A man in the arena

Lets remember that Summers is a Harvard official-- not an "academic." He was speaking as a Harvard official when he made his remarks. The fact that Harvard then took action against him is hardly out of line-- the university has every right to control what its representatives do and do not say.

Summers should have realized the consequences of his remarks, and have acted appropriately. Does this amount to some type of censorship on the part of the university? Absolutley-- but, again, they have every right to censor its representatives.

If Summers was, say, a tenured professor, he could advance any theory he likes. But he isn't. He was an official acting out of line, and was treated accordingly. The criticism should be reserved for those alleged academics that, instead of debating Summer's hyptothesis on its merits, immediately denounced it as heresy.

And, in the interest of fairness, this happens on both sides of the political spectrum.

You anti-american bastard.
 

Being anonymous sure lends to the legitimacy and strength of an argument, that's for sure.
 

Look "Minus", if thats your real name, I now have a clever "handle" (as those smacked up c.b. operators like to say) that I'll be posting under. So watch your back.
 

You mean my e-back? Good luck with that one. You actually created a 'handle' to appease someone else? Nice.
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

The handle is a courtesy for you and this facist I like to call "the man in the arena." This way you two can attribute some personality to the one responsible for the slow, sartrearian dismanteling of your life.

Now, are you going to address any of the points made by the grown-ups? or is your time dedicated to learning how to use html tags to italicize words in your post?

And thanks for the luck with your e-back. Maybe you could e-kiss my e-ass.
 

All the grown-ups that I know are familiar with the term 'fascist'. Here is a great starter:

dictionary.com

Keep up the good work.
 

aww Jesus, leave it to the guy who has nothing else to say to correct a typo. Well congrats, I think you're point has been effectively made. I forgot to hit the "s" on the keyboard.

Maybe petty grammar correction passes for discourse at conservative punk.com, but we at the honorable maninthearena dot com pride ourselves on taking the exchange of ideas to a higher level.

Speaking of, we we're just discussing something. What was it again? Oh yeah, you being a great big gay wad. I did spell that correctly, right? G-A-Y W-A-D? I think so, I'll just run it by dictionary.com to be sure.

Thanks again for your invaluable insight.
 

As far as discourse is concerned, conservativepunk.com has nothing to do with it. You are now defending the same person you were earlier attempting to call a fascist, but 'forgot' to press the s key. Right.

In reality, illiteracy is nothing to scoff at. Denial may be the accelerated stages as a matter of fact. But as far as my insight into your obvious problem being invaluable (while I appreciate the associated fee you have placed on it), dictionary.com is free...unless you actually have to pay for your 'net' time at the soup kitchen. At any rate, try and stay warm until it opens again in the morning.
 

You people worry me.

Summers is an academic. Period.

And I was not talking about "rights." I am not using the government to force Harvard to support Summers. Just because Harvard has a "right" to be unethical hypocrites, does not mean I do not have a "right" to point that out.

You slack-jawed dimwit.
 

Summers isn't an acadmic. period. He's the president of a major university. His job isn't to float controversial theories in public, his job is to administer the university and, through public speaking engagements, put a face to the university. Univerisities generally protect their professors after they float unpopular ideas-- Holocaust deniers, eugenetics advocates, Peter Singer, etc.-- but they are going to be far less tolerant with their public adminstrators. And rightfully so.

Summers is the "slack-jawed dimwit" for floating an idea he new would be controversial, and then pull a dumb "who me" face afterwords.

Again, I agree that in a perfect world every academic in the world would evaluate Summer's proposition on its merits. But I don't need to remind you that this isn't a perfect world-- any and every controversial, politically significant theory has been met with outrage and disblief. Why now is it so surprising?

Perhaps most worrisome, however, is your implication that this type of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice exists only on the left. How many movies have been boycotted by the christian right, even before they were released? How many intellectuals and writers were denounced as un-patriotic, un-american, and, god forbid, French for providing criticisms of the Iraq war?

Its not only feminists and PC warriors that are intellectually weak-- and it is shamefull and disingenuous for you to imply that they are.
 

Oh, and Minus-- if you don't mind, please proof-read my last post for any grammatical errors. I'd ask you to comment on any points made, but I doubt that dictionary.com will be able to teach you the necessary critical thinking skills. Thanks.
 

Goebbels,

First, let me say that I am glad the soup kitchen let you back in so that you could spout your ideological 'street' rhetoric to the masses.

Being that you actually have asked me to proofread your post (albeit by proxy), I will start with the basics as to try and not confuse you too much. You may have noticed that I placed the word 'proofread' in bold type. This is because there really is no hyphen in the word. For my next trick, I will spell 'shamefull' corectly: shameful.

Next, I just find it odd that you would capitilize words like PC, Iraq and French but not 'Christian', 'God', or 'American'. While plainly obvious you hate freedom, I will provide another bit of insight: I learned my thinking skills by actually attending school, and not merely hanging around the outside of them for a blanket or a cigarette.

Being that you tend to take at least two posts to make your point, I will follow suit (seemingly, this is a format you can understand) and comment on your alleged 'points' in another post.

Your Welcome.
 

Click here to see for yourselfWhy yes, yes I did. Amazing thing the internet.