I am still debating whether or not to attend Dinesh D’Souza’s lecture at UCLA on Wednesday. It is titled Red States, Blue States, and War in Iraq: What Academia Is Missing. Normally I enjoy doing oppo research, but I teach all day on Wednesday and I don’t know if I will have the energy left to fight the hordes at the end of the day. The meeting is being sponsored by the Bruin Republicans. Speaking of Republican Bruins, I am sure by now everybody has heard about this:
Thirty U-C-L-A professors are being targeted by an alumni group that accuses them of expressing left-wing political views.The year-old Bruin Alumni Association is offering students up to a hundred dollars per class to supply notes, and tapes exposing the professors.
The group says on its Web site (www.bruinalumni.com) it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and corporations. The effort is being led by Andrew Jones, a 2003 graduate and former chair of a student Republican club.
Education professor Peter McLaren, who’s on the so-called “Dirty Thirty” list, calls the tactic a witch-hunt. [Link]
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p>Apparently, even members of the Bruin Alumni Association advisory board thought this was crazy.
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The raised fists beneath his picture means that he is dirty |
A former congressman is among three people who have quit the advisory board of a conservative alumni group at the University of California, Los Angeles, after students were offered money to police professors accused of pushing liberal views…“I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic,” Rogan wrote. “It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws…” [Link]
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p>Taz tells me that one of the “Dirty Thirty” is UCLA History Professor Vinay Lal:
Much like comic book superheroes, Vinay Lal leads a double life. During the day he is a mild-mannered Southeast Asian history professor, but in his office, safely behind his keyboard, Lal assumes his double identity as a radical ideological warrior of the broadest stripe. His personal webpage provides only the most indirect clue to this schizophrenic existence, mentioning in passing that he has written for the journals Patterns of Prejudice, Radical History Review, and Third Text.
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First off, holy crap! Do you know what I would give to be described as “mild-mannered” during the day and a “radical ideological warrior” by night? Do you have any idea what it would do for my dating life? From his personal website:
Vinay teaches a broad range of courses in Indian history, comparative colonial histories, and subaltern history and Indian historiography, as well as graduate level seminars on the contemporary politics of knowledge, postcolonial theory, and the politics of culture. He has designed and taught a cycle of upper-division undergraduate lecture courses on British India, Contemporary South Asia, the Indian Diaspora, and the Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. Seminars in Indian history cover such subjects as the Politics of Religion and Ethnicity in South Asia; Hindu-Muslim Encounters in South Asia; “The Woman Question” in Colonial India; The Life of Krishna in Indian Art, History, and Culture; History and the Novel; the Partition of India; Violence in Contemporary Indian Society; and History and Popular Cinema. [Link]
The Dirty Thirty website rants on:
Lal’s second piece for The Little Magazine, titled “Terrorism Inc, or the Family of Fundamentalisms,” is so rabid the reader can practically hear Lal’s spittle flying. The article is also such an incredible piece of work that merely summarizing it would be a crime. Lal begins the article by gleefully mocking President George W. Bush’s absence from the nation’s capital in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, as though contingency plans that necessitate the secret bunkering of top leaders during military or terrorist attack are a sign of Bush’s personal weakness. Lal then adds toxic rhetoric to his mere derision of Bush, snarling that the President’s “entire deportment [is] marred by an offensive smirk, the vocabulary of a high school student and painfully evident difficulties in thinking beyond the limited briefings devised for him by his equally mediocre advisers.” Warming to his theme of an “outlaw president gone into hiding,” Lal then compares Bush to Bin Laden, cleverly noting that Bush’s “Either you are with us or you are against us,” philosophy is similar to the black-and-white rhetoric of Bin Laden. In Lal’s view, “fanatical conviction knows no boundaries; rogues do understand each other…” [Link]
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It would take me hours to go through all the complaints these guys have that caused them to put Lal on their hit list. I will let some industrious SM reader do it if they are up to it. Right now I have to prepare my teaching notes for tomorrow. Also, in case SM readers were wondering, there is no “Dirty Thirty” list of Teaching Assistants at UCLA, and I am NOT on it.
whats funny is that this is making news when campus watch and other “issue” groups have been around blackmailing professors into specific worldviews for the past couple years.
it seems like being at the very least pro-republican party, pro-israel, and anti-objectivity are prerequisites to comfortable tenure in the academic world these days. the conservative movement on college campuses has transformed in the past few years into a well-funded, coordinated harrassment and intimidation machine.
this story is highlighting just one group at one campus that’s part of a bigger advocacy game on college campuses these days.
i know this because i played this game in college. i was a high-ranking member of the college republicans at my university. not because of any political or moral convictions or principles, but really to be part of the club and make connections. our school’s college republican club was WELL-funded by phillip morris, the nra, and other unsavory corporations. we solicited their funds to pay to bring conservative speakers to campus like dole and gingrich, and later on savage and other commentators, as well as to fund our own intimidation campaigns against specific professors, and also to purchase alcohol and pay for our black-tie “mixers” and formals. and these companies were very happy to cough up tens of thousands of dollars a year each to recruit us.
my advice to current college students: get down with the bullies. you’ll thank yourself a couple years down the road.
(but secretly i think of my colleagues from those days as scum, i know i’m a hypocrite, and scum along with them.)
one more thing: even if you’re like this guy Andrew Jones who founded this group at ucla, where your tactics are rather despicable and socially unacceptable; for every cowardly conservative in the working world who’d stay far away from you for your tricks(like the former congressman mentioned in the article), there are plenty more powerful in the corporate/political world that will admire/hire you for your ballsy and messed up tactics.
Please don’t delete this post, as everything I’ve written I know about from personal experience. I am an Indian-American “uncle tom”, by my own admission, and simultaneously proud and ashamed of my acheivements going all the way back to my days in the college republican movement.
if there are some other folks out there who can throw some more light on the organized, financed goonery that’s surging amongst conservatives and conservative-recruiters at the top schools in the nation, let’s hear your tale/discuss.
the republicans reading would probably say the exact same thing about liberal peace/free tibet/palestine/anti-war/gay rights/ gropus on campuses, selling their “agendas”, though none of these groups receive corporate sponsorships or job hookups or employ the harrassment techniques like this one.
What would make you think that we would delete your comment?
Oh, Professor Lal, this is a most unexpected surprise. I’m not supposed to see you until your 12 o’clock lecture.
and I’m sorry I’m always late for class.
Good on you. You did great, BTW does your real name starts with a V.
I just paid a visit to the Bruin Alumni site, and oh my GOD. Speaking of “incredible,” this gains that adjective and quite a few more.
Excerpt:
I’m all for oppo research but this has me fuming so badly I’m having trouble concentrating. I looked around for a bit of evidence of further student involvement than this “Andrew Jones”… person… but failed to find any other names, despite his claim that “…my experience was entirely typical for any student who didnÂ’t embrace political extremism.” Just out of curiosity, who would give a tax deductible donation to these idiots?
I also saw the D’Souza event and dismissed the idea of attending a few seconds after I thought about it. It reminded me of the pro-creation lectures at Berkeley… many of my fellow science students went and got into long-winded arguments with the lecturer, but I never seemed to find the energy or patience to “fight the hordes,” as you say.
Back in 2003, the New York Times Magazine came out with an article about the right-wing youth movement that was all the rage (in my circles). I feel that the following piece is a more updated version found on PublicEye.org, and hits upon all the key points that the NYTM covered. It’s well cited by folks that I respect.Check It Here
As I am adamantly against the Bruin Alumni Association website, I was unaware of Professor Lal’s coronation into the Dirty Thirty. Personally, I congratulate him for actually stirring up a little controversy. Challenging prelaid ideas and questioning need to come from somewhere, and the academic environment is perfect for this. In fact, one of my professors was actually a bit disappointed that he had not made (in his mind) the coveted list. From the rumblings I’ve heard, this setup at UCLA is actually a long time coming. In fact, there are other universities that have similar setups, wherein students can report their professors’ “crazy leftist rantings” to an umbrella organization (like Students for Academic Freedom). Then, these organizations are planning on taking all of their findings to the national government, and hoping to exert some kind of legislative pressure in creating guidelines for professors and universities. It sounds a bit conspiracy theory-ish to me, and I don’t know where the funds come to operate such a project, but its actually a bit sobering to think that the sluggish political awakening of the past few years (which, contextually speaking, are not a rebellious era by any means) is seeing such a reaction.
this all goes back some time. i went to harvard in the late 1980s and there was an outfit called the “conservative club.” it was apparently modeled on a similar group at datmouth, and its mission was to be far to the right of the campus republican club. it specialized in provocation, as when it invited one of the main contra figures to speak at the height of iran-contra, or the time it invited one of the top diplomats from the south african embassy, who gave a detailed and heartfelt defense of apartheid and how it was good for everyone in south africa.
trouble is, the
dorksstudents in the group really believed in what they were doing, i.e. it wasn’t just some kind of perverted guerrilla theater, but they really had this view that perfectly legitimate opinions were being suppressed by the climate on campus — from the campus republicans to everyone leftward. their persecution mentality combined with their hopeless geekdom and general assumption of privilege — the david brookses of their time, you might say — got them believing their own hype. and yes, there were reports of wealthy alumni sending them money.the difference now of course is that it’s so much easier to set yourself up as a campus vigilante thanks to laptops and mini voice recorders and the like. real vigilante-ism (the kind with guns and knives) is beyond the courage and physical aptitude of these individuals, not to mention impractical, but it’s their fantasy. they transpose it into a play-acting with watchlists and websites and tape recorded evidence and all that, and they think they’re important. and they have patrons — the david horowitzes of this world, and the “conservative club” cats i went to college with — who get off on having little disciples on campuses today. what an overall display of (white, male) insecurity and vaingloriousness.
ami, abhi et al: don’t waste your time on dinesh. he’s a retread. his fifteen minutes are over. if you want to hear a right-wing indian-american i think you’d get a much more useful take on politics today from bobby jindal.
I also saw the D’Souza event and dismissed the idea of attending a few seconds after I thought about it. It reminded me of the pro-creation lectures at Berkeley…
there isn’t equivalence. creationism is values masquerading as empirically testable models. politics are values which are open about being values. you might disagree with d’souza (i surely agree with him more than 95% of people here, though that isn’t hard), and find some of his arguments juvenile (he’s a think tank hack, so he can’t help it), but it is disingenious to pretend as if any given political position is derived from facts as opposed to a reflection of values.
as the lone conservative (nevermind that i was somewhat of a anarcho-capitalist libertarian, all non-liberals were put in the same box) in many of my non-science courses (i did a history minor) i felt the lack of diversity of opinion personally. the tactics above are not defensible, and to some extent they cast a pall over what i believe are genuine concerns about the tendency for some departments (mostly the “studies”) to become handmaids to a particular type of politics. of course, the tactics like those above are allowing me to triangulate now and seem like less a loon.
many people talk about diversity, but what does that mean? are a mix of students of various races from upper-middle-class families diverse if they share the same socioeconomic background and political orientation? fundamentally i don’t think academia will swerve from the left because there is a selection bias as to who becomes a professor, just as there is a selection bias as to who enters the corporate managerial track. rather, i think a reminder that a skew in viewpoint does exist is a useful corrective to those who forget that there are other viewpoints out there, and those viewpoints are not always expressed by toothless rubes.
Razib… dude you talk too much. Get out and get some fresh air.
Procreation lectures? Maybe Berkeley is better than Stanford.
Trust DDIA to manage to find some risque connection with the term “Dirty Thirty” 😉
joking
I’m with Razib here. IMO, the Left has caused as much grief as the Right. This whole political correctness business is a legacy of the Left for example, and it was started in the green pastures of various universities across the U.S. As a result, today we find ourselves with far less freedom of speech than people enjoyed 50 years ago. I agree that the Right has way too much power these days and they’re worth fighting. But these guys do have a point in there somewhere and I share their horror at the glorification of victimhood that the Left thrives on.
I’m not so sure what Senator McCarthy would have to say about that…
Vinay Lal gives the following justification for London bombings:
Another twisted support is drawn from Gandhi:
16 · hammer_sickel on January 25, 2006 12:23 PM · Direct link
Vinay Lal gives the following justification for London bombings:
Another twisted support is drawn from Gandhi:
Wow and this is the guy one of the mutineers is insinuating is the victim of a right wing witch hunt? Leftism run amok
As a result, today we find ourselves with far less freedom of speech than people enjoyed 50 years ago
…
That was 52 years ago 🙂
But seriously, dont underestimate the pernicious effect of PC.
The point isn’t Vinay Lal’s views, it’s whether it’s legit to hire paid narcs to chill free speech. This smacks of the secret police. Oh, wait, we already have that.
Fair enough, no argument there. However, is it fair that your tax dollars are funding the propagation of predominantly leftist views? While I don’t agree with the means adopted by the right-wingers, clearly there is an asymmetry in access to audience. I’d have no problem with it if Lal and his fellow leftists had paid for such access by themselves, but since they are paid by the tax-payer, is it fair that UCLA does not ensure that other viewpoints also get equivalent access to audience? Shouldn’t UCLA also ensure that Lal’s students holding right-wing political viewpoints do not get academically penalized? I don’t know how this can be implemented in practice – clearly, tape recorders and McCarthyism is not the answer. However, the right does have a point about the need to have a counterbalance to the lefty bias in humanities departments all across the US.
Manish,
I don’t think anyone is asking to chill free speech. These people are only pointing out the obvious that the academia is preponderantly left leaning, which by the way is a fact. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is these professors, some of whom are real nutjobs including this Lal fellow, unfairly use class time to indoctrinate impressionable minds with their almost one sided view of the world. There’s almost always no rebuttal.
“Now now..thats fucking criminal. Tap this mofo’s phone, put FBI on him. Check his friends out and if you find any Khans or Habibs drag their ass to jail. Get his record get me a list of list of any and all traffic violations, parking tickets speeding tickets anything. Do you recall the fax number of fox news. Bill O’ Reilly starts in 30 minutes so hurry up.
Oh….btw..I need the final draft of the speech on “Defending Freedom” for tonightÂ’s black tie with Heritage Foundation folks.”
Vinay Lal deserves every right to rant and rave in the classroom about his personal political views. This was indeed the guy who eulogized the Taliban’s blowing up the Bahamiyan Buddhas and had guts to spin a hospital (in Miraj) run by missionaries as if it was run by RSS. Not all professors can do it, no siree..
Students who feel they aren’t getting the value for their money – though luck. Choose another professor or university or go become a engineer or something like that.
Only akkadummies like Vinay Lal, Kamala V, Angana Chatterji, Biju Matthew, Vijay Prashad, Michael Witzel have the balls to turn prestigious institutions of learning into political whorehouses.
Looks like Jones has stopped the reward but continues his fight with volunteers…
I agree with the intent, but not the method.
M. Nam
I am a UCLA alumnus and I must say that it breaks my heart that an alumni group such as this exists. Policing what people say is subversive and frankly, the most fascist tendency of the current right wing. Trashing the ethnic studies programs simply because they fill the gaps in our anglo-waspy-conquerors version of the truth is in my opinion a new form of racism. I was a history major and have taken a few classes with Dr. Lal and many others and disagree that academia is OVERWHELMINGLY left leaning. If the alumni group in question takes it a step further and tried to control what people say, then they are truly unamerican. If you ever took on of his classes, you know that you have the right to disagree with him on your papers and still do well as long as you support your argument.
As for sam and someone else above discussing Dr. Lal’s “justification” of the London Bombings. I agree that nothing “justifies” the bombings, but people on the right always fail to recongnize that there may be “reasons” for them that where inspired by the terror victims. For example: If I mugged your mom, and you kicked my ass. Simple situation. The left would argue about the orginal crime (me mugging your mom) and say that I had it coming. The right would simply argue the wrongness of me getting my ass kicked forgetting all along that I mugged your mom. There are “reasons” things happen, but they are not “justified” in killing the innocents they target. Unfortunately in war (waged by nations, not terror groups), though we seek to target the ‘terrorists’ we unwittingly kill many innocents. How is that very different from ‘organized terrorism’ or the ‘war on terror’. I am just throwing this out there. I am not a hippy. In fact, I am a hardcore Democrat that can’t stand tree-huggers, communists, people with a megaphone. I would rather fight my fights with lawyers.
This war business sucks, and I have no answers. All I feel is that nothing we are doing inthe world will decrease terrorism, because none of it based on good will, it is based on assurances from leaders (Musharoff) whose people want him dead because he doesn’t pander to the large terrorist sympathetic portion of his population.
That being said, Dr. Lal is a great professor though I disagreed with some of his positions. It would be a great loss to the UCLA community if the workings of this fascist group threatened his job in any way. As far as his politics, you all must recognize that the study of history is inherently political. It might be different if an organic chemistry prof was taking the time out to tell you their treatise on politics.
The right gets tax payer money to kill, maim, (and until about 50 years ago) to segregate. The far right nut cases with tax funded offices live in Washington DC. Which is not to say that Berkeley in some way balances it out. The liberal havens are actually part of the same system when they are used as excuses. Here’s how it goes : In predominantly white, capitalist America one is free to speak and write (a la Berkeley). That doesnt happen in african and arab states. Hence, South African or Israeli apartheid is needed to preserve freedom. i.e. the freedom of the privileged to debate their privilege. Not the freedom of the opressed to throw away the yoke. Sounds like leftist academic rhetoric? It doesn’t matter what the Bruin Alumni do. The thesis of afro-asiatic studies will not be written in universities, it will be forged in the ghettoes and casbahs.
Policing what people say is subversive and frankly, the most fascist tendency of the current right wing
really? policing what people say is right wing? i have met many people willing to police what i have to say on the left, but see, you wouldn’t know that if what you say doesn’t offend them.
Trashing the ethnic studies programs simply because they fill the gaps in our anglo-waspy-conquerors version of the truth is in my opinion a new form of racism.
you worked with words, i suppose you know the term “trivialization.” ethnic studies are mostly joke majors. see, i’m a racist!
I was a history major and have taken a few classes with Dr. Lal and many others and disagree that academia is OVERWHELMINGLY left leaning.
source, this page has more
democratic to republican ratio:
anthropology 30.2 to 1 economics 3.0 to 1 history 9.5 to 1 philosophy 13.5 to 1 political science 6.7 to 1 sociology 28.0 to 1
(page 9 of the PDF)
saying that academia isn’t left-wing is like saying that america persecutes christians. some people think if they say loud and repeatedly enough people will start to believe, or if they define left-wing or christian enough they can make the assertion stick. but all you are doing is sacrificing semantic clarity and reasonable discourse in the short-term interests of a tactical talking point. good job!
I read this term and I hear about this term “leftist views”, and I’m wondering if you could actually explain it? The insinuation is that by and of itself a “leftist” view is wrong or that the person professing said view must then give an alternate view. Is there qualification bar, i.e. saying “people should be nice to each other” is level zero whereas saying you admire Che is Level 10? Your statements are meaningless because your not doing anything but regurgitating words…..
I read this term and I hear about this term “leftist views”, and I’m wondering if you could actually explain it? The insinuation is that by and of itself a “leftist” view is wrong or that the person professing said view must then give an alternate view. Is there qualification bar, i.e. saying “people should be nice to each other” is level zero whereas saying you admire Che is Level 10? Your statements are meaningless because your not doing anything but regurgitating words…..
I guess the problem is with tyranny and does not actually relate to being on the Left or Right. To me this is a product of western civilization and its roots can be traced to Christian theology. It’s pretty much the same framework, only the terminology has been secularized. It makes no difference which side the urge to control actually comes from. For example, on one hand you have the rightwing wanting to control your lifespan through force-feeding and life support and on the other hand you have the leftwing wanting to control your lifespan by banning drugs and cigarettes. In India a few years ago there was a major protest by the commie feminist types against a beauty pageant which they deemed to be exploitative of women. At the same time you had the Shiv Sena types from the right clamoring against the same beauty pageant as it went against their cultural ethos. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which side is doing the protesting if the end result is loss of freedom to participate in such pageants.
This will always be the case if behavior is legislated. The only way around such matters is to have a self-regulating society – like villages in India for example.
The insinuation is that by and of itself a “leftist” view is wrong or that the person professing said view must then give an alternate view.
who cares if people say wrong things, if you don’t have to pay for them. itz all about the benjamins baby!
myself, i don’t think we’ll do anything about academia in a practical way, and i certainly don’t think ‘equal time’ legislation will get there. but what’s wrong with calling a spade a spade?
Why is it wrong? And actually is the “thing” that is wrong? That’s what I’m asking. Many people say the same thing, i.e. bias this bias that; but what exactly is the supposed “thing” that’s wrong?
Divya, in an earlier post you said this I share their horror at the glorification of victimhood that the Left thrives on. I don’t believe this true any longer. Why? Look at crybabies like O’reilly. The so called liberal bias in newspapers, the 99% of conservative radio hosts around the country, etc. No that statement is not true anylonger, the right has taken that over completely.
How the hell do you manage that with 20million people?
A couple of things:
First of all, those of us who went to UCLA and knew Andrew Jones are aware of the fact that this is just a publicity stunt on his part. He’s trying to groom himself into becoming the next Sean Hannity/right-wing proselytizer.
Second, there really is no BAA “group.” It is just Andrew Jones. Since he can’t find a real job, he is doing this full-time and soliciting funds from conservatives under the guise of a “nonprofit” in order to support himself. In fact, Andrew Jones is only 24 and has already been fired from two jobs.
Most of the attacks against professors on uclaprofs.com have nothing to do with how they’ve used their classroom time, only things they’ve said in articles, the petitions they’ve signed, and who they associate with. Vinay Lal has a right to publish whatever he wants; if he abuses students in his class who disagree with him, then that’s something else.
Many people say the same thing, i.e. bias this bias that; but what exactly is the supposed “thing” that’s wrong?
see my comment above, politics is about values more than facts. if someone says something that you disagree with you have divergent axioms, more often than not. strictly speaking no one is wrong, but you have different worldviews. who would want to subsidize stuff you disagree with? to some extent of course we acede to this in many circumstances. but lines are drawn. if you have a different line to draw, that’s your business, but you know what people are trying to say. ah, plain speech as opposed to rhetorical juking & jiving, where have you gone?
Divergent views are not the problem ( or should I say not my problem). My main problem is inconsistency in the neo-con values. For instanceÂ….(no rhetoric here) 🙂 1. Killing civilian is bad (when our guys are killed) but collateral civilian casualties are ok in Iraq …‘coz you know shit happens in war. 2. Use every means necessary including illegal phone taps, racial profiling and unlimited detention of suspected terroristsÂ…Â’coz we want to protect the freedom and rights of minorities, which is a “core western value”. 3. Holler out and express outrage when a “Muslim majority” Philly town approves the announcing of Azaan on the loudspeakers of masques, Holler out and express outrage when a Public school disallows a nativity scene in a school production during Christmas. 4. Council of Conservative Citizens, National Vanguard, KKK just exercising their freedom of speech, but donÂ’t you rag heads/commies/lefties say nothing about Israel. 5. Accuse the other side of victimhood, but use “Remember 9/11” whenever cornered in a debate.
Tom,
two things
1) what axioms do you think ‘neocons’ hold? without stating them a priori you can’t make a case that they are inconsistent since they (i’m not one FYI) can’t defend their chain of logic.
2) don’t take my deduction analogy too far! i think it is more a smoke screen than not, see how chris i-hate-mother-theresa hitchens is ‘OK’ because he is now on the Right, just as he was OK with the Left when he was on the Left despite his prolife & progun stances.
3) on this: Council of Conservative Citizens, National Vanguard, KKK just exercising their freedom of speech, but donÂ’t you rag heads/commies/lefties say nothing about Israel. on this jews, the neocons (who you identify as pro-israel) are not doing the defending. these groups, especially national vanguard, have all expressed harsh anti-jew stances, and in fact have sometimes posted crocodile tears because of the enemy-is-my-enemy tactic in regards to palestinians.
you see, it is surely true that toothless southern rubes are unsophisticated members of the stupid party who can’t tell a communist from a democratic socialist from a left-leaning liberal. but it does tire me when the non-stupid party clumps all conservatives together as “neocons” for rhetorical purposes. it seems a human maxim: know the name of your enemy, but don’t know anything about him!
The only way around such matters is to have a self-regulating society
Well, in India there were no laws against drugs, prostitution, homosexuality, abortion etc. until the British went on their “civilizing” mission and instituted all kinds of laws. But people still lived within certain bounds simply through social regulation. Now that we have all kinds of laws it’s more of a problem because you have to bribe the cops all the time and that just adds one more level of corruption.
In the remote villages of India they still have very interesting marriage customs. In Ladakh for example where there are very few men, a woman marries all of the brothers. In north India (maybe the south too, I don’t know) if a man dies at a young age, his wife is automatically married off to the brother. All of these practices will be regarded with horror by the civilized world but they just happen to work for the parts of the world where they are practiced. It would simply not be right to set these things down as law, however, because that would become an unnecessary enforcement. So society is quite capable of regulating itself in terms of social practices (not crime of course). But the western world has never known this type of regulation since it was subjugated by the Church for 1800 years. With the so-called Enlightenment we are now subjugated under the Liberals or Conservatives.
They profess to hold these values. 1. pro-lifers and believe in sanctity of life 2. “Equal” right to all minorities. 3. Freedom of religion 4. Freedom of speech 5. Against victim hood.
So you see my problem with the “new-cons”.
My point is this, CCC, Nat Van, and KKK can say whatever they want about Jews and Israel but if a Palestinian-American says the same thing ( like death to Â…) he is ArsecroftÂ’s target.
I can understand and to some extent agree with the “CONSERVATIVE” values (small government, fewer regulations, free markets, federalism.…) but these are different from the Fox News/Bush/Cheny/Rove brand of conservative values. The contemporary term (as far as I know) for this kind of conservatism is neo-conservatism ( it does not stand for not a right leaning version of Keanu Reeves in Matrix).
Dude, did you even read my comment? All I siad is that equal access to captive audiences must be granted to the entire spectrum of viewpoints in humanities departments, because they are funded with your tax dollars. Although I am personally far from being a leftist, I am not a neo-con either : sometimes I do support leftist viewpoints such as those espoused by Vandana Shiva.
Let me spell out my argument for you:
1.Non-empirical disciplines such as most of humanities studies are inherently political in nature. There are no disinterested parties and what you are taught is significantly influenced by the motives of the teacher. 2.US university professors are predominantly left-of-center. See Razab’s stats. Being a registered democrat is about as quantitative as you can get in deciphering a person’s political viewpoint. 3.Such viewpoint invariably seeps into the classroom – see #1 above. 4.US public educaiton is funded by the public purse.
Therefore, US taxpayer is funding a systemic political bias in humanities education. This is not fair. At the same time, tactics adopted by this bunch of right-wing nutjobs is also utterly ridiculous : professors have a right to express themselves freely in the classroom. However, that freedom should not misused to propagate one particular political ideology. Possible solutions are to have bias-free teachers (not possible) or allow eqaul access to diverse viewpoints (difficult to implement).
The arguments about media or lobbying in Washington is beating up a straw man because that is done by private money, subject to the rules of the game such as campaign finance. Both democrats and republicans spend sufficient money in peddling influence. If you don’t like the law, go lobby your Congress.
Divdya’s got a valid point too : neat partison division of political viewpoints along partisan lines itself is detrimental to the US democracy. The Indian model of allowing many voices to stake claims all along the political spaces is, in my own biased opinion as an Indian, is better. YMMV, but that’s a whole different debate.
Unfortunately most “pro-lifers” of US, are anti-life if that life happens to be an Iraqi life. There “pro-lifers” would gleefully support the complete destruction of an entire city (Fallujah) to avenge the death of their mercenaries.
1. pro-lifers and believe in sanctity of life
the man who coined the term “neocon,” irving kristol, is prochoice. as is charles krauthammer. political arguments are pointless. i think the neocons, even correctly interpreted, are wrong and at worst pernicious, but i don’t see liberals as saints.
the reality is that the term “neocon” has no meaning that has any relation to what it did historically. which is fine. but some of the attributes of neocons are still accurate (the israel first tendencies), so i think that people have a vague sense that neocons aren’t generic evil-conservatives.
As a Republican who doesn’t quite like Hannity, Limbaugh and Co, I am delighted to finally hear someone who is giving Hannity a run for his money as I write this. The guy’s name is Bob and he is filling in for Allan Colmes. This Bob guy is ballistic!!
sam, sean hannity is notoriously dumb. thatz a sin from the get-go in my book. and is he reall all that in the looks department?
You are right Razib. But I want to ask my liberal friends who are always trying to figure out the ‘root cause’ of things ( suicide bombings, minority crime e.t.c ) , to go figure why millions of Americans so slavishly listen to morons like Hannity. I don’t think these listeners are inherently jingoistic, bigoted, parochial e.t.c It’s the liberals who drive them rushing into the arms of Limbaugh and Hannity. You have to give credit to these radio talk show morons for at least talking about issues which the politically correct media won’t touch with a ten foot pole.
Rrrrgith! It must be healthy living liberals who are driving them towards junk food, sugar, tobacco and alcohol.
well… its quite true, american campuses are, and have been for increasingly long periods, sanctuaries of leftist propaganda. now theres nothing wrong in holding deep-seated poltical and ideological views, its the caustic and brutal “turn the tide of neoconservatism” crusade that these clinton-lovers are on. I admire Dinesh and his work in spreading logic and true “progressivism” by dismissing the disoriented liberal front and his work while an undergrad at Dartmouth (esp. with the Dartmouth Review) in showing the true motives behind these socialist sympathizers. So props to him and other indian-americans who uphold objectivity, values, and our free-market society! open-minded DISCUSSION needs to happen at campuses, not ideological progandazing of often politically immature and unsuspecting undergrads.
Brown of the preceding post you are right. The problem is it’s not just campuses where for example it has become de rigeur to denounce Bush, even right here on this site you can’t voice an alternate opinion without being charged with “model minority” , “sellout” or other such disparaging labels. Most of these people just exaggerate and are very paranoid. Just look at what happened at Georgetown University Law School. The students protesting against the recent wiretapping wouldn’t even listen to what Alito has to say on the subject. Most of these protesters ( future lawyers ) had come with there minds made up already. They wouldn’t give the other side a chance to be heard. It is no coincidence that there hasn’t been another 9/11 on Bush’s watch. Here in New York, liberals go around lecturing the world how to lead their lives but elect a Guliani or Bloomberg to run their own backyard. The real problem is that there is no real problem in America compared to other parts of the world where people are fighting for democracy, against poverty and corruption and dying for want of basic human freedom and rights. So what do the well fed and overread young Americans do? They create issues out of non issues and become some sort of pseudoactivists. It’s so cool. They finally have something to fight for. They are hip and to remain that way they have to be anti-establishment. A great majority of them can’t hold their own in a very elementary debate. Unfortunately this phenomenon has also rubbed off on to a lot of well fed and overread Indian- Americans. What has also rubbed off is the minority victim/grievance mentality.
If vinay lal defended the london bombings (and used gandhi to justify them, to boot), then he is a freaking idiot and i’m sorry that he’s on the left (as I am). He is the kind of leftist who makes the rest of us look like idiots, and who, in his so-called resistance to the right, only makes us look less credible and downright idiotic. of course he has a right to say and write whatever he wants. no argument there. but with leftists like this, we dont need rightists. we’ll screw ourselves just fine.
Correlation fallacy a la “there hasn’t been another 9/11 after I switched to boxers” and “there wasn’t a 9/11 during Clinton’s second term.” A-Q takes years to plan each op.
“its roots can be traced to Christian theology’
That explains Socrates.
Neoconservatives form a small part of the conservative movement. They are liberal on social issues, support big government. Their sacred cause is Israel. The common thread of the dirty thirty is criticism of Israel. Criticism of Israel is a political heresy to neoconservatives. Who said heresy hunts no longer exist?