From Liberal Fascism:
Bernardine Dohrn, an acid-loving University of Chicago law student turned revolutionary, reflected the widespread New Left fascination with the serial-killing hippie Ubermensch Charles Manson. “Dig It! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” In appreciation, her Weather Underground cell made a three-fingered “fork” gesture its official salute.
For those of you still unfamiliar with the thesis of Goldberg’s book — and with the general thematic arc of this site — allow me to note that the New Left, whose desire it was to destroy the “establishment” (often quite literally), are the heirs to both the German youth movement of the early 1900s (specifically, the Neue Schar of 1919) and, in political philosophy, the fascists, who in the US were aligned (by way both of socialism and an appeal to forging “community”) with the “Progressives.”
Today, Barack Obama is running for President on the watered-down, vague, and milquetoast rhetoric of that same “activist” spirit — and not surprisingly, he is supported in his efforts by the remnants of the New Left, by modern progressives, and by the bourgeois white liberals who, during the sixties, threw their lot in with the “revolutionaries” rather than end “up against the wall, motherfuckers!” (in Mark Rudd’s famous phrase).
Some commenters here have noted that the American people don’t care about such past associations — that the connection between Obama and the New Left, when pointed out, is a “smear” (just as it is when it gets pointed out that Black Liberation Theology is Marxist and anti-white, and in that respect carries the torch for the Black Panther movement) — and they may be right: forty-plus years onward after the brash Port Huron Statement, these one-time ostentatious radicals have learned to fold into the system like innocuous egg whites.
But make no mistake: for many of these folks, their radicalism marked the highlight of their lives, and their lack of remorse is perfectly in keeping with their self-worth, which they tie to those frequently romanticized identities, and to the mythos of the 60s and early 70s.
That Barack Obama is one of those liberal elites who has chosen to hob nob with domestic terrorists as a way to shore up his New Left bona fides — and cement himself as a progressive left “intellectual” whose identity markers make him a prime candidate for political success, given today’s complex racial calculus — should concern even those who have no real memory of the era of “peace and love” (and university takeovers, and race riots, and domestic bombings, and ambushes on police, and “smashing the establishment” by way of vandalism and random violence — Brownshirtism in sandals and mock-revolutionary garb played out to the soundtrack of Buffalo Springfield and Barry Maguire and the Peanut Butter Conspiracy).
Obama chose his friends. His insistence on walking back those associations now is both cynical and opportunistic — particularly after he’s spent the last twenty or so years sopping up radicalist dogma from his insular world of Harvard and Hyde Park, and from a spiritual adviser who has not much use for Whitey.
Still, this won’t stop the self-loathing bourgeois whites and idealistic, “activist” youth (“we want change and we want it now — to what, exactly, is irrelevant!”) from joining the ranks of the new progressive army, even if this time “change” will come not by way of bomb, but way of empty rhetoric used as the vehicle to grab control of the reins of power.
Andrew Sullivan spends time concerning himself about how best to educate the backward-ass hicks, what with their bitterness and their god and their guns and their banjos — you know, to get these unfortunate cretins past their benighted distrust of a man who has ties to the corrupt Chicago political machinery, domestic terrorists, and Black Liberation theology — when what he and many others in my opinion should be doing is (to borrow a particularly fraught phrase) “connecting the dots” with respect to the new Messiah.
WWFBD?*
Me, I have no horse in this election race. But that doesn’t mean I can’t look down at the track and see all the blinders.
*what would frank black do?
“the widespread New Left fascination with the serial-killing hippie Ubermensch Charles Manson.”
Incredibly intuitive piece, Jeffrey.
Let’s see if we can extrapolate a parallelism. Another mind-bender…
Katrina/Bush—–Myanmar/Junta.
It’s racist to point out that O associates with fringe elements.
Or something.
Thor will be along in a minute to tell us why this doesn’t matter.
Jeff,
What are you doing, injecting logic and reason into this race? Don’t you know that you’re interfering with our destiny as a country?
Semanticleo/leftwing moron.
Don’t forget about torching college ROTC buildings and agitating crowds to attack armed Soldiers. In a peaceful, loving way, of course. Fucking Commies.
Hey Sarge!
I think you mean; dirty fucking hippies.
I have some friends that are white supremists. But, you know, I don’t believe everything THEY believe. When they start talking about that white race stuff, I just go to the bathroom or something.
Strange, and by choice, George Bush and Barack Obama are friends. Funky is the Cheeze Whiz.
O!
Cleo – it’s not so much that they were dirty. It was the smell.
Just as not all Germans approved of the genocide of the Nazis — even those won over by the nationalism and romanticism of Nazism — the hippies did not uniformly support the violent radicals that grew out of sixties activism.
The connection here is Obama to Dohrn, and Dohrn to the type of “activism” that is, at its core, fascist thuggery. I’m not the one who cozied up to such ideology. That’s on Obama. Factor in his Black Liberation Theology and his carefully constructed public image, and you have the New Left’s version of a Manchurian candidate. No wonder they’re willing to toss Hillary under the bus.
Ayres, Wright, and his missus will sink Obama in the general. Most of us who were sentient in 1968 were disgusted by the New Left. The New Left got Richard Nixon elected in 1968 on a law and order platform. The New Left’s ideas were dumb and dangerous then, and they’re dumb and dangerous now.
The great unwashed in flyover country know that. West Virginia is just the beginning of Senator Obama’s problems.
They may be friends, thor, but they are political adversaries. Whereas Obama is quite clearly of the New Left, ideologically.
You can continue to have your fun, but fuck it: me, I’m going to find my hard hat, dig up Peter Boyle, and go do me some hippies!
. ‘No wonder they’re willing to toss Hillary under the bus.’
You’re sympathetic to Hillary? I wonder the motivation.
For me she has proven herself to be the penultimate insider, caving to Bush pandering at every safe turn. Obama has some proving grounds to cover before I am comfortable with him, but he is no radical, as you and others wish to propound.
Show me teh cozy. No really, Jeff. Twist my arm until I see dat cozy too! Smack me down, hang me long in the sun, break my toes off or something, because I do not believe there is one fascist bone in Barack Obama’s half-black pimp hand.
O!
I could care less if they toss Hillary under the bus. My contention is that they believe they can control Barack far more easily than they could ever hope to control Hillary.
You can say that Obama is no New Leftist — or, in today’s parlance, “progressive,” but his voting record, such as it is, would refute that.
And I haven’t said that the tactics of the New Left haven’t changed, either. Early on, they were a disaster, so they’ve gone back to the drawing board. Now we have a polished, youngish, Other spouting pretty nothings — the better to dupe the electorate into thinking him innocuous, or even worthy of a “change.”
But I’m not buying. I look at who the progressive base is supporting. And, if you’ll excuse me, “I wonder the motivation.”
Sorry if I don’t trust your assessment of who is a “radical”, considering your early attempt to compare the Bush administrations flawed but impressively large and fast response to Katrina with the Burma junta’s purposeful blocking of aid.
Progressives are by nature totalitarian, thor. It’s the ideology itself. It moves inexorably in that direction. Fascism wasn’t always considered a bad thing, recall. In fact, it was embraced by Progressives early on.
The dynamic is different in this country, so the assault on classical liberalism is likely to take less “revolutionary” form. But the assault is ongoing — mostly through language.
The pump is primed. And the well is poisoned.
Time to stock up on bottled water and Spam.
McGovern with a tan.
BTW, has any but me wondered about the poor old political cartoonist trade should BarryO get himseld elected to the WH? Think Mike Lukovich will be limning BarryO with big ears and simian features on a daily basis? Oh, wait, that caricature is the cartoonist staple of Republicans only. Prolly be more like Barry with a halo/mystical aura. Trudeau might as well pack it in. And that other attention-starved little fucker who can’t draw but whose name escapes me.
Rall Hyde
Yes, we choose our friends. What does it say about a man that he chooses to associate with evil and not challenge it? If he is willing to tolerate this kind of evil, what other evil is he willing to tolerate?
OK, to some degree I believe that progressivism can include fascist-like and totalitarian entrails.
I do not believe, on the other hand, that the core of every Prog is the same. Joe Leiberman comes to mind. I don’t think Joe’s progressivist intentions are rooted in fascism or totalitarianism, nor are Obama’s.
The only reason that Obama is considered an ‘outsider’ or ‘not an insider’ is because he doesn’t have much experience. His ideas and instincts are as ‘insider’ as you can get.
But I’ve never understood that insider/outsider thing when it comes to politics. Who searches out a doctor and thinks, “You know, I don’t want one of those med school grads who spent a lot of time in some hospital. Maybe some guy who spent the last ten years mixing herbs in Tibet can cure my disease.”
You’d be surprised, LOL.
I see, still peddling that mindless idiotic piece , moronic debilistic shit of Goldberg’s creation.
Still conflating authoritarians and fascists with the greatest philosophical achievement of humankind-liberalism.
Wonder if yours and mine relatives buried in the fields of WWII share the same opinion…
“I do not believe, on the other hand, that the core of every Prog is the same. Joe Leiberman comes to mind. I don’t think Joe’s progressivist intentions are rooted in fascism or totalitarianism, nor are Obama’s.”
Big Government is Fascism. Take a look at McCain’s GW proposal. That’s “Republican Fascism”. As Jonah says: We’re All Fascists Now.
Rall Hyde
Heh.
Jonah Goldberg can do a running cannonball off his government-fascist bridge and I still wouldn’t be impressed with his logic.
Senator Obama himself admits more than just a casual dalliance with the far Left. What’s not clear is just how seriously he takes progressive ideas. My sense is that he’s posing. Based on his campaign, I’m not sure he has any deeply held beliefs. Regardless, you don’t shake hands with the likes of Ayres without paying a price.
Still conflating authoritarians and fascists with the greatest philosophical achievement of humankind-liberalism.
Regarding those who currently refer to themselves as liberals as if they actually were liberal is a joke sashal. They have abandoned the tenants of liberalism in favor of a tyrannical “we know best what you need” policy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCYVg7Ceqj8
wow Jeff.
Do you also agree with Goldberg’s subthesis that science and technology are teh Satan?
im not sure i can be your aukousmatikoi if that is true.
Jeff, forget the fact that nishi is mangling Goldberg. Please, please, please…just say yes.
Tenants of liberalism is apt, but I think you mean “tenets”, EG.
I don’t know what Jeff’s answer might be, but I know that I could not care less about what nishi would think of his answer.
You couldn’t have an Isle of Wight Festival anymore. Racist pig.
Time to stock up on bottled water and Spam.
Don’t forget the shotgun and shells, too.
self-loathing bourgeois whites
“Self-loathing” that anyone but the supposed -loather can discern is self-regard. That self had to display it, and if it thought badly of itself, it wouldn’t make any display.
The claim to radicalism, made from the perch of power, is the highlight of their lives. “Student movements” are reactionary, not revolutionary — because students are reactionary. The etymology isn’t an accident. That youthful ostentation is a process of “fold[ing] into the system,” a tantrum for its attention.
I sound like fucking Trotsky. (Clears throat.)
Sing about space hookers in Spanish.
You couldn’t have an Isle of Wight Festival anymore
Niggardly bastard.
[…] Protein Wisdom – Guilt by association by association (or, how learned to stop worrying and love the ill-fated Greenwi… […]
thor, I bet you and me can claim the Bush conservatives are Stalinists and related to Bolshevism.
And we can prove it with the same integrity Jonah did in his toilet paper book
Tenants of liberalism is apt, but I think you mean “tenetsâ€Â, EG.
LOL. Good catch. Imagine if you could be liberalisms landlord.
1) You’ve not read Goldberg’s book, have you?
2) You need to educate yourself on the history of the term “liberal” in the United States. The fact that we have to use the term “classical liberal” to distinguish that from modern “liberal” should give you a fucking clue.
3) You’ve been told all this before, but refuse to educate yourself or are incapable of being educated.
And nishi, stop lying about what Goldberg said. I know you have a hard time with reading comprehension and/or honesty, but please, just stop.
#28 EG.
I have been here long enough to exactly remember who made the “liberal” a dirty word. Those were not the guys on the left.
If you could be liberalism’s landlord? You’d be the gub’mint.
Sashidiot, you’ve done that ad nauseam before. And you’re still wrong.
Again, your ignorance on the subject of Goldberg’s book is stunning, because the nature of your mistaken impressions have been made clear before and you’ve refused to educate yourself.
Mmmmmm frothy innocuous egg whites. Isn’t quiche technically pie?
Actually, it was people on the left who made liberalism a dirty word, which you’d realize if you sat down and read all the Mad Magazines from 1969-71.
The left declared it would prefer to be referred to as “liberal”, then took actions that made it clear they were still the left. They tarred the word by associating themselves with it and acting in ways inconsistent with its meaning.
If (American-style) conservatives are to blame for the tarring of “liberal”, then it’s out of acquiescence to the left’s claiming the label.
What exactly is fascism? What exactly is liberalism? What is the relationship between the two of them? Goldberg oscillates between claiming a close relationship, and a more distant oneâ€â€in the same paragraph he writes that “what we call liberalismâ€â€the refurbished edifice of American Progressivismâ€â€is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism. …. liberalism is the well-intentioned niece of European fascism.†(2) Child or niece?â€â€there’s a rather important distinction. Niece, Goldberg generally (but not universally) saysâ€â€but the distinction turns on claiming that there is a broader fascism, of which “European fascism†or “the oppression, cruelty, and tyranny of classical fascism†(161) is only one variant. What then is this broader fascism, which encompasses American Progressivism, Fascism, and Nazism? …..
Goldberg’s definition of fascism corresponds far more closely to utopianism; his critique of fascism is that of the authoritarianâ€â€totalitarianâ€â€temptation that derives from utopian thought. Fascism is indeed an aspect of utopian thoughtâ€â€so are communism, socialism, and liberalismâ€â€but his definition is not exclusively Fascist. What it misses is the institutions and practices that defined Fascism, as much as its aspirations. It is not just nationalist thought, but nationalist policy that defines fascism; not just militaristic rhetoric, but militaristic policy. More to the point, the concrete institutions of a paramilitary party that has taken over the state and claimed an effective monopoly of political activity, the abrogation of the procedures of liberal democracy, the actual militarization of society, the successful penetration of the state into the everyday life of the individual, and a very significant degree of actual state regulatory control over the economy, all ought to be considered part of the definition of fascism. A definition of a political ideology that is dependent solely on ideas, and does not include institutions and practices, has little or no analytic power.
more here in very good CONSERVATIVE analisis:-link
Actually, I believe it’s a custard.
It’s a meringue.
Karl,
I was thinking she might think poorly enough of it to go away. I think that would be speshul.
rob , the post # 48 is for you too.
So, next time(if you are capable to learn something, besides being blind partisan hack) your ignorance will not be that glaring
“he’s spent the last twenty or so years sopping up radicalist dogma from his insular world of Harvard and Hyde Park”
Read Obama’s memoir. You’ll see that Obama has been sopping up radicalist dogma for many more than 20 years — he was seeking out Marxist professors and hard left associates as early as the late 1970s at Occidental, and did the same in the early 80’s at Columbia. Even as a teenage Obama sought sociological enlightenment from a member of the Communist Party, USA (“Frank” in his memoir). Obama’s father was a socialist and his mother is described by her best friend in high school as a “fellow traveller”. We’ve got a pink-diaper baby here, who fits right in with the radical crowd he’s chosen over a multi-decade lifetime.
#42 sashal
I have been here long enough to exactly remember who made the “liberal†a dirty word. Those were not the guys on the left.
I can accept this, but you need to understand that those guys on the left weren’t actually liberal, although they had managed to hijack the label.
Quiche is not a meringue. And meringues are the devil, you have to watch them constantly and use old egg whites and beat them just so with birch twigs.
When liberal stopped being liberal, it became a dirty word. Now we can just call it progressive, distinguish it from classical liberalism (which, incidentally, was the bourgeois liberalism that both the new left and the fascists were revolting against — and again, these groups are tied to progressivism), and hopefully take the word back.
If you think today’s progressives are liberal in the way classical liberalism (debate, intellectual freedom, individualism, etc) was understood as a cornerstone of this country’s political dynamic, sashal, the you are woefully uninformed.
And you really should read Goldberg’s book before you comment on it again. I’ve explained this same point to you now fifteen times, and yet you continue to show up at any mention of the book, clearly without having read it, making the same blatantly false argument, which is that Goldberg is equating liberalism with fascism. He’s not. He’s differentiating between classical liberalism and the progressivism that came to be called liberalism, and tracing its roots and its subsequent trajectories across leftist thought.
I’ve argued that I can see the same strands in McCain’s political philosophy, which is why I’ve called him a progressive.
Psycho —
You are of course correct. But the “self-loathing” x, who is ostentatious in that display of self-loathing, has always been self-aggrandizing in the sense of wanting to show how morally brave s/he is.
Nishi:
Do I think science and technology are Satan? Not in the slightest. Though I do think that we sometimes fetishize science without looking at it as critically as we might.
Daniel Dennett comes to mind.
So, rather than read the damned book and attempt to understand the argument you prefer to simply believe what others tell you about it?
You don’t have to buy a copy, you know. There are libraries.
(And the bolded section you quoted? The author clearly misses Goldberg’s pieces about the Progressives’ love for WWI-era government policy, or their tendency to run back to the “moral equivalence of war” when expressing their policy preferences/programs. The militaristic policy is there in spades, even in modern liberalism — mandatory “volunteer”ing anyone?)
Or they collapse,weep, dry up and crack.
You can always reason with a progressive. You can also reason with merigue, for all the good it will do you.
Rob C.,
Didn’t Mrs. Obama herself state that the Senator was going to make us work?
What ignorance? I’m reading the book. I’ve been following Goldberg’s argument. I know the position he’s taken, the definitions of his terms, and much of the evidence he’s mustered in support.
You’re the one who won’t even consider any of the above, is unaware of even the definitions of the terms involved, and who cites reviews by people who clearly haven’t read the book.
Are you even aware of what’s in the last chapter or so of Goldberg’s book?
“Liberal” has come to mean, as all appropriated terms do, what it is used to describe. I’d be happier if the original form made a comeback.
I believe she did. Whether we wanted to or not, and that there’d be no going back to our old ways.
Dan Dennett, I’m afraid, will probably support B. Obama. I don’t know it for a fact, but would put a small frivolous wager on it. Still, it has always seemed strange to me that Dennett has failed to take in the lesson Socrates, that other philosopher, taught, namely that if one speaks openly, in public as a philosopher they will eventually come for you and make an end of your troublemaking speech.
Uh, so you found a conservative who doesn’t agree with Goldberg’s book, sashal, so what?
Goldberg covers the “policy” — hell, it ran throughout the New Deal and prior. And he also notes, quite rightly, that given our system fascism was likely to take on a different, softer form in the US. But it isn’t just he who noted this. Contemporaneous to fascism in Europe, the New Republic was noting its strains taking root here.
But as for this — “the abrogation of the procedures of liberal democracy, the actual militarization of society, the successful penetration of the state into the everyday life of the individual, and a very significant degree of actual state regulatory control over the economy, all ought to be considered part of the definition of fascism” — uh, where DON’T you see these desires in the progressive plan? The procedures of liberal democracy are time consuming, sashal. ACTION NEEDS TO TAKE PLACE NOW!
That’s the history of the New Left — and Obama carries those “lessons” in his blood.
Stop reading reviews. Take time to read the book.
Whiggery! *ahem* Whiggery, I say!
well,then, I am sure, Jeff, you will be interested in the review i posted at #48.
And honestly I do not need to read Jonah’s book.
I came with the similar claims years ago, and my friends in the old country heard plenty of it.
I noted similarities in origins and tactics between Bolsheviks and fascists, and also noted that USSR was first to establish concentration camps which Germans were just happy to employ for themselves, so nothing original from Jonah here so far.
But when he is extrapolating this crap on the large swathes of public, when he does not see differences(besides commonalities), when he uses obvious lies and fucked up tie ins on the few common features, he is nothing but the hack and podonok, in my opinion…
“Fascism wasn’t always considered a bad thing, recall. In fact, it was embraced by Progressives early on.”
They still do, Jeff.
I am, sashal, and responded to it at #65.
Read. The. Book.
Or else stop criticizing it based on the word of a conservative with whom you find yourself in (ignorant) agreement.
And of course, how do you know he is telling “lies” if you haven’t read the book? You may as well just be standing around with your fingers in your ears like a little baby who doesn’t want to hear something.
N.O. Brain —
Yeah, but I was talking about the capitalized P progressives, as a viable political party.
Oops I missed your reponse before.
O’K i may read this book, when I have time.
“#Comment by thor on 5/13 @ 10:40 am #
Jonah Goldberg can do a running cannonball off his government-fascist bridge and I still wouldn’t be impressed with his logic.”
Baracky, on the other hand! Oh boy!
YOLKIST!!!
Jeff I see your tactics haven’t changed that much either. As always, we Hate Freedom and Love the Terroristsâ„¢. Sigh.
What the fuck are you on about, Lisa?
My “tactics”? What, you mean pointing out that Obama has all but bathed in progressivism and New Leftism for decades, and that he is now soft-pedaling it and himself — essentially saying nothing — until he can get power? That he is the candidate of choice for the “activist” base of the Democratic party, which is itself made up of progressives and those who want to align themselves with progressives for the most superficial and self-serving of reasons?
I don’t think Obama hates freedom. I think he wants to define and control what it is. As for him loving the terrorists… Well, I’m not so sure he “loves” them so much as he enjoys having them over for cocktails or participating in their salons. Radical Chic, you see.
Delicious!
Off to class. Back in a couple hours.
sowwy O Mathematikoi, insufficient response. I posed the question badly.
Do you believe, as Goldberg believes, that science and technology are naturally bad, without the restraint/governor/brake of religious belief?
Lisa, I see your tactics haven’t changed either. As always, anyone who points out uncomfortable facts about the Left & Progressives doesn’t luv you personally. Sigh.
It’s not bad, nishi. It’s completely amoral. It has no ethical content. Where does Goldberg state that he believes science qua science is bad?
Please, nishi, just shut up.
And (whisper this) approving.
Lisa,
Do you think Dohrn should be considered “mainstream?” That’s what Obama says on his own website, based on an op-ed by the oh-so-mainstream Alexander Cockburn, no less. I don’t know if he lurves her, but he clearly has no problem with her, either.
Goldberg believes no such thing. By saying he does, you’re lying.
Damn tags
The questions of where to allocate public resources, and which kinds of research require greater oversight almost always do involve ethics, because they involve valuation and perceived cost/benefits analysis. Here’s one such analysis, with which I personally disagree.
Also, Whippery!
Lisa, progressives love Liberty, you say? I guess that explains why they want to take all of mine.
before anyone starts, i have read the book, and i can back my interpretation of Golberg’s position with multiple online quotes from NRO.
nishi, just because you have this shiny new hammer, what you call science, doesn’t mean that everything is a nail. Most people have other tools to which they can avail themselves. Those that can’t or refuse to, tend to (what was that? ah, yes) fetishize the universality of their one tool.
No, you can’t. I’ve seen the quotes you misinterpret, and they say nothing like you’ve made of them. You’ve tried this before, and we called you on it before.
shukran, dan, but i already know your position.
i will wait for the Mathematikoi to get back.
Despite the stem-cell brouhaha, I think that the vast majority of Luddites (and, for that matter, potential saboteurs) is on the left. This is a momentary and very short-sighted marriage of convenience concocted in opposition to the Bush totem and all it is said to represent.
I mean, fucking Alan Alda as spokesperson for Scientific American? WTF?
But kulturcide is painless,/And very nearly brainless.
Wow, sashal:
Such vehement criticism of a book you haven’t read? I can’t buy your arguments, even when they’re in boldface.
I’ve read Liberal Fascism as well, and what Jeff says is spot-on, 100% accurate.
You need to read Left and Right by Steven den Beste to get a handle on the various axes in play here. And why “liberal” and “progressive” are actually antonyms.
Sure gonna miss Sybil, Vickie, Peggy Louisiana and The Blonde.
Do you believe, as Goldberg believes, that science and technology are naturally bad, without the restraint/governor/brake of religious belief?
You’re confusing Jonah Goldberg with Ben Stein, honey. I know all those jooos tend to blend in together.
Science and technology are fine as long as people don’t confuse them with ethics and metaphysics. Darwinism as a paradigm to explain the variety of species is innocuous. It was when people took “survival of the fittest” as an ethical mandate rather than a scientific observation that things got ugly.
Me, I have no horse in this election race. But that doesn’t mean I can’t look down at the track and see all the blinders.
Exactly. In a way this race makes blogging easier: I can pick the attacks on both sides and highlight them, show the problems of everyone and demonstrate what a batch of crap we have to eat… or not eat, if you choose. If the rumors of VP Huckabee weren’t repugnant enough to pass on McCain, give it time.
That’s what’s called a trial submarine, Christopher.
Warning to guys: some of your fuck buddies may be married.
I think that the vast majority of Luddites (and, for that matter, potential saboteurs) is on the left.
Let’s see what science/technology makes the Left scream like little girls:
• Genetically modified foods (frankenfood!)
• Irradiation to kill bacteria on fresh food
• Nuclear reactors
• The internal combustion engine
• Using sound statistical methods in paleoclimatology
• Archiving your data on publicly available servers
• Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick
• Anything that uses petroleum
Did I miss anything?
“progressive” is actually one of the oxyier of the morons as well, dicentra.
You missed DDT to kill of malarial mosquitoes, and a lot of other stuff, but that’s a nice off-the-cuff list, dicentra.
dicentra,
Any thechnology that might possibly make it cheaper, faster, safer, more environmentally friendly to produce petroleum.
Dan, is it momentary? To me it seems part of the feature set.
I seem to recall who the most vocal opponents of space exploration were.
I know who speaks romantically of depopulating of the world, reducing men to a mean existence as shoeless hunter-gatherers, if they are allowed any existence at all.
If only we can bust man up, we can rebuild him the right way!
“It was when people took “survival of the fittest†as an ethical mandate rather than a scientific observation that things got ugly.”
Planned Parenthood, e.g.
Using sound actuarial methods in insurance…
Sarah–
The 6 Million Dollar Ape.
dicentra,
#67- I wrote similar staff myself, but it was just unserious playing with analogies and similarities.
THe Jonah/hack tried to show some of you guys, who lost ability of critical thinking for the years of cooking up in the same echo chamber, that my BS i was playing around with is actually scientifically provable crap.
It is not.
And there are plenty conservative commentators who mock that quasi book(just click on the link in tthe post # 48)
So, I told Jeff, i may read it, but honestly i don’t have to, as my post # 67 indicates i did similar thing in my youth…
And in a felicitous coinkidink, Instapundit links to this little gem over at Volokh about the left’s philosophical relationship to science.
But remember, it’s the conservatives who are anti-science.
Oh, mandatory vaccination to prevent whooping cough, etc.
Great post, dicentra. Thanks.
On the other hand, helmet laws and seat belt laws make sense.
I have Millenium on dvd at home but I never watched it cause this guy told me how it ends and I thought it sounded kind of dreary and also that lady that plays his wife got on my nerves.
Genetically modified foods (frankenfood!)
• Irradiation to kill bacteria on fresh food
• Nuclear reactors
• The internal combustion engine
• Using sound statistical methods in paleoclimatology
• Archiving your data on publicly available servers
• Anything that uses petroleum
You’re kidding, right?
Socialists love this staff.
Just shows how strongly brainwashed Bush followers had become….
Sashal:
I know it’s hard to write clearly during a fit of apoplexy (or when you’re using a crackberry), but I couldn’t understand your #108. You’re as bad as nishi.
As for not having to read the book to criticize it, that’s bunk. You can criticize Jeff’s argument as presented at the top of this thread, but if you’re going to make hash of Goldberg’s theses, you have to actually read the words in their original order so that you can see for yourself what cause and effect Goldberg sets up.
You should know better than to take someone else’s word for it like that. Your Open Mind card is hereby revoked.
Don’t forget PETA!
Comment by sashal on 5/13 @ 12:10 pm #
Dude, the reactionary left will let poor black people in Africa starve to death rather than allow genetically modified food to be imported.
That’s literal ribs showing through the skin, dying because you have nothing to eat starving.
And that’s just one example of leftist love of science.
So take your “brainwashed” canard and shove it.
dicentra, that link to volokh thread(where I actually commented as well)has what relationship to left and science?
The main discussion was about Nadia’s tenure and if she deserves it or not for her job criticizing and analyzing Israeli archaeologists…
another new invention I was glad to find here: “reactionary left”
Good job, O’Brain
the Mathematikoi
Mathematikoi is plural. If you are referring to Jeff, the word would be the singular mathematikos.
“#Comment by sashal on 5/13 @ 12:19 pm #
another new invention I was glad to find here: “reactionary leftâ€Â
Good job, O’Brain”
A bit behind the curve, aren’t you?
Nothing new about it.
C’mon, you don’t think that the deconstructive/postmodern critique of discourse is where lots of leftists derive their authority to assert what they do? It’s certainly what’s turned some universities into reservations for morons like Dohrn and Ayers.
You can’t have those last three letters in it and refer to Jeff, TaiChiWawa. I think that’s her point.
You’re confusing Jonah Goldberg with Ben Stein, honey
oh no im not.
Expelled is just the cartoon version, or perhaps the cliff’s notes version of Liberal Fascism.
and it isnt just me saying it.
You cited Derb’s quote by Ben Stein and suggest he’s lost it. I’d like to offer a brief apology (in the Socratic sense).
In the last century, we saw several governments adopt the notion that they, the government, were ultimate. Mr. Stein accurately identifies one of them, risking Godwin’s law. Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese governments were responsible for murdering millions of their citizens. The same century saw the Tuskegee experiment and other eugenics mischief under the banner of what Francis Schaeffer (franky’s dad) termed “Sociological law.” All these crimes were RATIONALIZED using science.
You’ll see this common theme running throughout Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism.” I disagree with Mr. Goldberg’s thesis, finding the common thread true of both Communist and Fascist and American Progressive mischief is a rejection of transcendent absolutes. “If there are no absolutes, then the state is absolute,” said Francis Schaeffer.
Maybe, though, we could work up a program to help nish write her posts in boustrophedon. It is worth the experiment, I think.
deconstructive=reactionary?
or it is the same way as creative chaos, as Rice said about events in the ME
ooo sowwy taichi wawa is correct.
kos is right.
EXPELLIARMUS!!!!
Must stop Barack. Must save world. Must halt Prog advance. Must save white women. For the love of children! Must. Stop. Obama.
nishi, the kappa has nothing to do with it. It is as you know omikron iota versus omikron sigma.
Kind of a prick aren’t you thor? Must save white women? Yeah, no kinda about it.
#86: Yes Sarah, I just love the Patriot Act. I also dig domestic spying and wiretapping. Because of course, I Hate Freedom and Love the Terriers.
and the right has declared war on science, dicentra.
IDT, the DI, the bioluddite council, bush’s ESCR vetoes, terri’s law, expelled, ponnuru’s party of death, and goldberg’s liberal fascism are all rightwing warmemes.
#128: LMAO!!! Best. Post. Ever.
It’s reactionary. Against a paradigm of their own imagining.
Keep trying. It might work.
That just makes you one among a group of morons.
I reject your assertion that you’ve read Liberal Fascism. Or at least, that you understood it.
(Of course, a few days ago you were expressing as your basic philosophy a position that’s indistinguishable from that of the “Progressives” and their fascist brethren. Maybe that’s what gets your panties in a wad — Goldberg has your number.)
Really? Then why are modern American “liberals” opposed to all of it?
hey, Dan.
I know you’ll like it. Rent “Island”(Ostrov) available through netflix now. And tell Karl about it…
are they, Rob?
How do they expresss this opposition?
dicentra,
certainly the left has bioluddites and progs that exploit proles too.
that doesnt the excuse the right.
it is a separate issue.
the right has become branded as the religious party. and since thinkers can’t be believers, the battle is joined.
the endless moronic attempts to push IDT into secular unis and highschools just widen the gap and reinforce the cultural stereotype that believers are….well….stupid.
She wears panties?
Okay, sasha. I will. But I’ll have to do it this weekend.
“#
Comment by sashal on 5/13 @ 12:39 pm #
are they, Rob?
How do they expresss this opposition?”
Every fucking day, in every fucking venue they can..
Reactionaries.
Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet Of Fury reminds us what really happened at Kent State.
Unfortunately, the aging hippie mind has conveniently forgotten their culpability in the events of that day…
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3600853/Ostrov.(2006)
Netflix, pppppppppppppppppppp!
Lisa proclaimed:
Call the UN! Lisa’s committing genocide in Strawmania!
Do you believe, as Goldberg believes, that science and technology are naturally bad
I guess it is too much to ask for nishit not to blatantly fucking lie.
“the right has become branded as the religious party.”
Only in your empty little head, nishi.
Only in your empty, echoing little head.
yay, thor.
Well, did you like it ?
Oh fuck off, nishi.
Not believing it’s the government’s role to fund research is not a “war on science”. A fringe that wants their religion taught in school is not a “war on science” — unless you extend that to include the Luddites who have gotten hard-green religion taught as “science”.
Policy disagreements are not a “war on science”. A “war on science” would be declaring certain realms of research beyond the pale. Talk to Larry Summers, or, hell, the authors of the Bell Curve. Or anyone involved in investigating pre-Clovis settlement of the Americas.
And “Liberal Fascism” has bugger-all to do with science. It’s about political philosophy. To the extent it touches on science, it’s how the term and the authority of science have been abused by the various totalitarian movements to justify their crimes.
(I suspect, though, that your sudden jihad against Goldberg has more to do with you deliberately misunderstanding a comment he made in re fascism and communism being reactions against modernity and science. I don’t think you read the book, unless it was in the same sense as sashal has — skimmed the back cover and read some “reviews” from those who comfortably reaffirm your prejudices. You certainly have no comprehension of what it said.)
IDT, the DI, the bioluddite council, bush’s ESCR vetoes, terri’s law, expelled, ponnuru’s party of death, and goldberg’s liberal fascism are all rightwing warmemes.
You forgot Oral Roberts, heavy lifting, and the Wedge strategy.
thinkers can’t be believers
Liar. Fucking liar.
I will own your Island in a few hours, burn it and mail it to anyone who requests it.
It’s so out of the Russian character to pay a capitalist structure of financial oppression when one can bit-torrent the bastard for free. I will feed your hunger in the face of the imperial oppressors of cinema. I Goddamn Blockbuster!
I’m reading this girl and she just might be out of her mind
Well she’s got baggage and it’s the faux intellectual kind
She talks about Goldberg and that evolution bit
I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I really hate that shit
Oh man she’s got issues
And I’m gonna pay
She thinks she’s the victim
Yeah
Out-and-out bans. Lawyering the technologies to death. Gleefully propagandizing against their disfavored technologies (“SUV Kills Five” as a headline, for example, or the movie “China Syndrome”).
I’m downloading it right now. I found a copy with subtitles.
Is it anything like The Peculiarities of the Russian Hunt? Arf.
Says the self-declared Muslim. So by her own definitions, now we know nishi doesn’t consider herself a thinker.
Ah, yeah, Rob, anthropomorphizing inanimate objects.
I forgot about that one.
“Semi-Automatic Weapons Kill Thousands”
i think this is the future.
but not neural buddhists…..the new metaphysicians perhaps.
or….the new pythagoreans.
could it be that Pythagoras was right all along?
Pablo, is that to the tune of something by the Offspring?
I’d like a copy, thor.
Why, yes, cranky-d. Yes, it is. She’s Got Issues.
oof, I’d suggest making it a drinking game, but then everyone would be passed out and or dead from alcohol poisoining.
Dan, then you’ll get two copies and an extra jewel case. I’ll add some mad Russian art short films and what else.. Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines, Alfred Hithcock, Blue Velvet, Barfly, Amelie? You name it. Kwesi Johnson in concert? You got it.
Wow, pick something else out for me. I like the original Solaris, if you’ve got that. Maybe there are Russian film adaptations of Gogol or Ilf and Petroff? Sasha?
JD, i said that is a cultural stereotype reinforced by the endless IDbot zombies.
Roger Penrose, Stuart Hamerhoff, Francis Collins mad Ken Miller are all excellent thinkers that are believers.
lulz, ima believer. i just think IDT is crapology.
;)
Lisa – NSA allowed to listen to calls of foreign origin making their way through a U.S. switch!!!!Eleventy1111!! without warrants? Even when such a call is made to an (ulitmately) foreign recipient?
Give me vexatious, and grandstanding telecomm lawsuits, or give me death!
Amelie if you haven’t seen it.
Wow, you like the serious stuff. I’ll see what I have. No Peter Sellers or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead type, just the Ard-core po Russki, eh.
Before 1968 the “New Left” hated liberals, JFK, LBJ, HH were despised. Read any of the “underground press” of the period. The description of the 1963 flight back from Dallas in “The Realist” is a good one to show how liberals were seen by the Left.
Then between the 1968 convention and the 1972 one they infiltrated the various committees of the Democrats and took on the mask of “liberal” to maintain the illusion that liberals were still in charge of the Party. The power that the Party wielded was however now in service to the goals of the New Left not those of Liberals. Lately that mask has slipped more and more. Jame Gumb can’t hide behind the “woman suit” forever.
there sure are,Dan , great ones.
I am not sure though if they are dubbed or subtitled…
You gotta keep’m separated
Science like the latest fashion
Science like a spreading disease
The kids are strappin’ on their way to the classroom
Getting technology with the greatest of ease
The theocons stake out campus locale
And if they catch you slippin’ then it’s all over pal
If one guy’s religion and the other’s don’t mix
They’re gonna bash it up
Bash it up x3
Hey, Pablo, you talkin’ back to me?
Take him out
You gotta keep’em separated
Hey, Pablo, you disrespecting me?
shut ur mouf
You gotta keep’em separated
Hey, come out and play
#170: Proving my point about how there are people who have to have to make their political opposition into insidious, evil enemies. The “mask is slipping” indeed. What shall we do? Kill them all? ZOMG! The New Left is coming! To arms! To arms!
Wait…what? That top picture is for REALS???? I thought it was a joke.
#Comment by Lisa on 5/13 @ 1:27 pm #
Too late.
That Second Amendment thingy, donchaknow.
My video pick of the day. An amazing eight-minute animation regardless of your ideological position concerning science and design —
Little Coding and Decoding Machines
And honestly I do not need to read Jonah’s book.
Then you are an idiot who’s arguements on such aren’t worth considering.
Link to that picture. OMG, that picture.
There’s a unicorn in it.
[…] ZOMG! […]
thor, the peculiarities, there is the whole serial-hunting, fishing, banya( sauna). Fishing is funny as hell too.
Dan, my respect for Solaris , dude.
Did you see original “Idiot” , “Golden Calf”, “12 chairs”?
Comment by SarahW on 5/13 @ 1:31 pm #
nishi’s gonna go dog-shit crazy over all that xian iconography.
There’s a magic belt buckle with a B on it.
No, I’ve not seen any of those, sasha. I love The Golden Ox (or calf, or whatever).
*what would frank black do?
wait….what do the pixies have to do with this?
hey , serge,
May be I am an idiot for not reading the book with thesis I similary postulated years ago.
Or may be you are the gullible one who believe that crap…
My friendly advice, find the conservative critics of that book( there are plenty ), don’t be such a dope….
Or maybe that’s Obamessiah’s personlized PEZ dispenser. That dispenses lightning bolts. LIGHTNING BOLT PEZ!
“find the conservative critics of that book( there are plenty ),”
Another lie.
#167: Making excuses for invasion of your privacy while you talk to your grandma in Europe? Doesn’t sound like a freedom lover to me. “You want to take away my freedoms, you leebrull!” But it is ok when a Republican takes it away because Leebrulls are Teh Enemy and Republicans are Kewl.
And you know what Ben Franklin said about trading freedom for safety…or was that Ben Vereen? Whatever. You get the point.
I think we have all gotten used to having our freedoms abridged for our various interests – that is my point. Neither side of the ideological aisle has a lock on the idea freedom as we have both shown a lust for curtailing it when it suits us.
LIGHTNING BOLT PEZ OF SCIENCE!
I bet you could fuck with some telecomm switches with that PEZ!
I love unicorns. If he had a couple of faeries (and I am not talking about Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald) in there, it would be Teh Awesome.
BTW, that looks like Kanye West, not Barack Obama.
Did you read that?. One of the best satirical books, imho, of the soviet era.
I think it should be calf, the little ox/cow, right?(that’s how it is in original).
If you understand russian, you may get them from “Russiankniga.com-the online russian store in USA
Nishizono-chan, I doubt you could find a bigger brush with which to paint your ostensible ideological opponents. Likewise, I doubt you could affect a more supercilious tone. It appears you are cognizant of both of these facts as you seem to wear them as badges of honor. If that’s the case, then, y’know, congrats. You’re pulling off the narcissism thing with aplomb.
That said, I find the “neutral Buddhist†sentiment rather compelling and in spite of your venal countenance, I’m glad you throw this kind of thing into the mix. As I think Jeff has suggested in his ongoing exegesis re: intentionalism, there are really no tools available to adduce universals. As I understand his thesis, that isn’t the same as saying there is no reason to pursue as much veracity as is practicable. As the article you link points out, there are infinitesimally convoluted mysteries that inhere to attempts to model our brains. Given such a combination of insights, I find certitude about the metaphysical weakness or practical uselessness of religiously motivated explications of our experience to be pretty fucking arrogant. (Ards attempts to buttress your metaphysical position through an Objectivism you would probably dismiss notwithstanding.)
Is my point here to suggest that, y’know, God really stopped the sun? No, my point is to suggest that given our pitiably agnostic state as humans in general, your haughty dismissal of religiously motivated metaphysical understandings is ugly and stupid and ephebic. It is, in short, everything you arrogantly dismiss. Gautama would calmly offer parables to you to this effect until even he would probably grow weary and roll his eyes.
that doesnt the excuse the right.
Um, at what point did you come under the delusion that we were here to defend the “right.” Anyone who wants to use the levers of government power to micromanage society is a fascist/totalitarian/commernist/chooseyoureptihet.
Oh, and Musli doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall. Your Credibilty Card is hereby revoked.
The same century saw the Tuskegee experiment and other eugenics mischief under the banner of what Francis Schaeffer (franky’s dad) termed “Sociological law.†All these crimes were RATIONALIZED using science.
And it was the Progressives who were doing the rationalizing. BTW, you probably learned a false version of Tuskegee: the men weren’t deliberately infected with STDs, they already had them. The evil part was when the scientists told them they were being treated for the disease when in fact they were only being studied and observed. No informed consent, IOW.
oh. He’s a pixie. The other one was a lot more involved though with “connecting the dots” with respect to the new Messiah though I think. And also dealing with his whiny yet creepily soft-spoken wife.
#191.
I’d love to see that…
No, no. I read them in English translation.
Solaris, no prob. Tarkovksy’s Stalker and Mirror, coming in, eta 3 hrs.
Did you really like the original Solaris? I thought it was like a three-hour Infiniti commercial. Ponderous and also not particularly affecting. Sort of like a bloated film school pilot of an Outer Limits episode or something.
Solaris the movie was good, but the novel rocked. Lev talks a lot about the mysterious planet and its incomprehensible behavior. It’s a good explication of the Absolute Other, which cannot be deciphered or understood because of its utter alien quality.
Lisa: The NSA doesn’t give a rip about you talking to your Gramma. They want to spy on the enemy using the tools available to them. Do you really recommend that the NSA not touch telephone communications between terrorists because they might accidentally hear someone’s personal conversation?
“Freedom of speech is overrated.” –Thomas Jefferson
I like it, hf, in the way that I like impressionism or “ambient” music. As something I can engage with or disengage from at will.
Also the clothes were terrible if I remember.
so much peculiar sharp and witty staff is getting lost in translation, Dan.
I always admired Pasternak and Nabokov for being exquisite writers in both languages…
oops, I meant Brodski
Dan,
I could have linked you twice in the latest post, but could not find your original post on Marcotte’s book. I gave up after a half-hour.
dicentra, that wasn’t me. i was quoting someone else that also saw “the common theme” in both expelled and liberal fascism.
click the link.
muslihoon and i were both gene expression commenters, and eteraz commenters. that is where i remember him from.
guess i didn’t make much of an impression. ;)
this unicorn is more my style.
for Lisa.
There is a great post on relationship between the academic Left and science at The Volokh Conspiracy here.
Thanks, Karl. I think that was The Fempest.
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=12099
Brodsky? I raked his leaves and piled his wood for him one autumn when I was visiting my girlfriend at Holyoke.
hahaha, Aldo, “science studies” is just the left’s IDT!!!!
rawr.
A unicorn does seem to fit nishit’s style insofar that it is completely imaginary. I frankly have never seen such aggressive stooopidity in all my life. Semenkleo is just damaged. Oliver Willis cannot see over his belly so has no idea what he is typing. Marcotte and the rest are as predictable as the sun rising in the East. The gleeeens are deceiptful, but not stooopid. Nishit is like an amalgamation of everything that annoys me.
seriously?
Did you talk to the guy?
Btw, Dan, as a Vermonter, have you ever met Solzhenitzin ?
malaclypse-sama
pour toi
/giggles
but if Hamerhoff is right about quantum computation in the microtubules then the brain is a trillion times faster than we thot.
:(
I have no idea what or where “Gene Expression” is, and I have been at Eteraz’s only a couple of times. I don’t like Eteraz so I stopped going there, and haven’t been there for years.
I’m afraid you must have me mixed up with someone else. Maybe Isaac Schrödinger?
I’m afraid you must have me mixed up with someone else.
nishi has something mixed up? Imagine that!
Muslihoon – nishit tends to just make shit up. A hyperactive imagination, if you will. It sees itself as superior, based on her devotion to science and her existence as a Sufi. In short, she is an idgit. Consider yourself fortunate.
Lisa, i have to tell you this.
those are machines listening, not ppls.
the ppls dont come online unless theres reason to believe theres bad stuff.
so no one heard you and your gramma cept a bunch of cpus.
;)
unless ur gramma is a terrorist.
dur, sry musli, praps it was isaac. ;)
i apolo.
It is always funny when actual reality dances all over nishit’s version of reality.
hahaha, Aldo, “science studies†is just the left’s IDT!!!!
I don’t see academia creating new disciplines of study to lend IDT legitimacy.
I don’t see academia creating new disciplines of study to lend IDT legitimacy.
dur, aldo, that is what the Discovery Institute is for!
but you do see IDT proponents attempting to deligitimize branches of science they disagree with, like ToE.
hahaha
mirror world.
right Lisa?
It is okay to spy on you without a warrant because it “Defeats the Enemy”. Okay. Who is determined to be The Enemy and who decides that? We have several commenters saying that Barack Obama is a supporter of terrorists. Several more agree that The Leftâ„¢ is a Dangerous Enemy of Freedomâ„¢. Being branded a person who Hates Freedom and Loves the Terroristsâ„¢ as well as a person who intends to vote for a guy who Hates Freedom and Loves the Terroristsâ„¢ could possibly get me on the List of Enemies©, at the Ministry of Love, er, uh…the NSA…I mean it is not all that far-fetched.
Aldo – nishit is impervious to facts, logic, reason, the scientific method, class, dignity, humanity, and most other desirable traits.
Lisa, i have to tell you this.
those are machines listening, not ppls.
the ppls dont come online unless theres reason to believe theres bad stuff.
so no one heard you and your gramma cept a bunch of cpus.
Nishi is actually correct in this summation of the listening program. No wires are being tapped by trenchcoated, headphone wearing agents anywhere. Signals coming thru US switches from suspect foreign countries are what is being SCREENED by CPUs.
Also, the idea that the Executive cannot spy on foreign activity during wartime is well settled and dates to FDR, progressive hero.
Lisa – Do you really think the NSA gives a shit who you are calling in Afghanistan? I do not think Baracky loves terrorists. He just loves them having fundraisers for him.
Trouble is, the left and their political enablers call Bush a Hitler for doing what FDR and the USA considered routine in WW2. Lisa falls for it, hook, line and stinker.
Lisa, look!
more mirrorworld.
huckabites vs the mittacons….700+ comments and counting.
#228: I am being snarky. I made my point that Sarah talks about people on the left wanting to “take her freedoms” but yet being totally okay with the abridgement of her freedoms from an admin that is appealing to her, politiacally.
The point bein that we are all ready and willing to give a little bit of freedom for things that we think are important, and that neither side can legitimately claim to be freedom purists.
*politically, rather
Wooo….interesting Nishling. Thanks. I am getting tired of watching our side fight. Thanks Jeebus for Mitt and Mike. Squee!!!
You don’t get it. I think that both IDT and Science Studies are fraudulent. The difference is that Science Studies is being pushed by the Humanities Departments of major public research universities, while IDT is pushed by private individuals and organizations.
Moving up to the next level of abstraction, my point is that the Crackpot Right been relegated to fringe status, with little or no cultural influence, while the Looney Left is riding the cultural zeigeist of the moment.
If there was no other reason to be wary of an Obama Presidency, I would be concerned that his people would be taking power in a perfect storm where academia is controlled by his ideological allies on the New Left, the press is entralled with his charisma, and Congress is controlled by his political allies. There will be very few to “question authority.”
JD: See #189 – I was trying to explain my point there. But it got lost in the back and forth about Spying on the Terriers. I am disturbed about domestic spying, but I don’t crab too loudly, because I am not interested in getting blown up while driving through the Fort McHenry Tunnel either. So I suppose I am one of those cowards who is willing to give up freedom for safety. Again, my point was that we have all compromised our freedom, and Sarah’s assertion that it is liberals who are the sole Takers of Freedom was bogus.
Your side fights.
Our side debates.
Aldo – They do not even question his judgment. Why would they question his authority.
Lisa – I cannot think of one freedom I have lost. Enlighten me, please.
Aargh, we’re back on the “wire-tapping” thing again. I thought Ric Locke covered all this before?
In short, there’s really no such thing as wire-tapping any more. In the old days, operators used wires with plugs on the end to create temporary “circuits” in order for one party to call another party. Later, machines took over the routing, but the effect was identical. (When you think circuit, think the wire running between the light switch on your wall and the breaker box in your basement, a closed loop.)
But telecommunications doesn’t work like that anymore. It’s connection-less; the routing is contained in the packet, which might reach its destination by any of a nearly limitless set of actual circuits. Sifting through the packets is absolutely necessary to determine the origin and destination of the call. Packets that indicate a suspect origin and/or destination might end up being searched for content or perhaps listened to as “conversations.” Otherwise, it’s going to be discarded.
Exactly right, and yet unlikely to penetrate the bunker of idiocy that protects nishi’s psyche.
Funny you should go there. Come Out And Play was a commentary on the foolishness of youth and its sometimes troublesome consequences. You’ve managed to transpose it onto yourself quite nicely.
Fortunately, the grown ups do things differently. Perhaps one day you’ll get there, but I’ve got you pegged as being more of the Ayers/Dohrn mold.
Aldo – They do not even question his judgment. Why would they question his authority.
Bill Ayers is shaping public school curriculum to indoctrinate school children with his own radical views. As a libertarian, I am more concerned about people like Ayers than nishi’s Discovery Institute boogeyman. As long as he Discovery Institute is private it can teach anything it wants as far as I’m concerned.
Well, you’re ignorant of what’s in the book, and an idiot for assuming that because you had a similar idea, you don’t need to know what’s in the book in order to discuss it intelligently.
It’s the difference between observing that things fall and understanding a=m1*m2/(D^2).
Wow. So people who read the book are dopes if they find it convincing, but people who don’t but simply find people who agree with their prejudices against its thesis — while clearly not understanding even the basic terminology used in the book — aren’t?
Jebus, sashal, you have NO room to criticize anyone. Your devotion to Hating Jonah isn’t rational, it’s religious. You’re almost as bad as the nishidiot.
Nishizono-chan, I appreciate the link. The treatment Hamerhoff describes at the hands of the overweening clergy of the current paradigm is part and parcel of what I find troubling about science. Science is temporally falible just like anything else. It is powerful, longitudinally, at making predictions unlike anything else. Scientists, however, often act as though the latter reverses the former. When this state of affairs is taken to it’s logical conclusion you get totalitarianism. That’s not an indictment of science, it’s an indictment of human nature.
Practically speaking, science IS moderated by metaphysics, whether it be materialist or theological or anything else. This is because science doesn’t exist independent of scientists, or if it does, it doesn’t matter.
Lisa, please, try to question some of your basic assumptions. You’re an intelligent person; I know you’re capable of distinguishing between disagreement and incitement to murder. It’s kinda sad to see you trying to equate the two.
McCain/Huckabee?
Why not just concede the election to Obama and start preparing ourselves for the mandatory “work” he’s going to have us do. Me, I’m doing a lot of pushups on my knuckles.
And no, that wasn’t an ape remark.
Except that your lyrical skillz suck. Meter, bitch!
“We have several commenters saying that Barack Obama is a supporter of terrorists.”
More are saying that terrorists (those what know their chickens) are supporting him. The argument that he supports terrorists is difficult to substantiate aside from the Orwellian (in the best sense) observation concerning objective support.
Terrorists heart BHO but BHO only provides a nuanced and subtle vision of his illusions concerning the world to reinforce that BHOlove. He’s very bright in a deeply ignorant way.
Lisa, you are missing one whopper of a point about this supposed violation of my freedoms – As in, violation of the most technical sort with regard to the law with regard to wiretaps.
Do you still not understand..that calls coming from foreign countries can go through US switches momentarily…and though the call originates and TERMINATES in a foreign connection, (forget a call that originates from a suspect country and terminates in the US) there are people who want to file vexatious civil claims that they have, as citizens, been “damaged” by this failure to “stand up” and refuse to cooperate with requard to calls coming from outside the country?
Patterns of calls from suspect countries during wartime ought to be monitored, and if you can’t accept that, blame FDR.
To reiterate a point I’ve made a dozen times, at least — I’m stunned at the people who get upset over monitoring calls to and from foreign destinations — or even that just have one end in the US — but would even consider returning a Clinton to the White House.
Hello? FBI files? IRS audits of critics? Spurious prosecutions so civil servants could be replaced with cronies?
(And the alternative to Clinton is an alumni of the Chicago machine… oy!)
Not really, sasha. He had someone tell me what he wanted done, and then he thanked me and wrote me a check when I was done.
Solzhenitzin? No. I understand he wasn’t really the most outgoing of people. Lots of strange, solitary people head to Vermont. People like Salinger, for example.
I stand corrected Rick. I kind of went a bit far with that one.
JD: You don’t have the freedom to call your Uncle Ali, who is in the Iranian military or hang out at the local Hizbollah Wednesday Night Bowling Club without being tracked and spied on – without your knowledge – or without even the benefit of a secret court having oversight. Or perhaps you were a simpleton who was in Afghanistan looking for a new goat on September 12, 2001 and are now sitting in Guantanamo Bay looking like a big time chumpsky? Probably the people there were not passing through Kabul looking for goats on 9/11, but we will never know, because we have no oversight. Your Aunt Martha could be down there knitting jilbabs for her cellmates for all we know.
Now, most decent, law abiding people would not engage in those activities, nor would they be stupid enough to go to Afghanistan to find a new goat: But you don’t have the freedom to do so even if you were just a dumbass and just really loved your Uncle Ali, goats, and bowling with your hairy, kinda smelly, and shifty-eyed buddies on Wednesday nights.
The point being that you don’t necessarily have to be affected negatively by some abridgement of freedom to actually have lost it. It is gone, and perhaps we won’t miss it. For now, we ARE safer. And I, as a person who was living in DC and working in Virginia on September 11, 2001 am glad to be safe. But I take full responsibility for ceding away rights that I don’t think I need right now. I think everyone should just be frigging honest and say “Okay, I AM okay with the secret courts, the bypassing of even the secret courts, the warrentless wiretapping, the extraordinary rendition – all of it – for now. Because I am safe – for now.” and stop the pretense.
Again, Lisa, there’s no warrantless wiretapping going on, mostly because there’s no such thing as wiretapping any more. The only thing that’s truly warrantless amounts to packet screening.
Rob Crawford: That is my point: I disagree with you on a lot. I do not think your viewpoint is fundamentally corrosive to freedom. I do consider you just as fine and upstanding American as the next guy. I do not think your viewpoint undermines the United States of America.
The casual metaphors that people drop about the other side that somehow imply evil, unAmericanness, and sinister intent should be called out – by pointing out the logical ends to such talk. If a group of people is inherently and fundamentally evil and “bad for America”, what to do with that group? Isolate them? Deport them? Kill them? Since that is obviously not your intent, then why even go there? What is your aim in pronouncing this group fundamentally wicked or hopelessly vile?
We are polarized enough. And when I see reasonable people passing that kind of shit on, I want to know where they are going and why they feel the way they feel.
Don’t get me wrong: I am no shrinking violet, I am proud to be called a Trotskyite tinkermonkey (I was actually called that once – for real) a pretentious socialist crank. I am not being a sensitive little baby here, I am wondering about how and why we think the way we do about each other as fellow Americans.
Not only were Bush/Cheney not tried for war crimes, they were reelected.
These things tend to work out OK.
Lisa – I have uncles in Dubai and Tehran. I expect that the call patterns are analyzed, and if it turns out that Uncle Abbas or Uncle Talib are connected to terrorists, that my government will rightfully be concerned.
Goats?! I always knew that those peace lovin goat-fuckers were up to no good. Beady little eyes they have.
Some of my best friends are liberals.
#
Comment by Lisa on 5/13 @ 1:27 pm #
#170: Proving my point about how there are people who have to have to make their political opposition into insidious, evil enemies. The “mask is slipping†indeed. What shall we do? Kill them all? ZOMG! The New Left is coming! To arms! To arms!
Only when they act like a disease.
You do a very good job of expressing yourself without rancor, and I generally like to hear what you have to say. Cleo, nishi, thor, et al,on the other hand are like stupid on afterburner.
The inability to call someone in a suspect country during war without being certain your call isn’t being monitored isn’t a violation of a civil right or liberty. It’s the rational expectation of a government engaging in due dilligence. It’s called “connecting the dots” which the 9/11 commission and others rightly condemned the failure of the intelligence agencies in failing to do so. Too many people need to spend time in a real tyranny to see what it’s really like so they have some sense of perspective.
It’s like Hurricane Katrina. People were screaming about how slow and corrupt and messed up the government was. Want to see what that is really like? Do you want to see what it’s like when disaster hits and the government is incompetent, even malign? Check out Burma.
you missed the bit a few months later when they were screaming about W trying to take over the government by trying to fix the “why weren’t soldiers there sooner?” problem. that was entertaining. DO SOMETHING!… okay…. NO NOT THAT!!!
and Lisa, there are so many crazy assumptions in your scenario @251,it’s sad. There is oversight, just not the kind that agrees with you. maybe you should ask the congresscritters on the intelligence committee about that.
I’ve never considered it my civil right to consort with the enemy during wartime. If I do call uncle Abdul in Waziristan, the packet sniffers will look for certain words to crop up in the conversation. As long as I don’t tell him that I’ve cased the local Air Force base and that the plastic explosives are ready to go, I figure I’ll be fine.
Try joking with someone about carrying a suitcase nuke within earshot of airport security. They’ll nail your carcass to the wall until they determine that you are not a terrorist but a moron.
As for everyone sitting around sharpening their knives, you might want to read this article by SciFi writer Orson Scott Card on how a civil war could start in this country. He doesn’t spare either side.
It’s not that I don’t approve of your lifestyle, Rusty. No, I don’t care enough to approve or disapprove, frankly. It’s simply that you and Karl can actually apply to adopt children that gives me shivers. Together you two should not be able to adopt a chow, much less a human, and that truly disturbs me.
If I might drag this conversation back to Obama’s purported radicalism, I’d like to suggest that the point is being missed here. Whether BHO is radical or not is quite beside the point. It’s clear that his close associations tend in that direction, however, and that bodes ill for a potential Obama administration insofar as he will drag many thousands of these America-loathing, Hamas-hugging root weevils along with him to staff his Departments should he win. And I’m not even addressing his Supreme Court picks.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
You do realize that everyone at Gitmo has spoken to attorneys (despite not really being entitled to them)? And that they’ve spoken to Red Cross representatives? And that Congress has not only had oversight, but never claimed to have been left out?
(In fact, the wiretaps were disclosed to Congress, and the Congresscritters decided there was no need to change the laws.)
There were maybe half a dozen folks held at undisclosed locations, but the fact we were holding them was no secret. Most importantly, they had no legal protections under any law anywhere in the world; we treated them better than required.
Except that none of that is particularly new. We’ve not sacrificed any rights for temporary security; in many ways, the Bush administration has been more careful of obeying the law and protecting our liberties than the Clinton administration was (“no controlling legal authority”; Gore’s comment that we could just grab bin Laden without worry about an indictment; Waco, Ruby Ridge, political IRS audits, FBI files, Billy Dale, perjury and suborning perjury).
The difference is that the Democrats and their allies in the press have tried to create scandals and crimes from policies the Democrats often helped formulate, and which are often more moderate and considered than the policies Democrats preferred. The most anyone’s been able to accomplish on these witch hunts is to find a staffer whose recollection differed from a reporters, and find a jury willing to indict him based on that difference.
To point out that they’re fundamentally wicked or hopelessly vile. Fer crissake, I have as much contempt for David Duke, Matt Hale, and some of the bizarro religious right as I do for Chomsky, McKinney, Medea Benjamin, and Wright. There are people who are so vile, who hold views so repulsive, they deserve to be shunned, to be excluded from public life; one side of our body politic realizes that, and has done a decent (though not perfect) job.
The other side puts their loons and whackos on pedestals, and seems to give them more respect the more dangerous they are. Former Weathermen come to mind…
Me too, happy. And hippy chicks give excellent head, which is nice.
Deservedly so.
For the most part, I agree with Jonah’s book. Towards the end, though, he starts making a lot of arguments that look like: “Nazis loved movies, and progressives love movies, therefore, progressives are scarily similar to Nazis.” He does best when he sticks to the essential nature of fascism. Not all similarities are going to be relevant.
For those interested in reading more on the subject, and what I think is a deeper, more essentialized analysis of the issue, I recommend Leonard Peikoff’s The Ominous Parallels. Jonah also recommends it.
In the end, ideology of the centralizers and consolidators of power is only peripherally important. Albert Jay Nock did well to boil it down to two modes of political thought: those who prefer Social power and those who prefer State power. Once all the levers of power are in the hands of the State, it’s just a matter of time before they will be abused. Even if absolute angels erected the apparatus, devils will eventually run it, and those institutions that were thought to be benign will menace us.
I should note again that on days I publish, traffic plummets.
There is indeed a trend here.
Albert Jay Nock did well to boil it down to two modes of political thought: those who prefer Social power and those who prefer State power.
What exactly is social power? I prefer individual rights.
There is indeed a trend here.
I don’t see how that could possibly be the case. You’ve gotten nearly 300 comments on this one post, and if nishi could have steered it into the “republicans hate science” ditch, you would’ve had 600 easily.
I confess I haven’t done my part today, though. I had a play date with the kids this morning, and crashed when we got back to the house. So there’s a lot of your traffic right there. :/
Lisa,
How ’bout “Not vote for them?” Talk about projecting an overreaction. My question at #82 remains unanswered, icymi.
Think of it as a big bundle of individual rights: assembly, speech, religion, association, contract, property, etc. Essentially, Social power is the ability of free people to organize themselves as they see fit, with a minimum of State interference. Nock also made the distinction between “government” and “the State,” with the latter being a government that has slipped the leash of protection of its citizens’ rights and become a malign force and its own interest group.
Jeff,
Ummm… no. Traffic is about where it has been. Perhaps toward the lower end of the range today, but Dan usually posts less on T and Th, and I had obigations today. So it’s really more the total number of posts (which in turn drive links from memeo, MM, etc.) that accounts for the difference. That being said, when Jeff posts something, I generally do tend to let it breathe for a couple of hours by not posting.
that bodes ill for a potential Obama administration insofar as he will drag many thousands of these America-loathing, Hamas-hugging root weevils along with him to staff his Departments should he win. And I’m not even addressing his Supreme Court picks.
Yeah that’s a genuine concern. At best he shows very questionable judgement in the people he picks to advise and surround him, and there’s no indication that will somehow end when he’s in office. The typical pattern is to drag the stiffening corpses of former Democratic party officials to surround you, but since they’re Clintonistas with lunatic loyalty to the man and his harpy wife, I expect a President Obama would grab his own peculiar blend of cabinet members from his soup of radicals, America-haters, and extreme leftists. And that’s a problem.
Lisa, if I were you I’d be TERRIFIED at the prospect of an Obama regime dragging a crowd of reactionary lefties into the government.
The Constitution? It’s a living document.
“Stroke of the pen – law of the land. Cool!”
I already said but it’s like a restaurant I think. Consistency is key. It’s like the Thai place where we just turn around and go get tacos when the funny lady is not there to cook things and do the extra spicy the way she does the extra spicy. You have to be the tacos.
Oh, I dunno. Seems like Obama’s neighbor, honorary advisory affiliates and former pastor might be less an indicator as that of David Axlerod and David Plouffe and a few other of his campaign staff. I’d go so far as to say Barack Obama might kick some effen ass as President if one considers how he ran his campaign. Surely his campaign’s non-stop punkage of mealy mouthed pundits says something positive of those around him who actually matter.
O!
#82: Karl I am not sure I understand your point. I don’t see where he said she should be considered mainstream. You will have to point me to the damning quote.
I see a whole lot about Ayers and how he is really not that into Ayers but Ayers is a tenured professor so he can’t really be that bad, not that he really knows him or anything…(kind of an amusing little verbal minuet there).
The treatment Hamerhoff describes at the hands of the overweening clergy of the current paradigm is part and parcel of what I find troubling about science.
oh, sempai, how sad it is that you show your prejudice so crudely.
that is not what i showed you.
what i showed you is the emergence of a new paradigm.
even tho Hamerhoff’s cohort is shocked to the bone by his out-of-box thoughts, Stuart Hammerhoff is not shunned, supressed, fired, or blacklisted.
and if/when penrose/hamerhoff q-consciousness becomes the best current model, it will be adopted.
the second thing i had hoped you would see is the bleeding edge of scientific thought right now…the q-space between the maths and the quantum-biology.
we are getting so very close. ;)
/cry
#185: Nish that is one of my FAVORITE songs in the world. I love that band. I saw them at Constitution Hall in DC a couple of years back. They are much fatter but still sound amazing. Talk about a bunch of too-cool hipsters in the audience being unable to contain their goofy glee and singing along wildly to River Euphrates (while jumping up and down like dorks – me included).
#277
Yeah. Providing Rezko doesn’t get indicted and bring the whole mess down with him. Oh and Levine. You really want these people running around Washington? I was right in my first assessment, you really are a dunderhead.
You don’t have the freedom to call your Uncle Ali, who is in the Iranian military or hang out at the local Hizbollah Wednesday Night Bowling Club without being tracked and spied on
Yeah, so?
You can’t get a package from Uncle Ali in Baghdad (or even Toronto), either, without it being subject to inspection at the border.
ALL governments reserve the right to inspect communications and physical goods which cross the national border.
You’re welcome to point out an exception.
Hint: you won’t find one.
#283: Exactly my point Spies: We don’t have the pure freedom we crow about. We make compromises for the good of the country ALL OF THE TIME. That was my original point. Someone said “why do you liberals want to take my freedom” or some shit like that, and I replied that there are freedoms that we give up all of the time for good (and sometimes silly) reasons. It is not a “leebruls want yer freedum” thing. It is just the world we live in.
Except Ayers and Wright are more than just his neighbor and former pastor, aren’t they? These were the people B. Hussein O. chose as mentors and boosters when he thought no one was looking.
We make compromises for the good of the country ALL OF THE TIME.
This is a slippery slope argument, Lisa, and not worthy of you.
#275: Luckily, there is a Supreme Court and a legislative branch. As paranoid as I sometimes was of Bush and his band of crazies, like John “Wassamatta” Yoo, I knew that there was a limit to the crankery that they could foist upon this great republic. The founders were genius. You may have all the stupid ideas about the Constitution that you want, but you can’t change it without the states ratifying that change. Good luck with that. And you have a Supreme Court with eight old geezers (plus one young guy who looks like Larry Hagman circa “I dream of Genie”) who will send you and your strokes of the pen packing in short order.
Lisa, I get your drift but object to the use of something as benign as Customs enforcement to justify every subsequent encroachment into personal liberty. It’s possible to have paved roads and police departments without being thrown into the slammer for serving someone a few grams of transfat.
#286: You are kinda being slippery here. You say “so what” to the assertion that we are not exactly free to associate with whomever we want (not that reasonable people WANT to associate with such people). You cite that we have to have our shit searched when we travel in and out of this country – which is true. But then you tell ME when I point out that these are things we willingly allow for the good of the country that I am making a bad argument? Where are you with this, besides all over the place?
. But then you tell ME when I point out that these are things we willingly allow for the good of the country that I am making a bad argument?
Your “argument”, summarized:
Cambodian: I work in the fields at gunpoint 20 hours a day. If I slack off, my head is added to that growing pile of human skulls behind the barracks.
Lisa: So what? We all give up freedoms all the time!
“The inability to call someone in a suspect country during war without being certain your call isn’t being monitored isn’t a violation of a civil right or liberty. It’s the rational expectation of a government engaging in due dilligence.”
Thank you Mr. Taylor.
I have family in Israel. We speak about 4-5 times a month and I’m not even in the LEAST concerned about what packets go where or what have you.
Lisa? If a dyed in the wool Reagan republican WITH connections to the ME has no worries about packets/connections/FISA then why should you? It’s not like they’re listening to your recipes for goat(yuck,trust me) or lamb (YAY)….really kid…what’s the problem?
fuckin’ imbecile, nishit is.
Uh, Lisa, the “Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Cool!” quote is from Clinton.
How concerned were you with his abuses of power?
#288: I agree. And yes, we as a society LOVE to foist our pet peeves onto everyone else and run way to far with whatever bug flies up our ass about some moral or social issue. But again, my intent was not to justify it(well, maybe a little…I feel guilty about my acquiescence to the post 9/11 security state, but I live in the big city and I get nervous) but to point out that we do compromise our freedom often, on both sides. We want to regulate who gets hitched, who smokes, who reads girlie mags (or naked men mags) who does or does not pray in the public square, etc etc. We tend to be quite certain that we are NOT violating someone else’s rights when we are trying to enforce our pet bug-up-the-ass. But we clearly see when someone else’s silliness-du-jour is an abridgment of our liberty.
Actually, you’re free to associate with such people. You just cannot expect to escape scrutiny due to that association, especially when that association crosses the borders.
No one ever said freedom meant there would be no consequences.
And also no one ever enjoys the music while their party is reached.
You askin’ if I wants them thar dark people swinging from da trees and chunkin’ spears at gazelles in Washington DC?
Yes, hicktard, I’m very OK with Barack Obama. Him a good sum’a’bitch.
Actually, a lot of the folks here have no interest in regulating any of the above. I, for one, think if there’s any regulating or changes in the current regulations, it should be a legislative act, not a judicial act. It’s a subtle distinction, but a real one.
You may have all the stupid ideas about the Constitution that you want, but you can’t change it without the states ratifying that change. Good luck with that.
I think everyone here is very glad that the Constitution cannot be changed easily.
I guess you missed this brouhaha about how Progressives don’t so much seem to mind changing the constitution by being less than fussy about the relationship between a word and its common meaning. If ya can’t persuade ’em to legislate it, get a judge to find the meaning in a magical umbra.
For the common good, of course. They have to circumvent the process because all us morons don’t know what’s good for us.
Wasn’t he talking gleefully about signing a bill into law? LMAO!!!! Isn’t that a common practice, for the POTUS? You know, Rose Garden, officious and self satisfied congressmen and senators standing behind him, some random kid in a wheelchair whose life will be gloriously improved by this bill – sitting next to him clapping as he signs, etc., etc.
I thought the implication was that Obama would get his Sharpie and start crossing out shit in the Constitution. I didn’t know that you were implying that he would (ZOMG) sign bills into law. With a stroke of his Evil Communist Ball Point…(the horror)
For nishi: Just because science can do it, doesn’t mean it ought to. :-P
Prithee, what is my ostensible prejudice?
I have presented ideas before science advisory boards. I have read of the treatment of those who had the temerity to suggest that they saw rocks fall from the sky when the paradigm did not permit such possibility. To acknowledge that scientists can act like a bunch of territorial chimps seems silly to characterize as a prejudice, but call it what you will.
I am entirely cognizant of the potential for a rigorous means of examining the religious impulse in the link. I am entirely cognizant that Hamerhoff is proposing a quantum mechanical focus for explaning consciousness–indeed for the fundamental mechanics of the brain. Intra-neuronal even. Thoughts of God. Everything is math. I get it. I get it.
What you seem to refuse to get is that science doesn’t operate in a vacuum. The antecedent of science is epistemology. Will there be a grand unification someday where epistemology and science merge? Maybe. But it ain’t happened yet.
#299: Yeah I saw it, but I thought the whole thing was so specious that I just ignored it. I was totally not in the mood.
#299: I think I may have posted a trollish remark or two, I can’t remember, and I don’t even want to annoy myself by looking.
dur, hamerhoff is looking for the-god-in-the-gaps.
im pretty disappointed that you aren’t more enthused.
and this is just one example that destroys the ben-stein-expelled-calumny.
dr. hamerhoff is mad respected, well funded and just chaired his own theory of consciousness symposium.
in Science, every heresy that supercedes the orthodoxy gets rough treatment.
you know that, sempai-san
50 years ago quantum theorists were mocked and reviled.
Today quantum theorists are unpicking the fabric of spacetime at CERN.
What the fuck do you take me for? I’m a fucking discordian fer chrissake.
Anyway, if science has any value at all, it’s always looking for the God-of-the-gaps.
We don’t have the pure freedom we crow about‘
Oh fucknutz, another dimocrat who hasn’t a clue that there is a difference between freedom and liberty (and never ever deigns to read the coins in his/her purse/wallet).
Expelled hasn’t even made half of what Patrick Dempsey’s Hair made, and it’s not like HBO or Showtime are gonna pick it up. It just seems like time to kind of let it go. Is it just me?
dicentra i find that Card article somewhat worrisome.
if this election plays out like predicted, the left will have control of both houses of congress and the presidency.
is that scary?
i do think Card is oversimplifying.
the right suspects academe of teaching their young to be atheists, Card even speaks of an “atheist religion”.
but the truth is more education leads directly to more secularization.
academe teaches science and problem solving, not atheism.
but the end result, loss of traditional faith, is exactly the same.
Just to complete the idiot comment trifecta, I will mention that I understand how that shit works. It’s a necessary part of the process. I’m not talking about skepticism, I’m talking about people acting like assholes. It becomes more frightening when one/some of these assholes who is/are employing some bit of science as a panacea then gains political power.
I’m a fucking discordian fer chrissake.
erm…but most discordians have auxiliary faiths, don’t they?
i assumed from the presence of your comment-avatar here, at PW, that you were at minimum a theist.
;)
Darleen it is really cool that your civics education came from your purseful of pennies. Good on you, sugartits.
As always, it has been an educational and fun-filled evening. Good night, and good luck.
“Comment by Lisa on 5/13 @ 8:45 pm #
Wasn’t he talking gleefully about signing a bill into law? LMAO!!!! Isn’t that a common practice, for the POTUS? You know, Rose Garden, officious and self satisfied congressmen and senators standing behind him, some random kid in a wheelchair whose life will be gloriously improved by this bill – sitting next to him clapping as he signs, etc., etc.”
Um, no, Lisa, he wasn’t talking about signing laws. It was one of Clinton’s thugs talking about Executive Orders.
More of the ol’ leftist circumvating the Constitution thing.
dr. hamerhoff is mad respected, well funded and just chaired his own theory of consciousness symposium.
But has he had his shit quoted on the floor of the fucking SENATE!!!
in Science, every heresy that supercedes the orthodoxy gets rough treatment.
…and then it becomes the orthodoxy until the next heresy comes along to supercede it.
Rinse, and repeat. Unless you are a child, then you apparently must preen about the room as if you have discovered something novel.
Geez, widdle Lisa, I guess you think of the US motos the way Barry thinks of flag pins.
The role of tradition and symbols in society just whooshes right over that pointy head.
As paranoid as I sometimes was of Bush and his band of crazies, like John “Wassamatta†Yoo, I knew that there was a limit to the crankery that they could foist upon this great republic.
I thought she was going to make an argument for the 2nd Amendment there. Sadly, no….
I don’t know.
At minimum? What constitutes the maximum in that continuum?
the right suspects academe of teaching their young to be atheists, Card even speaks of an “atheist religionâ€Â.
but the truth is more education leads directly to more secularization.
academe teaches science and problem solving, not atheism.
Zeus on a Segway. First of all, Card is a Democrat.
Second: any answer to a religious question is a religious belief. “Is there a God?”
Yes. No. Maybe.
All three are religious beliefs. Other religious questions include “Is there life after death?” “What is the purpose of life?” and, the big Kahuna, “What is ethical?”
Again, any answer to these questions constitutes a religious belief. The only way to NOT be religious is to be incapable of formulating or comprehending the questions. I’m fairly sure my kittehs don’t pray to a god, Ceiling Cat notwithstanding.
Homo credens. That’s what separates us from the critters and the lettuce.
Third, academe teaches science and problem solving in the Engineering department, but in the Humanities and Social Sciences, it teaches Marxism, and declare daily that Religion Is The Root Of All Evil. (CRUSADES! INQUISITION!)
They also teach that there’s no such thing as truth or Truth or facts or logic or anything.
They are, of course, determined to teach you the True Facts Of Progressivism, but then consistency was never their forte.
Also, among the LDS, the more education you have, the more religious you are. I can’t speak for the other denominations.
and declare daily that Religion Is The Root Of All Evil. (CRUSADES! INQUISITION!)
Christianity is the root of all evil. The others mean well but probably had abusive parents or some shit.
I don’t like to make truck with what would appear to be the sophomoric contrary qua contrary. That said, I’ve always thought of the role of tradition as a foil for novelty. You do recognize that what conservatives go about conserving was once a horrific innovation, yes?
“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Third, academe teaches science and problem solving in the Engineering department, but in the Humanities and Social Sciences, it teaches Marxism, and declare daily that Religion Is The Root Of All Evil. (CRUSADES! INQUISITION!)
i think we went to different schools.
:(
“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.†– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“The hell with change, show me the folding money” – B. Moe Hipp
What constitutes the maximum in that continuum?
sandwichboard guys.
;)
#322 mal
Maybe I should have been more specific, but I was using “tradition” in the sense of rituals and customs, social conventions … things that we do in the micro (family) and in the macro (society) that helps bind (voluntarily) people together in the now, attaches them to the past, and gives them impetus to share with the future. Healthy families have rituals that are shared with all members, giving them a sense of belonging and purpose in the family. IE family dinner table, Sunday dinners at grandma’s, who does what at holidays (and how those will be passed down through each generation). Healthy societies do the same thing at their level. Particular holidays with ritualized celebrations.
Novelty IS accepted in family/society rituals, as long as they are folded in with standing tradition … the tradition is tweaked, modified but it endures even as it changes.
The history of totalitarian regimes is to destroy the traditions of the society it conquers. People as unmoored individuals are easier to dominate and control … see the Soviet and Mao revolutions.
Did anyone ever really decode the Frank Black thing?
What constitutes the maximum in that continuum?
sandwichboard guys.
Better if they would just blow themselves up, huh nishi?
Nishi:
I went to Cornell. It was typical of the Ivy League in that way, and most other universities follow along because the faculty was trained at places like Cornell, and thus the virus spreads. I also did my undergrad at BYU, so I got to see some fierce contrast between the two worlds.
Can you say the same?
dicentra,
i went to U Mich and CU Boulder…..erm…but i didn’t ever take any humanities or social sciences.
i only took science and math classes, and there was no marxist bias there.
i got forced into the english classes that were honors college requirements, but that is as close as i ever got to lib arts.
except i have a minor in dance. :)
so i wouldn’t know. even if we had gone to the same schools, our curriculae would never have overlapped.
unless you took dance.
I reckon Barak’s cabinet will have to have three of every secretary. If he goes through those folks as fast as he’s gone through advisers so far there will probably be an editorial cartoon of him tossing subordinates off the sled to the pursuing wolves.
The wolves will all have Rush Limbaugh’s face, of course.
The next eight years are going to suck. But Limbaugh will pass Warren Buffet in net worth before 2015.
Or be in a camp somewhere…
Allahpundit is so funnie. ;)
game over, man, game over!
i didn’t ever take any humanities or social sciences.
You don’t say?
i only took science and math classes
You should sue them for breach of contract, given that you’re grossly incompetent at both.
curriculae
Illit.
The fact is, the left does take freedom away, deliberately, “for your own good” and for the greater good, as they see it. It would take too long to explain here, but if you pick up a copy of The Road to Serfdom some time you can read on your leisure time and learn all about it. It’s probably cheap at a local bookstore, but you might need help to find it, bookstore owners tend to hate it. Not refute it mind you. Just hate it.
Ditto to Hf’s #327 above – was Jeff invoking the Pixies dude, or Lance Henriksen’s alter ago?
I assumed Millennium, because of the dot connecting. OTOH, I’m not familiar with the Pixies.
I can’t SEEEEEE this. It’s drifting again!
Barack=minstrel jimmuh. Except scarier.
Jeebus. Please tell me that means you didn’t actually get a degree, ever.
I went to a private, non-religious university, majored in electrical engineering, and couldn’t get out of there without Western Civ, non-Western Civ, and a few other humanities. Had to take two composition courses.
Hell, I voluntarily took more humanities courses than I needed to. I’m not ignorant enough to think that math and science are the sum total of human knowledge.
#297
Trifecta! You make this soooooo easy.
[…] Bush is a strong supporter of Israel; but unfortunately we are seeing the rise of Leftism and Democratic Fascism here in the United States. From Protein Wisdom, Jeff Goldstein… For those of you still unfamiliar with the thesis of […]
Then who is the ultimate insider?
#339: Rob Crawford – Why cant you just be the knuckle-dragging cretinous conservative archetype like you are supposed to be? Why do you have to do things like argue in favor of including humanities as part of a well-rounded education? Damn your eyes, man.
I agree, btw, on the importance of civics courses, history, public speaking, writing (lots of writing), and a little arts sprinkled in there. It helps you personally, professionally, and as a citizen of your country and your world.
Lisa – Try explaining that to the nishit.
Second: any answer to a religious question is a religious belief. “Is there a God?â€Â
Yes. No. Maybe.
All three are religious beliefs.
There is no such thing as a religious question. “Is there a god” is a question of fact to which some people give a religious answer, and some people give a scientific answer. Religious beliefs are characterized by their reliance on faith. Scientific beliefs rely on reason. You can’t simply define that difference out of existence.
pfft
i klepped out of a humanities requirement with french, and ive taken dance my whole life pretty much.
I read the Greeks for love.
Pythagoras and Plato, mucho habinar.
Socrates and Aristotle, not so much.
Euripides FTW!
;)
i went to U Mich and CU Boulder…..erm…but i didn’t ever take any humanities or social sciences.
How did you manage to graduate then? Every college I attended had humanities/social science requirements for graduation.
maggie, not familiar with the Pixies?! Jeepers. Here’s a more appropriate link than nishi’s. And I sure dug me some Kim Deal back in the day. Of course there’s something about this song Debaser.
i just told you.
;)
and i dont know of ANY schools that require humanities/ss for grad school.
i klepped out of a humanities requirement with french
Ugh, no. Who takes a foreign language as a substitute for the humanities requirement? That’s ridiculous.
I read the Greeks for love.
Pythagoras and Plato, mucho habinar.
Socrates and Aristotle, not so much.
What, you didn’t enjoy reading Socrates?
and i dont know of ANY schools that require humanities/ss for grad school.
No one said they were required for grad school, but as an undergrad they are required as part of your basic studies.
/shrug
the klep equivalent of 2 years of college french fills a humanities requirement.
yup, socrates not so much. im sure it shows.
i had AP western civ and a bunch of that ss crap in highschool.
;)
gee Patrick, i thot Here Comes Your Man was purrrfect, since we were waiting for Jeff.
Writing, wtf. All poets are three-horned anti-social French mimes. You know what they can do to a country over time?
I’m breeding only big breasted women
Coaxing my sperm to swimming
You save the world by fuck’n beautiful
Shit!
Dosteyevsky’l never be useful
Not here, and way so not now
Hang’ em off the Eiffel Towers
Poets suck!
nishi:
How can you claim to be a scientist and not read and admire Aristotle? My guess is you haven’t read any of them.
and if i wanted to, i could have designed my own specialist degree program within the department, and ommitted the humanties/ss requirement altogether.
as long as it was approved.
when did you go to school ards?
cowboy, i just dont like Aristotle as much.
he trains frogs, plato trains birds.
UM honors college is like the university equivalent of homeschooling. As I understand it, it’s very individualized and self-directed.
#347: Nish – You probably should have taken that stuff as part of your core studies – which is mandatory at most universities. In rare cases, some private colleges let you get around some of them (I know at Brown, you can sometimes squirm around your fundamental math requirement). But there is a “formula” that academia has for the well-rounded undergratuate core curriculum. It has a proven track record. Students have a much easier time with writing and critical thinking in their major after they have mastered content in the core curriculum.
and i dont know of ANY schools that require humanities/ss for grad school.
Try taking your GRE without them! I had a reasonably well-rounded undergraduate education, that durn thing nearly killed me. During the time I was studying, I went to go pick someone up from National Airport and accidentally drove onto a limited access road at the Pentagon (at some ungodly hour) and nearly got my ass shot off. I burst into wild lunatic tears while my license and registration were being run and they were searching my car, and eventually the boys in the jeep with the shiny guns took pity on me and told me to go home and get some sleep(maybe become reaquainted with a comb and brush – those bright search lights are very unflattering).
Nishi has a very individualized and self-directed high-IQ. Too bad she’s not Jew-powered else she could be one of them famous scientists someday.
Is there a world in which Socrates actually wrote something down? If so, do they have pizza and donuts there?
And the fact Nishi skipped out on it, explains much.
Lisa, i think a lot of unis now expect students to get core requirements out of the way with AP coursework.
all i had my senior year in highschool was AP classes, lab-assistant gigs, and one english class i had to have to graduate highschool.
the nerd track i guess.
wow….did u drive thru a gate by accident? i didn’t know there were any ungated roads there.
even the parking lots are gated i thot.
yup, socrates not so much. im sure it shows.
What shows is that you think that Socrates ever wrote something that you could have read.
when did you go to school ards?
My last semester was in Fall of ’95. I was working on my MA in Philosophy. My wife was due with our first child in the Spring, so I dropped out to go back to work.
cowboy, i just dont like Aristotle as much.
he trains frogs, plato trains birds.
Plato is easier to read because what we have by him are a finished product intended for publication. All we have by Aristotle are his lecture notes. None of his published writings have survived. Even though that makes for difficult reading, it is his works that revived the study of science in the West.
Good scientists are frogs. They are grounded in reality. I’m not surprised that you prefer Plato.
edu guy, there is nothing left that Pythagoras “wrote down” either.
we do the best we can with Iamblichus and Herodotas, i guess. ;)
I’m one of those knuckledragging “conservatives” who actually *gasp* taught in the Humanities! Not only am I proficient at literary theory (or, as I like to call it, Project Enigma), but I can dash me off some pretty edgy fiction, too. None of that Left Behind garbage, either. When my heroes or heroines find God — if indeed they really have — it all plays out through a kind of narrative gauze.
Nuance.
Shit, man. Means I have all the tools to be a progressive. ‘Cept I’m plagued by a genuine desire for fairness, and despise the will to power. The Prince is a parody, by the way. Not a handbook.
but im not a “lab” scientist. ima mathematician, so of course Plato and Pythagoras are more appealing to me.
compatible skull furniture.
think about it this way…..social sciences is frogview. evo bio is birdview.
I was working on my MA in Philosophy
kk that splains a lot. ;)
gtg
Jeff, you are the Mathematikos.
im just here as one of your aukousmatikoi, to learn what i skipped over in school.
;)
job opening!
purrrfect for u.
;)
really. l8r.
Well you can’t just turn off and nip into General Petreaus’s parking spot. But they have a turnoff that is “their” exit. There is no access to anything but the Pentagon (I think it is the south parking/carpool area), so if you take that exit to try bust a U on the 395 because you passed the airport exit, you will be in for a learning experience. Oh there is also a similar exit off of the 295 that leads to the NSA. You better be an employee of the NSA (or have a lunch date with Condi) or you are toast.
Herodotus, FWIW. Which is probably not much.
I can always tell the nishi-infested threads because the comments start creeping off the LHS of Eplorer.
Sorry, I’ll try to do better at the stereotype. No more classical history for me. :-(
(To make matters worse, I can’t recall ANY of my classmates who resented taking non-technical courses. Mostly we griped that the humanities folks should have to take science courses more demanding than “Rocks for Jocks”.)
I griped. I hated the idea that I had to waste time at becoming well rounded. I see the wisdom now, and in fact am making an effort to learn what I missed on my own, but at the time I just wanted to be done and to start earning.
Well, nishi demonstrates again why I’m suspicious of recent college graduates. There’s a qualitative difference between the worth of AP high school classes and actual college courses, if only because of the relative maturity of the student. If it’s expected that students will test out of core requirements… *shudder*
Anyone sane realizes that their real learning happens after college. For one thing, there’s a lot more TIME after college than during. For another, no course work compares to reality.
AH, those were the days. We called the Industrial Engineers (IEs) Imaginary Engineers because they only had to take the easiest courses from the various engineering disciplines. We engineers have our own brand of snobbery, although we weren’t so snobbish that we’d turn up our noses at an attractive Humanities major.
There just weren’t many female engineers back then.
Most of my better grades were in the non-engineering disciplines, if anyone’s interested. I kicked ass in freshman comp and German lit. Econ was more of a problem for me, because it was all of this wonderful mathematics built on a foundation of human psych.
edu guy, there is nothing left that Pythagoras “wrote down†either.
we do the best we can with Iamblichus and Herodotas, i guess. ;)
You’re dodging the point. You said you read the Greeks, and then you listed several, including Pythagoras and Socrates, who neither one wrote anything. If what you meant was that you read about the Greeks, that’s different and that’s what you should have said.
but im not a “lab†scientist. ima mathematician, so of course Plato and Pythagoras are more appealing to me.
compatible skull furniture.
Then don’t be surprised when people question your motives in wanting to preserve a special place for science outside the realm of ethics. A philosopher-king is still a tyrant, and we’ve seen some very blood thirsty ones over the past hundred years.
Jeff that is a serious violation, the Department of Political Stereotypes will issue you a citation and Official Denouncement within 24 hours. Please stand by.
Hee hee, not that that goofiness ever really held up very well anyway. I have yet to meet a conservative who has ever come close to fitting the ridiculous stereotype. I have a friend who is REALLY conservative but is a vegan, runs an art cooperative as an avocation, and got his MBA from (gasp)Berkley. California is pretty politically diverse, though the left usually wins the political arm wrestling matches. But the conservatives are there, living happily amongst their pinko brethren (hell, California gave you Nixon and Reagan…and B-2 Bob Dornan for that matter – so the left coast can definitely breed some golden wingnuts).
And my mom’s side of the family lives in Utah where they have an exceptionally high rate of college grads, people who have studied abroad, and people who are fluent in a language other than their native English – but is a solidly red state.
And well, I now living in Baltimore…which could be an anthropological study on urban societies populated with very stupid lunatics – and we are proud, proud liberals in these here parts.
But it is still fun hurl insults accusing each other of being arugula eating dilettantes or a mouth-breathing beasties with gun racks.
For me own part, I had too many interests. Took forever to nail down a major and still tried to minor in everything.
Still might try for a Masters in EE, though.
AH, those were the days. We called the Industrial Engineers (IEs) Imaginary Engineers because they only had to take the easiest courses from the various engineering disciplines.
HA! I know a little about this. My cousin took one brand of engineering and my brother a different one. My cousin took one of those that people look their nose down, and my brother is constantly reminding me that he took the “real” course. @@.
Of course, my cousin started OUT making 70 K + years ago and is now way above six figures. My brother is … not.
#375: I don’t think there is an expectation there, Rob. I still work in academia, and believe me, they shudder at the thought as well. They place some value on AP and A-Levels, but they don’t grant you an express pass out of general studies because you have them. And to exempt out, you have present a perfect or near perfect AP score. Many students are disappointed (read – angry enough to bring their idiot parents into threaten you on their behalf) to discover that that 3 or 4 out of 5 gets them credit toward a lower level elective at best.
i own guns. i have a ruger semiautomatic with a 16shot clip and my old browning shotgun that i’ve since i was 7.
ards, im sorry i should have said read about the greeks.
and i will confess, i have read every scrap about Pythagoras i could find, and umm…punted mostly on the socratic method.
it just didn’t interest me, and i didn’t have to write a paper on it.
;)
ima send jeff that link in the mail. its perfect for him. and its local.
Interestingly, the early Pythagorean schools were heavily interested in morality. Did you miss that part nishi?
Six figures isn’t all that remarkable for engineers, depending on the values of the leftmost two digits.
Industrial engineers can make loads, because they tend to go the sales route. IEs learn just enough engineering to be able to communicate with engineers, but no so much that they can no longer communicate with non-engineers.
I was an engineering major for two years, then switched to business. Even as an engineering student, I had to take humanities and-gasp- even an ethics class. My ethics prof reminded me of a Scrubbing Bubble.
I considered majoring in engineering, but I couldn’t figure out why they wanted me to know so much math to drive a train.
Depends on the market.
Six figures isn’t all that remarkable for engineers, depending on the values of the leftmost two digits.
Industrial engineers can make loads, because they tend to go the sales route. IEs learn just enough engineering to be able to communicate with engineers, but no so much that they can no longer communicate with non-engineers.
My cousin is doing pretty well. I just bring it up ’cause it’s funny. My brother – and stepmother – are of the ilk that “genius” IQ and the proper grades at a good school should be enough to make a high salary. They look their nose down at my cousin (same school, “lesser” degree) … but what they miss is that she is REALLY hard working and driven. And it burns their butt that she makes 4 times (or more) what my brother makes.
Like has been said here, and before – IQ and the “right” college is just a tiny bit of the equation.
I was an engineering major for two years, then switched to business. Even as an engineering student, I had to take humanities and-gasp- even an ethics class.
I did my first two years at a community college. The second year I took physics and calculus to prepare for an engineering major. My next two years were at UF working on a CE degree. I dropped out, went back briefly as a Math major at FSU, and then finally got my BA as a Philosophy major. The heavy irony there is that when I was in high school thinking about what I wanted to major in, my first choice was philosophy. I decided it was impractical as a career. It was ever so much more practical to spend those years working on a major in which I had so little genuine interest. On the plus side, I think the time spent as an engineering major and working in the real world helped prevent the Pods of Academe from stealing my brain when I finally did get around to studying philosophy.
Bucking the trend in Universities and humanities requirements, I only had to have either a major and two minors or a double major and one minor (UCSD, Warren College). The only non-technical/non-mathematical work I did was get a minor in creative writing. I also took Psych 1.
Otherwise, one year of poli-sci AP courses in high school, and a stray class in philosophy, rounds out my formal education. Informally, though, I have learned quite a bit. One does not need to study a subject in school to get to know it. Often the opposite is the case, where the instructor can turn you off. I had to take one poetry writing class for my minor, and it killed me from every writing poetry again. Probably for the best.
A Ruger pistol with a 16 round magazine….
Right.
My humanities requirements were fairly minimal. I took a semester (possibly two) of German lit, a semester of Comp, and a semester of public speaking, IIRC. Oh, also a philosophy course: symbolic logic, which was a mapping of sentences into symbolic logical statements. IOW, it was just like my digital circuit design course, after said mapping. Boolean algebra.
Let me just say that the discovery that a piled higher and deeper was not only not a ticket to the big money, but that instead I had priced myself right out of the market in a lot of cases, was quite an annoying shock. Luckily I did it mostly for my own gratification, and had a good time doing it.
God, I wish there was a way I could fix the comment drift my browser seems to impose on this site. Once we get much past 150 comments it’s like trying to decipher the Rosetta Stone.
Agrees with Carin. Big time – but with a caveat: There are some careers where the right schools and the right commencement honors are essential if you want to make partner (lawyers, for one). But for the rest of us it alot about timing, savviness, etc.
What’s the problem?
Religious beliefs are characterized by their reliance on faith. Scientific beliefs rely on reason. You can’t simply define that difference out of existence.
Just be sure you don’t act like there’s no faith in science and no reason in religion.
cranky-d true. I think it is understood that the university is the place to introduce
16 round capacity (15 +1) no problem. 16 round mag? For a Ruger? Never heard of such a thing myself, which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but seems contraindicated.
Woops! Suckah ate my comment! here goes again:
cranky-d true. I think it is understood that the university is the place to introduce students to ideas and subjects. The expectation is that it will fine tune their ability to analyze and critically examine ideas as they go forward with their lives. The hope is that they will a) walk a way with a command of written as well as verbal articulation; b)demonstrate critical analysis and evaluation of arguments (sadly, blog-trollery is not considered a demonstration of this ability); c)demonstrate the ability to conduct research (beyond Google and Wiki); and d)understand a variety of major ideas in disciplines outside of their chosen major.
Instalanche?
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Just be sure you don’t act like there’s no faith in science and no reason in religion.
Science does not rely on faith. Period.
When religion employs reason it can improve itself, but it can never get rid of its nonrational foundation without disappearing.
I just want to thank you again, Jeff for having a blog on which the commenter’s name appears before the comments.
#404: Agrees.
Everything begins with an assumption (or more correctly, a set of assumptions), including science. It’s not rational. It is how it is.
Everything begins with an assumption (or more correctly, a set of assumptions), including science. It’s not rational. It is how it is.
No, in science everything begins with sense perception. There have been a number of critiques of sense perception, but they always rely on the claim that some sense perceptions are false when, in fact, it is the conclusions reached from the sense perceptions that are false, not the perceptions themselves.
I dunno. Universality — that the laws of nature are (largely) constant across space and time — is a pretty big leap of faith, and without it the idea of repeatability would be inconceivable.
Chalk me up for more humanities, especially writing, in technical programs.
I’ve happened into a gig as an engineering manager and have been astounded at how poorly some of these ladies and gentlemen write. I’m OK, but no great shakes, but there’s stuff I read that I will not allow to leave the department.
(And that “six figures for engineers” *very* much depends on the market and the discipline.)