Dear Shitferbrains: As Any Fool Knows, College Is Not For Encouraging Freethinking

We had a visit from a DeSantis stan.

It's been a long darn while since I last did one of these Dear Shitferbrains things, in part because for much of the Trump administration the quality of our trolls declined sharply, but largely because I used to do those on Sundays until Rebecca made me take "weekends" seriously and I just got out of the habit.

I hope I can remember the format. Lessee ... Copy-paste a really dumb wingnut comment, make fun of it, the end. OK, I can handle that!

Our study text today comes from one "Clarence," who is probably neither an associate justice of the Supreme Court nor a bumbling angel trying to earn his wings by convincing Jimmy Stewart that he should go on living, if only so he can later star in Strategic Air Command with a lot of file footage of B-36 Peacemaker bombers. Clarence did not care for our article Wednesday in which we took the New York Times to task for treating Ron DeSantis's war on education as if it were just one more bit of political "branding."

Hey, Remember This? New York Times *Loves It* Some Goose-Stepping Dictator Ron DeSantis! 

Clarence didn't really seem to get the article at all, because he thought I was mocking Ron DeSantis, when in fact I was mocking the New York Times for treating DeSantis's nigh-fascism as if he were simply marketing a new political flavor of the week. Why, Clarence even missed the chance to praise DeSantis for his success by exclaiming "Let's go brandin'!"

That said, at least Clarence read my little author bio just enough to put me in my place:

It's good to know you have PHD in rhetoric (aka bullshit and lying). That would explain this hit piece masquerading as reporting.

Well that hurt, even if he didn't recognize that I was complaining about the Times puff piece masquerading as reporting. Clarence explained that clearly we dumb libs don't understand what education is about, because we are hateful. Hang on. It's a bit of a ride.

State funded schools (even "Institutes of Higher Learning") are responsible to the State. This is esp true at the Elementary and High School level where the ostensible goal (unlike colleges where it is currently merely a bad joke) is NOT to 'turn out freethinkers' or 'celebrate diversity' or any of that BS. It's to learn basic CIVICS and life skills not to be taught that any one Race has 'inherent privilege' and not to 'critique' Western Civilization or the United States or any of that. In fact, FEDERAL LAW and F EDERAL COURT cases and most State Constitutions require public institutions to be downright 'colorblind' when it comes to race, and allow no discrimination ('positive' or otherwise) when it comes to sex, disability and any other 'protected class'. To the extent that ANY public funding went to any Institution that had ANY program that did not follow that dictate, then De Santis's actions were not only necessary but they were morally and ethically laudible.

Here we must apologize for out headline, because honestly Clarence isn't interested in college at all, even though that's what both the Times article and my critique were about. The only things children should learn in elementary and high school are basic CIVICS and life skills — but perhaps CIVICS and life skills include getting along with one's fellow citizens of other creeds and colors, and to know the history of why that is necessary, which might possibly include a 'critique' of things that aren't now perfect or weren't perfect in a past era?

No, that can't be right.

Clarence goes on to explain that if you go teaching about American history in a way that discusses things that make Clarence feel bad, then bigot, bigot, Clarence isn't the bigot, you are the bigot.

Also all education at the college level is a bad joke, this is just so obvious that it doesn't need to be mentioned, and certainly not in the context of an article that was about college, mostly.

We ran Clarence's assertions about F EDERAL COURT past Wonkette legal correspondent Liz Dye, who replied, and I quote: "hmmmm."

Clarence did hang around a little longer yesterday; in reply to a Wonkette reader's question about who even buys the Times anymore, since it's hated by both the Left and the Right, Clarence offered this:

"Hard" lefties might hate the NYT, but soft lefties and any of the Trump Deranged downright love it.

I do think the vast majority of its subscriber base is aged hippies who still think the paper reports the news, or , at least "All The News That's Fit To Print"

So that's something: Clarence is no Trumper, although he sort of sounds like one in his commenting history at other sites; he griped about how Trump never had the chance to drain the swamp because for his entire time in office, Congress was controlled by the "uniparty," so we guess Clarence is a true independent who sees no difference between Democrats and Republicans, even now. He also likes guns a lot and hates open borders, and wishes people would stop saying "gender" instead of "sex," because the former doesn't exist?

Update/Mea Big Gulpa: As astute commenters have pointed out, I misread our visitor. He is absolutely a Trumper, and "Trump Deranged" refers to all those lefties who have Trump Derangement Syndrome, because those people are crazy. Wonkette regrets the error.

Finally, in reply to a comment about the College Board's revisions of the AP African American Studies course, Clarence had a LOT to say, which we will reproduce in full for its brilliant rantiness, which builds from one grievance to another like John Belushi (Crom rest his soul) doing one of his editorial replies on "Weekend Update." When Clarence gets to the last sentence, you can nearly hear the thud as he flings himself off his chair:

Oh, Waaaaaah Waaaaaah Wahhhhhhhh. I bet you don't say a Goddamn thing about "Academic Freedom" when it comes to Conservative Professors being fired or otherwise "canceled". I haven't seen a single Academic Leader (as opposed to the occasional professor ) who has had any balls in literally decades. They've caved on everything, (Hell, I've watched videos in which students bullied the Prefects and Directors and Presidents and whatever other Title around. The students TELL them what they are going to do, and give them no respect whatsoever.) which is why most colleges now have faculties that vote 90 to 99 percent plus Democratic, and Cancel Culture is a 'thing'. And African American Studies or Black Studies or whatever you want to call it, just like "Gender Studies" aka feminism has been trash for decades, mostly concerned with turning out increasingly radical activists. Where do you think the 1619 project came from or the idea that "colorblindness" is just racism, or that "White People" and ONLY "White People" have 'implicit bias' , and other such BS? These programs are pretty much BEYOND critique on modern college campuses. So cry some more because of the 'damage' that DeSantis has done. Far as I'm concerned both the Higher Education system and the Public Education system in this country need to be burned down and rebuilt from the ground up as education, esp classical education is not their concern any more.

I sort of wanted to hear about all these conservative professors being fired, but that "or otherwise 'canceled'" suggested he wouldn't be too likely to deal with specifics. I also don't know anything about "prefects" in American schools, and suspect he may be thinking of Hogwarts.

The end.

Hey, I've still got it!

And you filthy fuckaducks have got yourselves an OPEN THREAD.

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