One of my students insists that WMDs were found in Iraq & that Saddam

was proven to have connections to al-Quaida. She denied that an independent consortium found by counting all the votes that Al Gore had actually won the Florida race, I said, "You watch only FOX News, right?"

She said yes, of course. Then she said (a la Britney Spears), "I just think everyone should support our president."

So I said, "Then if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton becomes the next president, you will loyally support him or her?"

Oh, no! She was horrified at the thought that she might be expected to supprot a Democratic president.

But she can't see that there is the slightest inconsistency with her initial position that "everyone should support our president."

That's what we are up against. Such people can say the grass is purple and the moon is made of green cheese, and no amount of concrete evidence to the contrary can budge them from what they "know" to be absolutely true because FOX News, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh said so.

against all reason.

Is an Idiot

:)

She needs Remedial History 101 for the next oh, 3 years.

I noticed Kansas - maybe one of them Westboro Baptist fools?

with their beliefs--you know, like facts.

:evilgrin:

:hi:

it doesn't matter if there isn't any proof, doesn't matter if the facts point in a different direction, I'm going to believe in whatever the President or religious mentor tells me...

A belief system that reinforces the rejection of proof/facts. A system not concerned about facts. Be it political/economic ideology or religion

that's why she prefers truthiness to facts

TEXAS.

After being a resident for 3 months, couldn't wait to get out of there fast enough, back to my homestate of Colorado (right next door to ya!)

(Lived in Texarkana - hated it but liked the Arkansas side)

a Texan actually started a separate thread to defend Texas because I dared say I was surprised about the positive (not-guilty) outcome of a medical marijuana case in a small Texas town. Didn't you know Texas isn't like that anymore. :eyes: It's all progressive and intelligent and tolerant. :crazy:

and let these people vote?

:sarcasm:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

It's not just the leaders, it's the followers.

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter3.pdf

Its all there. Compartmentalized minds, hypocrisy, illogical thinking, lacking introspection.

They make up about 20% of hte public too. In the book he talks about RWA or social dominators running a world simulation, and it always ends up with the world full of starvation, disease and nuclear war.

Conservatives without Conscience, which he bases on that book.

Conservatives, the Authoritarian Personality and Fascist Tendencies

Conservatives in America are similar to those who let Hitler take power in Germany because they lack conscience and defer to authority.

The authoritarian personality does not want to give orders, their personality type wants to take orders.

People with this type of personality seek conformity, security, stability. They become anxious and insecure when events or circumstances upset their previously existing world view.

They are very intolerant of any divergence from what they consider to be the normal (which is usually conceptualized in terms of their religion, race, history, nationality, culture, language, etc.)

They tend to be very superstitious and lend credence to folktales or interpretations of history that fit their preexisting definitions of reality (thus the Founding Fathers of the US are conceptualized of as supporters of white nationalism.)

They think in extremely stereotyped ways about minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. They are thus very dualistic- the world is conceived in terms of absolute right (their way) Vs. absolute wrong (the "other" whether African American, liberal, intellectual, feminist, etc.)

The concept of authoritarian personality denotes a number of qualities, which according to the theories of Theodor Adorno predict one's potential for fascist and antidemocratic leanings and behaviors.

Because fascistic groupings get support essentially from the right-conservative camp parts of the conservative outlook are likewise judged as an expression of this personality structure.

Here are some characteristics of an underlying authoritarian personality structure:

* Conventionalism -- the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted

* Authoritarian Submission -- submission to authorities and authority figures

* Authoritarian Aggression -- an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values

* Anti-Intraception -- rejection of the subjective, imaginative and aesthetic

* Substitution and Stereotypy -- superstition, cliché, categorization and fatalistic determinism

* Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power, excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities

* Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, putting others down

* Projectivity -- the tendency to believe in the existence of evil in the world and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward

* Sex -- exaggerated concerns with respect to sexual activity

http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/10/10/2401939.html

the same way as your student.

Our country is going to be in one bad shape in 20 or 30 years when these current teens start taking part in the government.

and then ask her how she likes being part of the 2nd standard deviation group on the left side of the curve.

As a teacher you should know that by now. Give her time.

I know that poster is gone, but i still liked your pithy, succinct reply.
The Professor

from right-wing sources.

Sid

there are ignorant high school students. Sad, but that's the lay of the land here in America.

...that Democrats vote on Tuesday and Republicans on Wednesday.

O8)

I did the same thing when I was young.

for the rest of their lives. When she said in class that they they had found WMDs in Iraq, my mouth dropped open. At first I was stunned because although I know the 28 percenters believe such things, I hadn't heard anyone actually say it in person before. Seeing the looks on the faces of the rest of the students in class was almost worth it, though. We were all picking our jaws off the floor.

actually found in Iraq after Bush's invasion:

from the roof tops?

For all of the grief he has taken over WMD's wouldn't he have been the first to call a press conference and announce it?

They are brain washed.

If you show her press the vid of shrub denying AQ in Iraq she wouldn't believe it.

Koool-aide anyone?

Iraq was connected to 9/11 (another bit of nonsense she believes, BTW). She announced, "I have seen very speech he has given. He never said that." Her barriers are water tight.

if the big find of WMD's exists?

:D

know they are wrong or misinformed. I teach English. I grade them only on the quality of their writing. She isn't going to be writing about Iraq or Bush anyway.

:D

their argument with evidence. Maybe have her use the Google and find articles that support her belief?

I tell them that even if I agree 100% with something they write, they will get a lousy grade if their evidence and arguments don't hold water. On the other hand, as long as they argue reasonably, they can take stands totally opposed to my own.

But you have to be careful. Biology teachers are pressured out of their jobs for refusing to water down their teaching of evolution with bows to intelligent design. There is no way I am going to have students write political papers in my English class. If a student were to write a 28 percenter paper, and if that student failed to offer evidence or reasoned argument and thus got a low grade, we would soon read about it in the National Review and the RW would be going on about students being indoctrinated by liberal teachers and graded down for being conservative.

Nope, you don't wade into those shark-infested waters at all.

I am basing my final exam on the Milgram and Stanford prison experiments. But the prompts I offer do not force the students to one side or the other of the issues I raise. For example, I absolutely believe Tasers are abused by police in the US, but even here on DU, about 1/4 of the posters will defend any Taser use by cops, no matter how outrageous. I certainly would not penalize a paper that argued from that side, even though I disagree with it, as long as the student argued logically and wrote the paper well.

I don't penalize my students for disagreeing with me.

It is a shame though that you can't force that young lady to back up her argument with facts. That'd be more for Civics class if they even give that any more.

Before the invasion of Iraq, I knew there weren’t any WMD's. Reason being, we would not have invaded them in the first place if they had WMD's. We would have not put our soldiers in that kind of danger. Look at all the countries we avoid because they do have WMD's.

Even if you did believe the filthy lies from this administration about the reason to invade, it should have been clear after the first few days into the war that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. What is the reason for having WMD’s in the first place, if you’re not going to use them against an invading army? That should have been a wake up call to the willfully ignorant, but no instead many chose to believe even a more ridiculous argument that Saddam moved them. Why would, he had moved them? Was he saving them for a rainy day? Get a clue, and use some common sense. How stupid do you have to be to continue to believe this filthy administrations’ crap?

decompression? no decomposition? no dumbass me.... de something er other yes. LOL

based on factual knowledge

Have her bring in legitimate news reports that confirm her claims. I'd even accept articles from Fox News, because you can always have her research the points they intentionally leave vague, which tend to contradict the headline.

have the entire class assigned a paper which selects any ten articles from prior to the official beginning of combat in Iraq and ask them to dissect the use of language as it pertains to the concept of propaganda.

An effective smokescreen would be to insert the assignment into a larger teaching segment comprised of studies of official, State-sponsored propaganda efforts, including specifically the USSR (to mollify this student and her parents, prior to the Iraq assignment), China, N. Korea, etc. Cover the communist countries first, move on into modern (last ten to twenty years or so), and conclude with our own efforts.

The social aspects of it just come with the territory, but if couched in a "use of the English language to manipulate/words are powerful things" light, I think the OP could get away with it.

Getting rid of this mindset will not be easy; it will take effort, and it will take time. Someone upthread jokingly mentioned "deprogramming", but since so many people have been quite literally "programmed" by FAUX News etc., actual deprogramming is what may be required, or else we may stand no chance of a productive future as a nation.

...are you able to just roll your eyes, shake your head and grade her according to her participation in class, her turned-in assignments, her attendance, and not her politics?

I'm not comfortable with right-wing teachers who are after your ass for bringing up the word "socialism" (circa 1973, thank you very much) in class, then continue with your (lack of) haircut, your clothes, your slouch and your total reliance on the rhetorical 'you know'; subjects that never caused offense prior to such inquiry about different governmental systems, and all in front of the rest of the herd.

By the same token, I'm also not comfortable with teachers who are prejudicial against their young and impressionable students, (who not only attend school and watch MTV, but have parents and extended families with much more influence) merely because these children spout a political orthodoxy alien to their own.

I'm sorry, but for you to bring this up here makes me wonder how you're going to treat this kid the rest of the school year. I hope that you're cool with it, because, frankly, you're paid to be.

crucial issues, but she is otherwise a sweet, intelligent girl. I do not approve of any teacher who tries to force her own opinions on her students, or who grades according to whether students agree or disagree with her. I simply require that the student offer evidence and reasoned argument. But I don't assign papers on political issues.

I bring the incident up here, because we on DU are focused on the very real issue of people who get all of their info from FOX and from RW blowhards like Rush. We get frustrated because we can't get through to them with verifiable facts. One reason why I don't have my students write on politics is that I consider it very thin ground. I know I can grade fairly, but I am not sure that students can accept a grade as fair when they know you disagree with their political position.

I am consdiered kind of a hard grader, but because I really do teach my students a lot and also give them a chance to revise earlier papers at the end of the semester when they have learned something and can do a better job, they come to accept the grades they get at the beginning of the term as what they are--necessary information to help them become better writers. I don't think I could count on their trust in my grading fairness if I let politics get into it, so I never assign political papers. Even the final exam we are doing, based on the Milgram and Stanford experiments, is merely intended to familiarize them with the experiments and their results and to get them thinking about the implications of the experiments. I offer 9 different prompts, and they allow for a wide range of responses, so a student isn't pushed to take a typically "liberal" stance on the issues raised. Some of the prompts are almost "procedural," so s tudent who doesn't want to deal with the moral issues can easily focus only on the structure of the experiments and their results (key definitions, evidence offered by the experiments to support the researchers' theories, etc.), without having to take a stand on either side of the issues involved.

In post 33, as you'd have known if you'd read the thread. Despite comments by others indicating they'd like to see this student fail, the OP made it clear that she will not use her student's uninformed opinions against her. I also teach college, and *surprise* we don't tend to grade students based on their political views. I don't know the OP, but frankly am angered on her behalf by the condescending tone of your last two sentences--I can deal with my students' ignorance much more patiently than snide comments made on a progressive site like DU.

...with my comments. However, that is the bottom line. A teacher is paid to be patient and not indoctrinate their students from either side of the political spectrum. Parents should have more influence over their kids than teachers do if for no other reason than they have the ultimate responsibility for their children. Teachers are there to perform a job, which they trained for and are paid to do. If the pay isn't enough, or they're not happy with the job, anymore, then it's time to get into another profession. My comments were not intended to be snide, and the OP wrote me a very polite and enlightening reply, so you don't need to be angry on her behalf anymore. DU is one of those places where people will speak their mind. Sometimes, however, there are those that get offended by a position, then insist on making some sort of personal disparagement. Water off a duck's back, as the saying goes.

For the sake of the children.

Give him a failing grade and send him away before he
goes postal !

Bushie monsters.

... most of us grow up, some just take longer than others... smile and enjoy her 'innocence'..

still monsters.

Don't blame the messenger for reality of the fact that Bushies are mentally VERY similar to Nazis.

(please click on either of my two signature links to understand why this statement is not hyperbole IN THE LEAST)

are mentally similar to Nazis.

You may think this is hyperbole, but it is not.

I mean, perform a thought experiment. You are talking to this same young woman. Instead of a Bushie she is a Nazi and you are trying to explain to her that Jews are people, too.

Close your eyes. Imagine it. Would you get a reaction that wasa substantially different from that which you outlined in your OP?

It is indeed what we are up against. The two links I have in my signature line flesh the concept out, "dotting the i's and crossing the t's" as it were. They further explain, in a much more eloquent and organized fashion than I ever could, why Bushies being so very similar in mind to Nazis in NOT hyperbole in the least.

Please read them, although I think your experience with this particular Bushie-Nazi mind, face-to-face, has probably made you understand the basic truth of what I am saying without watching scholarly lectures or reading psyhcological research texts.

Please do it anyway. Our only slim hope of defeating this incarnation of Right-Wing Authoritarian Totalitarians, leaders and followers alike, starts with unerstanding what they are at bottom.

Regular people like you and me, with a latent capacity for following monsters that can be triggered by time-honored Bushie-Nazi propaganda methodology.

They have always been with us. They will always be with us. They are no danger and you could no more tell the difference between one of them and a regular person than one could tell who was going to become a Nazi by looking at people in Germany 1923.

But you have just looked at one, and talked to her. A human once, now in the service of monstrous evil and joyously, rapturously so.

No, one doesn't try to argue with Bushies or Nazis or any people of that archetype. One figths or one surrenders. There is no in between with Bushies, Nazis, and other totalitarians.

There's still hope (maybe)

was one where he advocated the idea that we should be allowed to kill one asshole a month. Your post brought that immediately to mind.

You know, I don't think someone like this dope will ever see the light. The only thing I can think is they're just too goddamn dumb to be a Democrat. So they have to be Republican. I really think this. No matter what you say, she'll always be, "yeah, but this one goes to eleven".

It seems to me people like this have one or two people in their life that they always listen to whenever an issue gets complicated. Most times it's probably an older family member, someone they've known since childhood, and they pretty much parrot whatever that person says. This is just speculation, but I bet we've all known people like this.

As a TA I had two "oh, my God, my students are little fascists" moments this year in Intro to Cheese(fortunately only two -- I deal with pretty apolitical subject matter in the class I TA).

The first when a student suggested that "the US" should pass legislation limiting the number of children people can have.

Once I got over the urge to blurt out, "Dude, where do you think we are? China?" I managed to put my tact hat on, gain control of my mouth, and ask them about people whose religion tells them they should have large numbers of children.

"Fine them," was the response.

Okay. Try again. "In a country like this one, where we are constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion, and some religions tell people they should have large families, can we pass a law that limits the number of children people can have?" Come on, think, people, THINK!

"...Uh, I guess not."

So that was OMG moment one. Moment two was when a different student suggested that a solution for childhood obesity was to make a law requiring parents to take their child(ren) outside to play for at least one hour a day, and hand in a weekly form showing that the parents did that, with a fine as penalty for noncompliance. Like a practice card in junior high school band.

I didn't have a response to that one -- it came from so far out of left field I didn't see it coming. Luckily one of the students with critical thinking skills (hooray for those students!) jumped in to tell Student 2 that they were out of their tree and why.

to support him, but they never seem to want to offer themselves or their own to go die in the Middle East for their beloved Bush*.

That line has silenced many a freeper.

Drag her down to the recruitment office by her heels if you have to.

Here ya go. Have her read this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda

I'm sure this girl has the attention span of a gnat and an abysmal vocabulary to boot.

...with whom you are making a difference.

We will never fully eliminate stupidity from the gene pool, but that does not mean that everyone so afflicted is a hopeless case.

I know a few rapture enthusiasts myself.

Don