Hey, what spooje said.
The guy is a total immature dick, but let’s not impugn academia because of him. I know immature dickhead bankers, brokers, senators, teachers, stay at home moms, plumbers, doctors, and lawyers. They are everywhere, and I am sure that their peers are as embarrassed by them as college faculty are of this nutjob.
Ok, Epi, enough slander. The point of the thread is this fool who is supposedly deserving of teaching America’s youth true and factual history in a respectful and professional environment obviously lacks both respect and professionalism.
As posted by jjim, a well-spoken reply one should expect from someone who should have better sense than to pour assinine epithets on another for curteously and professionally inquiring about a subject an historian should understand.
If anything, this man should get a stern talking to about professionalism and courtesy.
Jackmannii wrote:
You were mistaken. God or nature established those rights.
No argument here. The quote I referenced stated baldly that the military gave us those rights, which is inaccurate.
“It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press.”
And it is news organizations and civil libertarians that play a major role in nurturing and defending it.
The military doesn’t “give” us anything. It plays an important role in ensuring that we are able to enjoy those rights.
That’s the distinction.
This wasn’t spam. The Cadet was e-mailing an university employee about interschool advertising and the proceedures the employee’s university uses for such communication. (though “dear sir or ma’am” is unfortunate if the guy’s name is Peter - but his last name is close to “Kristin” so maybe the cadet got confused) If someone I don’t know e-mails me at work asking questions about wetlands and development, I’ll be polite. It’s not specifically my job to answer these types of questions, but the question is at least close to work related and I’ll either answer it or refer him to someone who can. My political views, within reason*, are irrelevant to my demeanor. Describing the professor’s behavior toward a representative of another school as “unprofessional” would be far to charitable. The university should fire him.
The e-mail was simply asking a question about the policies of the university and the coordination that the university demands when dealing with other educational institutions. That is far too work related to be spam, even if answering questions about advertising isn’t Kristein’s specific job.
“Dear sir, I have just returned from a baby seal clubbing trip and desire to ilegally dump 350 gallons of used motor oil and mercury into the federally protected Okeefenokee” might get some strong words, but other than that…
Oh, and Lib?
Phthtbbbbbb.
Says who? Last I checked, law was a social construct. Man is simply a thoughtful animal, and removed from rules of his own creation, only the laws of physics govern his actions.
Calling rights ‘God given’ is a nice sentiment, but the Constitution seems to be lacking His signature.
I noticed the good professor failed to apologize for his moronic viewpoint.
'Nuff said.
The professor is definitely being a dick. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with his views or not; whatever views he holds, that doesn’t give him the right to respond to a politely worded query with such hostility. Polite emails should be answered politely (believing in "turn the other cheek, sometimes inpolite emails should be answered politely). He could have: politely outlined his views and declined to help; or, politely declined to help without explaining his views (I regret that I will be unable to help you at this time).
Going off on the guy was definitely uncalled for.
So is it his views or his tone of voice that is the problem? I thought the “point of the thread” was that he should have been more polite; now you are saying that he needs to apologize for his views?
Waverly queried:
Says me. And says the founders whom Jack “Phthtbbbbbb” Mannii had mistakenly credited. And says the implicit logic of rights accruing to ownership of property, such as the property you are given by God or nature at birth. And says a bunch of people. Now that you know who says, so what?
I first thought of pointing this thread out to my beloved, she of the 20 years of service with the Air Force…
but naaaaahhhhhh…why ruin HER day???
What a fuckhead.
What’s the university going to do about this request? Maybe they’ll discipline the professor but it still doesn’t make up for the fact that he answered for them poorly and likely overstepped his authority. Are they going to allow or respond to the cadet’s original request for advertising information in some official capacity?
Lib:
The logic can’t be all that implicit, because I don’t follow. Perhaps I’m just low functioning, but humor me anyway.
I can agree that so “says a bunch of people,” including yourself. I don’t doubt that there are a ‘bunch’ that feel this way, but I’m not sure this makes it necessarily correct. Which property is given to me by God and/or nature (which is it by the way?) at birth and how do I know this other than a ‘bunch’ of people saying so? If I can get a chorus of people to agree that I’m Emperor of Greenland, is that also true?
Certainly God put this down in a memo, or hid a deed somewhere, right? This can’t all be due to someone wanting to lend weight to their argument by name dropping God… “Well I hate to tell you this, Jim-Bob, but God says you gotta mow my lawn. No sense in arguing with the supreme being, you know how he gets when he’s angry…”
If this is part of your faith or is a religious thing for you, just say so and I’ll accept it, but this certainly looks to me like you are stating this as a self-evident fact.
A few points
gigi:
**
This wasn’t spam. And it wasn’t “asking anybody to assist the war effort.”
It was a representative of one university asking a political science professor at another the best way to advertise an upcoming symposium on various topics geared toward political science students and faculty.
The professor’s words are more precisely anti-military, not anti-war. Well, the military exists. It affords you the freedom to be an ignorant asshole. As a political science professor of a university, you may have occasion to interact with members of it. You’ve shown yourself to have the self-discipline (and world view) of a 10-year-old.
Many have said “if he had only expressed his war views in a more polite manner.” How were they relevant in the slightest?
Does this professor make the call for whether such advertising can be placed at his university? I doubt it. As the cadet sent the email to the wrong person, the professor could have simply ignored it, and not responded. He could have also been courteous and responded to the cadet and told him or her where to properly take the question.
Much of the outrage comes at the fucker’s arrogance that his viewpoint somehow mattered, in the situation at hand.
How a professor of history at a university could have such skewed and, more importantly, idiotic views is a question for another day. Wonder how many hundreds of dollars per credit hour students have to pay for such pearls of wisdom?
And Epimetheus? You’re not even worthy of flaming. You made me chuckle.
Didn’t mean to insult your Dad.
Well, except for the assholes that lieu knows…
Robin
You’re being inconsistent, Lib. Your first post to this thread implicitly endorsed the notion that the rights are given by soldiers.
And Monty, only behavior can be apologized for. The professor’s behavior certainly warranted an apology. And now that the cadet got one, it seems everyone else wants one, too.
Soldiers protect rights. But God or nature is their source. A soldier might defend your family; but that doesn’t mean that your family came from the soldier.
My apologies. Obviously I allowed my anti-war, anti-military stance to cloud my reading comprehension. While I don’t condone this professor’s unprofessional behavior, I can also see how anger at the way the world is could flare up when presented with a representative of the US military establishment, however “innocently”.
Once again, Libertarian, where does God set down these rights? Is there a set of Dead Sea scrolls I’m unaware of? A complete search of the KJV bible comes up with one reference to rights, and it is used as a synonym for ceremonies, not a celestial precursor to the bill of rights. Liberty turns up a few more hits, but still not in reference to divinely granted rights, and most especially not as they would pertain to property, freedom of speech, etc. etc.
I’m deeply hurt that you would restate your premise without so much as addressing my prior post.