14% of Economist Say Trump Would Be The Best For The Economy

[Al Azar]

I eagerly awaited Air America coming to our town. I thought it would be interesting. I listened to a program for about 20 minutes before giving up.

I found myself muttering, "I know!", "That's right", "Of course", "No kidding" and the like. I wasn't hearing anything I hadn't already figured out on my own, just from living life.

I guess there is no market for liberal programming because the target audience doesn't need daily reprogramming to keep thinking "right". I suspect that conservative programming is necessary for the right-wing money interests because if those listeners are given a break from the propaganda stream, offered the chance to think about what they're hearing, they're going to start asking questions, uncomfortable questions, because so much of what is in that programming doesn't withstand scrutiny. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[Oldstyle]

I'm curious...you quote Neil Gross as saying young Americans are leaning left these days but claiming it has little to do with what they're being taught by college professors? Gross makes that statement and then backs it up with what? Is he saying that college professors aren't predominantly liberal today? Is he claiming that they are...but that doesn't affect the students they teach? Is he claiming that young Americans are being pulled to the left by other things...like an overwhelmingly liberal mainstream media...television programs like Saturday Night Live and the Daley Show which mix comedy with liberal bias...or a public school system that is also heavily populated by liberal teachers?

Let's be honest here, Star...young people are bombarded with liberal philosophy from pre-school right up until they leave college. Lutz is spot on in his views.

Supposing your opinion is sound. Our young are getting primarily a liberal message as they mature. I think you're going to have to accept it because of the nature of education.

Teaching is a service profession, a public service. People drawn to serving others tend to be more liberal than those who would rather be served. If you think our young people need a more balanced environment you're going to have to attract more conservatives into teaching and that's not going to be easy. Conservatives, as a group, are more interested in earning than learning.

If education leans liberal, it's because people who choose to be of service to others are more likely to be liberal. How do you get around that?

Do you think conservatives feel welcome in either the public school system or colleges? I taught high school history coming out of college back in the late seventies and got out of BECAUSE I quickly grew tired of what was only the beginning of "political correctness" in our school systems! I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a conservative working in the public school system now! You would have zero support from your fellow teachers or the administration.

Perhaps they were uncomfortable because they were conservative educators rather than simply educators.

More like they were uncomfortable because most of the people they work with are not only liberal but in many cases extremely liberal...the kind of people who are not tolerant of another point of view? Conservative speakers are being banned from college campuses today because their message "offends" liberals. Liberal speakers? Well, it seems that conservative students are a bit more thick skinned than their liberal counterpoints...so they can handle another point of view! Or that seems to be the consensus among college administrators.

 

[Oldstyle]

I eagerly awaited Air America coming to our town. I thought it would be interesting. I listened to a program for about 20 minutes before giving up.

I found myself muttering, "I know!", "That's right", "Of course", "No kidding" and the like. I wasn't hearing anything I hadn't already figured out on my own, just from living life.

I guess there is no market for liberal programming because the target audience doesn't need daily reprogramming to keep thinking "right". I suspect that conservative programming is necessary for the right-wing money interests because if those listeners are given a break from the propaganda stream, offered the chance to think about what they're hearing, they're going to start asking questions, uncomfortable questions, because so much of what is in that programming doesn't withstand scrutiny. It just doesn't make sense.

What is MSNBC if not reinforcement to keep thinking far left? Yet they have their core audience...small though it might be...that take everything they hear as gospel!

 

[Al Azar]

I eagerly awaited Air America coming to our town. I thought it would be interesting. I listened to a program for about 20 minutes before giving up.

I found myself muttering, "I know!", "That's right", "Of course", "No kidding" and the like. I wasn't hearing anything I hadn't already figured out on my own, just from living life.

I guess there is no market for liberal programming because the target audience doesn't need daily reprogramming to keep thinking "right". I suspect that conservative programming is necessary for the right-wing money interests because if those listeners are given a break from the propaganda stream, offered the chance to think about what they're hearing, they're going to start asking questions, uncomfortable questions, because so much of what is in that programming doesn't withstand scrutiny. It just doesn't make sense.

What is MSNBC if not reinforcement to keep thinking far left? Yet they have their core audience...small though it might be...that take everything they hear as gospel!

I have no idea. I've never seen it. I've also only seen a few moments of Fox News and am not familiar with any of the talking heads on cable shows that so many people are glued to.

Because we don't subscribe to cable.

You might be surprised how much clearer the issues are when you don't have to wade through ceaseless, mindless chatter to get to it.

 

[Norman]

I eagerly awaited Air America coming to our town. I thought it would be interesting. I listened to a program for about 20 minutes before giving up.

I found myself muttering, "I know!", "That's right", "Of course", "No kidding" and the like. I wasn't hearing anything I hadn't already figured out on my own, just from living life.

I guess there is no market for liberal programming because the target audience doesn't need daily reprogramming to keep thinking "right". I suspect that conservative programming is necessary for the right-wing money interests because if those listeners are given a break from the propaganda stream, offered the chance to think about what they're hearing, they're going to start asking questions, uncomfortable questions, because so much of what is in that programming doesn't withstand scrutiny. It just doesn't make sense.

That's why the liberal drones are mesmerized by the mainstream media, while smart people generally use sources from multiple different platforms.

A other place a liberal often receives his indoctrination or if you prefer, programming, is the campus:




These minions do not even know what a question is.

 

[Al Azar]

More like they were uncomfortable because most of the people they work with are not only liberal but in many cases extremely liberal...the kind of people who are not tolerant of another point of view? Conservative speakers are being banned from college campuses today because their message "offends" liberals. Liberal speakers? Well, it seems that conservative students are a bit more thick skinned than their liberal counterpoints...so they can handle another point of view! Or that seems to be the consensus among college administrators.

I accept that this is your opinion, that higher education, if not everything, has a liberal bias, at least relative to your own.

Again, what can you do about it? The kind of people you'd like indoctrinating our youth instead don't seem to be drawn to teaching, or at least those who are lack the backbone to stick with it under the adverse conditions of having to rub elbows in the workplace with people with a different perspective.

What is your solution to this problem that, you must admit, is not universally taken as gospel?

 

[Norman]

More like they were uncomfortable because most of the people they work with are not only liberal but in many cases extremely liberal...the kind of people who are not tolerant of another point of view? Conservative speakers are being banned from college campuses today because their message "offends" liberals. Liberal speakers? Well, it seems that conservative students are a bit more thick skinned than their liberal counterpoints...so they can handle another point of view! Or that seems to be the consensus among college administrators.

I accept that this is your opinion, that higher education, if not everything, has a liberal bias, at least relative to your own.

Again, what can you do about it? The kind of people you'd like indoctrinating our youth instead don't seem to be drawn to teaching, or at least those who are lack the backbone to stick with it under the adverse conditions of having to rub elbows in the workplace with people with a different perspective.

What is your solution to this problem that, you must admit, is not universally taken as gospel?

Trump2016 is what you can do...

 

[Oldstyle]

Let me put it this way...I was far more liberal after four years at UMass then I was when I started. What ended up making me a conservative was the real world. Once you're out in it for awhile you come to realize that college professor who sounded like they were such an authority...had little or no real world experience and was speaking about "theory". "Theory" is what Larry Summers and Christina Romer brought to the White House and the failure of "theory" is what had them both packing their bags and running back to their college jobs.

That's what undergraduate studies are supposed to do. They expose you to ideas that you might not ever have had on your own, on all sorts of subjects you might not have thought you were interested in.

How you feel about things, all things, is based on your own life experience. That doesn't mean that you were too sheltered as a youth nor that those who taught you had an agenda. It means you can't be taught everything in a classroom that you need to know to function effectively in real life.

You came to your own conclusions based on fundamentals you learned in school regardless of any spin you think was used. Great. The system works.

Frankly, anyone who is as influenced by a teacher or a group of teachers as you seem to think most economists are isn't being brainwashed. It sounds more like a student crush. I don't think that is representative of the people who call themselves economists. They do what you and I and everyone I know did - learn what we could in school the easy way and learn what's really important afterwards, the hard way.

So how is getting only one side of a political argument "exposing" students to ideas? It's not! It's programming them to believe what they are being told.

So my learning in the real world that most of my college professors didn't have a clue what they were talking about means that the "system works"? That's an amusing concept. I had to UNLEARN what I spent a lot of money learning in the first place! The system would "work" if I was given an unbiased look at different arguments and allowed to make a decision about what seemed to be the best theory! That isn't what's taking place on college campuses these days.

I can't dispute your personal academic experience your personal experiences are yours and yours alone, but it sure doesn't square with my well rounded college experience - maybe you should have chosen more diversity in your class selections...?

But-----but well rounded would put you at odds with rightwing guru Frank Luntz's meme that bettering yourself via education is the reason the GOP sucks in the minds of the majority of millennials.


'Lost' Generation

July 25, 2016
By Colleen Flaherty

Is an entire generation of voters “lost” to the Grand Old Party, and is academe at fault? That’s what conservative pollster and pundit Frank Luntz told a roomful of delegates at the Republican National Convention last week.

Yet academics who study the issue disagree.

“Luntz doesn’t have his facts straight,” said Neil Gross, Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Colby College, who has studied politics and the professoriate. “Young Americans are leaning to the left these days, but it has very little to do with what they’re being taught by college professors.”

Speaking to a group of South Carolina delegates at a breakfast meeting in Cleveland, Luntz declared his No. 1 priority to be “what happens at universities,” The Hill reported.

“Capitol Hill matters, yes, politics matter, but a whole generation is being taught by professors who voted for Bernie Sanders,” Luntz said. “That’s a problem that begs for a solution.”

Recycling the notion that college and university campuses are fertile recruiting grounds for an army of liberal academics, Luntz declared millennials “lost” to his party.

“It's not like we are losing -- we have lost that generation,” he said.

As proof, Luntz offered the following data point: that 58 percent of millennials -- in his words -- “say socialism is the better form of economics.” That, he said, “is the damage of academia.”

Luntz presumably was referring to a 2015 poll by Reason-Rupe, which found that 58 percent of college-age Americans have a positive view of socialism, compared to 56 percent for capitalism.

The finding apparently jarred the GOP audience. “We are screwed,” one delegate said aloud, according to The Hill.

But other data don’t support Luntz’s argument.

<more>

Is your mind just c&ping Frank Luntz's Republican talking points?

.

The reason that I took an economics class at Amherst College (through the 5 Colleges Program) was that I didn't feel like I was getting "diversity" at UMass. The class I took there with Thomas Sowell was one of the best classes I took in college.

I'm curious...you quote Neil Gross as saying young Americans are leaning left these days but claiming it has little to do with what they're being taught by college professors? Gross makes that statement and then backs it up with what? Is he saying that college professors aren't predominantly liberal today? Is he claiming that they are...but that doesn't affect the students they teach? Is he claiming that young Americans are being pulled to the left by other things...like an overwhelmingly liberal mainstream media...television programs like Saturday Night Live and the Daley Show which mix comedy with liberal bias...or a public school system that is also heavily populated by liberal teachers?

Let's be honest here, Star...young people are bombarded with liberal philosophy from pre-school right up until they leave college. Lutz is spot on in his views.

It might be an alien concept to many Republicans (especially nowadays) but I expected a well educated Republican like yourself to read the entire article before commenting on it.
Neil Gross includes several reasons why he came to his conclusion - none of which includes indoctrination by college professors as the Republican talking point guru, Frank Luntz, has claimed. And-----and if certain TV programs didn't strike a chord with millennials, millennials would change the channel to any one of a number of conservative stations. BTW the rightwing meme that the MSM is liberal is-----is bunk...

Pro-Corporate Bias – The mainstream media is composed of corporations which exist to make a profit, not spread accurate information. The corporate state of the media creates a conflict of interest where advertisers are concerned (ex. a news outlet that runs BP ads hesitates to cover their oil spills in the negative light that they deserve), as well as a conflict of interest when covering the spread of corporatism in the United States (ex. they want their taxes to remain low and to avoid new regulation).

Food for thought; I live near the (depending on which survey you want to quote) most liberal city in America, or the 2nd most liberal city in America, or the 3rd most liberal city in America - there isn't a single, not one, liberal/progressive commercial radio station in Seattle - why do you think that is?

.

I did read the entire Gross article and I'm still wondering how he arrived at his conclusions! He seems to think that because students coming out of high school are leaning to the left (which I would posit is a result of a public education system that is overwhelmingly staffed by liberal educators!) that liberal college professors don't affect them. If you got a steady diet of liberal thought in public school then you're not going to question the steady diet of liberal thought you get in college. Why would you? So when do young people get to hear the other side?

As for the mainstream media not being liberal? Come on, Star...name a single "conservative" comedy program. You've got an entire generation of kids who get their "news" from people like Jon Daley and Samantha Bee, comedians who report on daily happenings by blistering conservatives with snarky commentary. It doesn't have to be balanced or even attempt to be impartial because it's not "news" it's comedy!

 

[Oldstyle]

More like they were uncomfortable because most of the people they work with are not only liberal but in many cases extremely liberal...the kind of people who are not tolerant of another point of view? Conservative speakers are being banned from college campuses today because their message "offends" liberals. Liberal speakers? Well, it seems that conservative students are a bit more thick skinned than their liberal counterpoints...so they can handle another point of view! Or that seems to be the consensus among college administrators.

I accept that this is your opinion, that higher education, if not everything, has a liberal bias, at least relative to your own.

Again, what can you do about it? The kind of people you'd like indoctrinating our youth instead don't seem to be drawn to teaching, or at least those who are lack the backbone to stick with it under the adverse conditions of having to rub elbows in the workplace with people with a different perspective.

What is your solution to this problem that, you must admit, is not universally taken as gospel?

You could start by allowing other viewpoints to be heard on college campuses, Al!

By the way, I'm amused by your belief that it takes more "backbone" to stay in education than to venture out into the Private Sector! For many people it's a refuge from the rigors of the real world. College campuses are wonderful places but they ARE NOT the real world just as inside the Beltway in Washington DC is not the real world either. Spending too much time in either locale makes you lose touch with reality.

 

[Al Azar]

You could start by allowing other viewpoints to be heard on college campuses, Al!

By the way, I'm amused by your belief that it takes more "backbone" to stay in education than to venture out into the Private Sector! For many people it's a refuge from the rigors of the real world. College campuses are wonderful places but they ARE NOT the real world just as inside the Beltway in Washington DC is not the real world either. Spending too much time in either locale makes you lose touch with reality.

I didn't ask you what you'd like others to do, I asked what you could do, what your solution is. How are you going to change things to either eliminate this liberal bias you feel is so prevalent, or inject a conservative bias to balance it out?

I referred to having backbone to stick it out under adverse conditions based my being a veteran of 44 years in the workforce, sometimes working closely with people who didn't share my views, whether I liked it or not, and that includes working for people of that sort as well. I can't imagine myself quitting and running away, crying in my beer about how mean some people are!

You're really grasping at straws here, oldstyle, trying to justify this position you've taken. Set that aside, and suppose I agree that the education system we have is liberal cesspool. What can you do about it?