Thought Controllers: Keep Scary John Stossel Away from Students!

The thought controllers at Media Matters are appalled that educational materials featuring John Stossel are making their way into some classrooms. It doesn’t bother them that left-wing materials are all over American classrooms, to the point that American students haven’t the slightest idea who major non-leftist thinkers of importance are. No, we need to focus our attention instead on what in the grand scheme of things is a trivial effort to provide a bit of balance, and to expose the kids to the idea that society just might get by all right without waving incense before a group of sociopaths who consider themselves our betters.

When I was at Harvard, we would hear from one, maybe two right-of-center people all year long. Those events were either protested or disrupted in one way or another, or at the very least whined about for a week. It wasn’t enough that the protesters agreed with 99.99% of the speakers who came to Harvard. Any dissident voices at all were to be silenced or at least deplored.

These are the thought controllers who went on to work for Media Matters.

lucas

Control, Absolute Control. The American people are one big thought experiment. We are trying to determine the response to our propaganda and the best way to cultivate our message of societal betterment. We simply can not accept this uncontrollable variable introducing randomness.
NewHampshire

And yet, they defend community organizers like William Ayers and his cohorts. http://bedford-nh.patch.com/blog_posts/williams-ayers-comes-to-new-hampshire-3ef0b1d0
Khadija Umayyad

That’s because Harvard is seminary for Democratic Humanism. University is a crock.
http://twitter.com/onegoodnathan onegoodnathan

they’re scared to death of these ideas. they must repress and fabricate lies to discredit.
Contemplationist

The comments are hilarious in their lack of self-awareness. Or maybe not. All these people are like one giant Puritan theocracy. Building a New Jerusalem of thought control instead.
Frank M

This is but further proof that Stossel is great.
vox

Outside of caging and killing nonviolent people, government has instituted the best known policing system ever devised: the people themselves. America is saturated with dumbed-down, collectivist drones who do not have to snitch or physically “neutralize” those who embrace non-comformist ideas. While human beings are alway capable of changing their minds, they have been so acclimated to the propaganda pumped out from every important sector of human activity. For many people, it seems that nothing short of a massive personal calamity will move them to rethink nearly everything they have ever “known. While I am no fan of Voltaire, I embrace his axiom that ” it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.”

The use of revelation in the development of knowledge and man’s purpose has been almost completely removed from modern intellectual inquiry. Carroll Quigley once wrote of the Summa, “the material which went into the work of Aquinas are a combination of observation and revelation. To the twentieth century non-Catholic thinker the uses of revelation as one of the sources of evidence may seem repellant, but as soon as we recognize that all thinkers in all ages use a similar source of dual evidence by combining assumptions based on faith, which they do not question, and observations derived from experience, we begin to see that Thomas used the same kinds of materials as any other thinker and must be examined in a critical fashion in terms of what he did with these materials just as all other thinkers are.”

Today, people perceive nothing higher than man, and even religion has become a man-made concept. Hence, the tendency for people to mark themselves “spiritual” but not “religious.” Their spirituality comes from inside them, and they fail to search for truth that transcends all space and time, and binds all human beings. So many of our leaders rise, not on the basis of merit or setting good examples, but on the basis of how they make us feel emotionally. Sometimes, you can almost hear a laugh-track set to modern human life, because, it is thought, life is purely for enjoying the present moment, without thought of stewardship for the future.

As Dr. Woods has written (paraphrasing), many of those who have done the most for this world, have thought the most about the next world. Those who embrace the better of our traditions are often subtlety (or not subtlety) ostracized and marginalized.They are kept out of influential positions, and generally the masses do not seem to want wise, prudent and restrained guidance in a voluntary relationship with natural elites.
Bob

I’ve actually used some of Stossel’s material in my sociology classroom. It is well done. I owe it to my students to give them a point of view that is never found in their textbooks.
Mike

Yup. It’s so hilarious how they whine about the “right wing nut jobs” who want to build a theocracy when they have ALREADY done it themselves! Only it’s a kind of secular theocracy. No dissent permitted.

Reminds me of Spartacus with, “No talking in the kitchen slave”.

Capital Grade A hypocrites!
JackofSpades

I dislike hyperbole, but the more and more I look, the more and more I am convinced that we are heading for something big in this country beyond the economic issues that loom closely on the horizon.

Something much more brutal and cosmic in nature.
Franklin

How is wanting to be left alone linked to “right wing”? Or even more so, how is the NAP?

Tossing in some crumbs like “anti-war” or “pro gay marriage” (as one contrarian voice posted on the mediamatters site) is not a compelling separator. This kind of tit-for-tat argumentation doesn’t differentiate libertarians at all.

I was quite impressed with a speech Tom delivered when he highlighted the NAP as the keystone for the libertarian outlook and lifestyle. I don’t recall which of his talks it was, but a particular quote struck me. He insisted that the libertarian philosophy holds no water if it’s “a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” A remarkable point. In this aside, this un-poetic and unapologetic colloquialism, he smashed the pejorative “right wing” presupposition and dismantled all means of sucking libertarians into this issues-trading card game.

For example, “Well, I’ll tell ya, Rachel, you might be right about Iraq but you’re not right about the income tax!” Such is an example of a “little bit of this and a little bit of that” ping pong.
Libertarians must continue to elevate the debate into one of peace or aggression.
Play on our terms, not theirs. Party politics is all about trees and not forests, so rise above it.

Does a person have a right to be left alone without a trespasser (figuratively and literally) insisting he be assimilated into the tribe?

It’s as simple as that. And there are no, none, nada arguments against this without resorting to straw men nonsense and, I’ll say it, fascistic compromises.
Franklin

They are children.
They may have been born as late as the 1980s or as early as the 1930s.
But they are children nevertheless, fearful of the darkness, being left alone, and hypnotized by political authority.
http://twitter.com/RiskManage41 Steve

John Stossel’s classroom videos are how I became a libertarian. My lazy AP government teacher used to pop videos in everyday. One week we watched “Is America Number 1?” and “Greed.” The propaganda worked!
Fascist Matters

I am dying laughing at hardcore fascist leftists who do everything by Mao’s dictum of political power being the barrel of a gun are daring to talk about something else being “indoctrination” in schools or that schools don’t have an alarming liberal bias.

They even ask for examples of this liberal bias! How about the way that just about every war in american history is taught? Or the ridiculous glossing over of things like atomic bombs being dropped, japanese being put in camps, nothing about Lincoln’s actual views on slaves or his unconstitutional behavior on almost everything, Wilson’s entry into WWI and how it directly led to Hitler’s rise, etc

I specifically remember teachers in school saying that the Second Amendment was not an individual right, when a few minutes on google reading the quotes of the Founders like Madison, Jefferson, George Mason, etc shows that it is not only an individual right, but the means to prevent and/or defeat tyranny!

Of course, this is the same fringe fascist group that has been caught repeatedly asking for specific talking points and getting them from Obama officials while pretending to be some sort of journalistic watchdog group. The founder of it is also hardcore anti-gun, but his bodyguard repeatedly broke gun laws all over the country and paid for firearms with media matters slush fund money – so no wonder why they are a little upset at the moment.
Samgrace

In case anyone is interested:

One must be a member of the Economic History Association to be eligible,

but research is not limited to time period or geographic area.

———————————–

Program Number: 00290

———————————–

Title: Arthur H. Cole Grants-in-Aid

Establish Date: 11/12/1980

Follow Up Date: 1/1/2014

Review Date: 1/3/2013

SPONSOR INFORMATION

Sponsor: Economic History Association

Sponsor Type: Professional/Academic Assoc & Soc.

Contact: Professor Kerry Odell

Address: Committee on Research in Economic History

U.S.A.

Email: kerry.odell@scrippscollege.edu

Website:http://eh.net/eha/grants-and-fellowships

Program

URL:http://eh.net/eha/node/add/grant-aid-application

Deadline Information

Deadline(s) : 3/1/2013

Deadline Ind : Receipt

Deadline Open: No (* See Restrictions for details)

Program Information:

Cost Sharing: No

CFDA Number:

Funding Limit: 5000

Indirect Costs: Unspecified

Duration: 0

Cost Sharing Percent: 0

Indirect Cost Cap: 0

Sponsor Program Number:

Proposal Restrcitions : No

Applicant Type(s): Postdoctoral; Researcher/Investigator; Young

Investigator/Junior Faculty;

Award Type(s): Research Grants/R & D;

Target Group(s):Citizenship(s):

Any/No Restrictions;

Geographical Restrictions: NO RESTRICTIONS;

Locations Tenable: Any/No Restrictions;

Synopsis:

The Committee on Research in Economic History awards Arthur H. Cole

grants-in-aid to

support research in economic history.

Objectives:

The Committee on Research in Economic History awards Arthur H. Cole

grants-in-aid to support research in economic history, regardless of time

period or geographic area.

Eligibility:

Eligible applicants must have a Ph.D. and must be members of the Economic

History Association. Preference is given to recent Ph.D. recipients.

Funding:

Awards typically are in amounts up to $5,000, although higher amounts may

be awarded in exceptional cases. (kww)

Keywords: Economic History;
Luke Sunderland

*Zombie voice on*

“How about the way that just about every war in american history is taught?” AMERICA HATER!

“Or the ridiculous glossing over of things like atomic bombs being dropped” COMMUNIST!

“Japanese being put into camps” AMERICA HATER!

“Nothing about Lincoln’s actual views on slaves or his unconstitutional behavior on almost everything” NEO-CONFEDERATE!

“Wilson’s entry into WWI and how it directly led to Hitler’s rise” ANTI-SEMITISM!

“a few minutes on google reading the quotes of the Founders like Madison, Jefferson, George Mason, etc shows that it is not only an individual right, but the means to prevent and/or defeat tyranny!” RIGHT-WING MILITIA FANATIC!

*Zombie voice off*
Mike

Hit the nail on the head Luke. Right on the head.

The funny thing is that they don’t even realize just how stupid they sound.
Anonymous

Who could imagine that a political philosophy based on the principle of non-aggression could be so subversive and dangerous?