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“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”

– From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998

“This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.”

– From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others

“Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities”

– From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter on July 18, 2002

“Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.”

– Madeline Albright, 1998

“(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983″

– National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

“Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement.”

– Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002

“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability.”

– Robert Byrd, October 2002

“There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.”

– Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002

“What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad’s regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs.”

– Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002

“The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.”

– Bill Clinton in 1998

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”

– Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

“I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons…I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out.”

– Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003

“Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people.”

– Tom Daschle in 1998

“Saddam Hussein’s regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal.”

– John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

“The debate over Iraq is not about politics. It is about national security. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”

– John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002

“I share the administration’s goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.”

– Dick Gephardt in September of 2002

“Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”

– Al Gore, 2002

“We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.”

– Bob Graham, December 2002

“Saddam Hussein is not the only deranged dictator who is willing to deprive his people in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”

– Jim Jeffords, October 8, 2002

“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”

– Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002

“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.”

– Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002

“I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”

– John F. Kerry, Oct 2002

“The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.”

– John Kerry, October 9, 2002

“We need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. …And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War.”

– John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003

“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”

– Carl Levin, Sept 19, 2002

“Every day Saddam remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.”

– Joe Lieberman, August, 2002

“Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During 1991 - 1994, despite Iraq’s denials, U.N. inspectors discovered and dismantled a large network of nuclear facilities that Iraq was using to develop nuclear weapons. Various reports indicate that Iraq is still actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability. There is no reason to think otherwise. Beyond nuclear weapons, Iraq has actively pursued biological and chemical weapons.U.N. inspectors have said that Iraq’s claims about biological weapons is neither credible nor verifiable. In 1986, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and later, against its own Kurdish population. While weapons inspections have been successful in the past, there have been no inspections since the end of 1998. There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction.”

– Patty Murray, October 9, 2002

“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”

– Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

“Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.”

– Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998

“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources — something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”

– John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

“Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq’s enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.”

– John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002

“Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration’s policy towards Iraq, I don’t think there can be any question about Saddam’s conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts.”

– Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002

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Senator Elizabeth Dole, Chair
National Republican Senatorial Committee
Ronald Reagan Republican Center
425 2nd Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Senator Bill Frist
(His contact page on the Tennessee GOP site asks that you fax or call, because his mail is delayed by security checkpoints, so I’ll add the fax and email info)

Washington, D.C.:
Office of Senator Bill Frist
509 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3344
202-228-1264 (fax)

Nashville:
Office of Senator Bill Frist
28 White Bridge Road
Suite 211
Nashville, TN 37205
615-352-9411
615-352-9985 (fax)

Congressman J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker
D.C. Office
235 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-2976
Fax: 202-225-0697

Batavia District Office
27 North River Street
Batavia, IL 60510
Phone: 630-406-1114
Fax: 630-406-1808

Dixon Regional Office
119 W. First Street
Dixon, IL 61021
Phone: 815-288-0680
Fax: 815-288-0743
Office Hours
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday
9 AM – 4 PM

Geneseo Regional Office
137 South State Street, Suite 336
Geneseo, IL 61254
Phone: 309-944-3558
Office Hours
Thursday
9 AM – 3 PM

To email Hastert, use this form.

But make sure your primary addressee is your elected official, even if he is a Democrat! Just put the additional contacts on the cc lines; don’t address the letter specifically to them. Also, if your state party isn’t very conservative, you may want to cc your state party chair as well, just to let them know how you feel. That “most Americans are moderates” myth is strong, and most people buy into it — including Congresscritters, especially when they’re worried about getting re-elected.

One more thing: if in the future you are writing about a specific incident or topic that bears upon the actions of one of the committees, cc the committee chair in your letter. So if you were going to write a letter specifically about postponing Alito’s confirmation hearings, you’d cc Arlen Specter.

I haven’t been in Pennsylvania long enough yet, but all of my representatives and senators from Indiana can tell you all about me. I write them all the time. I don’t much care if it annoys them, since it’s their job to listen to their constituents. If you want to be heard, then write them! You might also post a copy of your letter on the GOP Senators Blog.

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Leftists are fond of claiming that Bush is trying to claim too much power for the executive branch, which shows that they have little historical perspective. Bush is trying to take back the powers of the executive branch, which Jimmy Carter gladly gave away to a power-hungry, left-wing Congress. At least Reagan put up a fight.

During the same decade and presidency, Congress did everything but abolish the CIA, passing all the legislation they could to cripple our intelligence. Congress also did what they could to weaken domestic law enforcement by passing “privacy bills” which, fortunately, the Patriot Act is partly undoing.

We have a history, then, of Congress trying to grab power for themselves, away from the executive, as well as doing everything they can to weaken the United States. We do not have a history of the courts ruling on prisoners of war or enemy combatants.

The point at which I decided I no longer wanted Reason coming to my home was when I picked up a new issue and read the following:

I’ll leave it to the smart boys with the courtly expertise over at The Volokh Conspiracy and Overlawyered to suss out the legal details in full, but there seems little doubt that, overall, the recent Supreme Court rulings in three War on Terrorism cases (Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla) and two Miranda rights cases (Missouri v. Seibert and U.S. v. Patane) are good for civil liberties.

No, when the judiciary oversteps their bounds and takes over the role of the executive, that is not good in any sense. Nor is it a good thing when terrorists are treated as if they are in traffic court.

Congress has no business doing further damage to intelligence, no matter how good it makes them feel to pass a “torture bill,” and whether we should or should not be torturing prisoners is irrelevant. Likewise, the judicial branch has no business hearing these cases, much less ruling on them, no matter how much good press it gets them in the New York Slimes, and the rights of these prisoners is, as above, irrelevant.

Destroying the balance of power is the issue. Congress and the courts need their wings clipped before they do more damage, and we end up with another, worse, 9/11.

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Marta, like so many UACJOBs, is a “free spirit” (did I mention that she gets an additional proxy vote because she’s a lesbian?) Marta has made many contributions to the diverse university community, so many that I can only here relate a few.

First, though, a short conversation so you can journey into the strange irreal world of the UACJOB mind.

Marta: “I’m going to ask my gym teacher why she oppressed me!”

Me: “How?”

Marta: “She made us wear those gym uniforms! They were uncomfortable! Men designed them to oppress women!”

(Okay, I should have misspelled “women” here, but I can’t bring myself to sink to the depths of PC illiteracy.)

Another UACJOB is Gerri. Gerri was the director of one of those postmodernist hyphenated “studies” programs ( you know, like Three-headed Transgendered Conjoined Twins of Color Studies). Gerri attracted attention when she declared on a faculty mailing list that, “All white men are rapists!”

What’s really illustrative of the UACJOB mindset, however, is not Gerri’s idiocy, but the reaction she got. Other UACJOB faculty wondered why only all white men were rapists; they did not, apparently, feel there was anything out of line with the men=rapists part.

Her response? If she accused black, er, African-American men of being rapists, it would invite hate speech, and anyway, it would be “insensitive” to African-American culture.

Then there’s Tina, another UACJOB, education faculty. She has a large Castro poster on her office door. Her doctoral seminar (did you catch those last two words?) consists of numerous activities, such as writing a paragraph describing how you feel about your name and sharing your feeling with your group. Your group then tells you, one at a time, how they feel about the way you feel about your name, and finally, you tell the group how you feel about how they feel about how you feel about your name. You then choose the color of marker that best describes your feelings about your name now that your feelings have been enriched by the feelings about your feelings from your group, and write your name on a card you place in front of you. This proceeds around the group until everybody has a nice colored name card.

She also has an activity where everybody talks about why America is an evil, genocidal, imperialist nation. This is one of her favorites.

So why write about these UACJOBs? Well, it’s all very well to focus on Ward Churchill, but you don’t really get an accurate picture of these peoples’ utter insanity, and what utter crap they come up with. And though students are exposed to this in the classroom, UACJOBs often restrain themselves to some extent, so even students don’t realize what nutcases these people are.

I’m going to try to correct that.

If you want to see UACJOBs revel in their breathtaking stupidity–shamelessly–join an academic mailing list. You will be astounded that these people were allowed to graduate from high school, much less get a PhD, and then were given tenure.

Remember Gerri, director of Three-headed Transgendered Conjoined Twins of Color Studies? That’s right, the one who said “all white men are rapists!” (this was on a mailing list) and when asked why white men specifically (yes, on the mailing list), said that it would smear other cultures if she said “all non-white/black/take your pick as long as it’s not white men are rapists!” (also on a mailing list).

You did catch the director part, right? Let that sink in. Somebody, as in somebodies plural, thought she would be a great person for that job (and it’s scary enough that somebody would hire her for anything but sweeping the floors).

Well, Gerri is on this mailing list. She’s one of the majority who talk about how they can’t calculate a 15% tip or record a television program on a VCR, but know everything there is to know about the economy (”Bush is destroying the economy! No more tax cuts! Save the disenfranchised! Workers’ Rights NOW!”)

I’d love to see her, or any of this crew, in an economics class. Really.

About a month ago, Gerri wrote to the mailing list that she was really disturbed that perhaps her TIAA-CREF contributions were going to fund evil three-headed-lesbian-murdering anti-rainforest Republican-contributing corporations.

The discussion that followed lasted for over a week, but can be distilled as follows:

“You can change how your money is allocated on the website.”

“I’ve never figured out how to do that.”

“Anyway, how do you know which aren’t destroying Mother Gaia?”

“There’s a green portfolio, but I don’t trust them.”

“What do I do?”

“You could withdraw your money and put it in a savings account.”

“No, banks are part of the military industrial complex!”

“Maybe I’d better withdraw my money and keep it in my underwear drawer.”

Okay, being a business geek, I fired up Excel, found some current interest rates, calculated the ROI on 100K over 20 years (that’s about how long Gerri’s got to torment anyone with a brain before she retires) for TIAA-CREF, a savings account, and the underwear drawer (can we say NO ROI?) and after going to all this trouble, posted it to the mailing list.

Oh, the cacophany! The howling! You would have thought I had suggested they drink the blood of babies. I was dressed down for being insensitive and considering only the bottom line (”What are you, some kind of Repug?” one of theses Einsteins asked), and all because I was trying to be helpful.

You know, I don’t give a flying f*ck about the rainforest. I want my money to make money, so I can retire and not have to live in a cardboard box. However, there’s a reason those of us who are not slobbering leftists tend to stay DEEP in the closet. Even gently question the PC party line, and they will tear you limb from limb. These people are not the gentle, tolerant, nurturing souls they claim to be.

Those mailing lists are such good examples of leftist idiocy, we might as well pull another one from the hat.

This mailing list has Tina on it (you remember Tina, right? The education prof who does all kinds of touchy-feely-gooshy and why-I-hate-America “activities” in her doctoral seminars? Tina, who has a poster of Castro on her office door?)

It wasn’t Tina, but one of her PhD students who started this particularly scary example of brain death. I’ll call him Greg.

Greg is from Canuckistan, and a more stereotypical Canuckistani couldn’t exist. When he isn’t trashing the United States or insisting that “America” is not the United States (get over yourself), he’s whining about how insulted he is when people assume that he’s an American.

Just for the record, he’s no American.

Anyway, Greg just loves Tina, and practically kneels at her feet. You can see him anywhere Tina might be, like at protests. He tags along like her dog–the little yappy mop type of dog. He even tags along beside her on the mailing list, which is supposed to be only for faculty–but Greg is her shining star PhD student, and he yaps at her every command, so she put him on the list.

Tina: “Greg, remember what you were telling me yesterday about your grading system? Would you like to share it with our teaching list?”

Greg: “Grades are competitive and competition ruins the cooperative nurturing environment necessary for education, so I ask students what grades they think they should get, and that’s what I give them.”

Tina: “Competition is so destructive to effective learning, I’m so very glad you do this, Greg!”

Then everybody jumped in, and the stupidity began.

“Don’t they all want As?”

“Yes.” (Nothing else: just this).

“Do you conference with them first, and ask them in conference?”

“No, I ask them in class on the first day.”

“That’s such a GREAT idea! That way, you effectively destroy the competition before it begins!”

Here, let me interpret. What that last statement means is, “You effectively destroy any motivation for the students to do anything at all before it begins–provided they have any at all, after god knows how many idiots like Greg they had for their courses.”

“I do something like this. I ask my disadvantaged [read: female and non-white] students what they should get, and give that to them, but I grade my other [read: white male] students on a traditional A-B-C model.”

Ah, I’d better explain the “traditional A-B-C model” to you. You’re thinking this is what you are familiar with, but you’re wrong. These education school people don’t believe in giving anything lower than a C, except for “bad content” or “lack of critical thinking” (these mean, “content is not PC party line,” by the way–we’ll get to that later).

“That’s fascinating. Tell us more!”

“It levels the playing field, so the marginalized students aren’t futher disenfranchised by our patriarchal, ethnocentric system. Privileged students are privileged by the system, so I use it to evaluate them.”

Then Tina jumps in.

“I like that system a lot. In our classes we role-play, so all the privileged students take on the roles of the disinfranchised. That way, we can build on our sensitivities, and create a more nurturing, fruitful class environment.”

Okay, is anyone still wondering why public education has gone completely to hell?

Well, if you thought it couldn’t get any stupider or more frightening, you’re wrong. Very wrong.

On the same list, we have Jeremy. Jeremy, like Tina, is education faculty. He teaches math and science education courses. When Jeremy jumps in, the idiocy takes a nosedive.

“Ethnocentrism is the crucial issue. In my seminars on math and science ed, you wouldn’t believe how ignorant these students are. Why, they actually believe in an objective truth!”

“Oh yes, I know, my students are like that, too.”

“I find that my courses have to concentrate on unlearning what they think they know. I have an activity we do on Newton, where students learn that Newton’s Laws are really only perceptions.”

“Could you fire us a copy of that activity, Jeremy? We could adapt it to our own classes, maybe!”

I can see it now in first grade math: “Class, 2+2=4 is only a perception. In other cultures, 2+2 could equal 8, or maybe they don’t need the concept of 2.”

Then Tina jumps in.

“The thing is, our students will have to go into the cities and teach, and they need to be sensitive to the cultures of inner-city students. They need to realize that teaching in the traditional model is cultural imperialism, and devalues the cultures of their students.”

We’ll leave mailing lists and go on to actual, face-to-face UACJOB encounters.

There was a teaching seminar I wanted to attend (really, I should have known better, but I do this for my students, and am ever hopeful that I will finally go to one of these that is actually useful, and actually has something to do with pedagogy–naïve of me, I know). Next to mailing lists, teaching seminars are the best forum for these postmodernist morons to “share” their idiocy.

By the way, this is by far the stupidest teaching seminar I attended–and that’s saying a great deal.

I admit that the primary reason I wanted to go to this particular seminar was that Jeremy was “facilitating” it, and Alan Sokal had just blown the cover off postmodernist nonsense (if you’re unfamiliar with postmodernism, or more importantly, the Sokal controversy, see first this, then this; Sokal’s page is here, and if you really want to have fun, try the Postmodernism Generator.) I wanted to see what these postmodernist fools were going to do, now that Sokal had made idiots of them.

Well, let me say that I did not realize how utterly shameless these people are until I went. Nothing at all. They spewed the same “everything is a social construct” nonsense, as if nothing had happened. And even though Sokal’s hoax was exposed, Jeremy quoted from it, as if it were the latest greatest research.

Why I was surprised, I do not know. I suppose I expected some intellectual and professional integrity. But no.

Jeremy began to breaking us into groups. He then gave each one of us a “culture” and a “belief system” to represent.

We had to work with our groups to best explain our “belief systems” while being “sensitive” to everybody else’s “belief systems.”

Don’t groan until you hear the “belief system” I got. Ready?

I was from Moldirania, where we believed that all women with red hair were witches and would fly up into the air if they jumped out the window.

Now you can groan. Get it out, because it gets worse.

First, though, let me try to explain what this was like for me. I’m an empiricist, a decision sciences geek. Again, I found myself fighting the nearly overwhelming urge to ask what the hell happened to these peoples’ brains.

Fortunately for me, Jeremy hadn’t thought out the time constraints, and we ran out of time before I had to explain my “belief system.” So I can’t tell you what I did–and instead, will tell you what one of my group members did.

I don’t remember her name, but she was this lumpy pigeon-toed neo-hippie grad student from the English department, doing her PhD minor in Education. I don’t recall the “name” of her “culture,” but she was given as a “belief system” that interpretive dances purged the viewers of spirit toxins–and in order to “explain” her “belief system,” she had to incorporate her interpretive dances.

You know, I had no classes or office hours on that day. I could have been doing something really productive, like clipping my toenails or giving the dogs a bath.

I’ll call our English PhD student Clara for brevity. Clara was really into doing this little activity. Enthusiastic or bubbly doesn’t begin to cover it.

She had drawn the first spot, so she had to work up her “explanation” for all of us, remaining “sensitive” to our “cultural belief systems” in the process (the ultimate goal was to writhe about interpretively for the whole roomful and do so in a “culturally sensitive” manner).

So we watched as Clara did two or three different “interpretive dances,” each one designed to purge us of a different “spirit toxin.” Several group members stopped her from time to time because she wasn’t being “sensitive” enough.

“The way you are moving your head, there, that’s offensive to my belief system!”

That sort of thing. I just sat there, trying very hard not to laugh.

Not only did Clara “explain” her “belief system” by prancing about in front of a whole roomful of people, but Jeremy gave her props for being so “sensitive” about it. And a week or so later, Jeremy forwarded a message from Clara, saying that she had used her “interpetive dance” technique in class to great success, and her students had loved it.

Like I said, Jeremy had to stop the “activity” so he could give his presentation. He started it by quoting Sokal’s Social Text paper, as if Sokal hadn’t revealed it to be a hoax, then going on about how science is nothing more than a cultural construct. Fortunately, I had to leave–and did, before it got any worse.

The thing about those teaching seminars is, well, they rarely had anything to do with teaching — just bashing America, or learning to “feel good” about yourself and raise your “self-esteem” or that of your students, or becoming more “sensitive” to Official Protected Group concerns, that sort of thing.

There was the one where we were all broken up into groups (they all do that; leftists can’t imagine anyone doing anything or having a thought as an individual), and each group was given a phrase to complete, then present to the group. Ours was:

I fear …

Others were:

I am especially sensitive to …
I feel …
I am offended by …

You get the idea. Okay, so here we are in this group, and again, I find myself gritting my teeth to avoid telling them what I feared: their liberal nonsense. The woman to the right of me at the table wore one of those T-shirts with Bush in an SS uniform.

That’s important. Remember the T-shirt she had on.

Now, I had forgotten all about this thing, having no classes or office hours or meetings scheduled that day. I raced to throw on some clothes without really thinking about it, and went.

You see where this is going, don’t you.

So here I am, gritting my teeth and wishing I were giving the dog an enema instead of being here, when this aging hippie faculty facilitator ran over to our table and fairly screamed:

“That shirt is offensive!”

Now, you’re thinking she was talking about the Bush in the SS uniform T-shirt? So did I, at least until I realized she was pointing at me. I looked down and saw that I had pulled on my NRA Life Member sweatshirt (the insignia is about an inch and a half, by the way, it’s not like there’s somebody in camos with an SKS on it).

Uhm, okay. Well, that’s nice, I guess. Sure.

I told her, as nurturingly as I could manage, that she’d just have to get over it, since I didn’t have my Ku Klux Klan sweatshirt handy (some idiot liberal is going to read that and take it seriously), and went back to the exercise. The list we came up with, as well as I can remember (understanding that I did try to purge this from my memory, as one would the taste of rotting flesh), was:

I fear …

right-wingers
homophobes
George Bush, because he doesn’t believe in my right to choose
John Ashcroft, because he’s a Nazi
George Bush, because he’s a Nazi
global warming
firearms
white men
white men, because they’re rapists
white men, because they hate oppressed peoples
white men, because they oppress minorities
white men with guns
bigots
racists
militias
Republicans
Republican students, because they want to take away my academic freedom
intolerance
meat eaters, because they’re insensitive to the rights of animals
hate speech
conservatives who hate Mother Earth
Christians
Christians, because they want to destroy the Constitution
Christians, because they hate Muslims
big government

Okay, I came up with one in that list — anybody care to guess which one it was? And after I was dressed down, so to speak, for my evil NRA sweatshirt, several people came up with something gun-related.

Now, you do realize, don’t you, that these people are faculty? As in faculty who teach your children classes? Yes?

Just wanted to make sure that one sank in.

Anyway, I thought it was over, but no, the worst was yet to come. Now that we had generated our lists, we were supposed to “share” our fears with one another in our groups, and “feel” somebody else’s fear.

I wasn’t even sure what the hell that meant, feel somebody else’s fear, and frankly, I was about touchy-feelied out for the day, so I didn’t share much at all, and just sat there and listened. When one of our group started to cry because she was so scared of George Bush (you know, because he doesn’t believe in her “right to choose”), and everybody started “empathizing” and being all gushy-gooey, I had had it and left.

Back to those mailing lists. Now what follows was one of those frequently-occurring conversations, not something that happened just once. Oh no. Many times, though it always started out with somebody saying:

“I had a student turn in an anti-affirmative action paper, and I’m trying to comment on it. How do I comment on such uncritical thinking?”

The chum was in the water.

“Oh, I know! It’s so hard! What do you say to such ignorant students?”

“It’s why we’re here, remember that, we need to teach them critical thinking skills.”

“What I want to know when I get one of these papers is how to best make the student confront his or her racism.”

“I bet the student didn’t say anything about slavery!”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How did I know it was a male student! Well, there you go, comment on how he didn’t take into account slavery, and grade him down.”

[Editor’s note: Slavery doesn’t have a damn thing to do with affirmative action, and if these people were actually capable of anything approaching critical thinking, they’d know that, but perhaps that’s why the student didn’t address it.]

“Yes, I had a student, a WOMYN if you can believe it, who wrote an essay that was anti-choice! She hadn’t addressed the thousands of years of patriarchal oppression of wimmin, so I graded her down. And do you believe she actually protested the grade?”

“Such gall these ignorant students have! If they knew anything, they wouldn’t be here!”

“Remember, that’s what we’re here for, to teach students critical thinking skills!”

And don’t forget: open trackbacks at Stop the ACLU and Point Five.

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Arnold does fall on the right side of the spectrum fiscally, though again, not enough to call him a conservative. Still, to hear the local fauna howl, you’d think Arnold was a right-winger.

Disconnect. Disconnect. Captain, the computer is offline.

Sure, I like Arnold. I would have voted for McClintock, had I had the misfortune of living in the Peoples’ Republik of California, but Arnold is a definite improvement over Davis (that he ever got elected in the first place tells you all you need to know about how utterly unlike America California is).

But the real indication of how many light years from reality Californistanis are can be found in the opposition to four propositions on the ballot.

Proposition 74 extends the probation period from two to five years for public school teachers, and allows the school system to fire incompetent teachers. What, pray tell, is controversial about that? Everyone else is accountable; why, then, is it just awful to hold teachers accountable?

Proposition 75 prohibits unions from using dues to fund political races without permission. I ask you, what is controversial about that? Why should unions be able to extort dues from their members — many of whom vote conservative — then use them to fund their left-wing candidates without permission?

Proposition 76 is a very watered-down version of a Taxpayer’s Rights Bill. Very watered-down. So watered-down, in fact, that again I have to ask what is controversial about it? How, exactly, do you figure that a state should be able to spend more than it has coming in? The only argument I’ve seen against this (because a Taxpayer Rights Bill is working its way through our legislature right now) is that it would force the state not to spend as much money. Well, yes, that would be the point. And again, it’s controversial because … ?

Proposition 77 would re-district the state. Okay, now redistricting is always controversial, even in the United States, but the recent attept of the state legislature to overturn the will of the voters by passing a gay marriage law demonstrates that something is very wrong with the way the state districts are set up, and legislators are not just out of touch with those who elected them, but hold them in contempt.

So from an American perspective, the perspective of the conservative majority in the United States of America, Californistanis need to take their meds. There’s nothing unreasonable about any of these propositions, and there’s nothing right-wing about Arnold. I can’t help but think, however, that what California needs more than anything else is a true conservative state legislature and governor.

That’s just my red-state two cents.

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