[Cog]

I guess this is supposed to be interesting to the people in South Dakota who were quite convinced that Occupy was going to sneak in their bedroom window and cut their throats in their sleep. It seemed as if there was a fair number of people like that.

People need to know what their tax dollars are supporting and what Democrat policies are bringing them. Do you not want informed voters?

[PrestonSturges]

I guess this is supposed to be interesting to the people in South Dakota who were quite convinced that Occupy was going to sneak in their bedroom window and cut their throats in their sleep. It seemed as if there was a fair number of people like that.

People need to know what their tax dollars are supporting and what Democrat policies are bringing them. Do you not want informed voters?

Notice once again the huge fantasy conflict that's going on in your head and how emotionally wrapped up in it you are?

[Cog]

One wonders why you object to the information in this thread. Could it be that you don't want the voters to understand the dynamics happening on college campuses? Or does it somehow make Democrats look bad in your mind?

You are free to post in the Hillary Clinton thread. It doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic these days. Perhaps she could use a boost since she supports much of what the BLM movement is all about. Or you could simply post here your support of what these students are after. That isn't too difficult for you is it?

I would feel bad if it bothers you that conservative Republicans are members of a peak oil site. I would further feel bad if this information is triggering your feelings. Such information is purely for your education. I'm sure we can all work together to assuage your feelings.

[PrestonSturges]

One wonders why you object to the information in this thread. Could it be that you don't want the voters to understand the dynamics happening on college campuses? Or does it somehow make Democrats look bad in your mind?

..... And there you go, down the rabbit hole of fantasy again. Your response to any feedback, no matter how neutral, is to crank up your magical dream machine.

[Cog]

One wonders why you object to the information in this thread. Could it be that you don't want the voters to understand the dynamics happening on college campuses? Or does it somehow make Democrats look bad in your mind?

..... And there you go, down the rabbit hole of fantasy again. Your response to any feedback, no matter how neutral, is to crank up your magical dream machine.

Let me try a different tack with you. What do you think of the BLM student demands? Surely that question is direct enough and the purpose of the thread is to generate discussion.

[Sixstrings]

Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Beware of the 'safe space' movement

Much like school zones, the "safe places" cropping up on campuses represent an attempt to twist the laws of nature in a decidedly unnatural way, creating a world where contrary ideas are never heard, where nobody has to deal with anything they might find offensive, where "trigger warnings" precede lectures and where some ideas are just too outrageous to be heard at all.

And much like school zones, acquiescence to this kind of thinking breeds adults ill-equipped to deal with life after education, where offensive ideas and people abound. There are no safe spaces in the real world, in the workplace or in life. Quite the opposite, actually.

Sadly, liberals should be the people most opposed to the squelching of free speech in the academy in the name of inclusion and tolerance, for no better reason than this: free speech is the tool that created tolerance and social change. Speeches, marches, sit-ins, demonstrations and protests gave us suffrage, civil rights, voting rights and, now, marriage equality. And entrenched establishment interests consistently sought to squelch those ideas. Sometimes they used the law, but ultimately those anti-freedom efforts ended the way all fascism does: with fire hoses, billy clubs and dogs.

So to find liberals not only silent in the face of safe spaces, but actually advocating for them is heartbreaking. Liberals were once the forces agitating for change, relying on freedom of speech and freedom of thought to do it. Now that liberalism is ascendant, they have become the oppressors, the very people the previous generation would have sought to overthrow.

And make no mistake: The "safe space" movement is not simply an effort to help people get along with each other, to lessen the historical pain of discrimination or expiate the original American sin of slavery. It's a naked, obvious attempt to control not just what people say, but what they think and what they believe.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/columns-blogs/steve-sebelius/beware-the-safe-space-movement

Without ranting, my concern is that "political correctness" is right when it's about some very basic things -- like just equal rights and equal access and people not being bigots and yelling at others *just because* they are black or latino or gay or transgender etc.

That make sense. People can't go around being bigots in society, it's not right, anti-bigotry is a moral issue. It's right and wrong, bigotry is flat wrong.

But then -- with the "safe spaces" thing, it's not just political correctness but it's like the "safe space" encompasses an entire ideology, a whole list of things and more things keep getting added, and then everyone just has to accept it in entirety and it cannot be questioned -- because it is in the safe space.

An analogy to this forum would be: what if "peak oil" were declared "safe space" -- therefore, no cornies allowed. Would that really be best? Or would it turn into an echo chamber?

Now think about a safe space with a set of ideologies that encompass all of society -- all universities, all workplaces.

It just feels to me like a "safe space" for the far left to be "safe" from criticism from centrists, and the right. As if the far left are the only ones that can talk, their ideas are "in the safe space." Liberalism itself is not a protected class, nor should conservativism be.

There's not supposed to be a protected class of ideas at all, it's supposed to be organic and natural and consensus is organic and a result of free speech and free press and free assembly and vigorous debate and consensus just naturally emerges, without declared "safe spaces" from criticism.

[Plantagenet]

liberals should be the people most opposed to the squelching of free speech in the academy

Thats not how liberalism works these days. Modern Liberalism is mainly about "helping" protected groups, which unfortunately means discriminating against non-protected groups.

Liberals gave us affirmation action for protected groups in college admissions, which is actually racial discrimination against non-protected groups.

Liberals gave us racial preferences in federal contracts which is actually racial discrimination against non-protected groups.

Liberals gave us racial preference in hiring of protected groups which is actually racial discrimination against hiring of non-protected groups.

The "safe space" movement is more of the same----liberals now believe speech must be limited to protect special "protected groups" ---from hearing things they find offensive said by non-protected individuals and groups.

cheers!

[Sixstrings]

The "safe space" movement is more of the same----liberals now believe speech must be limited to protect special "protected groups" ---from hearing things they find offensive said by non-protected individuals and groups.

Personally, I'm not complaining about protected classes of PEOPLE -- rather, protected classes of IDEAS.

It just shouldn't get to where socialism as a philosophy, is a protected class too.

Minorities and women that happen to be Republicans, have every bit as much right to talk about their political philosophy and it should never become "not pc" to just be conservative.

[Sixstrings]

Alan Dershowitz says safe spaces are hypocritical, and "dangerous double standards:"

Safe spaces for hypocrisy: The dangerous sensitivity double-standards at play on America's college campuses

Student activists recently staged protests at Dartmouth University library, both to demonstrate against the vandalism of a Black Lives Matter display, and to show solidarity with similar initiatives held on various college campuses.

Activists verbally harassed onlookers, shouting racially charged epithets and expletive-laden slogans at students who were trying to study. And while Dartmouth administrators have dismissed reports of physical violence, there is no doubt that the tone of protests on college campuses has grown increasingly vitriolic. Two weeks ago, for example, protesters allegedly spat on attendees of an event at Yale held to highlight the importance of free speech.

One of the central demands repeated by protesters at campuses across the country has been for university administrators to transform campuses into “safe spaces,” where students are protected not only from physical violence but also from ideas that they find threatening or offensive. However, the “safe spaces” envisioned by these protesters seem to matter only when the interests of those who share their political persuasions are affected.

There has been conspicuously little attention paid to incidents of anti-Semitism reported, for example, at Hunter College, where students supportive of Israel were chased away from a rally blaming high tuition fees on “Zionist administrators,” and where protestors shouted “Zionists out of CUNY” (the City University of New York), by which they meant Jews.

At Vassar, Jewish students have repeatedly stated that they feel forced to self-censor pro-Israel views out of fear of retribution from peers and faculty alike. This year in a survey at Vassar, students responded that it was best not to advertise that you were Jewish on campus. At UC-Berkeley and the University of Texas, Jewish students have been frightened by shouts of “Long live the Intifada.” The Intifada they were referencing involved the stabbing of Jews.

Where are the cries for safe spaces for Jewish students faced with such blatant intimidation?

Instead, “safe spaces” rhetoric has been used by students to insulate themselves from ideas that they deem offensive. Last spring at Columbia, the Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board objected to the inclusion of material by the Roman Poet Ovid on the ground that “like so many texts in the Western Canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom.” Last month, an event hosted by a student-group at Williams College called Uncomfortable Learning, was cancelled due to security concerns when protestors subjected organizers to severe online abuse.

Most recently, “safe spaces” activists demanded that a Yale residential hall administrator resign for daring to suggest that banning certain Halloween costumes might raise a freedom of speech issue, and that the university should not act as a heavy-handed censor.

At Smith, meanwhile, students successfully pushed administrators to ban reporters from covering a protest, unless they expressed support for the Black Lives Matters agenda.

The hypocrisy of protestors demanding protection from potentially offensive ideas while simultaneously insulting and harassing people who fail to demonstrate adequate levels of enthusiasm for their agenda should be obvious to all. But too few university administrators and faculty call out these hypocritical students for their double standard.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/alan-dershowitz-safe-spaces-hypocrisy-article-1.2442092

[PrestonSturges]

Ben Carson has proposed all sorts of government censorship, maybe some of you selective free speech advocates should check on that.

[Outcast_Searcher]

liberals should be the people most opposed to the squelching of free speech in the academy

Thats not how liberalism works these days. Modern Liberalism is mainly about "helping" protected groups, which unfortunately means discriminating against non-protected groups.

You'd get a great big frownie face for pointing out that obvious, but politically incorrect, truth in a "safe place" I'm sure.

At least 25 years ago, you could joke about it as a corporate employee. In 1990 I remember my manager explaining about IBM "protected groups" in a meeting. Since I was the only person who was white, under 40, male, and not protected by a large list of other things requiring IBM to artificially boost my career beyond my competence level, I was the only person NOT in a protected group in that group of roughly 20 people.

I smiled and joked that "it's hell being a young healthy white guy in America these days". No one outwardly seemed to mind.

Today I can imagine being "counseled" and seen as an "attitude problem" for the same comment. On a college campus, I can easily imagined being called "racist", "intolerant" and worse in some college kangaroo court.

Whatever happened to the idea of treating everyone equally, and being a capitalistic meritocracy? I guess that would work too well. Just like the idea of free speech -- well, it's just the first amendment, so who cares about that in the land of political correctness?

[PrestonSturges]

I sailed through college and graduate school without ever arguing politics and scarcely ever hearing a political opinion. But I was a science major.

[Plantagenet]

A university in England has just put a "trigger warning" on George Orwell's book "1984."

peak-irony-university-puts-trigger-warning-george-orwells-1984

That should protect the little snowflakes at the university from having to read anything thought provoking!!!!


The liberal thought police put a trigger warning on George Orwell????

SHEESH!