The Majority Of Republicans Think Colleges Are Bad For The U.S., Poll Shows

[pbrower2a]

So, according to Republicans, banks and churches = good; labor unions, media, and colleges = bad.

And they're right.

Churches? It depends upon the church. For a smart person with a desire to do real service to humanity and little greed, 'clergyman' is a good career, at least for a Protestant. (I'm not so sure about life for a Catholic priest -- it could be very lonely, and forget about that if you are female). Clergy are the non-family members most likely to make visits to the nursing home, and they are often the people to catch onto a personal problem.

Banks? They may be necessary, but... nobody gets rich dealing with banks unless one owns or has an executive position within a bank. Banks have some value as separating shysters from the ability to gamble with other people's money. They are good places for parking cash. Heroes? No.

Labor unions are often the only institutions that can protect workers from executive despotism and the rapaciousness of ownership. Before unions, the norm for industrial workers was the seventy-hour workweek and the forty-year life expectancy. When unions strengthened, life got better for industrial workers so that when unions were at their strongest in the 1950s, industrial workers had forty-hour workweeks and seventy-year lifespans.

Media? Ruling out the media that tore Obama to pieces and have created a personality cult for Mr. Unmentionable, the news media are our only reliable source of objective information on current events. That's if we have no access to or cannot use peer-reviewed academic sources.

I'm sure that the Right would be content with well-organized, well-disciplined media that laud our current President, right-wing politicians and causes, and Corporate America. But let me tell you about Soviet media. Need I? When leaders are crooks, we need to know about it whether the crook is the late Dan Rostenkowski or a hanger-on of Donald Trump.


Colleges? That's where competent adolescents go to become competent adults. Maybe the Right would prefer that colleges focus more on vocational objectives -- but it is as important that people be able to question the meaning and purpose of life, learn how to write competently (even if only to draft credible reports), develop some historical perspective, and find more to life than crude ways of satisfying the more primitive drives of human nature. There really is more to life than sex, sweets, material gain and indulgence, chemical highs, cheap thrills, pop culture,  and bureaucratic power; poorly-educated people generally do not know that.

A demagogue like Donald Trump plays heavily upon contempt for educated people. People who know their history well could expect very bad results from Donald Trump; they rejected the unmitigated disaster that we have as President. Completion of a degree at a good college or university not only stuffs people with knowledge that they might not need later (which is not the point) but creates good habits -- like the willingness to exercise critical judgment.        

[pbrower2a]

There really is more to life than sex, sweets, material gain and indulgence, chemical highs, cheap thrills, pop culture,  and bureaucratic power; poorly-educated people generally do not know that.       

Can you point me to any studies proving the uneducated and poor are more prone to hedonism

Not the point. Considering the jobs that the poor and uneducated usually end up with, they need more mindless hedonism (whether theme park admissions, pop music, dumb TV, attendance at sporting events) as a reward for performing their crappy jobs.

Educated people as a rule become almost the entire group of leadership beyond the level of 'foreman'. As far as that goes, an educated person who becomes a shop steward in a factory isn't wasting his education. He may be better at it for understanding accounting, psychology, and the dirty tricks of language.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm not going to knock religion unless it becomes pure superstition. The great body of learning within the churches, including the great writings of the Church Fathers, is not superstition. Paying attention to Scripture is not superstition. Rejection of evolution is superstition. Writing to some post-office box for a 'prayer cloth' that one is expected to mail back (with a 'love gift') so that the televangelist can pray over it is superstition.  Praying to saints that have been shown by historical fact to have never existed once such is shown is superstition.

Religion has always been a needed comfort to many people in distress. The paraphrase of Karl Marx that religion is the opiate of the masses must remind one that there are legitimate uses for opiates -- like masking enough pain so that people can live somewhat normally.  

I have tried religion in some times of distress, and I did not get good results.  I faced a tormentor on the web who accused me of homosexual child molestation in a tough time (my mother was dying and eventually died during the time). This tormentor claimed to be a Christian. I tried to get my father into religious participation so that he would get some comfort in his time of more intimate distress than mine.

The church service has a time in which the preacher asks people to offer concerns about which the preacher can pray. Usually those are about health, job security, finances, and relationships. The youth minister wasn't busy at the time so I went up to him and discussed my plight. I said that accusations of homosexuality were something to brush off because homosexuality, which is not a personal choice, is something for me to dispatch easily with "it's not true, but so what if it were?" Child molestation of any kind is a serious crime, and accusing someone of it when it can hurt one's intended professional life is a nasty libel.

I suggested that one of my heroes, Martin Luther King, had plenty of enemies who wanted him professionally destroyed or even killed. I figured what Dr. King did about them -- he prayed for those people, including segregationist pols and even racist terrorists. Do you think he took out voodoo dolls and stuck pins in them? So we would pray for my tormentor and announce what we did. So we prayed that he would be delivered from his unjust ways.

So we prayed, and soon after the church service I put on the web what we did. So what did this defamer say?

You? Prayed for me? You (it rhymes with maggot) can't possibly be a Christian. You still mess with boys.

...So much for the alleged power of prayer. He still got expelled from that forum. But that's what one expects of an internet troll -- evil.  All it is safer to pray for one's enemies than to try to ruin them.

[pbrower2a]

It totally depends on the program and degree  in my opinion

Many of the liberal arts degree for example I believe are bad for the country (gender,racial , religious studies for example).

What matters is that someone 22 years old comes out of college better than he was at age 18 -- with a broader view of reality, more intellectual openness, better at communications, being able to address ethical issues, and having better ways to find happiness. Truth be told, brilliant 18-22-year-olds are bulls in the china shop in business and industry; 18-22-year-old dullards are useful even if not very productive. The University has been the playground for bright young men so that they don't shake up the wrong things when they are most tempted to do so since the Middle Ages. Getting a little older and more intellectually-refined, no matter what the field, they are less likely to shake things up, whether in theology or in politics.

Republicans are now heavily the party of the white dullard, someone with a cr@ppy job and whose behavior off the job doesn't matter so long as he doesn't shake things up  (as with crime or drugs). So what if he vegetates on  an easy chair in front the Idiot Screen watching vapid sitcoms, reality programming, witless movies, or televised sports while getting fat on snacks and either sugary or alcoholic drinks? Maybe he will die of a fatal heart attack at age 46 -- after his children are in the workforce -- so that his Social Security contributions are forfeit. Such implies more funds for the educated elite, even if being elite means that one is 'merely' a schoolteacher or clergy.   

Sure, educated people would consider such a way of life little more attractive than a prison term -- but educated people are the ones making the good money. They will retire with a pension, some savings, and Social Security payments... and go traveling to Berlin, Bora-Bora, Buenos Aires, and Beijing as they always dreamed of doing because they are healthy in their seventies instead of having dropped dead while bigger than the average bear.       

[pbrower2a]

It totally depends on the program and degree  in my opinion

Many of the liberal arts degree for example I believe are bad for the country (gender,racial , religious studies for example).

What matters is that someone 22 years old comes out of college better than he was at age 18 -- with a broader view of reality, more intellectual openness, better at communications, being able to address ethical issues, and having better ways to find happiness. Truth be told, brilliant 18-22-year-olds are bulls in the china shop in business and industry; 18-22-year-old dullards are useful even if not very productive. The University has been the playground for bright young men so that they don't shake up the wrong things when they are most tempted to do so since the Middle Ages. Getting a little older and more intellectually-refined, no matter what the field, they are less likely to shake things up, whether in theology or in politics.

Republicans are now heavily the party of the white dullard, someone with a cr@ppy job and whose behavior off the job doesn't matter so long as he doesn't shake things up  (as with crime or drugs). So what if he vegetates on  an easy chair in front the Idiot Screen watching vapid sitcoms, reality programming, witless movies, or televised sports while getting fat on snacks and either sugary or alcoholic drinks? Maybe he will die of a fatal heart attack at age 46 -- after his children are in the workforce -- so that his Social Security contributions are forfeit. Such implies more funds for the educated elite, even if being elite means that one is 'merely' a schoolteacher or clergy.   

Sure, educated people would consider such a way of life little more attractive than a prison term -- but educated people are the ones making the good money. They will retire with a pension, some savings, and Social Security payments... and go traveling to Berlin, Bora-Bora, Buenos Aires, and Beijing as they always dreamed of doing because they are healthy in their seventies instead of having dropped dead while bigger than the average bear.       

Ask republicans about different programs and see their response

If you asked what's your opinion of computer science,engineering,medical ,Accounting/Finance , management programs I bet the answer is overwhelmingly positive.


But if you asked about liberal arts , activist , law  programs the answer will be overwhelmingly negative.

But the arts are liberal arts, and they are extremely useful in creating prosperity. Much of our prosperity is the creation of intellectual property -- cinema, television, literature, graphic art, and music. If you have adequate dishware, might you go to the theater instead of buying new dishware? $60 spent on tickets to live theater is just as much a contribution of $60 for some dry goods. Such is a personal choice, something easier for some than for others.   

Activism? Maybe if one is a brilliant kid from the Reservation one can do more good returning to the Reservation and changing the emphasis of local education to better fit the culture.  I am reminded of a story in which urban street gangs got a toehold on a depressed Reservation and introduced foreign ways. I do not mean Mozart and Monet.

It was discovered that the kids with the strongest ties to the traditional culture were least likely to join those Los Angeles-based street gangs. 

Law is important. Ask any political scientist how important 'rule of law' is. Where the rule of law prevails, people have a chance. Where the rule is not of law, all Hell is possible.

...We have probably come to the end of the era in which people can simply accumulate more stuff and get happier. Do we need to produce more stuff except as replacement or to meet population growth?

[pbrower2a]

Since when have banks ever been good? I can understand people thinking that about churches (although I strongly disagree), but banks and other financial institutions are truly, truly awful. Republicans seem to be embracing the worst institutions in our country, the ones that deliver absolutely nothing positive to society, while hating on two of the ones that at least try to do good.

seriously?  Ya can't think of anything banks do that is positive for society?  Not one thing?  Perhaps you could borrow an idea from someone else?


All the things listed (churches, colleges, unions, banks and the media) are probably net positives, but they all have tons of baggage too.  Seems rather obvious.

Banks are ideally the protectors of Other People's Money. Bankers may not be the most admired of businessmen; indeed bankers are drawn from the bottom of college graduating classes. Bankers are arguably the laziest, least imaginative, least creative, least technologically-knowledgeable, and least entrepreneurial of businessmen. The motto for bankers was often "3-6-3" -- borrow from savers at 3%, lend to mortgagees at 6%, and go to the golf course at 3 o'clock. That isn't how retail, machinery, energy, or real estate is done.

Who wouldn't want to borrow tens of millions of dollars in loans, set oneself up with a huge salary even if the business one started failed, do lots of expensive business travel to  fun and exciting places, and hire all one's cronies to live very well? Banks exist to stop that. Banks exist to ensure that a borrower does not live on the proceeds -- in fact that the borrower puts everything that he has into the proposed enterprise  until it is paid off or it makes an unambiguous profit. Banks decide who gets and who does not get a loan, and the sort of person who invests $45 million and spends $5 million on himself is cheating everyone for whom the bank has custodial responsibilities for bank accounts.

Without bankers to monitor the cash, much of the 'Other People's Money' can go up noses, up crotches, and onto gambling tables (and less blatant abuses) instead of into something more practical like a parking garage, a feed lot, or a convenience store. Once the business is profitable, the owners can do what they please with the after-tax profits... but not until then.

Bankers get into trouble when they become entrepreneurial. They are not good at entrepreneurialism. When they do their own investing they show why they are not good investors. Some of the biggest bank cheats (Charles Keating, Don Dixon) did that. (Technically they ran savings-and-loan associations, or in their cases, savings-and-loot associations).   

[pbrower2a]

Republicans rely on faith,  Democrats rely on logic.

Who knew?

Oh please, Democrats use emotion over logic.

LOGIC:
Don't let anyone into America from countries with possible terror ties

EMOTION:
LET THEM IN YOU TERRIBLE PEOPLE!

No. Don't let people in with terrorist ties, no matter what the country of their origin. Refugees from terror-infested countries are very different from terrorists. We already have laws against allowing people who have committed crimes against humanity; a man who had been a secret police official in Communist-era Ethiopia (and whose hands were very dirty) was deported for such. Ethiopia is not a terrorist haven.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Put sexual abuser where they belong : prison. Tough luck about reduced life expectancy.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Pull a gun on a cop... and die. That's how it is expected to go.