Should those of religious faith be allowed to run this country?

It seems silly to me the hypocrisy displayed by ultra conservative republicans supporting the ABoR. On one hand it is common for them to support the privatization of our public school so that government stays out of how we decide to raise our children and on the other they are desperately trying to create more government rules for public higher education.Which is it? More or less government? Should Washington stick its nose into areas it thinks it knows better or not?This is in particular where the true colors of the neo-con are visibly seen. They dont stand for traditional republican values at all. They stand for strict implementation of THEIR values and if that means more gov control in one place and less in another then no overriding philosophy of conservatism will abide.Dont like your young adults being taught that our Founding Fathers were actually Deists? Dont like being tested on the geologic age of the earth or the concepts of biological evolution? Then dont get yourself a mainstream education.No one is forcing young 18 year olds into state universities. It is not like the public education system and all its requirements. There are plenty of alternative education options out there for those who dont like objectivity and the rigor of real higher education that requires them to deal with ideas that they might not agree with like an adult.God help us the day we start pandering to the feelings of university students. Higher learning isnt about making you feel good about your world view. It is about destroying your pre-conceptions so that you are able to actually learn new things and with luck, produce new knowledge. If your religious faith is not strong enough to withstand this punishment then you do not belong in the higher education system. Stand aside and out of the way of those who can deal with conflict, reason, and novelty.What does all this have to do with religious leadership? It shows just how important it is for our religious leaders not to use their authority to push their religion. Although this is always a risk we should never prohibit someone from taking office based on their religion. We have the duty as citizens to expose and fight against anyone who is doing this which is why the ABoR is such an important topic. As long as there are elected officials who are blatantly undermining their duty to their people and country there needs to be an active citizenry to fight it.When you are on the clock with my tax dollar you put country before personal beliefs. When you are at home can practice whatever faith you like and I will consistently fight for your right to do so.

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FOX has a pretty good system they have cooked up. 10 mil people watch the show on the network, FOX. Then 5 mil, different people, tune into FOX News to get outraged by it. I just hope that those good, God fearing people at FOX continue to battle those morally bankrupt people at FOX.
-- Lewis Black, The Daily Show

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Yes, the starting point is to correct the bias that has led to the preponderance of liberal professors, a preponderance which demonstrates bias in hiring and tenure, which he has documented thoroughly on his websites.

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Seeing that there are thousands of universities in this country, and each one is independent in its hiring and granting of tenure, how is it possible that there could be such a huge preponderance of liberal bias?-

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We're talking about egregious offenses that have been reported by many students, not just the occasional political comment let loose in a classroom.

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How often does this occur? Given the thousands of classes that are taught every day, are the numbers of these types of incidents really all that great? How have the internal procedures of the universities failed to correct the problem? Does this really require a legislative remedy? It would be nice to see some actual statistics on this matter, rather than a reliance of the occassional anectdote.-

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The misrepresentations of what this Bill of Rights would accomplish are absurd in the extreme.

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We have read this. Every university I have ever attended or been associated already has policies in place to prevent the kinds of abuses that the academic bill of rights is supposed to prevent. What worries us is legislation that will cause administrators to affect the content and structure of courses not to protect academic integrity but to just prevent trouble.

I would not doubt that there are examples -- there are so many schools that I would expect occassional abuses like this to occur. I would like to see good researched statistical data that show that this occurrs on such a regular basis, and that the internal review procedures are inadequate to deal with this problem, that legislation is justified.

Errr... I'm confused. This statement is contradictory to all your ID and alternative-TOE education positions. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my professors were there to share with me their knowledge, period. That includes all aspects. I disagree with some professors just as I disagree with some laymen.You're not paying premium prices to go to premium schools to have the professor read the approved course material to the class aloud.

One question - if the student doesn't believe in evolution but has a full grasp of the appropriate course materials (and so can complete their coursework and pass their exams) how would anybody know and why would they care?

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Oops! Wrong Planet

It's the liberals who hate critical thinking. You are all demonstrating your absolute inability to tolerate a view other than your own, by denigrating it with slighting labels and the like.Horowitz has time and again demonstrated the liberal bias that dominates the universities in hiring and firing policies. This is a matter of the political correctness of the day that affects everyone. He wants to eliminate political and religious questions from applications and interviews for instance and support hiring only on the demonstrated record of competence in the field.But obviously such simple fairness isn't a liberal strong point these days, so worried is everybody that their ability to discriminate on the basis of political and religious views might be curtailed.

I have to agree with you entirely.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Good question. I don't think evolutionism is an issue here at all. I don't see why it would come up either, but obviously Jar and others are worried. Seems to me it would only come up if a professor is given to casual rants against religious views and a student has the temerity to enter into the discussion from his own religious point of view. Most students allow themselves to be intimidated into silence however so usually it wouldn't come up at all.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 12:47 PM

Horowitz has given plenty of documentation of this but it may take me a while to track it all down for you and I have to get back to work for the next few hours.

The rules that worry you so much are nothing but a formalization of good old American and indeed LIBERAL views of freedom of speech, thought, opinion etc. Looks to me like you'd all like to hold on to your bastion of totalitarian tyranny in the classroom. How LIBERAL of you all.

I guess I don't understand why there is a problem. If there is such a pervasive liberal bias, then it shouldn't be so hard to demonstrate it. Yet, all I ever see are a few isolated incidents that are somehow indicative of a serious problem. I never see solid data that show a certain percentage of courses exhibit problems, I have seen no solid data that show how often in a given course these problems recurr, nor have I seen what percentage of students feel that they are intimidated or feel disrespected by their instructors.And I still cannot see how thousands of independent colleges and univesities are so affected by "the political correctness of the day" that academics with conservative views who have solid scholarly qualifications have such a hard time finding a job.In fact, I have a hard time believing that the vast majority of instuctors and researchers at institutions of higher learning are not only "biased" toward a liberal view point, but openly antagonistic to opinions differing from there own.But believe it I can if I am presented with some good, solid evidence. And I mean more than a few isolated incidents.

No not tyranny, just keeping the govn't and especially outwardly extremist conservative govn't out of regulating higher education.Like the others have been saying. In these rare examples that this law is supposed to support there are already measures in place to take care of this.While I was going to school at UNM there was a prof who they basically forced into retirement after an incident where he overstepped his bounds as a professor and representative of his department and the university.Universities like to keep their noses clean. If you are driving students, and therefore money, away from the university then there is a problem. I knew some profs who were having trouble getting their tenure just because they were considered "tough". It took the action of students to stand up for them to show that all they were doing was setting a better standard for education in our field.You also never answered my question. What is it? More or less government? At what point do you abandon conservatism for protection from percieved victim status?

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You also never answered my question. What is it? More or less government? At what point do you abandon conservatism for protection from percieved victim status?

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It's also interesting that conservatives are supposedly for "tort reform" because there are too many "frivolous lawsuits". Yet, here they are, opening the door for a whole plethora of frivolous lawsuits. What is going to limit the lawsuits to those students who have a legitimate grievance? What is going to prevent any cry-baby who feels offended because they cannot put forward a coherent argument from filing nuisence suits?Edited to correct a typo.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 08-Jun-2005 05:09 PM

Aye. That is a good point. Pretty much everything about the ABoR flies right in the face of everything else conservative.Now we really need to ask our right wing friends on this board why?What is the reason for abandoning this pillar of conservatism for this socialistic venture?Could it at all be that there is political or religious ideology getting in the way of the decision making of our valued conservative representation?

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FOX has a pretty good system they have cooked up. 10 mil people watch the show on the network, FOX. Then 5 mil, different people, tune into FOX News to get outraged by it. I just hope that those good, God fearing people at FOX continue to battle those morally bankrupt people at FOX.
-- Lewis Black, The Daily Show

The answer is obvious. Conservatives don't like people who think differently from them. Me, I like taking part in these exchanges -- they force me to think about the issues more deeply and sometimes I get a different perspective on things. It's true that I do get fustrated sometimes with people who are unable or unwilling to engage in a discussion based on facts and logic, as opposed to "revealed truth", and it shows at times, but I feel that in general I do gain more insight into people who think different from me. I also end up asking myself (and occassionally answering) epistomological questions, like how do I know whether my biases are interfering with my examination of the issue, or how do I know that my sources are trustworthy?My favorite class of all time was a political science course that I took as a freshman. The instructor challenged us to think deeply about the issues, and I did come out of that class with a very different perspective on things.But I rarely sense the same enjoyment from conservatives of deep, rational discourse with someone with whom they disagree. Certainly, the political discourse these days (this "academic bill of rights" nonsense is just a small part of it) seems to show the neocons desparately trying to shut up any and all opposing viewpoints.