Affirmative Action for Conservative Professors

[Agathon]

Re: Re: Affirmative Action for Conservative Professors

Originally posted by Caligastia

That's just it - it's not a free marketplace. Conservative groups are discriminated against by college administrators.

First: this thread is about professors, not college groups.

Secondly: the main reason college administrators (who are usually not faculty) discriminate against any group is that they are causing trouble. It's true that certain groups, such as gay rights groups, tend to able to get away with more than others due to the administration's fear of being labelled homophobic; but that doesn't mean that there is an anti-conservative agenda - it's just politics leading to ass covering for the most part.

An ex philosophy colleague of mine started his own anti-abortion group on campus and managed to make quite a success of it. Other student groups attempted to undermine it by devious means and it engaged in similar tricks against them AFAIK, but that's just student politics. In no way did the university attempt to shut it down or prevent it from putting forth its views. But on the other hand, they weren't posting pictures of dismembered fetuses all over campus.

Here at U of T there was a better case when a minister who thought homosexuality was a sin came to talk on campus last year. He was picketed by gay groups (even though the minister's position was that homosexuality was a sin on par with masturbation and should be treated the same way - in my view a victory for the gay community) and the talk was cancelled IIRC. Now there was some sort of public university meeting about this and some profs who were at that behaved disgracefully in my view, but if you looked at the academic community as a whole, opinion was divided, which is as it should be.

Politics is everywhere, and people are prepared to behave irrationally and deceitfully in support of their own views and ambitions. Universities are just the same. But this has nothing to do with my original claim.

[Agathon]

And another thing: no one really cares about conservative groups on campus per se. No one cares about the young businesspeople or the Catholic students association or other religious groups. It's only when it comes to specific matters: namely gay rights, women's rights, the Middle East and abortion that the **** starts to fly.

I mean, I doubt that Hillel would have attracted so much attention at Concordia if they hadn't been effectively recruiting for the Israeli army in a university with a large proportion of Arab students.

[Ben Kenobi]

But on the other hand, they weren't posting pictures of dismembered fetuses all over campus.

Agathon, I remind you of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

"You deplore the demonstrations taking place In Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

"In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known.

Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation."

All of these conditions exist today, they exist on my campus, they exist on yours.

The pictures are horrifying not because we are trying to distort, or decieve, but rather they depict the truth, the sheer brutality of abortion, hidden behind closed doors and sanitised clinics.

To condemn a peaceful group for showing the truth, when the truth is brutal, is intellectual dishonesty.

The pictures are horrible because abortion is horrible. There are children today that are being dismembered, yet you condemn the groups for raising the issue in a provocative way.

[Whaleboy]

The pictures are horrifying not because we are trying to distort, or decieve, but rather they depict the truth, the sheer brutality of abortion, hidden behind closed doors and sanitised clinics.

To condemn a peaceful group for showing the truth, when the truth is brutal, is intellectual dishonesty.

Your opinion, and it is fallacious to try to sell it as the truth when there are opposing views that show by that very conflict that your view isnt necessarily correct.

I suspect however that the piece was banned because of its offensive value, the same logic (flawed I might add but unrelated to this topic) that bans hardcore pornography from kids TV shows. If that piece was substituted by a piece of text, or perhaps something explaining the situation, in other words, with the same philosophical value, it would not have been taken down imo.

[Fake Boris]

Ben, don't get all heated on the abortion issue again. That's not what this thread is about.

[Ned]

To me, one the pillars of conservatism is the rule of law.

Do liberal professors seriously question this principle?

[Berzerker]

Ben -

4. Protection of men from each other. The concept, that people can indeed harm themselves, and the rejection of a victimless crime. In one case, prostitution, is not a victimless crime, because of the effects that prostitution has on the indulger.

5. Rights are based on Natural Law, and not on edicts of society. Fundamental freedoms, such as speech, religion, and life are to be acknowledged rather than procured by the government.

This is where "conservatism" starts flopping around. We have natural rights and the state exists to prevent man from injuring man (which was Thomas Jefferson's words), but then we get into the socialistic nonsense than an activity can be made illegal - i.e., legalising man in the form of the state injuring others - in the name of "protecting" people from themselves just as the communists would make it illegal for man to exercise his freedom if the communists decide he is allowing others to exploit him. "Protection of men from each other" becomes protection of man from himself, e.g., your prostitution example. The communists share the belief that the state should protect us from ourselves too... Do you see the contradiction in 4)? You cannot argue that the state exists to prevent me from injuring you unless I decide you are injuring yourself first. Given that illogical loophole just about everyone can fabricate some nonsensical excuse to injure others in the name of preventing the victims from injuring themselves.

OB -

Surely, most Uni professors are pro-life, pro death penalty, believe the world is a safer place with Saddam Hussein removed, and believe that since all homosexuals will burn in Hell anyway, we might as well put them in jail right now to help them before it's too late.

Nope, "pro-choice" and opposed to the death penalty (kill 'em before they're out of the womb but don't after they grow up and slaughter others), complain about Saddam's mass murder of Kurds et al but whine like crazy when Bush takes the bastard out. And conservatives believe homosexuals should be jailed? Some do, most don't... And all liberals believe people shouldn't be treated the same wrt the laws because "the rich don't pay their fair share" yet complain about discrimination...

Berzerker, determinism goes much further than genetically inherited behaviors.

How much further?

And yes, it is a religious concept- a judeo-christian one, more precisely. The vast majority of polytheistic religions had people believe their lives were all traced.

So determinism was also a religious invention hence horoscopes et al? We have no proof free will was invented by Judaism or Christianity, the fact religious people write about a subject proves only that they wrote about that subject.

[Whaleboy]

To me, one the pillars of conservatism is the rule of law.

Do liberal professors seriously question this principle?

I can only speak for myself, but firstly it doesnt seem to be a central pillar, but one can disagree where the law does not fit within a logical principle. For example, as a libertarian I disagree with and regularly flout the laws that prohibit cannabis.

Nope, "pro-choice" and opposed to the death penalty (kill 'em before they're out of the womb but don't after they grow up and slaughter others), complain about Saddam's mass murder of Kurds et al but whine like crazy when Bush takes the bastard out. And conservatives believe homosexuals should be jailed? Some do, most don't... And all liberals believe people shouldn't be treated the same wrt the laws because "the rich don't pay their fair share" yet complain about discrimination...

A very flawed analogy. You apply your own notions that discriminate between aborted foetuses and victims of war to others whose arguments are based upon different premises. A strawman in other words. And for the record, I am pro-life, anti-abortion.

How much further?

Ones own life, the events that make us a person. I use the analogy of a house. Genetics gives us the bricks, our upbringing is the architect.

[Berzerker]

A very flawed analogy. You apply your own notions that discriminate between aborted foetuses and victims of war to others whose arguments are based upon different premises. A strawman in other words.

Victims of war? OB was comparing abortion to the death penalty, not war. So I compared abortion to the death penalty as well, not war.

And for the record, I am pro-life, anti-abortion.

And for the record, I was responding to someone making generalisations about conservatives, hence my generalisations.

[Whaleboy]

Victims of war? OB was comparing abortion to the death penalty, not war. So I compared abortion to the death penalty as well, not war.

Sorry, was being brief, I thought you were attempting to show an inconsistency in the liberal hatred of slaughter on the battlefield and support of "slaughter in the womb". What I wrote still applies to your analogy to the death penalty too. Pro-abortionists rely on the assumption that the foetus is not a human being, and upon becoming a human, one is elligible to the right to life by others. There is a clear distinction between that and death-penalty victims. This is not my view of course, I am anti-killing anything more than plants.

And for the record, I was responding to someone making generalisations about conservatives, hence my generalisations.

Groovy!

[Berzerker]

Ones own life, the events that make us a person. I use the analogy of a house. Genetics gives us the bricks, our upbringing is the architect.

And what is "upbringing" based upon? Why do people react differently to identical situations? Like in a war, some run at the enemy, some run for the hills. Are there "bravery" and "cowardice" genes?

[Whaleboy]

And what is "upbringing" based upon? Why do people react differently to identical situations? Like in a war, some run at the enemy, some run for the hills. Are there "bravery" and "cowardice" genes?

No, that is silly. Genetics is the contents of the nucleii of my cells. Upbringing is everything after conception.

And attempting to apply political notions to genetics is idiocy! I could equally call that "stupidity" and "sensibility" genes respectively. You would call me a coward, so fine. The events of my life thus far have caused me to be a coward, if my life had been different I could have been a blood-thirsty trigger happy murderer that the US Marines would have been proud of . Yet "I" would not be I, though those two people would be genetically identical, what makes me the person I am now is a combination of genetics and upbringing. If I could go back into time and change my life somehow, I would be a different person today. Same genes, different identity.

[Berzerker]

I thought you were attempting to show an inconsistency in the liberal hatred of slaughter on the battlefield and support of "slaughter in the womb".

You might have seen my response to OB about Saddam.

What I wrote still applies to your analogy to the death penalty too. Pro-abortionists rely on the assumption that the foetus is not a human being, and upon becoming a human, one is elligible to the right to life by others. There is a clear distinction between that and death-penalty victims. This is not my view of course, I am anti-killing anything more than plants.

But that argument requires us to believe a human being only comes into existence once it leaves the womb, and that leaves us asking what that human being was 5 minutes before leaving the womb. We can debate at which point during a pregnancy a fetus qualifies as human, brain wave activity etc,. but only "pro-choicers" who don't care would argue we are human only after exiting the womb.

[Whaleboy]

But that argument requires us to believe a human being only comes into existence once it leaves the womb, and that leaves us asking what that human being was 5 minutes before leaving the womb. We can debate at which point during a pregnancy a fetus qualifies as human, brain wave activity etc,. but only "pro-choicers" who don't care would argue we are human only after exiting the womb.

This is the reason I do not support it. That latter distinction is difficult. I see no conclusive evidence for one side or the other, and unless you can show unequivocable, absolutely and unquestionably that a foetus or anything else is conscious, a human or whatever, and not merely some subjective definition, then abortion is murder imo. Of course, this whole issue here is sidetracking, except to say that I don't see why it has to be split down liberal/conservative lines. I'm not going to get drawn into a debate about abortion because it has implications that run deep into my own philosophical system that is wholly irrelevant here.

[Berzerker]

No, that is silly. Genetics is the contents of the nucleii of my cells. Upbringing is everything after conception.

Of course it's silly, determinism is silly.

And attempting to apply political notions to genetics is idiocy! I could equally call that "stupidity" and "sensibility" genes respectively.

My questions expose the flaws in your arguments, but there was no politics involved in the quote you used, so why did you draw that conclusion?

You would call me a coward, so fine. The events of my life thus far have caused me to be a coward, if my life had been different I could have been a blood-thirsty trigger happy murderer that the US Marines would have been proud of .

So what events in your life "caused" you to be a "coward"? Ever hear of Sgt York? He was a pacifist and a war hero, what events in his life prepared him for that path?

Yet "I" would not be I, though those two people would be genetically identical, what makes me the person I am now is a combination of genetics and upbringing. If I could go back into time and change my life somehow, I would be a different person today. Same genes, different identity.

And what about the choices you made to help create your "upbringing"? Were those choices determined by genes?
If two children are beaten by their parents, will both those children grow up to beat their children? Why are 2 children who were raised ~equally behave differently?