than 1942? I don’t think so.
You highlight THE quintessential truth: Unity comes from external threat. Peaceful times yield discord as individual wants rise above group needs. It doesn’t take a big machine to stop another big machine – all it takes is some sand in the gears. This latter point is the difference between the individualist and the traitor.
The global uncertainty is more like 1911.
Kudos for your spirit! I am no such optimist, and do not believe in beneficent progress. I think the long arc of history is generally toward the loss of the individual freedom we once enjoyed, and for that reason consider the islands of liberty we still have to be precious. Despite the gloom, I still enjoy life, and consider it much preferable to the alternative.
What you need is to "have a Dream". (as the saying goes). And this is it....if anyone sane ever gets any real political power again, their no.1 priority should be to shut down all non-STEM academia. Shut it down, no ifs, no buts. We don't need it and would be way better off without it. Anyone who actually Wants to educate themselves can do it in the internet age. They don't need any 'HELP' from second-rate groupthink merchant 'professors'. End of rant.
Keep in mind that the important milestones of liberty were not written or achieved by STEM graduates. (Admittedly, Geo. Washington started out as a land surveyor.)
We can achieve your objective almost instantly by requiring student loan applications be supported by Dept of Labor wage info for each degree field. The student is welcome to pay cash for any degree not eligible for a loan. Much of the last 50 years of additions to the “Humanities” will disappear overnight.
All government ed loan programs must be scrapped now. Teach cost/benefit analysis in HS Junior year.
The result will be college of, by, and for ONLY the rich. Not sure of the point of teaching cost/benefit to a student who cannot possibly afford a cash-only tuition plan.
The core issue is there’s no required connection between how much is borrowed and the wages the student can earn after graduation. THAT’S a subject worthy mandatory coverage in junior year of high school.
Why should that be the case? Private lending institutions would be free to make loans based on the elected major and the likelyhood of the student earning enough to make payments. Useless degrees would be difficult to secure a loan against, as it should be. Students would be able to find excellent career opportunities in skilled trades and many other fields and less costly schools. Over time, the "elites" would adjust their pricing to reflect the new market. With government out of the way private funding of all kinds, including grants, would likely be made available. Students would flourish and the colleges might actually recover some of their lost credibility.
“Free to make loans” – like Operation Chokepoint? Or the current personal de-banking fad? Or Larry Fink’s hard-on for ecological measures that the rest of the market values at $0?
A discussion of how to reorient one segment of lending to 100% free market principles (as it ought to be) seems out of place against the totality of current distortions. I don’t think I could explain to a hardworking poor kid that he can’t get a school loan to become a CPA, but Solyndra can borrow $535M and 100% default on it 17 months & 10 days later.
JG - I agree with you that the answer is major reform to how higher ed is financed rather than the more colorful "torch all the humanities programs" approach. But removing govt distortions ("guarantees") from that financing market would not result in the dire "college only for rich people" situation you suggest. There are a wide variety of degrees that represent a great economic trade for the student because they are highly needed/valued by the market. Remove the artificial dislocation caused by govt guarantees from the financing market and new paths to those degrees will form; be it private financing, employer sponsorship, ISAs, or a host of other possible innovations.
“…rather than the more colorful ‘torch all the humanities programs’ approach…”
Oh darn! And I was looking around the barn for my pitchfork & something to use as a torch… I have to admit a decidedly uncharitable desire for a reckoning with our gratuitous torturers. I learned the appropriate skills in the Army to deal with such people, but they would collapse in incomprehension & fear if faced only with the possibility of such consequences. In their world, the worst punishment is ostracism, for they are nothing but what strangers think of them.
I am talking about the situation NOW.... not the 300 year history of the Enlightenment. The trouble NOW is that, in order to rescue the universities to sanity and enlightenment, you would have to clear out around 80% of the sheep-dipped groupthink lefties that now work in them. And you would also struggle to replace them with genuinely educated, independent-minded replacements.
Please re-read my 2nd paragraph and tell me how that fails to achieve your objective.
How would you make DEI....DIE? https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
STEM & Business are “hard” subjects with objective rules. People who specialize in these areas do not subscribe to bullshit like DIE. Lip service to such things will die as the extortionists in the Humanities Dept depart from campus headed for the unemployment line. Make no mistake – there is one thing these sophomoric academic leaders cannot slack off on – academic revenue. When demand drops, they’ll cut an entire department’s nuts right off.
Our ruling class is really stupid, it shouldn't be too hard to overthrow them.
I find it hopeful. Half the power in this cultural revolution has been the element of surprise. Once you name it you take away it's power. Think of how it disarms the enemy to understand his tricks, that's not depressing.
I don't see a good ending in the intermediate term. In the long term, a soverign God makes all things new again.
Indeed. I can’t laugh at the Grear Dumbing Down that produced Clownworld anymore after a family member was indoctrinated into the Flat Earth crowd. It hurts too much…
I feel like the flat earth stuff is more of a rejection of normality, or a rebellion of sorts, than any kind of real exercise in rational thinking. But people are 85-90% ruled by deeply ingrained habits and emotions. We, as a species, are barely capable of overcoming this condition. Takes massive effort. Ultimately people believe what they want. Usually what gives them comfort.
It sure isn’t rational… in this case, it seems to be an over-reaction to discovering the depth and breadth of the Covid lies as the individual in question fell for the jab hype.
It sounds like their mind is kind of broken. A very traumatizing experience. Finding out everything you thought was true turned out to be a lie. I hope they will be able to recover with a better perspective. That they recognize the cynicism of giving in to irrational thinking is not the solution to their problem.
Yes, it’s like being raped. The experience is a trauma that destroys trust - some people never trust again, which causes more heartbreak and spreads the evil beyond the original contact point. Healing takes time, am hoping (and praying) for the best. In the meantime, will have to be very patient and careful with this person.
Haven't even read the first one-third of this article, and you already get A+ for "mousespeaks"
Wait until you get to the Sir Bedivere quote!
LOL I have a couple excellent videos in my article today that back up your point perfectly. In what world is it acceptable that the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights division of the DoJ has never heard of Missouri v. Biden?!?!
Lord. I saw that headline and couldn't bring myself to watch.
It's exactly as terrible as you think. And for that, she's pulling down 6 figures.
SimulationCommander, it could be worse…. 7 figures 😂
The way Biden is spending, it will be sooner rather than later.
I am proud to say I have no respect for Ivy League schools and never will. My experience with "Ivy League" graduates dates back to my time at a NJ state environmental regulatory agency in the mid 1980's. I graduated from a state school (now considered a university) in PA. The Ivy graduate was had a year or two levels of experience so he was a level above me in the Civil Service system. Everyone constantly commented on how smart he was, because he graduated from Yale. His reports were impressive, they bordered on novels but frankly, simply stating a 55 gallon drum of acid observed leaking onto bare soil would have sufficed for enforcement purposes which was really the focus of our job. In a moment of my PA common sense pondering (it was required when I grew up in the Commonwealth of PA pre-Fetterman days) I recall questioning his intelligence if he was one level higher than me in a governmental agency. I realized all those years ago, that the only thing the Ivy schools offered were a wealthy alumni base to perpetuate the myth that Ivy schools were special and the myth was bullshit. A few years later, he transferred to the State Attorney General's office in the environmental crimes unit. He was so proud to carry a gun for his job. I suspect he "advanced" to one of the three letter federal agencies because of his "intelligence". Me, I got the hell out of government when I heard 30 old people talking about how great the pension was when you retired. I mean 30+ years of that BS would have driven me insane.
Easy on Fetterman, he is rapidly beccoming the voice of reason in his party.
Kakistocracy is the best name for it.
Learned a new word today…one that unfortunately exists.
🎯
"Credentialing by recitational inoffensiveness." Could there be a more perfect phrase? Nope.
Chris should get an award for "recitational inoffensiveness".
Ten syllables to perfectly epitomize modern educational achievement, Ivy style.
How can anyone vote for these people? You made my head hurt listening to these people, Chris. The Long March is over; I surrender just never make me listen to them again. And I thought Wes Moore was bad...
you do know they're laying the tracks for more "justified" censorship and more division via this latest grenade of antisemitism accusations, don't you? It's ALL theater for the agenda. She should've been standing up without question for free speech and the constitution and the value of learning from varied viewpoints and that that is absolutely 100 central to education and the once vaunted institutions like Penn. She should've challenged everyone there to recognize that as a truth we've fought for since George Washington. She should've asked why are we afraid of speech now -- afraid of one mean comment on social media -- when those who fought the Revolution faced down the greatest empire on earth to ensure it was free to speak your mind in this country? Then she should've walked out of the room. So over these conjured incendiary false dramas and the meek people pretending and playing along.
Did you read the thing I wrote at The Blaze? Exactly this. Horrified to hear Elise Stefanik and other conservatives demanding that hateful speech be banned -- how can they not see the trap?
They are terrified of being labeled as antisemitic for defending hateful, though protected free speech. I’m Jewish, and abhor censorship. Anyone who claims to believe in free speech, “but,” doesn’t believe in it at all. All my life people have made vile comments about Jews to my face, either not knowing, or worse, forgetting that I’m Jewish. Neighbors, co-workers, ostensible friends and acquaintances are all in that club. Once, a young car salesman invited me to sit down and run some numbers on a new Toyota I was interested in. He promised a good deal as he “wouldn’t try to Jew” me. Of course I walked....and bought a Honda. But thanks for speaking freely, dude. I prefer knowing who the idiots are around me. Censors think that if you can’t see the turd it doesn’t smell, but it’s still somewhere in the room and it reeks. It’s easier to avoid with the lights on.
"It’s easier to avoid with the lights on."
Yes.
I didn’t watch the hearing and have only seen the clips of her humiliating the Stygian witches, but did Stefanik actually call for speech to be banned? In the clips I’ve seen — admittedly a tiny fraction of the six-hour hearing — she was asking whether the calls for genocide against Jews & hateful pro-Hamas rhetoric on those campuses violates their speech codes or student codes of conduct.
It might sound like a distinction without a difference but I don’t think it is. I’ll admit to mind-reading here but I got the impression that Stefanik’s intention was twofold: to force those ladies to publicly admit, in so many words, that their institutions’ speech codes are enforced ideologically rather than neutrally & impartially, and to expose the extent to which Jews are disfavored and even hated as a matter of course at this country’s most elite colleges.
To my ear it didn’t sound like she was putting pressure on them to ban speech, which I would oppose for the same reasons Suzanne mentioned above and which you outlined in your Blaze piece. I think she was instead trying to make very clear that campus speech codes mostly serve as an asymmetric ideological weapon that the woke use to silence opposition & criticism and intimidate everyone into at least appearing to conform, while reserving the right to projectile-vomit their own hatred in every direction with impunity.
Assume for a minute, as I do, that these three university presidents and their peers will never, ever publicly enforce their speech or conduct codes with punishment when the violators are members of woke client groups. Having been frogmarched into Congress in their prom dresses and drenched in pigs’ blood in front of the whole country, they are now in a very weak position to continue weaponizing those codes against dissenters from the woke campus monoculture — also assuming, that is, that Congressional Republicans are willing to keep an eye on these schools and drag their presidents in for another public dressing-down if they dare sanction a student for speaking out against radical trans activism or saying that Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was correctly decided. Hypocrisy is just about universally understood and despised.
If Stefanik did in fact explicitly call for hate speech to be banned and I just didn’t see it, then please forget ever having read the foregoing.
This is all excellent, and these thoughts are much appreciated. She said the words, "Is that allowed?" But I agree that she may have been playing a deeper game, and the STUPID ASSHOLES will face these questions every time they (for example) deplatform a conservative judge. Ohhh, so SOMETIMES you enforce speech codes. Campuses are a disaster.
I could easily just be projecting my own hopes & desires onto Stefanik and her colleagues. In my more cynical moments I remember that modern Republicans are good for composing sternly worded letters and delivering righteous theatrical performances during Congressional hearings and not much else. Actually following through and *using* political power at the federal level? We leave that to the Democrats.
I assume you consider hateful speech and incitement to be distinguishable?
Well said.
My concern is that she's not aware that she could've been misinterpreted. If indeed that's the case, she needs to go on the record to clarify. If she doesn't understand why she does then she needs to be told to do so by leadership.
The reason politically to clean this up is that, even IF the Republicans have a strategy to exploit this, it's a tactical mistake that undermines the strategy and becomes weaponized by Dems and the media.
It also is contrary to what the majority of Republicans believe about free speech. And it makes her (them) look out of touch. You'd think they would've learned their lesson with how long they went on prattling about "the moral majority" and how that turned out. Plus everyone should be a 1A absolutist, it is the glue that binds us and holds our sovereignty affixed. I don't know why there's any confusion about this.
The Founders made three things VERY clear, above all others, because in their wisdom (and from the historical record) knew that tyranny yesterday will look the same as tyranny tomorrow:
1. Free speech is the front-line bulwark against tyranny. They are terrified of free speech because they know it is both offense and defense against them taking power and keeping power. This is exactly why a tyrant always stifles it first so they can turn the media (or word of mouth) into their propaganda arm, thereby keeping the people ignorant by controlling the flow of information. The alternative is 2A, which should also be absolute, is in case of emergency when 1A fails. Free speech is sloppy, but 2A is sanguineous. Pick your options people!
2. Never trade freedom for safety. 1A is a front-line bulwark against that too - as well as every tyrants wet dream, apathy. That is why "consensus" was used as a cudgel and a muzzle during covid. It happens fast and before you know it people will willingly cover their faces with propaganda, walk down one-way arrows, stand in 6 feet circles, abuse children and take an experimental drug...and do it indefinitely without free speech....and then forget why they're doing the absurd or immorality.
3. There must be separation of power in order to prevent the most likely future tyrants from taking the power from the people so they are no longer burdened by who The Founders intended to be the real boss, and precisely why they were the first three words in the preamble to the constitution:
WE THE PEOPLE
Yes we should not be demanding any speech be banned— but we should be demanding that rules or laws surrounding bullying, harassment, stalking, etc be upheld to the fullest extent of the law. It’s fine if students at these universities want to express their support for genocide in a social media post, a debate forum, or otherwise. When a mob chases students into a library, however, we can and should come down on them hard. Free speech does not permit mob-like behavior.
I agree, as long as it's enforced impartially. But the political climate at those places, and the fecklessness or bias of the administrators, makes it pretty likely that the institution will immediately be condemning the victim and licking the feet of the mob that bullied them, if the mob is the one upholding the Narrative of the moment.
Oh I agree. That’s a large part of the problem, that the rules are NOT being enforced impartially.
The Left seems to think that they can behave however they like as long as their view is on the “right side of history,” but we need to be teaching young people that no, HOW you act matters, and that the ends do not always justify the means.
That's a very good point, and one that needs to be articulated more. A lot of people convinced their cause is objectively "right" don't appreciate procedural morality in an environment in which not everyone favors their crusade.
But I have it on Very Good Authority that the people who determine Hate Speech will be Top (Wo)Men.
Have to ask - is "Very Good Authority" anything like the "experts" who can't predict this weekend's weather, but are absolutely certain that polar bears are gonna be extinct in 31 years?
Yes. Exactly like that.
Yes I did see it shortly after I made the comment. Yes 💯 agree. Makes me believe even more firmly that there’s much more controlled opposition than we realize.
If it weren’t for the millions of muzzies now going to colleges only the subsidized can afford, there probably wouldn’t be so much Jew hate. And then the mopes that support the haters,like faggots for palestine. The whole thing needs a reset. Maybe an emp isn’t such a bad idea.
This screenshot summed up the mayor of Oakland best. https://x.com/k_m_ayotte/status/1732205085382545597?s=20
The super duper intendent from la sounded exactly like kamala every time she opens her blowhole. Yikes.
When you say they’re not diverse, I don’t understand how that could be? They have vaginas! Some of them have brown vaginas! Yet others have vaginas which prefer sexual relations with other vaginas. I’ve been led to believe that a brown vagina is the pinnacle of diversity (especially one with a preference for another vagina), and, also, it’s our greatest strength!
Im stunned to discover that a shallow focus on inherent physical characteristics as a replacement for competence could be anything but progress!
We're all pink on the inside. 😘
As De Maistre said, viewing the dexterous of the French revolution, "People in democracies get the governments they deserve". I know you love your home state, but all these cretins were voted into office over the last generation, so the people of California who did so, or don't bother to vote, have earned this abuse. If it's any consolation, they are ubiquitous.
My sympathies to you and other thoughtful patriots out there for having to live with these anarchist/communist/fascist idiots. Place your faith in God, but keep your powder dry. Things are not going to get better for a while. Keep up the good fight!
Danny Huckabee
But they are our “betters”. Just ask them.
We're in trouble, aren't we?