Gun control and the highly educated.

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I certainly didnt mean that PHDs were all bad. If I led anyone to think that I think that, Please accept my humble apology. I know several people w/ PHDs and none are antis.
I feel like most of the people I refered to on chats etc. are possibly posers with their head in the dictionary :).

BigG, It probably wouldnt surprise you but, there are so many archeological dicoveries made that are swept under the rug because they dont fit into the theories of mainstream academia. There have been several discoveries around the world and North America that are very deep.Many of them contain artifacts that are much more advanced than anything closer to the surface. Evedence of the Great Flood? hmmmmmmmmmm.

Luke 22:36........m16
 
M16a2223: You are right. That was just one example I could pretty much think of at the time, but there are plenty of others.

For example, in my work, we use the services of many so-called "think tanks", independent research organizations to perform studies. From the inside you can easily discern that these studies are not pure research, designed to find out what's really happening. Rather, they are pre-planned to support the results we want to see.

Also, in survey research, there is a certain type of person who will respond to a survey. Others will not respond under any circumstances. Guess which ones produce the results that reveal "X% of people are happy with our product?"

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Remember: When you attempt to rationalize two inconsistent positions, you risk drowning as your own sewage backs up... Yankee Doodle
 
Have to agree with that one, JJR; they spend so much time in a land of theories that they even begin talking about the real world as if it's a theory.

As an exile from academia (various Departments of English) myself, I know. But not all PhD's are created equal. Maybe because this is Alabama, I met up with a surprising number of fellow hunters and shooters with classical liberal arts educations who are as pro-gun as George Patton or Jeff Cooper. Trouble is, they kept it as quiet as possible, as they were seriously outnumbered, and felt it was best that their administrators and deans didn't need to know that a few profs were packing in the lecture hall 8~)
 
BigG - I know we're off the original topic on this, but what the hey, it's fun. I'm only going on memory here, but I always thought the nose of the sphinx was shot off by the Mamluks during their occupation of Egypt. The late stages of that occupation did occur during the time Nappy was in Egypt, in fact I think he was fighting them. The Napoleon story said that he thought the sphinx "mocked him" and ordered his connoneers to shoot off the nose. One good point against that theory is that Napoleon was an art and antiquity lover, it would go against his style to have ordered it. The Mamluks wouldn't have given a damn 'bout no freekin sphinx.
 
I have noticed that nothing turns around a liberal and slaps them in the face with reality like a rape, assualt, robbery, etc. I have known several highly educated liberals that were anti-gun who have turned 180 degrees after such an incident and now own guns and strongly believe in the right to personal protection. Funny how reality breeds reality.
 
Art Eatman and Destructo6, it may be just foolish pride on my part, but I too have found that folks with degrees in the natural and applied sciences generally lean more towards conservative/libertarian politics and believe more in individual responsibility than soft science or liberal arts types. Disclaimer- I don't believe this is a law of nature, just my own experience and HO.
Coinneach, the person that I work with who I consider to be the best and brightest on the support group here is our Unix sysadmin, who like yourself doesn't have a degree either. There is a downside, and you might have already seen it: as much as people respect his work and brainpower, he has had a difficult time getting ahead because of that lack of paper. No 2 ways about, it shouldn't be that way, but it is.
 
I suspect that you are having more of a problem with authority than with the general lot of "highly educated people" (PhDs, etc.).
As with many people on this board, you are expressing a strong anti-authoritarian perspective.

Remember: Higher Education is not a democratic institution. It is rigidly hierarchical (much like the miltary). Meanwhile, the people who work in higher education have their own hang ups about authority, what makes knowledge, and the character of one's credentials and research. In other words, it is one condescending remark after another. Prevailing opinion tends to get made from the top down, so with the recent rise of left-wing academics you can expect some predictable anti-gun sentiments.

This situation though should not be exaggerated or the fodder for over-generalizations. There are many academics (people with PhDs), such as myself, and even in the liberal arts, that are pro-gun and politically conservative. It just isn't our time though to run roughshod over other people's opinions. But wait though: The time will come.

Until then, read some Thomas Hobbes as an antidote for your anti-authoritarian attitudes.
 
Boy oh boy.....you guys got this ball up in the air and are juggling it just fine.

In the past I have had to interview many job aplicants with many supposedly advanced educations. In the real world as well as the corporate world, it becomes neccessary to show them that they habitually over complicate many simple issues and problems.
We spend alot of time re-educating them.

We start by having them put aside the often narrow, inacurate view of many subjects that their professors held.
And subsequently could not see other viewpoints or solutions to whatever problem was being worked on.

I explained that the high priced education they received was supposed to teach them how to think and analize and solve problems. Not to be forced into absolutes.
The corporate world requires you to think along the companies viewpoint not what some proffessor in some college espoused.

Anyway to get their attention I often told them that their degrees, mean little to me.
And that the following could be said for their academic accomplishments.

BS = Bull S**T
MS = More S**T
PHD = Piled High Deep
:)
 
I consider the above remarks by "Wolf" to be not only profoundly ignorant but offensely slanderous. Moderator: Can we get this person kicked off the board?
 
m16, This morning while knee deep in an irrigation trench, shovel in hand, my father rode up in a cart at the GC I manage. The perennial joke of "this is what an expensive liberal arts education has gotten me." I smile lovingly because I know of his personal sacrifices in helping provide me with it, and am aware of his pride in my limited successes . Having lived and worked many years in a very Liberal Arts education (English Literature and Fine Arts), I'll just submit that it can work both ways. When speaking as the "ditch digger" or "non-working artist" to my youthful friends and aquaintences in academia, I can still both defend the 2nd amendment and even Jackson Pollack at the same time. And have produced the work to back it up. It freaks them out. I can also argue that what I do now is also honorable and is still at times "ART". Point is, the liberal intelligentsia has it all mapped out. Screw with their preconceived notions and they get lost quick. Yet they will listen. No, not the Phd's, but those they wish to influence.
 
Is this what degree envy looks like? Good grief, I thought Glock envy was a terrible thing to witness...Maybe this thread has degenerated into anus envy...let's see who's the biggest...

Maybe we should talk about something like guns rather than berating people based on broad generalities and stereotypes. Then again, gun owners are often viewed as intolerant, ignorant, right wing rednecks, and it looks like some of you folks are doing your best to perpetuate that image. I'd say it is time to lock the thread.
 
Education neither makes a person "smart" (whatever that means) nor endows him with "common sense" (whatever THAT means). By the same token, NOT having an education does not give anyone those favorable traits either.

Narrow-minded people are found at every educational level - from NO education to multiple PhDs but to say that education is of no value or relevance defies reason.

Educational level by itself is not the most important aspect of our RKBA; but it IS important to extend to other people a bit of common courtesy.

On TFL we request debate exclude personal attacks. Take it to e-mail.

Let me add, if we believe in our RKBA, if we believe unity of gun owners is important, we should struggle less to defame and insult each other because of our differences.

Argue political issues. Argue Glock v. Sig or whatever, but not the individual and his characteristics.

At one time or another, many of us (I do mean "us"), in our frustration or fervor, broadbrush a subject and offend someone by accident. When that goes unchecked, it divides us as gun owners rather than unites us. That's when apologies are appropriate.

The name of the game is unity. This thread has become counter to that goal. This thread is closed.
 
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