Dennis Prager is fond of describing cases of especial daftness by saying “It takes an elite education to be this stupid”.
I couldn’t help but think of that in reading about this “Human Rights Law” professor
Daniel Kovalik, who teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, argues in a recent op-ed for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that U.S. media coverage of Venezuela “ignores the fact” that the U.S. is the “greatest impediment to democracy” in Venezuela and “throughout Latin America.”
Kovalik asserts that the “true patriots” of Venezuela “resent” the “devastating economic sanctions” imposed by the U.S., claiming that a vote for current socialist President Nicolás Maduro “was a vote against U.S. meddling” in the country’s affairs.
“Venezuela’s electoral system…is an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election,” Kovalik claims.
Liberalism: Credulity wrapped in illogic dunked in outrage disguised as virtue .
Hey, if the left can’t see what their ideas have done in to U.S. cities, how on earth would we believe they’d be able to see the problems in a foreign country?
Credulity wrapped in illogic dunked in outrage disguised as virtue.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It isn’t a coincidence that academics skew to the far left.
Look at the process that selects academics:
You have to be extremely motivated to become an academic. The cost is large, and the pay off is uncertain. The reward, however, if you succeed is the guarantee of a a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle; prestige, and innacountability.
You have to write & successfully defend your thesis.
The last is dautning task, if you are in the sciences. You likely have to produce some research into the physical world that reveals new knowledge about it.
In the humanities, however, you will be “researching” something about human activity or behavior. It is a given that your research cannot be reproduced. The board that challenges your thesis will be made up up academics in the humanities who all share a progressive mindset.
This is not true in the sciences. If your thesis is that every star like our sun has an earth-like planet in orbit around it, the board that challenges your thesis will purposely contain at least one member who has done research that suggess that your thesis is wrong.
Becoming an academic in the humanities is like applying for membership in a country club, or getting your child into a snooty private school. It is selecting for an aristocrac temperament, not for intellectual merit.
MP – in my freshman year of college (back when I had to take notes using charcoal on papyrus) I took the mandated PoliSci mass class. The prof was a charismatic young guy who looked a lot like Bobby Kennedy. His lectures were passionate and enlightening, and inspired me to minor in PoliSci. I asked him during one lecture why he didn’t run for office.
He smiled and said, “Every semester I get 400 more of you to sit here in front of me.” With an even bigger smile, he then said, “Can you imagine how much POWER that is!”
He was a great guy, and I even got to talk to him one on one a couple of times. I don’t know that he’d be happy with the political direction my life took, but I still think of him favorably after all these years.
Night Writer-
Probably working his way through the female (or male) undergrads like a bull through a field of clover.
Oh the process is free and fair for voting, but just as in Iran, Korea, Cuba and the like, the only candidates are the approved candidates. So feel free to choose your oppressor by clicking the one solitary box on the ballot, comrade.
MP – Possibly. After thinking of him today, I did the ol’ “Whatever happened to” Google search and found that he’s still in the “business”. Something I’d forgotten, though, was after he received his BA in ’69 he did two years in the army, including a tour in Viet Nam as an infantry non-com before returning to get his Masters and Ph.D.
back when I was a poly sci/ US History double major I really thought they had a grasp on reality. I learned more about politics during my 2 internships (For Keith Downery in 2008 and Teresa Collett in 2010) than I EVER did in a classroom. I was interested in learning things that I could apply to the real world. They were interested in theory, which doesnt work in that mean, nasty, real world. I was kicked out of class a few times because I challenged them, God forbid
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