Why Professors are Predominantly ‘leftist.’

[geauxtohell]

Okay my turn to ask for a source or support for your opinion. A number of studies, cited by PC, G Will, and myself, iclearly identifies a liberal bias in academia AND the media.

What is your authoritative source for your opinion that the number of professors who consider themselves to be liberal is less than 50%? Do you have one that cites a scientific poll or study as we have cited to support our opinion>?

It would be from PC:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/2218495-post195.html

"Higher Education Research Institute at the UCLA published a survey in 2002, of 55,521 professors at 416 colleges and universities nationwide. They found that 48% of the professors identified themselves as ‘liberal’ or ‘far left;’ 34% as ‘middle of the road.

Being a believer in statistics, I am impressed with any study where n=55,521. I don't think you could do much better than that on this issue. Anyways: Via simple math: 52% of professors in this country don't consider themselves to be liberal or far left.

If we reduce this to simple liberal vs. conservative logic, as PC loves to do: that means that 52% of them are conservative.

However, we both know that manner of thinking is silly, especially in light of the fact that 34% consider themselves to be middle of the road.

At any rate, I think we can safely say that, in light of the actual numbers, the "liberal domination" of academia is somewhat of a canard.

And further, how do you argue against my point that liberals mostly consider themselves to be in the mainstream and the 'normal' ones while the rest of us who express views consdiered to be right of center or conservative to be the ones who are out of the mainstream?

By pointing out that it is your opinion that you can, in no way quantify. Unless you think you can speak for about 20,000 individuals.

You have observer bias on this issue. You want to see a liberal domination of higher education, so when the numbers don't square with that, you have to explain it away somehow.

Whether or not you consider Will a bore, he is not stating the facts he stated in a vacuum. Most liberals in academia or the media automatically assume that those among them are liberal.

Will is stating an opinion. Once again, he can no more prove it than I can prove that the core of Jupiter is a large diamond. If Will, or a faculty member, could prove they were denied tenure for political reasons, the case would be being made in a court and not on some lame op-ed piece.

But to be an editorialist, you have to know how to pluck the right heart-strings.

Being in the media, you should know that.

 

[midcan5]

My gawd that is one stupid OP. Why does the right find it necessary to constantly define the left? Most people are conservative in their personal life, most people are liberal in the here and now, because they live in the here and now. Ideas are open and that makes them left leaning or liberal, that's just the way it is. Conservatism as a living philosophy is simply reactionary, it doesn't like change. Comfort can be comfortable, change is unknown and thus alien to conservatives.

Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives | Video on TED.com

"The uncompromising attitude [conservative attitude] is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without." Eric Hoffer

The Rhetoric of Reaction - Albert O. Hirschman - Harvard University Press

"Hirschman draws his examples from three successive waves of reactive [conservative] thought that arose in response to the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, to democratization and the drive toward universal suffrage in the nineteenth century, and to the welfare state in our own century. In each case he identifies three principal arguments invariably used: (1) the perversity thesis, whereby any action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order is alleged to result in the exact opposite of what was intended; (2) the futility thesis, which predicts that attempts at social transformation will produce no effects whatever--will simply be incapable of making a dent in the status quo; (3) the jeopardy thesis, holding that the cost of the proposed reform is unacceptable because it will endanger previous hard-won accomplishments. He illustrates these propositions by citing writers across the centuries from Alexis de Tocqueville to George Stigler, Herbert Spencer to Jay Forrester, Edmund Burke to Charles Murray. Finally, in a lightning turnabout, he shows that progressives are frequently apt to employ closely related rhetorical postures, which are as biased as their reactionary counterparts. For those who aspire to the genuine dialogue that characterizes a truly democratic society, Hirschman points out that both types of rhetoric function, in effect, as contraptions designed to make debate impossible. In the process, his book makes an original contribution to democratic thought. The Rhetoric of Reaction is a delightful handbook for all discussions of public affairs, the welfare state, and the history of social, economic, and political thought, whether conducted by ordinary citizens or academics."

 

[geauxtohell]

My gawd that is one stupid OP. Why does the right find it necessary to constantly define the left? Most people are conservative in their personal life, most people are liberal in the here and now, because they live in the here and now. Ideas are open and that makes them left leaning or liberal, that's just the way it is. Conservatism as a living philosophy is simply reactionary, it doesn't like change. Comfort can be comfortable, change is unknown and thus alien to conservatives..............

Brilliant and rep-worthy.

 

[JBeukema]

Education makes people more liberal and that is just a fact.

Knowing MORE makes people more understanding of other human beings.

Republicans just hate that shit

"there are death panels in the health care bill" and "fags wanting to get married will destroy the sanctity of marriage" is always believed by the uneducated.

Yeah, take that attitude over to your friends who say that incest should be legal because anyone should be able to marry anyone they want.

And there are death panels in the health care bill. Obama and his hand-picked socialist pigs determining what is covered and what isn't. That's a death panel.

As opposed to the capitalist deciding what's covered and what's not based on how much your care will lower his bonus at the end of the fiscal year?

http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...vate-insurance-and-theyre-not-going-away.html

 

[JBeukema]

Is it just me or does it seem like PC will jump onto any theory without question if it makes liberals look bad?

yet when you ask her what she believes in...


it's Liberalism


She's still naive to think that the classical doctrine can work, even though history proves her wrong

 

[Big Fitz]

At my sons HIGH SCHOOL there was a government teacher who during an election year refused to allow anything on the walls to show anything but Bush.

Some of these kids were old enough to vote and this teacher allowed no one to say ANYTHING against Bush.

interesting. In all the schools I went to in the Twin Cities, I think only one did not have a shrine to Obama near the entrance of the school. I constantly see parking lots full of teacher's cars with Obama, Wellstone! (who's still dead) and Franken bumperstickers in them, even today.

And the one school I can't recall seeing anything pro Obama was because nothing political was there.

I swear, Minnesnowta libs must screen who they sell their used cars to, for people who pledge not to rip the stupid Wellstone! stickers off of them.

no... these are newly printed. They're still shiny and without rips. Patron saint of MN libs I guess worshiping at the feet of their political martyr.

 

[edthecynic]

My gawd that is one stupid OP. Why does the right find it necessary to constantly define the left?

What I find most telling about the Right is, while they habitually define the Left, they have a cow if the Left hits them with the Golden Rule and defines the Right. They say only the Right can define the Right.

Apparently only the Right can define anything. After all, they have also anointed themselves as the ultimate definers of the Constitution, the "intent" of the Founding Fathers, the meaning of the words used by others they "sort of" quote, and everything else for that matter.

 

[JBeukema]

the meaning of the words used by others they "sort of" quote

Like PC and her quotemines? Like her trying to use half of a man's sentence to claim that a statement about how America is a single People and would stand ready for forge new constitutions and laws as a single People even if the current system were somehow taken out of the picture meant he wanted to destroy America?

 

[sitarro]

Why would the objects of such overt disdain of academe hang around?

Why do soldiers stay in hostile nations? Why do Christian missionaries stay in non-Christian nations?

If you believe that your job is important, and the message you're sending out is important, you stick it out.

And there are a lot of things that Conservatives could do to support Conservative voices in academia.

 

[Big Fitz]

"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and aren't conservative, you have no brain." Winston Churchill.

 

[JakeStarkey]

You reactionaries are not conservatives. You are agenda-driven activist whackos of the far, far whinge right. America knows what you are, and that is why you are being rejected.

 

[edthecynic]

"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and aren't conservative, you have no brain." Winston Churchill.

Churchill never said that, and you know it.

All CON$ervoFascists can do is make up phony quotes because they know they can't argue the facts since they have no facts to argue.

If you're not liberal when you're young...

There is no record of Churchill ever speaking these words, and it is highly unlikely that he would have because Churchill himself did precisely the opposite. He entered politics as a Conservative and was a Conservative at age 25. He switched to the Liberal Party at age 29 and was a Liberal at age 35. (He returned to the Conservatives at age 49.) Also, his beloved wife, Clementine, was a life-long Liberal, and Churchill would hardly have delivered such an indirect insult to her.

 

[Oddball]

My gawd that is one stupid OP. Why does the right find it necessary to constantly define the left?

What I find most telling about the Right is, while they habitually define the Left, they have a cow if the Left hits them with the Golden Rule and defines the Right. They say only the Right can define the Right.

Apparently only the Right can define anything. After all, they have also anointed themselves as the ultimate definers of the Constitution, the "intent" of the Founding Fathers, the meaning of the words used by others they "sort of" quote, and everything else for that matter.

Define or be defined.


Since the left can't define themselves for what they are --Fabian socialists who hide behind stolen monikers (liberal) and vagaries (progressive)-- because nobody would have anything to do with them, the task is available for others to do so.

As for the intent of the founders, they were made clear in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, which are written in very plain English. But Orwell already covered the proclivity of socialists to twist and ignore the meanings of words in 1984, didn't he?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

You reactionaries are not conservatives. You are agenda-driven activist whackos of the far, far whinge right. America knows what you are, and that is why you are being rejected.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R-voFL4ZL8]YouTube - Deep Purple-You Fool No One (live 1974)[/ame]

 

[edthecynic]

My gawd that is one stupid OP. Why does the right find it necessary to constantly define the left?

What I find most telling about the Right is, while they habitually define the Left, they have a cow if the Left hits them with the Golden Rule and defines the Right. They say only the Right can define the Right.

Apparently only the Right can define anything. After all, they have also anointed themselves as the ultimate definers of the Constitution, the "intent" of the Founding Fathers, the meaning of the words used by others they "sort of" quote, and everything else for that matter.

Define or be defined.


Since the left can't define themselves for what they are --Fabian socialists who hide behind stolen monikers (liberal) and vagaries (progressive)-- because nobody would have anything to do with them, the task is available for others to do so.

As for the intent of the founders, they were made clear in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, which are written in very plain English. But Orwell already covered the proclivity of socialists to twist and ignore the meanings of words in 1984, didn't he?

One other thing about CON$, they can always RATIONALIZE their hypocrisy!!!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Taking over academia was one part of the plan: academia, the media and a political party (the Dems)

Progressive can lie all day long about the Greatness of FDR, Gorby won the Cold War, LBJ's love for Negroes and what a great deal Socialism is.

 

[geauxtohell]

"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and aren't conservative, you have no brain." Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill never said that.

 

[Big Fitz]

"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and aren't conservative, you have no brain." Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill never said that.

That's where I got it attributed to. He was an extremely witty man. But if you can point me to the proper attribution, I'd be happy.

The statement's still true.

 

[geauxtohell]

"If you are 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 30 and aren't conservative, you have no brain." Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill never said that.

That's where I got it attributed to. He was an extremely witty man. But if you can point me to the proper attribution, I'd be happy.

The statement's still true.

The validity of the statement is your opinion.

I don't know who said it, but it wasn't Churchill.

Quotes Falsely Attributed

 

[JakeStarkey]

bigfitz is entitled to an opinion, no matter how wrong it is. This is America after all.