Centers for Coddling
Nov 20, 2005
"Liberalism is increasingly the politics of ignorance--it's amazing what these kids don't know," worries Fred Siegel, who teaches history at Cooper Union in New York City.
Indeed.
Zero knowledge of history is a given for over 95% of university students. Though, what continues to surprise me is their ignorance of business and economics. Minimum wage, rent control, universal health care, income caps (for the filthy rich), and having the taxpayers pay for 100% of the college tuition are just some of the horribly bad policies most of them support.
Often, there is a dose of hypocrisy in their anti-business views. I'll offer an example. A friend of mine had a discussion in his class regarding Wal-Mart. He was on the lonely pro side of the debate. A girl in the class, who had worked for Wal-Mart, hated the company. Low wages and the bad treatment of employees were her complaints.
Skip to a few weeks later. The boyfriend of that girl was working on an assignment for which he needed some baby clothing. Guess where he went? He bought the stuff at Wal-Mart for which that girl was happy since Wal-Mart has low prices. So, basically she doesn't like a company which increases the purchasing power of ordinary folks.
Hmm, come to think of it, students don't really learn about capitalism or the Middle Eastern history as much as they are given caricatures of both. Businessmen are treated as exploiters of the poor workers. Similarly, the Jews are treated as the bad guys with Arabs as their victims. The templates are unfortunate and untrue.
Update 08:10 PM ET
Speaking of historical and economic ignorance, try reading the letter posted here without gagging. The last paragraph is a monument to idiotarianism.
Comments