Speech from Majority Leader Tom DeLay

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by Mustafa
jimnyc wrote



Acutally the FREE posting of thousands of unedited complete books without any apparent legal implications has been around for more than ten years at the following site. This location is actually very interesting and hosted by Penn Univeristy and supported by the Carnegie Melon Univeristy Libraries and The Newark Public Library.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

The site's Copyright explanation can be found at the following:.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/

It is difficult to believe that the sponsors and libraries at this site have any intellectual integrity so cherished by SLClemons.

So far as I can tell all works on this site are credited to the people who actually wrote them, as opposed to your above post.

 

[ajwps]

SLClemons writes:
----------------------------
"So far as I can tell all works on this site are credited to the people who actually wrote them, as opposed to your above post."
----------------------------

As to my previous post in question, only few uncredited sentences were used as proof text among my own refutations. As you may have noted on the books online library, there appear to be many entire texts and articles now copyrighted or in the public domain for 'use' by everyone. Internet postings by their very nature are also in public domain with the exceptions of those that only allow access to their copyright work for a fee. The uncredited use of 'portions' of these fee free work remains murky at best and there is no current federal or state law covering this form of borrowed copy. Intellectual dishonesty comes in many forms and the use of other people's ideas without directly copying them word for word and giving credit to the author seems to fall into this same catagory.

A copy of the Books Online site's mission states in part:

Its mission, according to its stated history and philosophy, is to "make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search."

Also the Books Online states clearly:

Be aware that some of the material in certain books may be covered under copyrights in those related categories. (For instance, if a portion of a book first appeared in a magazine, it may still be copyrighted under the magazine's copyright even if the book's copyright was not renewed.)

So in fact these prestigious higher institutions and library contributors actually violate your sensibilities concerning the use of copyrighted materials.

You might want to start a new thread on copyright law instead of getting off the subject at hand.

 

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by ajwps
SLClemons writes:
----------------------------
"So far as I can tell all works on this site are credited to the people who actually wrote them, as opposed to your above post."
----------------------------

As to my previous post in question, only few uncredited sentences were used as proof text among my own refutations. As you may have noted on the books online library, there appear to be many entire texts and articles now copyrighted or in the public domain for 'use' by everyone. Internet postings by their very nature are also in public domain with the exceptions of those that only allow access to their copyright work for a fee. The uncredited use of 'portions' of these fee free work remains murky at best and there is no current federal or state law covering this form of borrowed copy. Intellectual dishonesty comes in many forms and the use of other people's ideas without directly copying them word for word and giving credit to the author seems to fall into this same catagory.

A copy of the Books Online site's mission states in part:



Also the Books Online states clearly:



So in fact these prestigious higher institutions and library contributors actually violate your sensibilities concerning the use of copyrighted materials.

You might want to start a new thread on copyright law instead of getting off the subject at hand.

My sensibilities were violated by plagiarism, which you commited above, not by copyright violations, which we many of us (technically) commit when we re-post news stories here. If this site you cite presents itself as the author of a particular work they have commited plagiarism, even if a work is in the public domain. They don't, so far as I can tell - they make it clear who has written what - which makes their site irrelevant to issues of plagiarism.

 

[ajwps]

My sensibilities were violated by plagiarism, which you commited above, not by copyright violations, which we many of us (technically) commit when we re-post news stories here.

It seems that your sensibilities were not violated (technically) by your re-posting news stores here.

Your admission seems to speak for itself. My re-posting of some lines from another must therefore be (technically) the same form of your own plagiarism.

Rest easy for you have not offended my sensibilities with your admission of technical plagiarism.

Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.

ATTRIBUTION: Leo Tolstoy

 

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by ajwps
It seems that your sensibilities were not violated (technically) by your re-posting news stores here.

Your admission seems to speak for itself. My re-posting of some lines from another must therefore be (technically) the same form of your own plagiarism.

Rest easy for you have not offended my sensibilities with your admission of technical plagiarism.

I'm admitting to violating copyright regulations. It's not plagiarism because I've referenced the sources I've quoted and have not presented them as my own writing, which would be a dishonest act of plagiarism. Your reposting of paragraphs of someone else's writing between your own without indicating that they were not your own is an act of plagiarism.

If I photocopy a NYT article and hand it out to my students this is a copyright violation about which no one would really care. It is not plagiarism. If I wrote an article to distribute to my students and inserted a few paragraphs of someone else's work without quoting or referencing it, it would be an act of plagiarism and face disciplinary action and I'd be lucky not to get fired for it. Furthermore, none of my students would lend me any credibility again.

You're a professional - I assume that means some level of university education. Just where can you get a professional degree or diplomma and not learn this?

 

[ajwps]

If I photocopy a NYT article and hand it out to my students this is a copyright violation about which no one would really care. It is not plagiarism.

Now you feel that handing out copyrighted articles to your students which is not (technically) plagiarism. How very convenient.

If I wrote an article to distribute to my students and inserted a few paragraphs of someone else's work without quoting or referencing it, it would be an act of plagiarism and face disciplinary action and I'd be lucky not to get fired for it. Furthermore, none of my students would lend me any credibility again.

You again seem to be confused. If you are working in a institutional setting, then you would be correct in that plagiarism has consequences and you should be fired for it. But this forum is an open dialogue and no consequences are attached to (technical) plagiarism either legally or by the usual standards of this site.

You're a professional - I assume that means some level of university education. Just where can you get a professional degree or diplomma and not learn this?

Apparently you didn't read my previous post. When I was involved in some liberal arts courses that required papers to be submitted, I did use standard referencing guidelines.

If your students were to read your self-serving premises about Internet public forum posts, you probably would lose any credibility you had enjoyed in the past.

At least I seem to be evoking a very interesting response from you on this subject that you find so interesting

 

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by ajwps
If I photocopy a NYT article and hand it out to my students this is a copyright violation about which no one would really care. It is not plagiarism.



If I wrote an article to distribute to my students and inserted a few paragraphs of someone else's work without quoting or referencing it, it would be an act of plagiarism and face disciplinary action and I'd be lucky not to get fired for it. Furthermore, none of my students would lend me any credibility again.



You're a professional - I assume that means some level of university education. Just where can you get a professional degree or diplomma and not learn this?

Handing out copies of a copyright article is not plagiarism unless I claim or imply that I wrote it when I did not.

Do you not own a dictionary?

Here:

"plagiarism

n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own"

(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=plagiarism)

It makes no difference whether it happens in an instution or the Net, it's still plagiarism. Only the consequences are different. If you do it at an educational institute you usually fail / get suspended / get dismissed. If you do it on the Net the only consequence is that people generally don't take you seriously or lend you much credibility after they find out about it.

 

[ajwps]

It makes no difference whether it happens in an instution or the Net, it's still plagiarism. Only the consequences are different. If you do it at an educational institute you usually fail / get suspended / get dismissed. If you do it on the Net the only consequence is that people generally don't take you seriously or lend you much credibility after they find out about it.

I concede your point. As a consequence you need no longer take me seriously and/or accept my posts as credible. In the future you need not even pay any attention to my posts or replies. Is that satisfactory to you?

While I still have your attention, it appears from recent post that you are somehow involved in higher education either as a student or a professor.

Would you agree with the following statement:

The Center for the Study of Popular Culture released a report that documents the stunning bias against conservative viewpoints on college faculties and speakers platforms. At 32 elite colleges registered Democrats on the faculty outnumbered Republicans 10-1. At two of the schools – Bowdoin and Wellesley – the ratio was 23-1. At select schools, the ratios were far worse. At Brown University the ratio was 30-to-1, while at Swarthmore it was 21-to-1; at Columbia it was 14-to-1. At no less than four elite schools, Williams, Oberlin, MIT, and Haverford, the Center was unable to identify a single Republican on their faculties.

At a large research institution like Columbia University, the Center was able to identify only four Republican faculty members in the departments studied, and could not locate a single Republican in the history or political science departments.

At both large research universities and small liberal arts colleges, conservative professors are so rare as as to make it probable that the average student graduates without ever taking a class taught by a professor with a conservative outlook.

October 22, 2003

Yesterday, Congressmen Jack Kingston, R-GA; Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-NC; and Joe Jones, a student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, held a press conference announcing their support for the Academic Bill of Rights. The two congressmen have introduced a bill supporting the document's non-compulsory call for colleges and universities to end any discrimination against hiring conservatives and bring intellectual diversity to campus. Joe Jones spoke of his experience facing the opposition of leftist college administrators. Reps. Kingston and Jones then spoke about why they felt the Academic Bill of Rights was needed.

A copy of that bill can be found at the following location:

http://studentsforacademicfreedom.org/essays/abor.html

Do you feel that the majority of institutions of higher learning in the United States are biased to the extreme left by university policy and in the their hiring polices? If the student or their parents spend a great deal of money for their children to obtain an above the average education, should these young men and women be spoon fed politics instead of the mastery of learning their chosen fields?

Do you believe that there is no place for partisan politics in very expensive higher education, especially when it influences the mind-set of students. Students go to college to learn and make independent, educated decisions. Incorporating an Academic Bill of Rights in our colleges will help ensure public education is not clouded by partisan curriculum.....”

------------------------------------------

A man’s liberal and conservative phases seem to follow each other in a succession of waves from the time he is born. Children are radicals. Youths are conservatives, with a dash of criminal negligence. Men in their prime are liberals (as long as their digestion keeps pace with their intellect). The middle aged ... run to shelter: they insure their life, draft a will, accumulate mementos and occasional tables, and hope for security. And then comes old age, which repeats childhood—a time full of humors and sadness, but often full of courage and even prophecy.

ATTRIBUTION: E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White (1899–1985)

But being that I am not credible you need not reply.....

 

[SLClemens]

Plagiarism is just a bit like driving on the wrong side of the road. If you do it once and correct the habit people will generally trust your driving after they're confident it will stay on course.

As for American universities - I can't speak for all of them, but I would suggest that on the whole they're dominated by an ideology of naïve liberalism. It's generally not cool to admit to being a Republican, and many Republicans will try to differentiate their views from the Rush Limbaugh types and clarify that they're of the more moderate variety. It also depends a lot on department. In liberal arts, you won't find many Republicans; in applied sciences and business (though not so much in economics, strangely), you'll find more of them.

I certainly don't believe in spoon-feeding students politics. As a grad student (who both teaches and is taught) I'd quickly develop a reputation for doctrinaire views which would not be helpful. Rather I try to teach students to be as ideologically promiscuous as possible and to ask difficult questions that challenge conventional thinking. There's nothing worse for learning than a partisan teacher. Of course, a great deal of subject matter with which I deal has little or no relevance to contemporary issues anyway. Here it is especially important not to let partisan views interfere with teaching. A card-carrying Republican, for example, might draw upon Marxists' interpretations of literature and agree with them. A socialist might use examples of stock trading to explain how mathematic theories work.

 

[ajwps]

Plagiarism is just a bit like driving on the wrong side of the road. If you do it once and correct the habit people will generally trust your driving after they're confident it will stay on course.

Very generous and appreciated since you kindly replied to my post and observations concerning American institutions of higher learnng.

Unfortunately I do not believe that the majority of American universities are dominated by simple ideologies of naïve liberalism but do feel that many promulgate leftist ideology instead of a truly unbiased education.

One anecdotal report states:

A recent critique of a Georgia State University course, for example, states that the professor "made fun of President Bush, lamented the Bourgeoisie, praised Marx . . . and said the only way the problems of the masses are ever solved are through 'Revolution,' which she wrote emphatically and in very large letters on the board."

It is good to know that you feel that "There's nothing worse for learning than a partisan teacher."

While I feel that it is important for every student to individually develop his or her own ideas about government and politics, I find no valid reason for any teacher to use his or her powerful influence to either overtly or subtly convert young developing and learning minds to the professor's personal bias. Especially since it appears that the majority of American educators lean far to the left. The following is a very enlightening example:

Historically, the role of educators has been twofold—to give students facts to memorize and to teach them how to think critically. Today, liberal professors want students to memorize arguments, spit them back on exams, and become their groupies.

Dr. Alan Kors, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Shadow University, offered a telling story on how times have changed. When Kors was an undergraduate, he took a course with a professor who was an avowed Marxist. When the first exam came around, most students echoed the professor’s Marxist arguments in their essays.

After the professor read the essays, he expressed outrage at students’ lack of critical thinking. He threw out the exams and assigned students Friedrich Hayek’s famous libertarian tome The Road to Serfdom. The professor was not interested in molding a bunch of disciples. He wanted his students to be critical thinkers.

Can we say the same thing about our professors today? Are they secure enough in their political conclusions that they are willing to expose students to differing perspectives in a fair and balanced way? Will Cornell’s leading feminist, Government Professor Anna Marie Smith, be assigning Phyllis Schlafly’s books anytime soon? Will Gay Studies Professor Biddy Martin be spending a lot of time on Pope John Paul’s writings on homosexuality and the Catholic Church?

Without examining various perspectives on social and political issues, you become intellectually lazy. If the assumptions and substance of your statements are never challenged, how can you formulate coherent arguments? This is why conservatives on college campuses tend to make better arguments than liberals do—not because we are better or smarter, but because we are confronted with liberal arguments from our professors, fellow students, and administrators all the time. We are forced to think through the other side’s points as we formulate our own views. Can liberals say the same thing?

In the spring of 1999, Professor Rose McDermott offered GOVT 385: American Foreign Policy. According to a student who took the course, McDermott spent the greatest proportion of the course covering the Cold War policies of liberal Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter. She also spent a bit of time on President Nixon. But what about Ronald Reagan?

Many historians have argued that the policies of Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for the West. His military build-up, his commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative, and his straight-talk with the Soviets are credited, by some, with bringing the Soviets to their knees. Documents recovered from the Kremlin following 1991 confirm this, referring to President Reagan’s actions as “decisive” in the fall of the Berlin Wall. To this day, the Poles and Czechs credit Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for their nations’ freedom. Even Communist Mikail Gorbachev praises President Reagan for the end of the Cold War.

So how did Professor McDermott treat President Reagan in her course? According to the alumnus who took the class, she spent a grand total of five minutes on Reagan, which included a dismissive comment about our involvement in Grenada and a crack about Alzheimer’s disease.

I truly hope you feel the way you now express your sentiments concerning what I consider to be a very serious deficiency in a significant portion of American education today.

 

[SLClemens]

Originally posted by ajwps
Very generous and appreciated since you kindly replied to my post and observations concerning American institutions of higher learnng.

Unfortunately I do not believe that the majority of American universities are dominated by simple ideologies of naïve liberalism but do feel that many promulgate leftist ideology instead of a truly unbiased education.

One anecdotal report states:




It is good to know that you feel that "There's nothing worse for learning than a partisan teacher."

While I feel that it is important for every student to individually develop his or her own ideas about government and politics, I find no valid reason for any teacher to use his or her powerful influence to either overtly or subtly convert young developing and learning minds to the professor's personal bias. Especially since it appears that the majority of American educators lean far to the left. The following is a very enlightening example:



I truly hope you feel the way you now express your sentiments concerning what I consider to be a very serious deficiency in a significant portion of American education today.

We should probably move this discussion over to the USA thread, but for now I'll continue it here.

I'm not really that worried about a left-wing bias at universities. It's fair to say it exists, but then about 50% of educated people vote Republican, so just how effective can it be? I think that overt bashing of the right is really not that effective anyhow. More dangerous is to limit subtly the parameters of discussion as to exclude certain ideas. If you oppose the Bush administration and present the only alternative as support of the Democrats you do quite a disservice to your position. I'll admit that I hate Bush and love to bring out ideas that undermine him, but promoting Dean or Clarke would be a fairly silly way of doing it. Does Bush undermine traditional views held by the right about individual liberty, isolationism and hemispheric influence, fiscal responsibility, checks and balances within a democratic republic, and the role of executive power in the US, and if so, how? This is a question that will pull students away from partisan positions and question the bases of ideological positions and adopt perhaps a more eclectic analysis. How does the way the media work, and how press conferences rather than a diverse parliament setting a media agenda, affect how Americans view him? This is a question that will get students thinking about why certain issues make the press and others don't, and how we compare to other questions. Setting up a Bush vs. Clinton comparison is not a good way to change minds because mind are already made up on this and there is little I can do to change them. Trying to indoctrinate students with a particular ideology is even more useless.

As for criticizing certain figures, there is a place for this but if that's all you do personal dislikes will show through and cause students to question your motives. I like to poke fun at all world leaders, but there's little point in flogging a dead horse as in the case of Bush. Most intelligent and articulate students already deride him, and those who identify with him will just feel insulted. Better is to ask how his presidential approach affects world opinion and what effects this could have on us. Why is it that what sounds statesmanlike to us often sounds like bullying to others, and is there a better approach?

Another useful approach is to get kids to learn as much as they can about how other societies live. Students are usually naturally curious about other cultures but often know little about them. When they find out that other people often do things much differently from us yet still enjoy high standards of life it opens up possibilities that we never thought of. When students learn that some countries have fully funded and widely available abortion on demand yet have much lower abortion rates than us; when they learn that other countries have much lower drinking ages and alcohol permitted in public but fewer alcohol-related deaths; when they learn how much less energy other western societies use; when they compare social spending to poverty and crime rates; when they learn that it's not common in free countries to swear oaths of allegiance and have flags in every school classroom, yet still have a thriving democracy - to use but a few examples - they start to see possibilities for our social and political structures that they never imagined before.

Anyhow, I'm babbling. But I think you get the idea. I don't mind being subversive so long as it's not bound to any particular ideology. Better, I think, to challenge the views and assumptions of all conventional ideologies and then let students develop their own political outlooks. I suppose that if there's a key to one's approach it's to be analytical rather than evangelical. There are some profs and TAs who are pretty evangelical, but I doubt in most cases they are changing the ways many people think by doing so. Often I think they are just encouraging people to build up barriers around their own prejudices. Sometimes I know I fall into this trap myself.

One last note - I really dispise those who think there's such thing as objectivity in academic debate. These people are just deluding themselves and others. Everyone is biased and prejudiced about even the most mundane things.

Oh, and one final, final note. Why is it, I wonder, that so many political scientists, philosophers, cultural critics, historians, socialogists, anthropologists, Spanish / Russian / German / Arabic / etc. studies profs, and even lit critics, are generally left-leaning? Does being left-leaning attract one to such a field? Does studying such a feild make one left-leaning? I think it's a bit of both.

 

[ajwps]

Great idea so lets go there where I will respond.