Supplemental: Important lessons from Mizzou!

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015

All us humans are dumb:
The assistant professor in question has several areas of specialization.

Like you, like us, like everyone else, she can also be very dumb.

Earlier this week, she was captured on videotape, making a call for "muscle." You see, someone was shooting videotape of a public event in a public space at a major state university. The assistant professor was calling for "muscle" to come and remove this very bad young person.

As you may know, the assistant professor was playing a role in the student protests at the University of Missouri. In our view, the seven-minute videotape which surfaced this week is highly instructive.

The New York Times provides the tape here. It teaches us quite a few lessons:

First, we can see that college students can sometimes have very poor judgment. This shouldn't be completely surprising. They're just college kids, after all.

(For the record, most of the students in the tape seem to be scrub-faced, middle-class white kids. Their behavior in that videotape is just extremely dumb.)

When we the people are young, we can be very dumb! On the other hand, the videotape also shows a university administrator and the assistant professor behaving extremely foolishly.

In theory, these adult authority figures are supposed to be smarter than students. They're supposed to have a better sense of the way our society works, post-Enlightenment and all.

Everybody makes mistakes! This assistant professor's mistake was on videotape and was unattractive. She has been reprimanded by all sorts of university officials. The student protest movement has said she was wrong. Her behavior was very dumb.

Her behavior also helps us see how deeply tribal we the liberals can be. In recent years, we think this has been the most important developing story in American media.

Uh-oh! Ditto-headedness and mob rule aren't just for The Others any more! To watch a bunch of Us behaving like the apocryphal Them, please watch all seven minutes of that videotape.

We'll suggest two further points:

To a large percentage of American adults, that videotape will look completely crazy. Over at the Washington Post, Eric Wemple put it like this:

"To watch the video of photographer Tim Tai getting pushed around by a turf-protecting scrum of protesters at the University of Missouri is to experience constitutional angst."

In the past, we liberals have elected Republicans this way, most notably during the years of the Nixon/Reagan backlash. In the course of the next twelve months, we could easily do so again. People like the assistant professor are working for the GOP, although they likely don't know it.

We had another reaction. It involved the assistant professor's areas of specialization. Her official bio says this:

"Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children's television programs."

Some of that doesn't seem to be written in English. That said, here's our question. When universities hire professors to study such topics, do they have the right to be surprised when they find them behaving absurdly?

In recent years, we've noted the way we liberals are adopting the values of the mob. We've also complained about the overall work, or lack of same, of the nation's professors.

Please ponder. In the past forty years, the academy hasn't found a way to address or explain the bogus claim that the Social Security trust fund is "just a bunch of worthless IOUs." It has found the time and the money to hire people with doctorates to research topics like those.

One last question. When you see those college kids behaving so dumbly, how much confidence do you have in their judgments about other things, like the various events at Mizzou?

Where does wisdom lie at Mizzou? Not being there, we have no clear idea. Treat yourself to a basic reality:

You're probably a bit unclear too.

We haven't used anyone's name in this post. You don't want to make people targets. Everybody makes mistakes. All us humans are dumb.

29 comments:

  1. I'm not! I am special!

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    1. Then use your name so we can applaud/target you.

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    2. @ 5:32 PM - have a cookie.

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  2. Of all the remarkable things that happened on this campus over the weekend -- and in the days leading up to it -- of course, Somerby chooses this.

    Still bucking for a job at Fox?

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    1. What other "remarkable things" have happened? That weren't based on hoaxes, of course.

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    2. Give those SWs hell, Maj.

      Couldn't have put it any better if I were Paul Kersey.

      http://www.vdare.com/users/paul-kersey

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  3. "Please ponder. In the past forty years, the academy hasn't found a way to address or explain the bogus claim that the Social Security trust fund is "just a bunch of worthless IOUs."

    The Academy is working on an answer Bob. It just keeps getting distracted laughing at the likes of you.

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  4. "In the past, we liberals have elected Republicans this way, most notably during the years of the Nixon/Reagan backlash."

    Those poor Republicans. Without liberals they would never win anything.

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    1. Dave the Guitar PlayerNovember 12, 2015 at 12:55 PM

      By definition we (the 99%) outnumber the 1%. There is no way a Republican Party that panders to the 1% should win *any* elections, but they do. And often. Liberals can easily lose elections by some combination of laziness, arrogance, ignorance and snark, and we do.

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  5. Nixon's election was a backlash against the riots and general breakdown of order. In particular, I vividly recall the far left riots at the Democratic Convention. They were a gift to the Republicans. Actually, HHH was coming back. Had the election been a week later, I think he would have won.

    OTOH Reagan's election was a backlash against Carter's perceived faulty leadership. I think there was some bad luck in that perception, but the country just didn't think he had been good President. Also, Reagan, suprisingly, turned out to be an outstanding candidate.

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    1. Yet Another Non-Anonymous PseudonymNovember 11, 2015 at 8:07 PM

      Not a particularly decisive backlash.

      1968 Final Score;
      Richard Nixon 301EV - 31,785,480 43.4%
      Hubert Humphrey 191EV - 31,275,166 42.7%
      George Wallace 45EV - 9,906,473 13.5%

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    2. Right, it was very close. But, Nixon should not even have been close. He was already so hated that he had lost an election for Governor of California, which was then more of a Republican state. After that loss, he made the famous quote, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more."

      Humphrey OTOH was unusually well-qualified, with a background unmatched by candidates of either party in recent elections.

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    3. IMHO, OTOH OT. ETC. ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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    4. "the general breakdown of order."

      Bollocks!

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    5. Yes the backlash caused by liberals which elected Nixon was so great he received 31,785,480 votes in 1968 compared to 34,108,157 in 1960.

      No where did those other votes go? Oh, to George C. Wallace. Now, does Bob want to suggest liberals should have laid off the Civil Rights stuff to keep th Wallace voters in the fold? Does Bob want to read some quotes from George C. Wallace on the "liberal" media from that era?
      Didn't we have gatekeepers then?

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    6. "I vividly recall the far left riots at the Democratic Convention."

      Ah yes, that was where the "silent majority" (a term popularized by the criminals Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew) beat the shit out of peaceful protesters.

      I'll bet you were rooting for Mayer Daley and the National Guard.

      10,000 protestors assaulted by 23,000 riot police and National Guardsman, and you have decided it was "far left riots". What a joke you are David.

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    7. Hahahahahha!!!!! mm calls David a joke while ignoring his blogger pal blames the protesters for decades of GOP rule.

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    8. I must have missed that, or perhaps you're misrepresenting what TDH has written?

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    9. David the Guitar PlayerNovember 12, 2015 at 1:04 PM

      Apparently everyone has forgotten the Vietnam war. HHH was not elected because he represented a continuation of the war in Vietnam. Mr. Nixon promised to end the war. The "riots" were by the people being sent to Vietnam to die.

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    10. I haven't forgotten. Yes, Nixon promised to end the war, all the while sabotaging LBJ's peace settlement and conspiring to make a fucking profit from the dead American lives.

      And I am will to bet money that DinC loved him some Dick Nixon at the time.

      *************************************************
      According to declassified records at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, Eugene Rostow, Johnson's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, got a tip from Wall Street financier Alexander Sachs who said that one of Nixon's closest financial backers was describing Nixon's plan to "block" a peace settlement.

      Nixon's backer was sharing this information at a working lunch with his banking colleagues in the context of helping them place their bets on stocks and bonds. In other words, the investment bankers were colluding over how to make money with their inside knowledge of Nixon's scheme to extend the Vietnam War.

      http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/13994-how-richard-nixon-sabotaged-1968-vietnam-peace-talks-to-get-elected-president

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  6. What is a "safe space" exactly? Can citizens expect a "safe space," whatever that is, in the middle of a public square? And what about the photographer's "safe space?" He was being pushed about, rather gently, but still pushed. Lots of people up in his grill.

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  7. Credit someone at Fox News for how they ended this article and most certainly credit photojournalist Tim Tai for how he handled himself. [LINK]

    [QUOTE]>>> ...Earlier on Tuesday, [Dean of the Missouri School of Journalism David] Kurpius lambasted [assistant communications professor Melissa] Click while lauding the photojournalist.

    "The Missouri School of Journalism is proud of photojournalism senior Tim Tai for how he handled himself during a protest on Carnahan Quad on the University of Missouri campus," Kurpius said in Tuesday's statement.

    "The news media have First Amendment rights to cover public events," Kurpius said. "Tai handled himself professionally and with poise."

    Tom Warhover, the executive editor of the Columbia Missourian, a university newspaper, told the Times he was "pretty incensed" about Tai's treatment.

    "I find it ironic that particularly faculty members would resort to those kinds of things for no good reason. I understand students who are protesting and want privacy. But they are not allowed to push and assault our photographers -- our student photographers."

    Tai told the Los Angeles Times the situation resembled last year's protests in Ferguson, Mo., which he also covered. The only difference, he said, was "it was the police doing it then." <<<[END QUOTE]

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  8. The only journalist whose coverage of this issue was more incisive than Somerby's was Bill O'Reilly.

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  9. What was it sophomore drama major John Wilkes Booth shouted after leaping drunk and naked from the presidential box after T.P.ing old Abe and absconding with Mrs. Lincoln's bloomers? Ah, yes...

    IN LOCO PARENTIS!!!!!

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  10. Professor Click is right out of Central Casting. The face and underdeveloped brain of the modern progressive.

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    1. We ought to have her debate Cliven Bundy, the face and brain of modern conservatism.

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  11. Dear VDARE lunatic:

    [from CBS news]

    One of the most disturbing reported incidents was Oct. 24, when a swastika, scrawled in feces, was found in a dorm bathroom. Several online postings have questioned if that really happened.

    It did, according to a report filed by a campus police officer who saw the swastika.

    The report from an officer identified only as "Bakerb7" said the officer was called to a coed restroom that served five private dorm rooms in Gateway Hall. The officer "noticed there was a swastika drawn on the wall by someone using feces," the report stated. Feces were on the floor as well, the officer wrote.
    The confirmation comes as a 19-year-old man accused of making online threats against black students and faculty at the campus is scheduled to make his first court appearance.
    Boone County's chief sheriff's deputy, Maj. Tom Reddin, said Hunter M. Park of Lake St. Louis is scheduled to be arraigned about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, likely by closed-circuit video from the county jail where he is being held without bond. Park is charged with felony making a terroristic threat.

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  12. A poop swastika almost certainly created by a black activist, and a lone nut, don't amount to "a racist campus." You proved the point about these deranged 'victims".

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  13. And it took you nearly a day to come up with that comeback?

    Have a cookie.

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