Discussion:

Same here. It is one of the hallmarks of Western civilization that around 1500 the legitimate use of force shifted from private citizens to the state. Pretty smart move.

A university is definitely not the place for anyone to advocate the private use of violence against anyone else. If I suggested to my students to use violence for a cause which feels good to me, I would face severe consequences. This guy is an attention seeker of some magnitude.

Good point.

Compliment - Fine work, Catherine Thompson. Josh: she’s a keeper!

Agreed on Catherine Thompson, once again!

Neo?

As I read the article, personalities aside, I found myself remembering the story about when the Nazis came for various groups and the storyteller says he did not speak up because he was not part of the group, but that when they came for him, there was no one left to speak up. When the Nazis took over Germany one of the first groups that they targeted were the academics, and no one challenged them. It looks like ASU, my alma mater unfortunately, has taken the same stance of those German university administrators - give in to pressure from a group of ignorant, racist agitators.

Academic freedom is necessary for a healthy society. It allows us to be innovative and creative, as well as to develop critical thinking skills to evaluate what is right or wrong in our society. It is not perfect, but when an administration cows before a group of thugs who want to intimidate people and who want to prevent academic freedom, they become no better than the Nazis they are giving into. ASU’s administration should be ashamed of itself. It approved the class to begin with, and now seem intent on closing down a class that might actually give people information and a chance to examine our society and its literature from a perspective that until recently went unchallenged among younger people. This is academic cowardice on a monumental level, and it is exactly the kind of thing that leads to rise of Nazi-like governments.

Charles Dickens once noted that the children of mankind’s societies were “want” and “ignorance”. If we allow ignorance to continue to be what is served to our children through public schools and universities, then we have created the very medium in which Nazism and intolerance grow until they create the kind of nation that all of us would be ashamed of to call our home. The ASU administrators by giving in to these thugs have now shown that ignorance takes precedence over academic ideals and freedoms. Sadly, that this is happening in Arizona is not surprising. That it is happening anywhere in America is appalling and a little frightening.

This is just BS. This guy does not have “tenure-like” protection as a grad student. If you make a big deal out of something, and you don’t have tenure, you may get whacked, and it’s your own fault. You don’t get to be a big dog until you have tenure, and PhD students do not. He should sit down, STFU, and do his F job. Which is not to be a loudmouthed moron.

You aren’t an academic, obviously. You don’t get tenure-like protection as a grad student. When you are a grad student, you shouldn’t act like an idiot.

Well you could, I don’t know, try to debate their points. Though I do know how cultural Marxist crypto-commies detest facts or reality. Your immediate resort to violence for those ideologically opposed to you is the sign of a small mind and some one who lacks empirical evidence to back their position. Your only tools are emotional pleas and threats of violence. The great irony of these cultural Marxist calls to violence is that they are all scrawny weaklings that would get destroyed in any contest of physicality.

You misunderstood my comment. Try relaxing.

Yep – seems to be a learning experience designed around provocation, and even if one argues that that’s what it needed to be, one can’t lay claim to victimization just because they underestimated the blowback of their provocation.

There are consequences to poking animals with a stick, their self-aggrandizing Iron Age superstitions of superiority notwithstanding. The National Youth Front has never had it so good. That’s a teachable moment for the so-called teacher.

Neo-Nazis won’t relax until their white Christian identity is restored to its former glory, worthy of reverence and fear. As with the ASU asshole, it’s all about provocation. Birds of a feather.

300 million more people like this.

Update…
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have Ze Nazis on TPM engaged in debate. Joy. The soul of America has joined us.

You Marxist crypto-commie: this is all about LOVE, don’t you understand?

Of course, we know this individual is stroking his tiny tim furiously over the attention. It’s awfully lonely in that remote outpost in Dumbfuckistan. And I suspect he’s run out of helpless animals to torture.

But hey, no problem – if it keeps him from shooting up the day care center, he can spank his little monkey all he wants.

They are the living dead, which is why you gotta kill them. Again. Sheesh, it’s obvious really.

I’m going to put “Marxist Crypto-Commie Action Squad” on a t-shirt.