Santorum: Obama 'A Snob' For Wanting Everyone To Go To College

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In all fairness, most professors of a conservative persuasion are less likely to openly voice their opinions compared to their liberal brethren, especially outside of economics/business. At least at most colleges, anyway. I cannot imagine disputing that.

I dispute it.  I know plenty of conservative faculty in departments of history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, religious studies, certainly law, and many other fields outside of econ and business who have no difficulty expressing their views openly, inside and outside the classroom.  There are surely places where liberals are more vocal, but there are others where either conservatives are more vocal or there is a rough balance between them. 

This--about the only disciplines where I haven't met or don't know of conservative or right-leaning professors of some description are those that are in basic bent or expectation essentially postmodern, like gender studies. Even the English department at my university has some conservative Up-Western-Canon! old-guard folks.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another example, not college but high school.  While leading our class in the pledge of allegiance the day after Bush won reelection, our english teacher said "Justice for some".  Also in this class, he lectured us about the plight of the family in the book and their justified move towards socialism.

Some more "great" reading: Howard Zinn, Nudge (by none other than Cass Sunstein of the Obama admin)...

The guest speakers in my classes have always been democrat politicians, campaign reps, union reps, etc.

And there's more.

It doesn't sound like you have particularly good teachers. There is, at the high school level and lower, something of a reactive nationalist bias in typical curricula, but that sounds like overcorrection to me.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is it any surprise conservatism and religion are so linked together?

Yes, actually, if you know anything about religion.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is it any surprise conservatism and religion are so linked together?

Yes, actually, if you know anything about religion.

The better word in this context is "fundamentalism" rather than religion.

And of course that isn't a surprise.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Actually, our history books in high school had glowing profiles of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, while taking the time to dispute Reagan's accomplishments.  Also, we were taught how the Indian tribes practiced a primitive form of socialism - when in actuality it was a couple tribes and not all of them.

Oh, well, that isn't what I meant. What were you taught about the settling, Thanksgiving, the Revolution, the expansion, the transition to being an imperial power?

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It might be a function of your local school system. I also have to ask if you're perceiving them as liberal relative to yourself or relative to some more objective standard (if such a thing is possible). I perceive a lot of people and things as rightist relative to myself that are probably not absolutely so.

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I'm not going to dispute this in the case of many colleges, but it does depend on where you go.

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This happens everywhere, though.

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There are all sorts even among professors. Good professors either don't do this or take time to reward intellectually stimulating dissent as well.

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I won't dispute this either, though it's easier than you seem to think to avoid that sort of environment if one is willing to actually politely assert oneself. I know I've been successful in doing so.

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I will dispute that that's what such groups, with the exception of some of the dodgier third-wave feminist groups, are there to do.

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Voting democrat is to be expected in this country since voting is by definition a democratic act (even if only superficially). If you mean voting Democratic, it may be instructive to look at the education system and the function it serves in society and try to divine why it might be best-served by adhering to and supporting soft leftism as opposed to those parts of the political spectrum that actively want to dismantle it. I'd also like to know what sort of curriculum and books you'd like to see that would be so different.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The first three (settling, Thanksgiving and Revolution) were apolitical.  The expansion and transition to an imperial power was portrayed in a negative light.

It's possible that what you perceive as apolitical attitudes towards the early period are in fact intensely political. I know that was the case for me. Now I'm reasonably sure it's impossible to not be political somehow or other about those subjects.

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Ah, yes, the 'aww shucks, learning's for gettin' jobs!' view of pedagogy. I'm sorry, but it's going to be hard for me to take this conversation seriously from now on.

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I find the video completely unobjectionable. Eliminated to be replaced with what?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

College classes don't make people liberal, the rather libertine social environment does.

Indeed; most of the politicized classes I've had have been highly critical of 'liberalism' as a political project and sociopolitical concept.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The first three (settling, Thanksgiving and Revolution) were apolitical.  The expansion and transition to an imperial power was portrayed in a negative light.

It's possible that what you perceive as apolitical attitudes towards the early period are in fact intensely political. I know that was the case for me. Now I'm reasonably sure it's impossible to not be political somehow or other about those subjects.

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Ah, yes, the 'aww shucks, learning's for gettin' jobs!' view of pedagogy. I'm sorry, but it's going to be hard for me to take this conversation seriously from now on.

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I find the video completely unobjectionable. Eliminated to be replaced with what?

Well, that period is probably political to you now with the tea party and all, but I highly doubt you found that period to be very political at all as a student.  If you found it political, then its likely that you disliked the way our country was founded, disliked what it stands for and wanted it to be changed.

Children don't find much of anything political, because they are children. That doesn't mean it's not. By the time I was in middle school I was definitely conscious of the fact that I was being taught a national myth--granted, one of the better ones out there.

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As your attitude is typical of ignorant, stick-in-the-mud, internalized modernist-materialist reactionary politics. Success in life by definition includes things like art and music. A life without these things is no sort of way of being. I'm also really not sure how anything that I said indicates narcissism even within the internal logic of ignorant, stick-in-the-mud, internalized modernist-materialized reactionary politics, but whatever.

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Six is admittedly a bit young. I would start explaining this sort of thing, preferably without involving sex and with a primary focus on the affective and performative aspects, around eight or nine in ideal circumstances. I find it not worth getting upset about because considering the extent to which children's perceptions are abused by the expected mockery of pageantry in the old orrery, it's understandable that somewhat heavy-handed crisis measures should be introduced. More objectionable than any questions of proper age targeting, however, are the comments on the video, which are by and large vile.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I should point out that I actually don't agree with the idea that college should be necessary or is even always desirable. There are plenty of people who are more suited to tech schools or on-the-job training, and there should be a greater diversity of options in higher education beyond the university format in general. I'm nevertheless a product of the academic class myself and am inclined to defend it from some of the sorts of specific accusations that have been going on in this thread.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I also think that the artsy snobs vastly underrate Thomas Kincaid as they did Norman Rockwell because he appeals to "the wrong people").   

I agree that Rockwell is underrated, but that's not why art snobs, speaking as one, hate Kincaid.