Just once, I’d love to see a NASCAR driver put a signal lamp on his car and indicate left for the entire race.
Boy, we’re attracting some great new members lately.
You’re a classical liberal, in the 19th century sense of the word. So am I. And you’re right, we don’t fit the left/right spectrum at all. Good discussion of this problem at the start of this thread.
Please provide a source for this information. Actually, I don’t care about the NASCAR part, but I’d like to see the evidence you are using for claims of a significant statistical correlation between educational attainment and political party, or between educational attainment and religiousity.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
2004 CNN exit poll on presidential voting.
Not exactly what you wanted, but close. :)
Higher income = more Bush voters
Higher education = more Kerry voters
Protestants/Catholics = more Bush votes
Jewish/Other/No religion = more Kerry votes
Liberals/Moderates = more Kerry voters
Conservatives = more Bush voters
That fits me best, yes, but I didn’t want to bring a third party into the picture :)
Wow. From that poll, a full 5% of the U.S. voters who consent to being polled do not deny being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. That’s a lot of people who are denied rights to adopt and to form legally-binding partnerships.
I’ve looked at the poll, and if you can explain to me how this points to more educated people voting for Kerry, I will send you a box of cookies.
RSoafer, come on now… 55% of Post-Graduate studies individuals voted for Kerry, while more college graduates voted for Bush. You know damn full and well that post-graduates are DEFINITELY smarter than college graduates.
There’s obviously a DIRECT link with smartness and voting Democrat.
Get with the program.
Vote By Education
No College Degree (58%) Bush 53% Kerry 47%
College Graduate (42%) Bush 49% Kerry 49%
Of course, the chart right above that shows says people without a high school education or people doing post grad study voted for Kerry in larger numbers, while everyone with an amount of education in between those extremes were more likely to vote for Bush.
Lots of fun with numbers on that page.
There’s nothing I hate more than an ugly flamewar, so let’s get this thread back on track. We can read the courageous tale of how the graduate student’s subversive(.doc) speech was crafted, in her own words, and how she was able to use John McCain’s words against him, soil his crown, and end war.
It starts off slow, with Jean Rohe wanting to simply teach the world to sing while earning a two degrees, but things quickly turn serious for double-degree Jean and the country. By the end she offers John McCain a small apology for destroying him (he curiously says, nay, MUMBLES that it’s alright, but Jean knows that filthy bastard’s true feelings) and her two degrees are only mentioned one more time.
Ms. Rohe’s bio is too perfect to be true:
Jean Rohe, a BA/BFA graduate of the Jazz Program and Eugene Lang, was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1984. As a youngster, Jean grew up singing and performing folk music with her family. Jean spent a year at Smith College followed by a summer at the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba on scholarship where she honed her Spanish skills, learned about Cuban history, culture, and politics, and made some of her dearest friends. Since she transferred to the New School in 2002, Jean has sung in venues throughout New York City, including the Birdland, Sweet Rhythm, the Cornelia Street Café, Detour, Barbés, and others. She also teaches and performs music for young children at the Third Street Music School Settlement and at venues throughout the city. She recently completed her senior work at Eugene Lang, an audio documentary about her trip to Israel/Palestine during the Gaza disengagement last August. In July she will be performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.
I thought the students were being rude asshats.
I will admit that while I like McCain, giving the same stump-ish speech to multiple graduating classes is kind of weak. Nevertheless it was the students themselves who made a mockery of their own commencement ceremony.
{McCain} expressed his support for the war in Iraq.
“We’re graduating, not voting!” one screamed near the close of his 20-minute address.
While stuff like screaming at the speaker during commencement ceremonies annoys the hell out of me, could we stop letting politicians pimp their personal policy preferences? Please? The only thing more annoying that sitting through a boring speech about how students should live the rest of their lives is sitting through a boring speech about how students’ political beliefs are wrong. Or right. I didn’t spend four years dodging pampleteers in the Union for nothing.
I really wish political figures wouldn’t use commencement speeches for political grandstanding. It’s for the students, not for you. Heckling and yelling isn’t very classy, either. Bad form all around.
As a side note, I was at the graduation for Simmons College, a local women’s school, this weekend. The commencement speaker was Eve Ensler, the writer of “The Vagina Monologues.” The first part of her speech was a very left-wing political rant, which, even though I agree with her on a lot of the issues she touched on, annoyed me a little. The second part of the speech was better, much more directed to her audience of young, female graduates.
Amusingly, she was speaking so loud and forcefully, and using big gestures so much during the speech that I couldn’t help comparing her speech to Dwight’s speech in The Office.
Here’s a boring little anecdote that pertains to the situation;
Last week, I was at Anne Frank’s old house, and I took a tour. At the end of the tour, there were several exhibits. One of the exhibits was an interactive video wherein the audience was called upon to answer in the affirmative or the negative. The questions concerned freedoms, such as the right to protest of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and the right to read books like Mein Kampf.*
Most of the people in the room don’t think that Mein Kampf is free speech, that the Klan should be allowed to march, or that… well, you get the idea. I don’t even really need to piss on about how “those fools don’t really get it,” or bloviate regarding, “the reins of power and the rights of man,” and whatnot. I really wish that, like the rhetorical flourishes and logical fallacies we all hold so dearly, there was some sort of shorthand for these types of arguments. So, perhaps, someone would protest John McCain speaking what they consider to be hateful at somesuch barbeque or cock-fight, and they could express their dismay at the conduct of the children, and I would say, “Lion’s Den1,” or some other shorthanded reference. To which, I would expect the reply, “Johnny Rebel2, John Brown3.” Stymied, I would have to rest upon the phrase, “Fancy dress ball4,” and hope that affairs aren’t settled when my opponent calls, “Taco Fight5.”
*Not mein Mein Kampf, Hitler’s Mein Kampf. My fight is almost exclusively about whether to get hamburgers or burritos, and it is mostly a struggle on the individual level, against the self, only occasionally spilling over to things like national elections. As such, it may be of more than passing interest to those who study in the burgeoning fields of culinary politicalism, social epicurean studies, and professors of Harvard Symbology. I digress.
- Lion’s Den would represent the question of what exactly the listener expected to happen when they traipsed into a Lion’s Den wearing sausage shortpants.
- People who oppose a government for reasons I would consider unwise or wrong. (Regional usage varies in meaning, much like “Kentucky Flapjack.”)
- People who oppose a government for quite proper reasons. Taken with the previous reference, it would suggest that politcal tables turn more quickly than Hooter’s patrons when they hear a bra strap explode. Freedoms are freedoms, no matter who is using them, because once our opinion of the speaker enters into our mind, we do tend to flit about, quite lordly.
- Don’t take your dick out at a fancy dress ball. This is much in keeping with the United States Supreme Court, “Time Place and Manner,” restrictions on free speech and cockshocking.
- When anyone has a taco fight, everyone loses. Why? Because, we could have eaten those tacos, and now they are all strewn about, broken, messy. Quite scandalous due to their indulgent nature, a taco fight can be all the more satisfying, having much in common with the fabled open flame money-burning contests of Hong Kong businessmen and muckity-mucks.
Can you clarify the difference between taking out your dick at a fancy dress ball and a taco fight?
Remember, these aren’t all “kids”. Unlike most universities the New School has many older “students” who are functioning adults looking to get a degree in order to further their life.
It’s a much more unstructured environment, and has true liberal values in that it actually helps people move up and improve who might not otherwise have the opportunity.
McCain was a fool to go there, and remains a fool after he left.
Kids or not – it’s certainly understandable that they might object to McCain’s speech, but it’s rude whoever’s doing the disrupting. Not just to McCain, but to the commencement ceremony itself. Not that I place much sanctity in a graduation ceremony (quite the opposite), but I’m sure some people just wanted to get their diploma and get the whole thing out of the way without it becoming a national story.
Back when he was running in 2000, McCain was famous for doing things like going to milk towns in New England and telling them that milk subsidies are bad. Even if the whole maverick shtick is mostly for show, it’s goddamn refreshing to see someone make a rational and detailed case for chipping away at government waste.
Giving his pro-war speech at a liberal college might have been a bad idea in retrospect though.
Boo hoo. Use your speech for irrelevant grandstanding, you’ll get a matching reaction from the crowd.