Taxpayers shouldn't fund colleges that don't protect free speech

[your_dude_james]

https://nypost.com/2019/03/10/taxpayers-shouldnt-fund-colleges-that-dont-protect-free-speech/?utm_source=reddit.com

Why should we continue to help fund schools that don’t allow a free exchange of ideas?

During a recent speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Trump floated the idea of an executive order withholding federal research dollars from schools that don’t protect speech and free inquiry. Conservatives rightly cheered, but there’s more to be done to preserve and advance right-of-center views on the quad.

Left-wing academe and its media cheerleaders, of course, don’t even acknowledge there’s a problem. A piece in the Washington Post following Trump’s speech was headlined: “Questions abound after Trump threatens to strip funding from colleges that don’t support free speech.”

The article quoted many people ostensibly supportive of free speech who were nevertheless concerned about Trump’s plan.

They don’t get it.

Jonathan Friedman, campus free-speech project director for PEN America, was quoted as saying that “colleges are not the enemy of free speech that this administration has sometimes made them out to be.”

But they are exactly that. Colleges are educating a generation of young adults who can’t hear ­opposing viewpoints. That this is dangerous to freedom of speech should be obvious.

Sigal Ben-Porath, a professor of education, political science and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, was also quoted in the Washington Post’s report, warning that Trump’s proposal is “thought-police territory.”

Ben-Porath has written a book ­titled “Free Speech on Campus,” yet she treats efforts to protect viewpoint diversity on campus as somehow straight out of a dystopian future. Ben-Porath has previously referred to “the focus on free speech as a wedge issue” and ­argued that free speech on campus is not under attack.

Again, this is plainly untrue â€" as any conservative or libertarian speaker who has ever been invited to speak on a university campus knows. Nowadays, it’s rare when such invitations aren’t met with calls for censorship, physical ­intimidation and violence and eventual dis-invitations.

[Minimalist]

But they are exactly that. Colleges are educating a generation of young adults who can’t hear ­opposing viewpoints

And you'd never apply that to fucking FOX "News" would you?

[Baruch]

The only people to start a war are ...

1. People who think there is a winner
2. That they will be the winners.

The Progressives started a political war, can they finish it?

[Unbeliever]

The Progressives started a political war,

They did? Which war would that be?

[Baruch]

Just to be clear, for our OP ...

I am not in favor of funding our colleges at all.  With the Internet, most of them became obsolete.  Whether the government subsidizes buggy whip manufacturers, or gets apprentice buggy whip workers to go into obscene debt ... isn't my problem.  Mostly people in history continue to do the same old thing that used to work, until it doesn't anymore.  With anything, if continued long enough, even if it did work at one time (GI Bill veterans in college in the 50s), it will eventually stop working.

[Baruch]

They did? Which war would that be?

You are the funniest guy here (when not obviously in a depressive episode).

University of California, SDS 1965 Berkeley CA ... and the beat goes on ...

The Yippies took a breather 1972-1992 ... they had to find jobs.  But with Bill Clinton they came out of hibernation.  Just ask Cavebear ;-)

[Shiranu]

But they are exactly that. Colleges are educating a generation of young adults who can’t hear ­opposing viewpoints. That this is dangerous to freedom of speech should be obvious.

Citation required.

[Baruch]

Citation required.

Some departments in some US colleges, don't support free speech.  But what to do about that?  In Europe, PC and hate speech law basically bans free speech.

[Mr.Obvious]

Some departments in some US colleges, don't support free speech.  But what to do about that?  In Europe, PC and hate speech law basically bans free speech.

Shhhh, baruch!  Big brother is watching!

You'll get me in trouble by asociation.

[Blackleaf]

Oh for fuck sake. This Conservative talk show bullshit again. Colleges do not restrict free thought. They do just the opposite. They teach critical thinking skills. The longer one spends in college the more likely they are to be Liberal, but not because their professors and classmates are putting pressure on them, but because critical thinking exposes the bullshit the Right fundamentally relies on. Indoctrination breeds Conservatives. Education breeds Liberals.

Furthermore, just because an opinion exists doesn't mean it deserves equal attention. Should geology classes teach flat earth philosophy? Should psychology classes teach the opinion of some religious people who think mental diseases don't exist and that prayer is all people need to be healed? Of course not. If an opinion is baseless, it deserves no consideration. Yet that is exactly what Conservatives demand in schools and colleges. Christian and Conservative propaganda given equal time.

[Baruch]

Shhhh, baruch!  Big brother is watching!

You'll get me in trouble by asociation.

Guy Verhoefstadt ... Belgians have him to atone for.  Cringe-worthy.  He is the Belgian Big Brother.

[Blackleaf]

If colleges are to be defunded for any reason, it should be for bleeding their students dry. Overcharging for tuition, books, etc. If they're getting money from the government and still feel the need to charge over $100 for a single textbook, maybe they shouldn't be getting funding. They don't always use the money they get responsibly either. I remember one of my professors complaining about them repainting their walls, which were not the least bit worn out. They weren't even changing the color. "That's our tax money at work," he said. Meanwhile, the elevator was notorious for being slow and occasionally leaving people stuck.

[Shiranu]

If colleges are to be defunded for any reason, it should be for bleeding their students dry. Overcharging for tuition, books, etc. If they're getting money from the government and still feel the need to charge over $100 for a single textbook, maybe they shouldn't be getting funding. They don't always use the money they get responsibly either. I remember one of my professors complaining about them repainting their walls, which were not the least bit worn out. They weren't even changing the color. "That's our tax money at work," he said. Meanwhile, the elevator was notorious for being slow and occasionally leaving people stuck.

I don't know how closely involved the universities are (i'm going to assume heavily), but the pricing of textbooks is set by corporations and not the schools themselves. That said, I am sure the universities are heavily involved in the pricing process so that's not to take any blame from them... just to say that the blame needs to be on all parties involved.

Tuition is the real killer. My mom was able to work a part-time job and pay her way through school without taking a single loan. To make enough to pay for my tuition a semester if I had no other expenses (on an average salary here), I would need to work 40 hours a week... which is basically impossible because of class schedules and no one hiring full-time.

That's 40 hours a week that would go straight to tuition, not counting other fees and costs related to school... and not counting housing, gas, utilities, car payments, car insurance, internet, student loan payments, medical payments, food, leisure and everything else that comes up where you need to spend money.

I pay about $220 a month on student loans, $80 on cellphone, $260 on car payments and insurance, $80 gasoline, $125 on medical bills... so in total about $760 in bills, while only making about $800 a month... which is what most people I know in college make. And unlike them, I'm not currently paying rent, which has skyrocketed in university towns... the average here is about $1000 a month.

It is, simply, an unsustainable system; we are up to something like 1.6 or 1.7 trillion dollars worth of student loan debt and most of us have to live paycheck to paycheck to get by. That won't change once we graduate and as prices continue to rise on everything more and more of us are going to have to default and have our lives (and our families, because we cannot file for bankruptcy and student debt collectors come after not just you but your families' assets and credit) destroyed.

I've noticed drug use and alcoholism tends to be a real problem for my generation, myself included... but I don't see what our alternative is. Deal with that sober?

[Baruch]

Correct.  Once the publishers figured out that textbooks were being traded from older students to younger students, they jacked up the price.  This wasn't the case in the 70s when I was an undergraduate.  To my mind, the best professors don't use any textbooks at all, just notes.

[Cavebear]

OK, I'm going to express the idea that one side is deliberately and falsifiably inaccurate and wrong, and the other side is just really bad a politics.  Do you want to guess which I think is which before reading further?

OK, "spoiler alert", Republicans generally don't actually care about facts and consider all politics just a big game to be won (usually) for money and influence.  Democrats are caring and real "Boy and Girl Scouts" and think that facts matter and that Government is really about governing for the whole, fairly and with compromise.

So Republicans are all wanna-be dictators and Democrats are naive dreamers...

That's the simplistic view of both sides. 

I was a Republican for years and I know how they think (winning at life is everything and pushing at the rules is the way to win).  I'm a Democrat now.  I want all of us to succeed, I want the world to succeed.  It's possible. 

If Republicans had ruled the world from ancient days, we would be living in highly organized and hierarchical very clean caves where some people got a lot more food than others.  If Democrats had ruled the same time, we would probably be living in rather disorganized caves, but everyone eating about the same. 

We need both in the US for balance.  But what we do NOT NEED is a Donald Trump and his criminal associates.  Trump is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.  He is a con man, a grifter, and liar about everything.   His instinct is to lie.  So far as I can tell, it instinctual to him to lie.  We do not want someone like that in charge of our Government.

I leave you to draw the logical conclusion of how the Special Investigator and Congressional Committees will decide.