Nonsense that the Learned Believed

[mede8er]

I learn something from every person I meet.....every day.......

[tabs]

Originally posted by tabs

so stop your whining like a baby and suck it up and be a MAN.

Hows that for being a beer swilling, red-necked, trailer trash, right wing, Christian conservative Repblican...aka a John Birch Society member...

BTW: This is from the fkem if they can't take a joke school of thought....

[nostatic]

Originally posted by tabs
don't get mad get even....

don't get even....get ahead. *That's* being proactive.

[tabs]

Thank YOu for the correction Nostatus....I usually do come out ahead as a result, but I was just being modest....or maybe just lazy in using a hackneyed phrase....whatever the case it was I think illustrative.

Ouuuuu my touch is so light lately as to be a feather....nothging heavy handed about me what! Now U boyz should learn from me...U don't even know U've had coup counted on U after I'm done.....

[tabs]

Like I've said I've done BAD....Badf things on this Board...

[Jeff Higgins]

Working for the largest dysfuntional aerospace company in the world, I get way to many opportunties to interact with managers and fellow engineers that like to use big words. The buzzwords of the week fly around that place like so many annoying gnats. Our escape, and I'm sure many of you have heard of this, is a little game called "Bull***** Bingo". It's pretty simple really, we just made up a number of bingo cards with all of these cute little buzzwords and catch-phrases on them. Pass them out to your buddies on your way in to any meeting, presentation, or what have you. Now you actually have a reason to pay attention, and look forward to hearing this kind of b.s. First one to score a "bingo" jumps up and hollars "bull*****!!". It's pretty fun.

[Keith Perry]

Yes Tabs, you have done bad things on this board. Told me to buy Ford stock to profit and pay for some expected Porsche repairs. Oh that hurt. Then someone posted your picture and I got to thinking about bloat. Sold some Krispy Kreme short. Mmm, clutch cost covered! Amazing, even when you bad you good.

[rrpjr]

To me, [college campuses] are electrically charged with new ideas, intimate tracking and understanding of political stuff, and a good view of where we're going as a nation. Ideas are hatched there, and then society picks them up over time. And finally, I have often, very often considered teaching college. And I'm thinking of that more lately.

I submit college campuses are the last place in the world to go to for fresh ideas about anything involving our civic health, or to get a view of where we are going as a nation (except perhaps perversly, that is, how far in the direction of increasingly narrow and inferior higher education a nation can go). I submit they have become intellectually stultified laboratories of liberalism intended to to produce amoral and joyless young people who don’t like their country. If I had a kid of college age I would do my best to convince him or her that a year or two around the world on a merchant freighter would be a far healthier and edifying experience.


I agree that there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism in America. I think this is because we see ourselves first as a nation of down-to-earth doers. The kind of intellect we admire is geared toward the practical and inventive, and dedicated to achievement and our physical and moral betterment. Likewise, the more popular American philosophy has seemed dedicated to the end of a better life, to self-improvement, and is written in clear, compelling and uplifting style. We’ve never shown a lot of patience for intellectuality that either doesn’t have a moral purpose or that makes us feel bad. Obviously these are generalizations. But still I think they hold basic truths about the American character still in play today. The distrust of flowery talkers and fancy philosophizers may go back to our roots. The early Americans struggled to fight off an authoritarian colonizing power which used fancy language as a tool to subjugate them. They had to develop a clearer language to articulate their grievances and inspire a people to revolution. One could say the American Revolution was as much about the triumph of clear and meaningful language as it was about the triumph of the human spirit – or that the two were (and are) very much intertwined.

By contrast, a lot of intellectualism today is “sophisticated” – that is, it is obscure, condescending, demoralizing and contains an implicit critique of the entire American ideal of optimism and eternal self-improvement. It is post-modern – that is, it assumes human limitation and helplessness in the face of ovewhelming fates and forces. It seeks to reduce man. It ridicules simplemindness and optimism. It rejects enduring standards of morality and purposeful national identity.

[dhoward]

10-4

[billyboy]

). I submit they have become intellectually stultified laboratories of liberalism intended to to produce amoral and joyless young people who don’t like their country.

Not liberalism, more like fascism. How about" hate speech" rules? Political correctness and all that expression control. Hope this stirs some s---!

[ronin]

Originally posted by dhoward
re-active.
I may however, proactively puke as I contemplate hearing this STUPID sentence..."We are proactively researching the cause of the server failures..."
WTF? IT ALREADY FAILED, YOU CONSULTANT MORON!!!
Happy Friday!

hehe. as opposed to researching the cause of the server failures with utter contempt. ranks right up there with "we know our ***** is weak and our technicians are working towards a resolution"

[Superman]

Tabs, sometimes I can see you're probably going somewhere, but I'll be darned if I can follow you.

rrpjr, we all have our blind spots, whether we are blinded by anger or something else. Also, if we get really far out on an ideological limb, then we also get into the uncomfortable position of having to say and defend stuff that's really thin. About colleges, you say they are "......intended to to produce amoral and joyless young people who don’t like their country." Neither I, nor virtually anyone else, is going to pursue this discussion with you whether:

1) You are serious. You think some people out there are maniacally orchestrating colleges for the purpose of making young people joyless and amoral, and removing their national pride, or,

2) You are not serious. In this case, why would you say this, and why would someone chase the ball at their expense and your amusement.

Hey, I am beginning to kinda understand this "elitism" thing, and there are at least a couple of folks here who have a real paplable hatred for liberals to the degree that you have to demonize them with labels like "terrorist" or whatever is the opposite of patriot. Or is that a hatred of knowledgeable people? And I know I am wasting my time, but you are not correct when you also assume we liberals are pessimists and terrorists. Sure, we are pointing the way to some advancement, but that does not mean we are not patriots, or that we are not EXTREMELY optimistic, in a way you are not. It's like your kind of folks assume things are just going to be the same way forever, and well, that's life whether we like it or not. Seems like pessimism to me, by contrast with my intellectual and political life. I think there are some important things happening right now, and 'scuse me if I care and lots of other folks just don't even know what's going on or care to. Go 'head and defend those folks who don't know what's going on, and are easily fooled. And pretend like liberals, folks who are awake to what's going on, are somehow the demons.

I'm very optimistic. And very very liberal. For example. I think we now have the technology to feed the world. To end world hunger, basically. I guess it makes me a traitor and a demon to think that we could accomplish this. Well then, I guess Jesus was a demon also, and so are most of the people in the world. But I guess if you detest knowledge and can justify not even knowing what I'm talking about, then I suppose you also have to villify folks who are curious. Informed.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm pretty tired of some of this stuff. Meanwhile, show everyone your anger toward knowledge. I do not share it.

[Superman]

Now it occurs to me my rant may have been a bit strong. Don't mean it to be a personal attack, rj. I happen to agree with your feeling that a couple of years on a steamer would be about as good an education as you can get anywhere. But then....you'd visit other countries. And in most of the countries of the world, their "conservative" party is decidedly to the left of our "liberal" party. So, I guess there are not that many piles of sand into which one's head can be buried to avoid liberal ideas. If they're rampant in higher education organizations, and rampant in news and information organizations, and rampant in the general populations of most of nearly all the world's industrialized countries......... Then arguing they are nonsensical ideas takes arrogance like...well....like Dubya's arrogance.

Just holding up a mirror.

[M.D. Holloway]

not sure that 18 months on a barge or 4 years in the forest or anything else like that would provide you the same insight as a good liberal arts background with a math or science focus and washing dishes at night to pay for it. That'll learn ya...

[ckissick]

Once, while wandering the halls of the US Geological Survey, I found, tacked to a geologist's door, two versions a paragraph that was espousing the same scientific theory. One was incredibly verbose to the point of being nonsence, the other was simple and straighforward, so a layman could understand it. PhD's were asked to review both paragraphs, and the nonsence got the better review.

BTW, here's a good one. You could say,

"My gastronomical satiety admonishes me that I have arrived at a state of deglutition inconsistent with dietetic integrity."

Or, you could say, "I'm full.

And when you see someone with bad manners doing a certain something, tell them, "pray, desist the extraction of mucus agesta from your proboscus via the function of digital manipulation."

[ckissick]

Why do I never catch typos until after I hit "submit reply"?

[bryanthompson]

If they're rampant in higher education organizations, and rampant in news and information organizations, and rampant in the general populations of most of nearly all the world's industrialized countries......... Then arguing they are nonsensical ideas takes arrogance like...well....like Dubya's arrogance.

Interesting... you argue that because it's so prevalent, then it must not be as idiotic as I think your side is? But, at the same time I could find a hundred threads you've posted to with the arrogant attitude that the half of the country that voted for Bush are all braindead idiots.

I guess there are not that many piles of sand into which one's head can be buried to avoid liberal ideas.

No, we've all heard these 'liberal ideas' and the majority of this country has decidedly rejected them.

[dd74]

Originally posted by ckissick
Why do I never catch typos until after I hit "submit reply"?

So you meant to say "digital masturbation?" If so, I agree with you whole-heartedly.

[tabs]

Supe ask Nostatus he knows wqhat I am talking about....

[rrpjr]

rrpjr, we all have our blind spots, whether we are blinded by anger or something else. Also, if we get really far out on an ideological limb, then we also get into the uncomfortable position of having to say and defend stuff that's really thin. About colleges, you say they are "......intended to to produce amoral and joyless young people who don’t like their country."

Superman: just an observation, nothing more.

I don't believe there is a grand conspiracy to produce joyless and unpatriotic amorality, so I may have used "intent" a bit too loosely. Rather, it just somehow seems endemic to post-modern campus liberalism. Though I do not rule out the idea that it perfectly suits the Left agenda (which dominates most campuses, does it not?) to produce a sort of chronically dissatisfied young person with no clear moral compass and no abiding loyalty to his country as it is curently fashioned.

To the issue of "joylessness," I could have done a better job there. What intrigues me, though, is what I see as a relationship between a sort of classic joylessness (or, more broadly put, an inability or unwillingness to engage the mind in a freely playful way, to poke fun at oneself or to even take some kind of true satisfaction [classic joy] in the exercise of honest intellectual self-critique) and the professional, careerist Left. It is something I've observed. Question a Leftist sacred cow and for the most part you are in for something other than joyful debate. Am I wrong?

It was always my belief that college should produce people who left with more supple, honest and open minds than when they entered. I have not found this to be true.

It is my observation that students leaving college today do not see the world in very well-defined moral terms, do not feel any sharper sense of appreciation for their country, and are not happier as a result of their educations, excepting the kind of hard, mercantile satisfaction they feel in their improved earning power.