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Professor concerned by students who are unable to consider alternative views

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UVA students following their leftist masters
UVA students protesting a rape accusation that was later revealed to be a hoax

Consider this clip:

This is a post by Dr. George Yancey, and he’s writing about the 5-minute video clip above.

Dr. Yancey writes:

Here is a great example of what I term education dogma. Note that the students are chanting about not being silenced while they are obviously silencing the speaker. My understanding of this situation is that the speaker published something that challenges some of the assertions about a campus rape culture. Such a challenge is an affront to the dogma of the students. Therefore, these students do not feel that the speaker has a right to speak on a different topic. The violation of beliefs they accept without question or doubt creates their incentive to shut down the proceedings.

[…]For the dogmatic, ideas that violate the notions defended by education dogma are deemed “dangerous” and too much for the tender ears of our students. So in additional to shouting down speakers there have been calls for “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” so that individuals do not have to listen to dangerous ideas. The true danger of these ideas is their threat to certain dogmatic beliefs of our students. These students are unwilling to consider the possibly that they are wrong, or perhaps not as right as they might believe. .

[…]As I watch that video I did not see intellectual powerhouses but I symbolically saw individuals who were yelling nonsense with their hands over their ears so that they would not hear an idea that may confront their presuppositions about reality.

Here, Dr. Yancey compares the secular leftist students to religious fundamentalists: (links removed)

For all practical purposes the students saw the speaker as a heretic. The use of the term heretic can bring up images of torturing, imprisoning and killing of those who disagree. This is not occurring. However, it is reasonable to ask whether the seemingly restraint of the students from such drastic actions is due to their moral compass or to the fact that they do not have the social power to engage in such actions. Education dogma has led to attempting to kick offending businesses off campus, attempts to fire professors, and the official “shunning” of students who hold the “wrong ideas.” Those with education dogma do punish those who violate their beliefs to the highest extent possible given their current level of institutional powers.

So if the holding your hands over your ears and screaming doesn’t work, there is always calling the police, or using other means of coercion. Scary, especially when you consider the history of the secular left in communist countries where God is dead, and the state is all-powerful. How far would these leftist students go to silence people who disagreed with them?

More:

[…][H]igher education occurs in a specific social institution that promotes certain subcultural values and beliefs. Participants in these institutions are expected to accept these values and beliefs without question. These beliefs are not the result of gaining more facts but instead are the dogmatic adaptation of certain social values provided to them by this subculture.

The trouble here is that they don’t want more facts – that’s why they are holding their hands over their ears and screaming.

It makes me think of my own intellectual journey… the way I got started in apologetics in college was by reading transcripts of William Lane Craig debates that I found on the Leadership University web site. What was exciting was reading both sides and seeing what each person would say to respond. Would you go to a football game where only one side showed up? What if you already knew the score in advance, would you still go? What if one team didn’t play very hard, would that be worth watching? What makes intellectual inquiry fun and interesting is that two sides show up and play their best. Otherwise, it’s just brainwashing, not a search for truth. When I write a summary with a good atheist like Peter Millican, I actually feel like I have learned something – I have learned how far I can push each of my arguments, and what I need to study going forward. I care to learn more about what is discussed in a real debate.

This is the striking part of his essay:

Students are responsible for seeking out alternative perspectives and developing an attitude of inquiry allowing them to interrogate their own presuppositions. But their college and university teachers should be held to account since more than a few college professors have done a horrible job introducing critical thinking skills. These teachers come in with a certain set of assumptions and if students agree with those assumptions then they can leave college without any disturbance to their pre-college ideology. Then we have the gall to call that critical thinking. It is anything but critical thinking. It is confirmation thinking and we do our students a disservice with such an approach.

This is why I get so frustrated by non-STEM disciplines. I think those non-STEM areas are the places where what he described is most likely to happen. When you walk into a computer science classroom, you are there to learn something that you will be doing for money in a couple of years. You can go home and use what you just learned to write a sorting program, or improve the speed of your database queries, or write a mobile application and put it out for use. I just don’t get that feeling of usefulness from non-STEM disciplines, aside from maybe analytical philosophy, which is just computer science anyway (symbolic logic). The critical thinking in computer science comes from trying things yourself and seeing what works and doesn’t work in real life. Where is the testing against reality in non-STEM disciplines? There is none.

And then here is something hopeful for conservatives:

Ironically a conservative Christian Republican has a better opportunity to learn critical thinking in college than a progressive humanist Democrat because of the opportunity he/she gains to consider new ideas. When we allow students with certain perspectives to go through college without challenging them we not only promote dogma, we also do those students the disservice of never helping them to engage in the critical thinking necessary to intellectually grow. They are reduced to being a sounding board that regurgitated the latest expression of political correctness.

This is where all my hope lies. I really hope that the leftists educate their next generation into imbecility by refusing to let them consider different points of view. We conservatives must be the ones who consider both sides, and then rise above the mob of fools. To innovate, you have to do things better, and to do things better, you have to do things differently.

News

Who has done more on the pro-life and pro-marriage issues – Trump or Cruz?

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Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons
Donald Trump and his friends, the Clintons

This is from the non-partisan The Hill.

Excerpt:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump defended Planned Parenthood during an interview Tuesday night, doubling down on his remarks that part of the group should be funded.

“They do good things,” Trump said during an interview with Sean Hannity that aired on Fox News.

[…]Planned Parenthood praised Trump’s remarks earlier Tuesday when on the question of funding he said on CNN that he would look at other “good aspects” of Planned Parenthood.

“Donald Trump seems to have realized that banning all abortions, shutting down the government, and defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme positions that are way too far outside the mainstream for even him to take,” Eric Ferrero, vice president for communications, said in a statement shared with The Hill.

Now, Donald Trump was pro-abortion for his entire life, until he decided to run as Republican in the 2016 primary. Then he became pro-life. That’s what he says, anyway. So what was his reasoning for becoming pro-life?

Live Action has the quote, and the problem with Trump’s reasoning:

Trump shared the reason behind his claimed pro-life conversion at the first GOP debate:

“Friends of mine years ago were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted. And it wasn’t aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that. And I saw other instances…I am very, very proud to say that I am pro-life.”

Look here – a child’s right to life does not depend on their ability to become a total superstar in the eyes of Donald Trump. He doesn’t understand the logic of the pro-life position.

More Live Action:

In January 2015, when he was asked to define what “pro-life” meant to him, he stated: “It means that it’s an issue. It is an issue, and it’s a strong issue.” When asked if he believed abortion early in a pregnancy was murder, Trump said, “No.” And then, when the questioner continued to press Trump, asking if he would be against abortion if the life of the mother was not at risk and if rape or incest were not involved (his exceptions), he stated, “It depends when,” while continuing to repeat, “I’m pro-life.”

Not convincing.

What about on gay marriage?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he can see both sides in the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who has been ordered to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but that “the Supreme Court has ruled” on the issue and “it is the law of the land.”

If 5 Justices on the Supreme Court redefine marriage, it’s the law of the land . That’s what Trump says.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

What about Ted Cruz?

Cruz is pro-life:

  • Cruz has received a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee.
  • He voted for numerous defunding measures for Obamacare and Planned Parenthood since being voted in the Senate.
  • He voted in favor of the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.
  • He voted for the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act which he co-sponsored.
  • He is a co-sponsor of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act.
    Cruz said that the unborn are “absolutely” persons under the 14th Amendment.
  • Cruz was endorsed by Georgia Right to Life and has signed their personhood pledge.

Here are a few more:

  • In January 2015, Cruz co-sponsored a bill to create a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and urged Congress to take up the legislation.
  • In March 2015, Cruz introduced two resolutions of disapproval to the D.C. Ordinances, one, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act, could require pro-life organizations to fund abortion services in employee’s health care and could force them to hire someone who supports abortion. The House passed the resolution, but unfortunately, the Senate failed to bring it before committee.
  • In May 2013, Cruz co-sponsored Sen. Mike Lee’s resolution to investigate abortion practices in the US in light of the Gosnell case. He spoke on the floor and condemned Gosnell’s unspeakable crimes.
  • Argued (successfully) before the Supreme Court in defense of the federal ban on partial-birth abortion.
  • Successfully defended in federal court Texas’s Rider 8, which prohibits state funds for groups that provide abortions.

Cruz has also been active on the marriage issue:

  • In April 2015, Cruz introduced a marriage amendment and bill to defend states that define marriage as between one man and one woman.
    • The Restoration of Marriage Amendment amends the Constitution to guarantee the right of the people to define marriage in their laws as the union of one man and one woman and to prevent the courts from ever again misconstruing the Constitution to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to unions other than the union of man and woman.
    • The Protect Marriage from the Courts Act of 2015 bars federal courts from ruling on state marriage laws. Pursuant to Congress’ power under Article III of the Constitution to limit the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, this legislation restricts the jurisdiction of federal courts to determine the constitutionality of state laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
  • In April 2015, Cruz joined an amicus brief supporting the right of states to define marriage
    • Summary: defending states’ marriage laws against the proposed right under the 14th amendment that all same-sex couples have the right to marriage
  • In February 2015, Cruz reintroduced the State Marriage Defense Act. He originally introduced it in February, 2014.
  • Cosponsored the First Amendment Defense Act, which would prevent any federal agency from denying a tax exemption, grant, contract, license, or certification to an individual, association, or business based on their belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

Regarding that last item, Trump was asked whether he would pass Cruz’s First Amendment Defense Act in his first 100 days in office, and he said no. Cruz said yes, by the way – which is not surprising since he sponsored the act in the first place.

And on the Kim Davis issue, Cruz put religious liberty above judicial tyranny.

Listen to him discuss it on the Mark Levin show:

And on the Megyn Kelly show:

Now listen to Donald Trump:

Does any Trump supporter really believe that he would defend religious liberty as well as Cruz?

News

CBO: national debt will rise to $30 trillion in the next decade

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Democrats took control of government spending in 2007
Democrats took control of government spending in 2007

The Washington Times has a warning for all the young voters who are freaking out over the spending promises of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Here it is:

The federal government will be flirting with $30 trillion in debt within a decade, the Congressional Budget Office reported Monday, blaming an aging population, new spending and tax cuts approved on Capitol Hill, and the growing burden from Obamacare for erasing the progress Washington had made over the past few years.

Analysts said Obamacare will chase more workers out of the labor force over the next five years, adding pressure to an economy still struggling to spring to life more than seven years into the Obama recovery.

The Affordable Care Act itself is still struggling to attract a customer base, the CBO said, lowering its estimate for the number of people who will sign up for the exchanges from 21 million to 13 million — a drop of nearly 40 percent in projections. Customers collecting taxpayer subsidies this year will be 11 million, down from the 15 million the CBO projected a year ago.

[…]Deficits will continue to rise over the next 10 years, topping $1 trillion again in 2022 and reaching $1.4 trillion in 2026, the analysts said.

Basically, we’ve dug ourselves into a whole with all this spending – taking money out of the productive private sector and giving it to the wasteful public sector.

How wasteful?

This wasteful:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is spending $80,000 to see what effects space flight has on oral herpes.

The federal space agency has awarded multiple grants and contracts to a researcher at the University of Florida to determine the “Effect of Spaceflight on Herpes virus Genome Stability and Diversity,” beginning last summer. The project recently received an additional $15,000 in December.

“The goal of this study will be to determine the changes in the genomic and mutational diversity that is present in the Herpes virus virome present in astronaut saliva and urine samples collected before, during, and after space flight,” according to NASA’s description of the research. “Ground subjects will serve as the control group providing saliva and urine samples preflight and postflight during the same schedule as the astronauts.”

That $80,000 was taken from private sector businesses and individual families. They could have spent it on jobs, innovation or consumer spending. But instead the government took it and wasted it on garbage.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

There is someone who has a plan to deal with these deficits. And his plan is to shut down or scale back many government departments.

Ted Cruz:

For the individual income tax under his tax reform, Cruz’s plan provides for one flat rate of 10% on everything – wages, capital gains, dividends, personal business income, rent, interest, and all other forms of individual income. The corporate income tax would be abolished, and replaced with a 16% Business Flat Tax, which applies to sales of goods and services, minus all purchases and expenses for inputs for production. It automatically provides for immediate “expensing,” or an immediate deduction for all purchases of plant and equipment, and all other capital investment, which inherently involves purchases of inputs from other businesses. It is essentially a consumption tax for business.

That net business tax, which also automatically abolishes all special-interest, corporate-welfare loopholes, raises an enormous amount of revenue, $25.4 trillion over the first 10 years alone. This enables the plan to include abolishing the Social Security and Medicare payroll tax, which is the highest tax most working people pay, with Social Security and Medicare financed in full. It also enables the plan to include abolishing the death tax, the Alternative Minimum Tax, and all Obamacare taxes, as well as the corporate income tax. With a standard deduction of $10,000 per adult, and a $4,000 personal exemption, the first $36,000 of income for a family of four would be exempt from all significant federal taxes.

Because such tax reform would be enormously pro-growth, the Tax Foundation scores it on a dynamic basis as a net tax cut of $768 billion over the first 10 years. The Tax Foundation, which has developed a formal, sophisticated, and thorough economic model of the economy, estimates Cruz’s tax reform would create nearly 5 million new jobs, increase wages by 12%, and increase real economic growth over the next decade by nearly 14% more than under current tax policies. The after tax income of all workers would increase by 21.3% on average, with those in the bottom 20% of the income ladder seeing income increases of 15.3%.

Cruz intends to pay for these tax cuts by reducing the size and scope of government – pushing many federal responsibilities down to the state level, where there is more accountability to the people.

The four agencies are the standard four that most conservatives want to abolish or streamline:

  • Department of Energy (raises energy prices for individuals and businesses)
  • Department of Commerce (hands our taxpayer money to businesses favored by big government)
  • Department of Education (indoctrinates children in big government dogma, e.g. – global warming)
  • Department of Housing and Urban Development (caused the housing bubble recession by forcing banks to loan money to unqualified individuals, then bailed them out with taxpayer money)

Many other smaller government departments would be streamlined or eliminated. There would be a hiring freeze in the federal government, and pay increases would be based on merit, not tenure. Cruz would also save a trillion dollars over 10 years by repealing Obamacare, and replacing it with a consumer-driven alternative.

Although young people are in love with the idea that government will give them things by taxing others, that’s not sustainable. They ought to be voting for someone who wants to cut spending and cut government.