Any organization is probably in violation of any number of rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
They did. Remember Trump University? It got shut down for fraud.
If you're looking for an actual conservative university, a better example would be a place like Liberty University. I think the problem is starting an institution is hard, it'll only really hit its stride like 100 years after being founded, and it's hard to keep an ideological project on track for such a long period of time.
Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.
If there is a Christian university, it should either be sponsored by Christians only, or similar funding should go to other universities representing other major American groups (for example Jews).
Discrimination based on political views should be treated the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation or race.
Either lose funding, or comparable other universities should be funded so all relevant spectrum is covered.
Federally funded institutions should cater for all Americans. The army, police, schools, hospitals... shouldn't be there only for one half of people.
And it's been a private institution for hundreds of years.
The reason that academia is overwhelming left-leaning is that those are the people that choose to go to grad school and pursue academic careers. For whatever reason (whether ability or inclination) conservatives do so in much smaller numbers. You want conservatives in academia, go get a Ph.D.
Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism."?
Also this has nothing to do with immigration. It would be the same situation if everyone at Harvard were 10th generation Americans.
Sure, why not? Everything should be open to criticism at our institutions of higher learning. If not there, where? That which is above criticism is dogma.
> including students supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism
In Trump administration code, this means "has ever said anything positive about the Palestinian people." So yes, them too.
The second is that hostility to American values is actually pretty subjective. For instance, the January 6 insurrectionists were very hostile to American values and used violent terroristic tactics to try to destroy the constitutionally mandated transfer of power. But Trump pardoned them all because it improves his ability to wield violence against America in the future.
It's impossible to take any of this document seriously in that light.
I'm not sure you thought this through—if Harvard stopped accepting Republicans like you're suggesting, I'm not sure how many people would be left.
2. We both know and understand that's not what's actually happening. When you have people peacefully protesting for the genocide in Palestine to end and they get disappeared by the state, then the situation is different. Please, at least try to be honest.
It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.
Similarly, when Julius Caesar turned the republic into an empire, and was subsequently assassinated: it did not mean the empire reverted back to being a republic - rather that centuries of increasingly despotic emperors lay ahead.
Their last king wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England, and was one of three (or four) kings (Louis XVIII, Charles X, (arguably Henry V), and Louis Phillippe, who reigned between the First Empire (and consequently also after the First Republic) and the Second Republic (and consequently also before the Second Empire.)
Their last monarch was even later, and also wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England. The series of governments after the last monarch includes only the Third through Fifth Republics (and, depending on how you look at it, the Vichy regime between the Third and Fourth Republics.)
And IIRC there wasn't much substantive difference between the Third and Fourth Republic; the latter was basically a restoration of the former after France was freed from German occupation, not a change in governing philosophy by the French people, so you could argue that there were as few as two substantively different French systems of government after the last monarch was deposed.
(1) It is still an interesting topic, because in this case, it has world-wide consequences.
(2) Many of the problems of the world can only be solved if people are convinced that those are important problems. You need to fix people's closest problems first, like their bread and perceived security. Each individual has just one life, I wouldn't say it's selfish to want an OKish life, and only then think about what's best for the human race.
(3) Most of the right voters were convinced (and might still be) that they were doing what is good for them. But it isn't. They voted wrong, they were tricked against their actual will.
(4) This is not a singular event. The same may happen somewhere near or around you maybe sooner than later, so analysig how it happened, which groups exactly voted against their own advantage, and how to make the consequences clear and understandable beforehand, and how to prevent it in general -- all this is important.
Not wasted resources at all. The opposite. We need to remember that this is not a boring news topic.
The sooner that happens the better for everyone it is.
> Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, ...
That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove.
Also, this is not an individual Darwin problem like the stove example -- this has consequences for many bystanders who did know better, and many more bystanders who had no say in this.
Nowhere near it, the hand is hovering near the fire - people are shouting "don't put your hand in the fire" and the kid is saying its nice and warm and see nothing bad has happened, I am going to put my hand right into the fire and it will be great.
Trump term 1 they bailed out the Farmers for 20bn when they messed around on tarrifs and blew it up. They learn't that there are only two outcomes to fucking around 1) you win, 2) you find out and they give you 20bn.
If those are your outcomes the only rational choice is to vote for Trump and cheer him on in fucking around as much as possible.
Let them burn their hand.
So you really have no idea! Sad!
I suppose you have also never been hungry and bitten into a wonderful-smelling and -tasting hamburger only to find that a finger (yours, to be clear) is in the bite, and thus you become at one moment both ravenous attacker and fearful prey struggling to escape?
Such experiences are part of life, to be embraced only afterward.
Is this like "you're not a strong man unless you've been this stupid at least once"?
Strong vs. weak does not seem like a desirable way to structure society. It's no fun. Yes, I also find football competitions really boring.
I revisited the "stove experience" several weeks ago. While at a convenience store I entered the restroom to find the sink water running full blast. This only increased my urgency and aided the process (as flowing, dripping, or running water often does). Once relieved, I walked over to the sink and plunged both hands into the cold whirling water in the basin. At once I was caught between my (vividly-imagined) thought of cool swirling relief and the sensory reality of boiling hot water - the former wished to enjoy the pleasant ice-cold flowing water in the sink and the latter could not withdraw fast enough.
Life provides you with a sequence of such experiences:
- a pre-adolescent viewing with puzzlement his older siblings as they mature and begin to participate in courtship,
- falling in love,
- making love, etc.
Some people never have certain experiences. We're all different to some degree b/c of that.
Go ahead, put your hand on the stove. But be careful about touching that woman!8-))
P.S. Yes, I turned the sink off, depriving the next poor soul of my worldly experience.
How many Americans despise the liberal universities and their students? How many Americans think the US should be a Christian nation?
Fascism is popular. Many people will fall for it. Time and time again. The US is not special- it happened in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal. It can happen in America.
It's changed my outlook a lot to make an arbitrary decision to stop assuming people are stupid when their stated goals don't line up with their actions, and to start assuming the easily predictable results of their actions are their actual goals regardless of what their stated goals are. Once I did that, I started being able to understand and even predict what these previously inscrutable people would do next.
I look forward to your article about Americans obviously being pro-obesity, and finding heart disease super attractive.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to [federal funding]. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
Voting is just one big popularity contest, and 54% of American adults read at or below 6th grade levels.
I'm just not a good bootlicker. I call stupidity wherever I see it. You can keep your "caution", I'm moving on from this conversation.
He really screwed up the "people beneath you" part with his "effective strategy" . The people beneath him wanted at best lower prices and at worst stronger deportation. As it is, they are the ones suffering the most from these economic policies (because blue states tend to have more funding to weather this BS) and he decided to go full mask off on the idea of deporting US citizens. These aren't popular actions nor views, outside of the most fringe supporters (who aren't enough to carry such a narrative).
It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid.
> High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states).
Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.
Let's be clear:
1) Trump very clearly - very obviously - cares a lot about broad US economic performance compared to China.
2) This is at odds with his desire for unlimited power within the US, because corruption and oppression doesn't do very well economically.
That's why it's stupid - it doesn't serve its own goals. One of those two has to give.
He and his voters don't understand "Woke" is great for the modern economy. You want everyone working at their absolute full potential. Slaves don't invent chips, corruption drives away business investment, etc. It's very simple to understand if you're not a racist, but the South has been stuck on this point for generations.
I maen, what are their goals? To make more money? Yes, stupid to crash the economy just to insider trade. Power and influence? Yes, it's stupid to overextend too fast. Ask 99% of regines from human history (Rome, Soviet Union, Great Britian). Ideaological warfare? Yes, it's stupid to outright declare constitutional war on day 9x out of 1400.
What are their goals?
> the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance"
well they should have. Again, Bread and circuses. Mess with people's money and they get neither.
Again, stupid move. This could have been an easy, silent, calculated takeover in the course of two years. Instead they just swung a hammer at the house and are frustrated that people are yelling at them.
They already have more than everything money can buy, and more than the GDP of most countries.
It’s not about the “company” anymore. They want _everything_. And will do whatever they can do get it, even if we think it looks stupid.
“Whoopsie doopsie we said something contradictory, anyway you’re all wrong and deported - don’t call back ever, and your school doesn’t get your taxes anymore but bombs for killing people in the Middle East does!”
It's a social problem. Smaller democratic political arenas work closer to the ideal. Larger political arenas have more noise and less concise agendas, because of the disparate groups being appealed to. The US is too big. Large societies, across time trend toward authoritarianism (sometimes leading to full-fledged) until revolution and dissolution. Then the remaining states fight amongst themselves within a region, assembling into a singular organization due to practical and political factors, until it starts over again. Eventually you get something like europe and most of southeast asia. States tend to be more stable if they roughly match their regional terrain boundaries and aren't too large.
If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy in signal groups.
Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
By the way the answer to your question is simple: the American people are fascists, not just the president.
Then again, it is understandable not everybody has the luxury to be in circumstances that allow adequate forms of resistance.
If you ask about which country, I'd say it depends. It depends on who youaare, what your skills are, which climate zones and cultures you prefer, whether you're willing to learn a new language and so on.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
The goal is white decline and misandry.
See what I did there? Both sides play this game, both sides think they own the moral high ground.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-standard/comment/a-focus-o...
We don't think that's what the "other side" is saying, we know. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
Again, both sides play this game, both sides claim to have "reality" on their side.
You don’t seem to be thinking very well.
You don't seem to be thinking very well.
The world is really a lot more interesting if you try to understand everyone’s actual perspective. It also becomes much more coherent. Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
In what I’ve seen of “race realist” writings online, they tend to be very anti Israel. So to associate the admin with “race realists” for cracking down on anti Israel protests strikes me as lacking an understanding of either the admin or of the “race realists” perspective.
Also, seeing people whose goals are cruelty to others or harm to me as neutral is wrong.
the Trump admin aren't (for the most part) "race realists." or antisemitic. or philosemitic. no, the Trump admin is cynically indifferent to the plight of the Jewish people. they're using antisemitism as a cause celebre, a useful cudgel to attack their enemies on the Left. Republicans are using Jews the way the Democrats used trans people - as pawns in a game of identity realpolitik. at least until our political liability outweighs our usefulness, then we get left holding the bag.
you can spot false allies like this because they will amplify the most extreme voices, the most divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, when speaking for their charge. I guarantee you, most trans people didn't want Canadians fined for using the wrong pronouns, and most Jews don't want grad students deported for writing an op-ed. the loudest voices aren't ours.
Neonazis tend to like the idea of Israel while hating the occupants. They hate sending aide there but love it if Jews move there.
The notion of a Jewish state was an OG Nazi idea (see Madagascar plan). They wanted a place to send their unwanted citizens.
On top of that, core to most fundamentalist Christian belief is that utopia will happen after a strong Israel gets involved in massive wars. That value is why you may see neonazis cheering on Israel as an aggressor because they believe it'll lead to utopia.
This is why mixing support for Israel with whether or not someone is antisemitic is silly. Israel isn't the Jews and Jews aren't Israel.
If you're arguing a fairy-tale definition of "evil" as an inherent property were people do evil for evil's sake, or simply can't help it, sure - almost nobody is "evil", if having actual, realistic motivations automatically disqualifies "evil".
I think evil can still be a useful, moral concept, if you give up the need for it to be absolute and objective, while accepting the ambiguity that comes with it. Still, it's likely possible for a lot of people to agree what constitutes evil, especially when seeing examples.
I would certainly like to keep considering things, actions and sometimes even people, to be "evil", _especially_ after considering their motivations, views and justifications.
Further, the Trump administration is committing violence against people simply advocating for no more bombing in Palestine. Despite the administration's claims that these people are "Hamas supporters" and "anti-semites", the bulk of these people are not actually advocating for violence to be done to jewish people that might put them in concert with far-right anti-semites.
But not all fascists are neo-nazis. Just because a subset of today's fascists describe themselves that way, doesn't mean they are fundamentally different from other fascists. Look at Steven Miller; he's jewish, and quite obviously a white supremacist. He's all about dehumanizing people he thinks of as leser, and he welcomes the new fascist America. AfD, the german far-right party, is both very pro-Israel and loves to play "tread the nazi line and extend it"-game. Anti-semitism is a common, but not necessary prerequesite to fascism.
When I was younger I also thought the opposite of good should be bad, and it is silly to describe things as evil. I disliked the religious connotation, but have changed my mind. There are people committing absolutely horrible things, and calling it anything but evil is underestimating the depravity of those characters. To quote Captain G. M. Gilbert:
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
If your interest is in killing me on account of how I look and nothing else, I would indeed consider you evil. Your "viewpoints" end where my rights begin.
as for the admin, I don't care about their views. They have a constitution to follow. Which is specifically aobut what the government cannot do to its people. We tolerated KKK and Neonazi rallies under those principles of freedom of speech and assembly. While citizens can counter protest, the government stepping in to quash either of those people is illegal here.
If oppression justifies these rocket attacks, a lot more than some rhetoric can be justified as well.
>the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
I don't know how you say that isn't aa textbook definition of genocide.
To say their goal is just killing people is way out of context and blind to the facts.
Either these places find peaceful solutions like Egypt or Jordan, or they will face military consequences for their aggression that will also hit innocents, which is what is happening now.
Hamas wanted to start this war, not Israel. There are numerous way for them to get their land back and sue for peace if they take the chance. Of course they don't get land that is Israels, they have lost their war.
And no, when people talk about "freedom of speech", it is not about just saying that. It is about saying anything. The problem is, and always has been, people. Why? Because when you defend it, you tend to defend ones that are, at best, edge cases.
My impression that the rate of censorship overall has plummeted. Pre-Elon, it was easy to get banned for wrongthing. People would gang up on wrongthinkers, mass-report them, etc.
I wonder what the rates of actual bans have been.
tripled.
They just want to protect nazi speech, like I said in the downvoted comment.
I don't care what your vibes are here.
They aren't even against actual anti-semitism. Happy merchant memes, george soros conspiracies, protocols stuff, that's all A-ok because it's nazi stuff.
If you have the wrong opinion on israel palestine, it's the concentration camp for you.
The first group the nazis sent were social democrats, peace activists, journalists ... The famous nazi book burning was at an lgbt institute. I mean they're just doing nazi shit. I don't know why this isn't clear.
Without knowing the denominator (# of accounts, # of posts, # of new accounts), I'm not sure what to make of it.
Even then, we want the subset of bans that were for political reasons (i.e., supporting Labour is fine, supporting Reform is hate speech). According to the actual report (which can be found here: https://transparency.x.com/content/dam/transparency-twitter/...), of 5,296,870 account suspensions only 2,361 were for "hateful conduct", while 57,185 were "violent and hateful entities" and 1,102,778 were for "abuse and harassment". Eyeing the categories, those are the only ones that seem plausible for political motivation.
So it's some subset of that 1,162,324 (22% of total) that we're interested in. I would bet the vast, vast majority of those either aren't politically motivated, or are politically motivated but in such a way that virtually everyone would agree (e.g., torturing puppies for fun).
And, of course, among politically-motivated bans, not all will be in support of Red Team / against Blue Team. Some will be bans of Red Team supporters, and for some the valence won't be clear.
That's what we do know.
As far as "Red/Blue" that's not current.
Instead we've got an establishment party, the Democrats, a disempowered left, a disempowered conservative party, and a party that does Nazi shit, the Republicans.
That's why a bunch of the Bush era conservatives lined up behind the Democrats, conservative and right wing are Not the same just like liberal and left wing are not
As for Red/Blue not being current, I'm not an expert. The only bone I would pick is the Republicans aren't doing "Nazi shit". Nazi / Fascist used to mean something, you know. It seems like people are starting to use those words to mean "authoritarian" or something along those lines.
They don't care about birthright or other forms of citizenship and are trying to do a nuremberg law to redefine it.
Also see Civil Service Law (1933) where they purged political opponents from government jobs.
They've tried to strip the power of the purse from Congress and ignore the courts which is how an enabling act would work in the US context.
He's even trying to Lebensraum Greenland.
The famous Nazi book burn was at an LGBT institute. They're demonizing the same group
Hitler even had an Elon Musk named Alfred Hugenberg. I mean it's like they hired historians to do a full reenactment.
I dunno. There's these people that are like "well you see the Nazis demonized Jews while Trump demonizes Muslims! The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch was in November and January 6 was in January! Trump has red hats while the Nazis had red armbands!" Just falls flat
I'm going to be very honest with you: this strikes me as unhinged. I don't mean to put you down, I really mean to be honest. Our perceptions of the world are really, really different. I can imagine how you might believe things like this if you spent too much time in online echo chambers. The information environments they make for you are too...much. The bots run by nefarious parties seek only to make you feel the way you feel, make you believe the things you believe.
I can only recommend that you take a step back, and unplug, fellow traveler :-)
To "unplug" as you demand is morally reprehensible.
I don't use social media anymore and I don't own a television.
Auschwitz being in Germany was convenient because it was extrajudicial and outside of the German constitutional protection.
We're seeing the exact same thing. Trump shrugs that there's nothing he can do to bring the innocent person back AND that he intends to send thousands more regardless.
They've found their Auschwitz where people don't have a right to have rights as Hanna Arendt said. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Confinement_Center it even looks like a Nazi camp.
From the article "Trump further suggested to Bukele that he should "build about five more places" like CECOT"
They're actively trying to redefine citizenship status and send peace activists there.
What you're seeing is what Maurice Bardèche, the 60s French pro-fascist theorist was predicting. He's to fascism was Marshall McLuhan is to social media.
If these are new names to you then maybe the one scrolling through echo chamber memes might be you...
Personally I'm done with this fascist failing shit hole country.. I'm looking to leave. My portfolio is down over a million dollars since these Nazi retards took power.
Seriously, fuck this place
So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans. Which is possible, but unlikely given current speculations that Twitter is 80% bots.
This is a fair point. If I concede it, we still need some denominators.
> So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans.
Denominators.
Do you have any examples was banned for supporting Reform? I ask because I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard someone say they were banned for their political views and then checked to see that what actually got them banned was something like targeted harassment of a political opponent.
It's quite simple, IMHO, and not a free speech issue. Americans don't owe entry to everyone who shows up at their borders, nor do they owe them a full suite of rights and legal protections once they're admitted.
Also, using a terrorism judgement as an argument is a bit weak because it’s subjective, and because our western gouvernement do trade times to times with terrorist organisations. Heck my own countries is classified as a terrosist and I’m totally free to come visit the USA (which are themselves a terrorist state).
Totally. The pro-Palestine protesters at U.S. universities are often overtly pro-HAMAS too (or instead).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/protester-outside-colum...
I don't think that's what's at stake here. I would assume the vast, vast majority of deportations are some version of "You're here illegally because you snuck in / overstayed your visa / lied on some form. Here's a ride back to $COUNTRY"
I think what is at stake is the small, small % of deportations that are because of particular speech or actions that aren't transparently crime (e.g., stealing a car is transparently crime).
And to answer your question, I don't know. While it doesn't appear to me that the Americans are reaching the highest possible standards of due process, "no" due process is pretty obviously false. And I don't think it's an issue of the accusations being true or false, either--my impression is the facts aren't in dispute, it's what happens based on the facts that is.
OK, all of that said: my guess is the people being deported for supporting HAMAS aren't HAMAS supporters in some sort of deep, true, essential way. They're kids or young people who are swept up in a fad.
What I do not understand, and I do mean it, is why on earth would anyone argue to limit their own right to speech? Isn't it clear that you are, at best, undermining your own rights in the long term?
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of course.
"But an investment is not an entitlement."
Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world?
I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitted" indefinitely.
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
The people we must be concerned about that are arguing for a single viewpoint controlling American universities are those like yourself that oppose pluralism.
I'm all for pluralism. I have no objection at all to the existence of as many conservative academics as you please or whole (private) universities explicitly committed to conservative ideology. But there is no legal basis for the government to tell a private university who it should hire, fire, promote, or admit on ideological grounds. And it's also a super-ultra-clear first amendment violation to compel the speech of a private institution.
Finally, I'd like to point out the rank hypocrisy of calling for "merit-based" hiring and admissions in one breath, and then in the next demanding a quota system for ideology: "Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity." The government, as conservatives are so fond of saying, shouldn't "pick winners."
If there are a "critical mass" of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber professors out there looking for a position they should start their own university and admit that critical mass of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber students.
They are calling for Republican commissars in universities and accusing you of being the one who wants to enforce a single viewpoint and call you the enemy of pluralism. Not surprised, but I continue to be infuriated to witness such shameless insincerity from Republicans.
You are projecting. We have established you prefer a ideological uniform college campus and are campaigning against plurality of thought. Don't bother gaslighting people otherwise.
And yes, after being forced to start business meetings with a brief mention of whether anyone is transgender for the last few years, nearly everyone hates that. That’s why democrat approval is so low.
It's implicit, you just don't want to see it. It's literally political commissars.
> And yes, after being forced to start business meetings with a brief mention of whether anyone is transgender for the last few years, nearly everyone hates that.
What are you talking about? I never seen that or do you mean that people present themselves in a business meeting? Is this compelled speech to you? Hearing "Hi my name is Mark, call me he" is such a earth shattering trauma that you'll allow party officials in your universities?
Cool, you have no evidence.
> What are you talking about? > Hearing "Hi my name is Mark, call me he"
So you know.
The obvious fact is that what makes you mad is not the mention, it's the presence. Now you will say something of the lines "you are slandering me without evidence" because in bizarro land one cannot read beyond the strictly literal.
It's the same (intentional) blindness that can read this:
> [...] the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse. This audit shall begin no later than the summer of 2025 and shall proceed on a department-by-department, field-by-field, or teaching unit-by-teaching-unit basis as appropriate. [...]
> [...] Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity. [...]
And not get that "viewpoint diversity" is literally whatever the federal government wants. You don't succumb in some lite-Maoist struggle session? Fired. Your department grows a spine? Fired and subsumed to an already captured department. Posted anti-Trump sentiment in social media? Sorry, we reached the quota for liberals.
If I did find/replaced all the indications that this is a Trump initiative and gave you this during the Biden presidency you would be foaming at the mouth. Be honest with yourself.
No, you have accused without basis, because you know you have no defense of installing conservative Republican commissars in schools, and to privilege the Republican students and workers present, so your only hope is to gaslight and imply that your opposition is the same—again, typical of authoritarian conservative Republicans. You can keep accusing and gaslighting, but I will never submit to your dishonest narratives to justify the Trump regime's actions.
Accusing people that support diversity of thought as being authoritarian is more projection and also quite funny.
There are no Republican commissars. That is the conspiracy theory you made up.
There is no privilege for Republican students or workers. That is a conspiracy theory you made up.
The Trump administration is not a regime (in the traditional sense this word is used, ie for dictatorships) because you dislike it winning an election.
I am not a republican. I would desperately like the Democrats to become electable again. Advocating for admissions racism and brainwashing children into racist conspiracy theories about Jewish people doesn’t seem to be a good way to do that.
I accuse you of gaslighting because you speak well enough that you are probably not stupid, but rather completely aware of what you are saying is false. I suspect you think your righteous anger makes what you say true. It does not.
Yes, I'm calling Republican commissars authoritarian.
I'm literally quoting the letter saying that they demand an external party to audit the student body, the leadership, the staff, and their teaching units for sufficient "viewpoint diversity," which reports directly to the federal government. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see that this is a euphemism for instilling conservative Republican thought in the student body and in the classes they take. And yes, this will privilege conservative students and staff, because non-conservative staff will be fired and students will be denied admission as a result of this.
Do you think dictatorships have never been elected? Trump will not be held accountable for the laws he breaks, because his party would never betray him as their leader. He will not leave office. He will send and has sent people illegally and without due process to a confinement center in El Salvador in co-operation with Bukele, another authoritarian. I doubt there will be fair elections in red states - they'll probably claim mass fraud and throw out allegedly fraudulent votes. They already tried to send fraudulent electors to make Trump president in 2020, and a violent mob to the Capitol after that, as well as pressured election officials in swing states to find votes.
You may not call yourself a Republican, but I make no distinction among those who defend the regime so wholeheartedly. Keep playing the fool; it will not justify your authoritarian apologetics.
That's true. Harvard can absolutely continue to hire for, advocate for, and grade for a single political viewpoint, provided it does not take federal funding.
They can also continue to racially discriminate as title IX only applies to organizations that take federal funding.
Harvard should also lose their current non-profit status per Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983) if they continue to racially discriminate.
"It's fairly clear that Herr Hitler only means to instill properly virtuous German educational values."
No, we've seen more than enough to know exactly what kind of administration this is, and how it lies.
FFS it's just 3 months in and already they're kidnapping people from America into concentration camps for the rest of their lives (however short that might be) with no trial nor even the pretense of charges.
Come to think of it, what's The Hacker News policy on storing user information? Is it time for people who aren't fans of the current administration to make new accounts?
You don't see letters going out to conservative institutions demanding they hire gender ideology professors or communists.
A half step from "I asked a magic 8-ball" on this type of question.
In this case its strengthening particular social and economic hierarchies - america vs the rest of the world, and white christians over non-whites or non-christian.
What's interesting is that this is not necessarily a struggle between the top of a hierarchy vs the bottom of one, but between two different hierarchies. The democrats support cultural non racial and economic hierarchies, while the republicans support racial international and the same economic hierarchies. So while they both support the rich over the working class, there is a struggle over whether to support racial and international hierarchies. Democrats tend to support globalization, i.e unifying of the power of the top of the economic hierarchy across international boundaries, while eliminating racial and sexual hierarchies as they are seen as "inefficient" from a neoliberal perspective. Republicans are more focused on the "national elite", the rich people that depend on america being a global hegemon specifically, energy industry, military industira-complex, etc..
The problem has been that the Democratic party is the neoliberal wing of the establishment. Its purpose has been to create the illusion that economic progress is possible while working hard to maintain the economic status quo. Cultural diversity was the distraction and consolation prize.
Now the establishment wants full, unquestioned, totalitarian control now and no longer cares about maintaining the illusion of choice.
Ultimately it wants a country run on plantation lines with voting rights restricted to wealthy white male property owners, a "Christian" moral narrative (really just racism, greed, supremacism, and sexual opportunism dressed up in bible rags) and no independent sources of intellectual dissent.
Which means the bare minimum of public education, no science, no difficult or non-commercial art, no free thought in universities or academia, and as little free travel and contact with the outside world as possible.
The most comparable country is North Korea. So the likely end will be a heavily militarised and even more heavily propagandised country, run as a pampered inherited monarchy which tolerates a certain amount of education when it's useful, but is violently hostile to all dissent.
It's quite hard to get there from here. The shock-and-awe of the last few months were supposed to establish dominance, but it's not going to happen without resistance. Harvard is one example. There will be more.
Ultimately the military will be used to force compliance, and - absent a not entirely unexpected medical event - they'll decide which way this goes.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
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[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
[..] The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time [..] was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
[..] It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'"There are no differences between groups of humans no matter how you divide them"
"Everyone is a blank slate, it's all circumstances"
"Sex and gender are orthogonal concepts"
Under the previous regime, who started this bullshit since we ended it with McCarthy, questioning any of these would get you fired in academia.
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...
The statements that she made hinge on a supposed "strict sex binary," which relies upon forced ignorance and denial of the existence of intersex people. This is a weaponized claim used to gird the foundations of an ideology which has successfully sought to engage in human rights abuses, initially directed by this administration at denying children social acceptance and access to life-saving medical care as well as directly impugning the moral character of US military service members while attacking their access to life-saving medical care and discharging them from service. Simultaneously, Harvard has come under attack from the administration on a purely ideological and fascist basis. It seems like her critics were right to view her as a threat to science, human dignity, and the institution they mutually-represented.
What you're referring to with "intersex" is actually a set of disorders of sex development which affect each sex differently. For example, consider 5-alpha reductase deficiency: a mutation in the gene that encodes the enzyme for converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, causing loss of enzymatic activity, may be present in anyone of either sex, but will only impair male sexual development.
None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.
Nope, but it is among people who can't tolerate different kind of people.
True, but nor is it generally controversial amongst the un-indoctronated that sexual reproduction and gender identity are NOT (as claimed a couple of posts above) orthogonal concepts. I don't know about you, but while my biology and mental identity happen to nicely match up, I consider myself to be more than my testicles and can accept that others don't share my cis status.
Ps. The Overton window is such an interesting concept; Imagine arguing our case before the head Eunuch of the Ottoman Court in the 16th century or so.
idk if there's much I can do here. Carole is a respected scientist. So is Steven. Carole is a fellow of this institute as a result of having to find new patrons because of her cancellation, not the other way around. Your understanding of the situation re sex and gender is completely incorrect.
Good? You made a claim and had one point disproven because there's a difference between voluntarily leaving an institution and being kidnapped by the federal government.
No one really asked about your opinions otherwise. We're just establishing 2 very obvious lines in the sand.
Obviously other words like "terminated" may be appropriate too. Of course, most situations like this don't come to firing--like with Carole, the bureaucracy simply takes away everything you love and makes it clear you will never advance. It's much simpler when people "choose" to leave.
Absent providing evidence of your claims, it seems reasonable to conclude that your position is unsupportable.
- Egalitarianism is newspeak/doublethink
- McCarthyism is was an end to egalitarianism, until the 'previous regime' (which I take to mean a regime since 1959, whatever 'regime' that means).
- Stating some people are lesser gets you fired from empirical institutions.
In short, people being equal is soviet style communism, the old regime which included Regan and Nixon is over, and only now you can say what you want because something changed?
This here is a fantastic example of newspeak, doublethink. Thank you for that
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
Then they focused on elevating nonwhites non Christians and homosexuals to higher social and economic standing not realizing or simply choosing to ignore that most white people really arent that much better off than non whites if you remove elites from the statistics.
So to poor white Americans this seems like a free pass or line jump for everybody else and we are now living through the political reaction to this injustice.
You can't tell 65% of your population to step aside without some repercussions.
Enjoy the madness.
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion