Safe spaces for conservative students

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Spectrum
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Safe spaces for conservative students

Post by Spectrum »

Great article from the New York Times. No, really, you think that the college systems are bent far too regressive left? I would have never guessed! ;)
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Batgirl III
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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"The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity." —Alinsky, Saul David. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. p. 128; New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

The conservative and libertarian movements have been steadily adopting the tactics and language of the progressives for several years now. Which is why conservative and libertarian students have started this "safe space" campaign...

As a whole, conservatives and libertarians don't generally want "safe spaces" in the same sense that progressives do. The typical Young Republican on a university campus is unlikely to need a private room full of "cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies" because a speaker on campus might disagree with them. Mostly because "speakers who disagree with us" would include roughly 98% of the faculty.

On the other hand, when you have professor who are so hard left that they call the cops because a student wears their uniform to class; when student groups accuse the homosexual director of groundbreaking pro-trans film of being transphobic; or entire campuses go into a blind panic because of campaign slogans written in chalk? Well, it's pretty obvious why conservative and libertarian students feel like strangers in a strange land.
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StarGuard
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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Nothing new in Academia. 27 years ago I come home from the military and start college classes as a poli sci major. Kuwait gets invaded and the professor treats me like a wack job because I explained I wasnt interested with any information he had regarding Amnesty International. I'll never understand the look on his face when I told him I volunteered in he first place to serve my country. That I would not run from that duty just because I was serving the last of my reserve time. :roll:
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Batgirl III
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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StarGuard wrote:Nothing new in Academia. 27 years ago I come home from the military and start college classes as a poli sci major. Kuwait gets invaded and the professor treats me like a wack job because I explained I wasnt interested with any information he had regarding Amnesty International. I'll never understand the look on his face when I told him I volunteered in he first place to serve my country. That I would not run from that duty just because I was serving the last of my reserve time. :roll:
Yeah; I was serving in the Coast Guard Reserve when 9/11 occurred. I'll never forget the dumbfounded look on the face of a adjunct lecturer in English literature when I interrupted his anti-military* rant to point out that I was a member of the military and would he kindly limit his lecture to 'Madame Bovary' and not geopolitics... That's when he said that the Coast Guard wasn't really part of the military.

Look, I know that as a Coast Guardsman and an enlisted paperwork clerk at that, that my time in the military pales in comparison to what has been asked of others. I have a very good friend who was an 11C (that's an Army combat infantry mortarman for those of you not familiar with MOS codes) who saw heavy combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another good friend transferred out of the USCG into the Army flying Black Hawks into combat in Afghanistan. I've had the pleasure to get to know combat vets who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Vietnam, Korea, and the Second World War... When those men and women want to give me shit about us Coasties not being a "real" part of the military? Well, they have that privilege.

A wannabe hippie from Ann Arbor, who feels his part-time job teaching disinterested nineteen year olds about the history of the novel? Yeah, you don't get that privilege... Especially when men and women I knew, served with, who I would (and had) literally trusted with my life we're currently getting ready to be deployed to Iraq. (Yes, there were and are USCG personnel in Iraq.)

* And I do mean anti-military. I have no fundamental objections to a blanket anti-war sentiment or a targeted anti-this-particular-war sentiment. But he was going off on this whole "uneducated rednecks who can't get a better job than killing babies" rant.
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jcjec
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

Post by jcjec »

The best quote on the subject I ever heard was a military man who said, "I've fought and men have died so they can have the right to freedom of speech.... no matter how wrong they are." ;)
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StarGuard
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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... and we also have the right to call them out on their bullshit when they do.

btw: As part of the old dungaree navy, I freely admit, that in general, the USCG are best trained seaman in the world. My opinion.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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StarGuard wrote:... and we also have the right to call them out on their bullshit when they do.
Penn Jillette, the talkative half of magician comedy duo Penn & Teller, opened the duo's fraud debunking series with the following:

"You'll notice more obscenity than we usually use. That's not just because it's on Showtime, and we want to get some attention. It's also a legal matter. If one calls people liars and quacks, one can be sued and lose a lot of one's money. But "motherfuckers" and "assholes" is pretty safe. If we said it was all scams, we could also be in trouble. But bullshit, oddly, is safe. So forgive all the bullshit language. We're trying to talk about the truth without spending the rest of our lives in court because of litigious motherfuckers!"

Sadly, the series wrapped up in 2010, before the modern social justice movement had gotten quite as out of hand as it is today. I'd have loved
To see 'Bullshit's take on things like BLM, BDS, Anita Sarkeesian, the "War on Women," and click-bait.
StarGuard wrote:btw: As part of the old dungaree navy, I freely admit, that in general, the USCG are best trained seaman in the world. My opinion.
Those massive aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers? They run for safe harbor in a hurricane... We were the ones who went out to get 'em!
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StarGuard
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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:lol:

Luckily I served almost exclusively on BB-62 (83'-87')
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Batgirl III
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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StarGuard wrote::lol:

Luckily I served almost exclusively on BB-62 (83'-87')
I thought the Big J was a mueseum ship? Did the Navy actually have operational battleships in the Eighties?

I'm something of an amateur naval history wonk, but I'll admit my interest in the subject kinda peters out after V-J Day. Over the horizon Missiles from carrier-based jets and guided missiles that can smack a license plate in Kansas City when launched from a frigate in San Francisco Bay just aren't as sexy as broadsides and boarding actions.
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StarGuard
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

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Yep. For a while all four (Iowa, Mizzou, Jersey, and Wisconsin) were all in service during the eighties.
Slashed military budgets caused the old girls to be put to a final rest in the early nineties.

Tokyo had a picket line across the harbor protesting when we pulled into port because we carried nuclear capable missiles, had fun messing with the Russians in the Sea of Okhotsk (sp?) that same "cruise".
Jabroniville
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

Post by Jabroniville »

Doesn't really surprise me. One magazine in Canada had a huge article about college campuses getting overly-PC and too politicized. It was published a year or so ago, but it included things like Professors being forced by students (via complaints, naturally) to include things like "Trigger Warnings" in their reading lists, just in case students could read something that attacked their delicate sensibilities. Never mind that any psychologist worth their salt will tell you that "Trigger Warnings" are a load of garbage, and will actually NEGATIVELY affect anyone who suffers from anxiety in the long term. And as South Park pointed out, Reality will have an ugly way to setting people who insist on Safe Spaces in their place.

The funny thing is, the most outspoken political-minded teacher I ever had was a conservative one who argued that America's enemies only hated it out of envy, and defended every instance of America propping up an evil dictator with "strange bedfellows" arguments. He also asserted that the college would have booted him out if they heard the things he said. One of my more fun teachers (albeit a giant arsehole, as he misinterpreted a question I said one time and got furious that I "wasn't paying attention")- I can't imagine he'd still exist in today's world of Twitter & complaining.

Honestly, though, the worst PC types to me are people like Rosie O'Donnell, who insist on people being PC to HER group (homosexuals; she once went into a tirade because Kelly Ripa once reacted to a then-closeted-but-clearly-gay Clay Aiken putting his hand over her mouth- with a joking "I don't know where that's been!"), but will immediately turn around and imitate Chinese people by going "Ching-Chong, Ching-Chong", and not get why that is INSANELY hypocritical.

But ultimately, a lot of that movement has been destroying itself, because many of them are doing it less to change the world, and more to stand out as "the best" of their lot. So the PC types have been attacking EACH OTHER, and even going after total innocents who may have used the wrong word- thus creating a backlash, as people who intended no harm are now being berated publicly.

And it's like I was saying even a few years ago (before the SJ movement ramped up REALLY far)- the backlash against the PC movement will be much harsher than the movement itself. Just look at who will be sitting in the White House this Janurary to see the evidence of THAT- the most "off-the-cuff", un-PC speaker I think I've ever heard enter the political sphere, OR the celebrity one.
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Poodle
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Re: Safe spaces for conservative students

Post by Poodle »

Don't get too cocky... Nobody thought Trump would win the first time, or Dubbya, or Reagan...

Yeah Trump is looking good now but we have seen presidents lose over a scandal before. There are still a lot of nevertrumpers out there and 'blue til I die' types. Despite the fact that Trump was against Clinton he still only just managed to win last time.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world. -Albert Einstein.
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