<p>I think some debate of politics is quite healthy on a college campus. My experience is that sometimes it could get quite loud and ugly; usually, no one ever wins. You just get some really red-faced people going back into their rooms. Nonetheless, I still think talk is a necessity. Plus, its fun. I'd rather argue than go to a completely apathetic environment.</p>
<p>Manderz, I wasn't criticizing liberals in my post. At all. You are so 2-dimensional with your "If it's not praising then it's denigrating, so I better figure out a witty comeback." Since you didn't comprehend my post I'll lay it out for you (there were two main points in my post which apparently you blended):</p>
<p>1) I was attempting to figure out the extreme hatred protesters showed toward vets and hypothesizing that it had something to do with draft-dodging conservatives.
2) Liberals (not democrats, there's a difference and an especially big one during vietnam <---this is important) didn't believe in the war's cause so many of them (no, not all) enrolled in college for as long as possible, essentially becoming professional students, and obtained very high levels of education while remaining in the states. I'm not saying they were cowards; they didn't agree with the rationale of the war. And, thus, they became more rooted in the American university system - a possible, logical progression of the entrenchment liberality in higher education.</p>
<p>Even though your father did graduate from college after Vietnam he would still have been at a disadvantage. I'm assuming since the avg age of a vietnam draftee was 18 that he did all of those 4 years of college after returning from the war. So obviously he would still have been at a disadvantage when compared to the professional students who had gotten out of the war, because when he was just returning from the war others were already getting degrees.</p>
<p>
[quote]
...not lived in the real world. This is the biggest cause of one having left-wing politics.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So by your reasoning, none of the people in the US Peace Corps should be liberal.</p>
<p>Oh, wait...</p>
<p>...i dont even need to read any of the posts and i know what's going on in this thread just from the title.</p>
<p>liberals: there is no bias! conservatives are stupid! bush is an idiot! no war in iraq! global warming!</p>
<p>conservatives: liberal controlled media! 9/11! no gay marriage! abortion is murder! 9/11! support our troops!</p>
<p>guess which side i'm on...</p>
<p>A few thoughts...</p>
<p>1) I know a conservative who was beaten up for his views. In my NOT very humble opinion, that does not bode well for the "open minded" group.</p>
<p>2) I spend undergrad at a liberal New England school; law school at a consevative Southern school. Pros and cons to each. Mostly, I did find that my conservative friends really are more open-minded than the liberals I know; I also really enjoy learning from the libertarian (guns, drugs, yay Bill of Rights crowd) and the conservative Christians around me. I found that the liberals were so used to being the majority group that their opinions were not as well thought out. Some liberals even admitted that the conservative publications were much superiour, as they knew that they were a minority on campus and had to work harder to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>3) The liberal bias really depends on the class. Engineering is pretty immune to it - although, in industry, there is a strong conservative bias. As I've often said, you don't talk about your feelings about the bridge you are making; you want to know whether or not it's going to collapse.</p>
<p>4) For those who repeat the myth that liberals are more educated, I would suggest that you educate yourself and realise that conservatives make up a larger portion of people with college degrees than liberals do. Here are the results for the 2004 exit polls:
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html</a></p>
<p>5) It can be extremely difficult to be a political minority on a campus which does not acknowledge any validity to your views. IMO, the best discussions take place where each side acknowledges the validity and rationale of the other, although they may disagree with the conclusions. I've often joked that it was much, much easier to come out as a gay person at my alma mater than to come out as a conservative. I did (and still do) stay "in the closet" with my politics, unless I know I'm in friendly territory. Not sure why that is beneficial to anyone's learning....</p>
<p>First, I think the OP is significantly overstating things. "frequently ridiculed, reviled, discouraged, and denied because of their beliefs"? ... please. If this is actually the case where you are, I would suggest you remove yourself from that university immediately as they do not deserve to be an institution of higher learning (or at least those professors do not). Or perhaps by "reviled, ridiculed, etc." you meant to say that "their logic and rationale was beaten to shreds by their liberal counterparts" :)</p>
<p>I don't know how widespread this is (I have seen it on nationwide news), but at UCLA there is an ultra-conservative group that has published a list of the most liberal professors and listed their "crimes" in the hopes of getting more conservative faculty hired. What their pathetic whining has actually gotten across is the message that "there are too many liberal professors - instead, we should have a majority of conservative faculty. But really, we're trying to be balanced here" :rolleyes:</p>
<p>The idea that liberal professors are indoctrinating students is absolutely ludicrous. (and why is there no worry from the conservatives that conservative professors wouldn't also be indoctrinating their students?) College students are (hopefully) adults. They should be able to think for themselves, and if not, they shouldn't be in higher education. If your beliefs aren't challenged and you are just spoon-fed what you want to hear (which is pretty much what that conservative group wants to happen), you become a mindless (read - useless) member of society.</p>
<p>
[quote]
4) For those who repeat the myth that liberals are more educated, I would suggest that you educate yourself and realise that conservatives make up a larger portion of people with college degrees than liberals do. Here are the results for the 2004 exit polls:
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pa...0/epolls.0.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pa...0/epolls.0.html</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I assume that I am included with 'those' ...</p>
<p>If so, I never said that "liberals are more educated." My statement was something closer to, "those who have high amounts of education tend to be liberal." Other posters probably meant the same as well. The two statements are not identical.</p>
<p>Regarding your link...Even disregarding the logic, do your research before you cite. 42% of the voters held college degrees according to the survey. Of those 42%, 49% voted for either Kerry or Bush. In fact, if you count the 1% that voted for Nader, degree holders that voted conservative would be in the minority. Since the degree holding population tied the vote, that means that more non-degree holders voted conservative! 53-47. In addition, a higher percentage of those with post-graduate study voted for Kerry, the difference being 10%.</p>
<p>What you were looking at was "voter by education." They take the survey by highest education. So while the 26% that had bachelor degrees mostly voted for Bush, those who had more education voted by a large margin for Kerry, which only supports the point that those with more education usually lean liberal.</p>
<p>"The idea that liberal professors are indoctrinating students is absolutely ludicrous. (and why is there no worry from the conservatives that conservative professors wouldn't also be indoctrinating their students?) College students are (hopefully) adults. They should be able to think for themselves, and if not, they shouldn't be in higher education. If your beliefs aren't challenged and you are just spoon-fed what you want to hear (which is pretty much what that conservative group wants to happen), you become a mindless (read - useless) member of society."</p>
<p>Indeed. It seems like those students at UCLA are morbidly paranoid of liberalism. Strange.</p>
<p>heh, you all should read "What the matter with Kansas?"</p>
<p>Like the development of economic thories was the evolution and synthesis of the ideas of conservative and liberal philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, businessmen, and sociologists; society and social progress and technology has developed through the ages by the intermingling of liberal and conservative ideas. Though liberalism has been the nt domain of academia and the forefront of new ideas in philosophy and the social sciences, Conservative concepts have also played a part in society. Think of the world without classical economics and the now libertaran idea of lasse-faire which might also have been considered a liberal concept at its conception The world is home to a variety of political beliefs and economics is an inexact science that has changing s rather than natural sciences such as physics and chemistry, and there are no absolutes and tons of contradictions in belief systems, but the true intellectuals are the ones that can filter through the simple political debates on a few simple issues, and articulate their point of view from unadulterated pure philosophical, scientific, and mathematic view point.</p>
<p>Look, I'm more a lib than a conserv. but I can see how you can feel kinda rotten if you are a conservative. I've been in Columbia more times then I can count (since my mom works there) and from the setting in the school, if you are a very outspoken Conservative, your grades might falter (due to professors having a distaste to you) by expressing your ideas. There have been many times in th University where a kid would rgue with the professors about a specific topic and get a F for the course, nomater how good his report on molecular fusuion was.
Just try to stay out of the way. This is to only some professors, and the school never really deals with the problems as much as it likes. So, just be careful with who you discuss politics with, and you'll be alright.</p>
<p>Yep. As my spiritual director -- a retired Jesuit philosopher who has taught in religious and secular universities the world over -- told me, "Just use your head. If you are a staunch conservative and your prof is an outspoken left-winger, it is probably in your best interest to keep your trap shut regarding your politics and not make it obvious." He also says to do your research on professors when choosing courses; don't avoid all liberal professors -- you want to graduate sometime this century, now -- but you might want to think twice before signing up for courses taught by the Brian Leiter's and Naomi Klein's of academia.</p>
<p>One final thought: "He who is conservative when he is young, lacks a heart; he who is liberal when older, lacks a brain."</p>
<p>Most of you will get progressively more conservative as you age. The beauty of high school is that it allows you to be liberal - to espouse what is best/should be best about the human condition. Once you get your first paying job and have a stack of bills, you understand what it means to be conservative - to realise what is needed to keep safe, fed, and warm. </p>
<p>(Just a thought - I went to school with people who complained, loudly, about how little the outsourced janitorial staff received. Legit complaint - manual labourers get darn near nothing. What they did not realise, however, is that the salaries they demanded for the cleaning staff is roughly equivalent to what a college grad makes, right out of school. When you graduate magma cum laude from an excellent school and have the choice between making $25,000/year starting or going to grad school - expensive and rigourous - you start to see the ridiculousness of your views.)</p>
<p>Are you saying you can't be both fiscally conservative and socially liberal? I think not. ;)</p>
<p>Agreed. And econ is a helluva lot more complicated than both sides would like you to think. (same with foreign policy)</p>
<p>Sorry ariesathena, but I think it's ridiculous that you ignored my post and your mistake to post a "conservatism is the ultimate truth" message.</p>
<p>I was highly conservative in high school, and I remember hearing that quote and liking it because it confirmed that being liberal is stupid. Now I wouldn't call myself a conservative. Your assumption that people with liberal values are supposed to be immature high school kids is, quite frankly, ignorant :) The real beauty (ugliness) of high school is that it is so conducive to groupthink that most can be staunchly liberal or conservative without having real knowledge or reason.</p>
<p>Your anecdote of one instance could easily be flipped around. Everyone has 1,000 "liberals are so stupid" stories as well as 1,000 "conservatives are so stupid" stories.</p>
<p>You are right we should all look at Bob Jones University as an example for all universities to follow.</p>
<p>"The beauty of high school is that it allows you to be liberal - to espouse what is best/should be best about the human condition. Once you get your first paying job and have a stack of bills, you understand what it means to be conservative - to realise what is needed to keep safe, fed, and warm."</p>
<p>Wouldn't 'what is best' include being safe, fed, and warm?</p>
<p>Conservatives are pretty <strong><em>ed up too. Conservatives constantly try and tell other people how to live their lives by instituting laws on abortion, drugs, etc. Then most support capital punishment. I haven't even mentioned the war in Iraq. The general slogan for conservatives is "God Bless the USA, and no one the *</em></strong> else." I have no problem with conservatives, but they have really ***ed up the view of the US abroad. They shouldn't be ridiculed, but I find their views on subjects to be very selfish and, WAAYYYYY too nationalistic.</p>
<p>The problem isn't the views held by others, but rather the attitudes among people.</p>
<p>The tension between conservatives and liberals is rising. No thanks to Ann Coulter and others.</p>