So this man’s outraged. This is what his little fifth grader is being taught. Sir, everybody’s fifth graders have been taught this in many, many public schools for years and years and years and years, and it remains a challenge to infiltrate, take over, commandeer, wrest control of academia next, just as the process to do the same thing in the media has been taking place for a long, long time. And there is progress being made in academia, but it’s not at full speed yet. Along these lines, we have a column here in the Los Angeles Times by a man named Jonathan Chait. Now, does the name Chait, Jonathan Chait, ring a bell? I’m not sure that’s how he pronounces it. C-h-a-i-t. I think it is. He wrote a piece in the New Republic: “Why I Hate Bush,” and it was universally applauded. “Literary effort!” The left focused on it. “Brilliant, brilliant piece! Something Americans should read.” Why I Hate Bush. His column in the L.A. Times today: “Why Academia Shuns Republicans.” There’s really only one paragraph necessary to read: “The main causes of the partisan disparity on campus have little to do with anything so nefarious as discrimination. First, Republicans don’t particularly want to be professors. To go into academia ? a highly competitive field that does not offer great riches ? you have to believe that living the life of the mind is more valuable than making a Wall Street salary. On most issues that offer a choice between having more money in your pocket and having something else ? a cleaner environment, universal health insurance, etc. ? conservatives tend to prefer the money and liberals tend to prefer the something else. It’s not so surprising that the same thinking would extend to career choices. Second, professors don’t particularly want to be Republicans. In recent years, and especially under George W. Bush, Republicans have cultivated anti-intellectualism. Remember how Bush in 2000 ridiculed Al Gore for using all them big numbers?”
And so to translate this: The reason why there are no Republicans in academia is because they’re greedy and selfish and stupid. They don’t have patience for the life of the mind, and it’s much too competitive in the academy. What a bunch of Bosh! Ever heard of tenure? Ever heard of lifetime tenure? What the hell competition? Professors don’t even teach. They indoctrinate their little scrawny graduate assistants to go out there. The teachers sit back there and write their little pamphlets that get published in booklets that nobody reads, get their awards that nobody knows about, and basically sit there and think they’re smarter than everybody else — and let me tell you something. The real question is: If all the stupid people have all the money, how does that work? How do stupid people get rich and how is it all these brainy people who live the life of the mind are a bunch of paupers living off of grants and donations?
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