Boston Citizens vs. Harvard Faculty

[Mechaman]

Well, now that I have put down our resident WASP supremacist, I might as well comment further on this matter.

Obviously I would go with the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book.  I mean for all we know there might be several Harvard faculty from that kind of selection anyways, whereas the Harvard Faculty only guarantees that the only people who would have input are Harvard faculty.  I believe that having their knowledge is helpful, but that is not the only thing that is needed to run a society.  I feel that having all only Harvard faculty would be bad, for much the reasons that Al said plus it would accomplish nothing more than have an insulated confirmation bias among the leaders that would only end up being harmful in the long run (even the more meek among them might tend towards egotism and thus not be as receptive to the demands of the people).

Recent election results as well as referndum passes suggest that the people of Boston would not be the reactionary neanderthals that some of you suggest.

Which isn't to say there are problems with just selecting the first 2,000 people in the book whose name starts with the letter "A", which would create some resentment of course.

And also, I share a lot of TNF's sentiments on this subject.  The Ivy League's dominance of intellectual achievement and privilege is a pox on the country.  Nationalize it now and make the Blue Bloods and Lace Curtains there have to deal with the dillema of being as equal as the common working man.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

I adore that song.

[© tweed]

..the English russophile intelligentsia... is really voicing their secret wish: the wish to destroy the old, equalitarian version of Socialism and usher in a hierarchical society where the intellectual can at last get his hands on the whip..

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I think this question could be boiled down to having either Will Hunting or that professor guy that tried to adjumicate him as your leader. I'll trust a fellow demo man, personally.

[Lief 🗽]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

[RFayette]

Why would nationalizing the Ivy League make it more equal?  Places like UC Berkeley and University of Virginia ('public Ivies') are predominantly filled with wealthy or middle to upper-middle class students.

[Mechaman]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

[TNF]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

[Murica!]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

So this is Chomsky?

[H. Ross Peron]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

In politics or linguistics?

[TNF]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

In politics or linguistics?

Linguistics, although is defense department anarchism leaves a lot to be desired.

[free my dawg]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

So this is Chomsky?

can you not

[© tweed]

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

busing was a huge issue in Boston in the 60s and 70s.  white Bostonians didn't want their kids bused into the ghetto. see Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s



I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me
Love me, I'm a liberal

[Lief 🗽]

Harvard faculty were on the wrong side of history a century plus ago when universities were totally different things and served totally different purposes and were made up of totally different people than they are today. Meanwhile the anti-busing riots are within living memory. Not really comparable at all.

Anyway, the idea that anyone would prefer 2000 random people over 2000 of the smartest and most accomplished people in their fields (and in incredibly varied fields, from law to medicine to science to art to philosophy to history) to run a country is absurd to me.

[© tweed]

Anyway, the idea that anyone would prefer 2000 random people over 2000 of the smartest and most accomplished people in their fields (and in incredibly varied fields, from law to medicine to science to art to philosophy to history) to run a country is absurd to me.

kneejerk anti-meritocracy.  not a bad instinct to have, but the average American's soul has been so warped for so long that an oligarchic collectivist/technocratic dictatorship could be a better option.

[Murica!]

How about MIT? Then maybe we can get Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a quack.

So this is Chomsky?

can you not

No, I cannot.

[RFayette]

Harvard faculty were on the wrong side of history a century plus ago when universities were totally different things and served totally different purposes and were made up of totally different people than they are today. Meanwhile the anti-busing riots are within living memory. Not really comparable at all.

Anyway, the idea that anyone would prefer 2000 random people over 2000 of the smartest and most accomplished people in their fields (and in incredibly varied fields, from law to medicine to science to art to philosophy to history) to run a country is absurd to me.

Academician does not necessarily equal leader though.  They're 2 different things.

[Türkisblau]

The faculty citizens, of course (not a silly populist elitist).

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Boston citizens (not a Doctor Who villain). The whims of an at times unruly and racist but historically speaking generally well-intentioned mob would be a lot more productive, cumulatively, than those of an insular and self-selecting group of people most of whom would consider themselves the fount of all wisdom (and have just enough good reasons for thinking that to be dangerous but no more).

[Simfan34]

Well, now that I have put down our resident WASP supremacist, I might as well comment further on this matter.

But I haven't even said anything.

[Badger]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

Mech, my friend, I agree with just about everything you said here. but the fact remains Boston, was more than "a few bad apples" when it came to race relations in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying anyone opposed to busing was racist (there were practical reasons to oppose it as a misguided social experiment), but the busing crisis fanned racism among a majority of white Bostonians. The best example was the 1976 Democratic Primary. Who won Boston? Carter? Udall? Jackson?

No. George freakin' Wallace.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Wallace won with about 25% of the vote I think it was?

[Mechaman]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

Mech, my friend, I agree with just about everything you said here. but the fact remains Boston, was more than "a few bad apples" when it came to race relations in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying anyone opposed to busing was racist (there were practical reasons to oppose it as a misguided social experiment), but the busing crisis fanned racism among a majority of white Bostonians. The best example was the 1976 Democratic Primary. Who won Boston? Carter? Udall? Jackson?

No. George freakin' Wallace.

I am not completely denying the existence of racism in Boston.  As one of the forums Irish on the board I consider it pretty shameful and unlike the Brahmin loving revisionists in this thread I prefer a historical analysis based in objective truth over feel good elitist bullsheyit.  However, fact of the matter is that the good people in Boston did win out (remind me again who was it that lost a Boston based CD to Joe Moakley in 1972 again?).  And even with the awful racist reaction against busing, let us not act like it was an extraordinarily reaction of its time, given that something like 76% of Americans did not even approve of interracial marriages at the time.

And this is usually where I put in the obligatory mention that white working class hostility towards blacks was largely the indirect result of a society that largely came to be as the result of the elitism of the Harvard Class and other upper crust institutions that couldn't be bothered to help the immigrant "rabble".  But hey, let's completely ignore the historical roots of bigotry against "St. Patrick's Vermin" because it is inconvenient for more than a few peoples' narrative.

[Badger]

In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened...

yes like their god-given right to not go to school with negroes

Because yes a few bad apples dictates what the whole city of Boston was like during the 1960s. Those people failed at the ballot box (except for maybe a fluke victory by Louise Day Hicks), and for good reason.  Bostonites were very divided over the issue but they more often than not in those days fell on the right side of history.  Your strawmanning is absurd.

If you want to pull out examples from history, however, I can think of a few times in history where the Harvard Faculty would be on the way wrong side of history.  Needless to say, an academic institution that had Jew quotas as late as the 1920s has been on the wrong side of history more than a few times, probably a good deal more so than the Citizens of Boston.  You can criticize the people of Boston for not being quick and zealous in support of equal rights for non-whites, but where the hell was Harvard when the Know Nothings came into power?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state's election laws favored only the wealthy landowning elites?  Where the hell was Harvard when the Robber Barons were running the state's politics?  Where the hell was Harvard when the state police were putting down unions with impunity?

They were on the wrong side of history, of course.  And sure, a lot of this was decades ago (but so was your atrocious strawman), but I know my history enough not to trust a bunch of rich eggheads with the future of society (again, would you have preferred America where only the rich vote?  Because that is what your heroes supported in times past).

Mech, my friend, I agree with just about everything you said here. but the fact remains Boston, was more than "a few bad apples" when it came to race relations in the 60's and 70's. I'm not saying anyone opposed to busing was racist (there were practical reasons to oppose it as a misguided social experiment), but the busing crisis fanned racism among a majority of white Bostonians. The best example was the 1976 Democratic Primary. Who won Boston? Carter? Udall? Jackson?

No. George freakin' Wallace.

I am not completely denying the existence of racism in Boston.  As one of the forums Irish on the board I consider it pretty shameful and unlike the Brahmin loving revisionists in this thread I prefer a historical analysis based in objective truth over feel good elitist bullsheyit.  However, fact of the matter is that the good people in Boston did win out (remind me again who was it that lost a Boston based CD to Joe Moakley in 1972 again?).  And even with the awful racist reaction against busing, let us not act like it was an extraordinarily reaction of its time, given that something like 76% of Americans did not even approve of interracial marriages at the time.

And this is usually where I put in the obligatory mention that white working class hostility towards blacks was largely the indirect result of a society that largely came to be as the result of the elitism of the Harvard Class and other upper crust institutions that couldn't be bothered to help the immigrant "rabble".  But hey, let's completely ignore the historical roots of bigotry against "St. Patrick's Vermin" because it is inconvenient for more than a few peoples' narrative.

True Dat.