UT's policy on Concealed carry

#1
Snakes on a Wii

Snakes on a Wii

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#1
I've been getting into a back and forth after the UT faculty senate unanimously upheld a ban on concealed carry on campus at UT. Originally I wrote in to express disappointment with the decision (despite being mostly a liberal myself I am definitely "pro-gun"):

Your View: Upheld firearm policy raises constitutional issues | The Daily Beacon

That prompted a response from an English lecturer, who seemed to have missed the "concealed" in "concealed carry" and went on to warn of "seeing people toting guns everywhere":

Your View: Gun controversy creates conflicting views | The Daily Beacon

Against my better judgment I responded again. This time I (perhaps naively) assumed that reasonable people could come to an agreement based on the evidence. So I cited evidence this time:

Your View: Reader ignores firearm safety statistics | The Daily Beacon

Now here's where it gets interesting, and there's a life lesson for everyone out there, no matter what your political ideology. It doesn't matter how many degrees you have, or how well-educated you are. We are all human beings subject to our own biases, and if you want to believe something strongly enough, you can manage it in spite of reasonable arguments to the contrary. I just finished reading a response from a different professor. If you examine it closely you will find evidence that she did not even read my arguments that carefully, because while I clearly stated "In 2007, there were...", she insisted that I "did not specify over what span of time".

Your View: Trained law enforcement safer than armed students, faculty | The Daily Beacon

I don't mean to come off as anti-intellectual. I'm somewhat of an intellectual-minded person myself. But seeing as this forum is typically full of fairly conservative people I thought you would all get a big kick out of seeing some of y'alls perceptions about liberal academians validated.
 
#2
#2
Mirrors political debate in general. Start from a position then selectively include supporting facts and ignore those that run counter.
 
#3
#3
Liberal academians are not any superior to conservative academians. That being said, academians in general are constantly being mocked and picked on precisely because of their higher intellectual standing, when an apples to apples comparison shows that they are, of course, smarter than the average Joe despite still being human and having outlier morons in their midst.
 
#4
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IPorange said:
That being said, academians in general are constantly being mocked and picked on precisely because of their higher intellectual standing, when an apples to apples comparison shows that they are, of course, smarter than the average Joe despite still being human and having outlier morons in their midst.
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really hope that's sarcasm. Higher than average? Probably. Higher than those they are teaching and interacting with daily? Disagree
 
#5
#5
Actually, having read the articles, the first response from the English lecturer was a logical and well-thought-out one. You made it sound like he was ignoring your points, but that didn't seem to be the case.

People are going to disagree.
 
#6
#6
utvolpj said:
really hope that's sarcasm. Higher than average? Probably. Higher than those they are teaching and interacting with daily? Disagree
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You clearly haven't been around the general student body of a campus lately. Undergrad is the new high school. There's nothing elite about it.
 
#7
#7
IPorange said:
You clearly haven't been around the general student body of a campus lately. Undergrad is the new high school. There's nothing elite about it.
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there's very little elite about the teachers in the lower level classes either. You're trying to pass them off as something they're not. I doubt an English and a History professor (whose main topic is about incest in history) are more educated about gun control than I am
 
#8
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utvolpj said:
there's very little elite about the teachers in the lower level classes either. You're trying to pass them off as something they're not. I doubt an English and a History professor (whose main topic is about incest in history) are more educated about gun control than I am
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I don't see why they'd be less so. Does that mean they're morons, because they disagree?

I hear how stupid academics are here all the time. It may be an over-compensating issue, or a way to leverage away credibility from highly educated people. I don't know or care. I just know they are on average a lot smarter than the rank and file American.
 
#9
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IPorange said:
I don't see why they'd be less so. Does that mean they're morons, because they disagree?

I hear how stupid academics are here all the time. It may be an over-compensating issue, or a way to leverage away credibility from highly educated people. I don't know or care. I just know they are on average a lot smarter than the rank and file American.
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you're the one professing their superiority to the average American. You don't view their opinions as having more weight simply because they went farther in school?

more educated (on one particular subject) != smarter
 
#10
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IPorange said:
I don't see why they'd be less so. Does that mean they're morons, because they disagree?

I hear how stupid academics are here all the time. It may be an over-compensating issue, or a way to leverage away credibility from highly educated people. I don't know or care. I just know they are on average a lot smarter than the rank and file American.
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they may be smarter, but the career students can definetely have their head in the sand about a lot of things.
 
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droski said:
they may be smarter, but the career students can definetely have their head in the sand about a lot of things.
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Certainly, but then every segment of the population tends to get entrenched into their position. As I said, academians are no different in that regard.
 
#14
#14
Could you extrapolate on which statements I made were interpreted by you to mean I think:

1) academians' opinions hold more weight even outside of their expertise

2) going further in school means/makes you more intelligent.

Should be a pretty wild revelation for me.
 
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#17
how is it pathetic? You said they're just being picked on because they're smarter than all of us regular folk. Just made an assumption that would mean you also view their opinions to hold more weight than the J6P's who want to carry murder-death-kill thingies on our hips
 
#18
#18
IPorange said:
Certainly, but then every segment of the population tends to get entrenched into their position. As I said, academians are no different in that regard.
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i find having a real world job certainly changes the views of a lot of academics.
 
#19
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utvolpj said:
how is it pathetic? You said they're just being picked on because they're smarter than all of us regular folk. Just made an assumption that would mean you also view their opinions to hold more weight than the J6P's who want to carry murder-death-kill thingies on our hips
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I said they had higher intellectual standing, and are being picked on to leverage that perception away.

I didn't say they were being picked on for being smarter. Otherwise, I would have used those words.

I never said anything about their opinions holding anything, and I never even commented directly on guns being banned on campus.

You're making a lot of assumptions. Perhaps I should just cut out the middle man and let you consider setting up and massacring scare crows.


I'm actually anti-gun control, btw.
 
#20
#20
droski said:
i find having a real world job certainly changes the views of a lot of academics.
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I've had real world jobs. I don't have a romanticized view of academians by any means AT ALL. People are overly hostile towards them precisely because of their standing, though. It's no different than how the typical vol fan attacks every ESPN "expert" known to man, even though the average ESPN commentator and analyst knows a hell of a lot more than the average sports fan. Obviously there are exceptions in both groups, but still.
 
#21
#21
there are always exceptions certainly, but my old gf of 3 years was a phd student at cal and the views of her friends were unbelievable and something i've never experienced since. i have some career student friends that also fit in this category. a lot of the "world is supposed to take care of me" mentality.
 
#22
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droski said:
there are always exceptions certainly, but my old gf of 3 years was a phd student at cal and the views of her friends were unbelievable and something i've never experienced since. i have some career student friends that also fit in this category. a lot of the "world is supposed to take care of me" mentality.
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Well, to be honest, the kookiest of them all seem to have ties to Cal in my experience. That being said, my ties to Cal alum are direct and numerable.
 
#23
#23
And my original comments were directed at the last sentence of the OP, not any of the actual opinions of his.
 
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#25
I will say that more than a few "intellectuals" are also the most intellectually stubborn. Somebody that feels they're knowledgeable about a subject (and in fact are) can be terribly dismissive of even the most reasoned arguments against what they believe to be true.

I remember one guy, years ago, who fancied himself quite scholarly on all things related to fighter aircraft. In fact he did know quite a bit but took umbrage with me insisting that the Blue Angels had, in fact, flown F4 Phantoms in the late 60's/early '70's. How or why he didn't know this to be true I have no idea but I firmly believe it was precisely how much he did know that kept him from accepting there was something he didn't.

Then there's the prevalence of those that figure their being most learned in one area allows them to speak quite authoritatively on other subjects, including those in which they might actually be quite ignorant.
 
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