Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum -- Again

[endicom]

Ace of Spades HQ
Ace
May 31, 2017

It is imperative we begin emulating the left in its tactics.

A couple of years ago, I suggested a completely different strategy: I wanted to pursue a kinder path. I wanted an end to the speech wars and social media mobs and boycotts and all the rest of it.

But that path has been tried, and it has failed. Passive resistance -- moral resistance -- can only work when dealing with opponents with morality and honor, or who, at least, see you as more than subhuman.

Gandhi's tactics would not have worked had India been colonized by, say, China.

Many on the right, or even liberals who lean to the left but who still hold to classic liberal traditions, have called, endlessly, for an end to the Speech Wars.

That failed.

We've been trying this for years. Two or three years in my own case.

Has this sweet music of reason had any positive effect of soothing the passions of the beast?

More... http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=369999

[Smokin Joe]

The announcement by Evergreen College should be:

All students who participated in the mob protest, while we certainly support your right to free speech, that does not extend to disruption and mob intimidation of personnel in the offices of this facility. Henceforth you are no longer students. You have 24 hours to remove your property, and only your property, from campus. Henceforth you will no longer be welcome here and will be charged with criminal trespass should you return to this property or any property owned, rented, leased, or managed by Evergreen College.

It is apparent that attempts to educate you to be rational adults have failed, to wit: That you believe you can get whatever you want, not through the process of intelligently stating grievances and calm negotiations, but through mob intimidation. This faculty, this administration, and this institution will not and can not allow such a precedent to stand, as it undermines the very foundations of academia and of civilization itself.

During the summer months, there will be an extensive reevaluation of the curriculum presented and the faculty presenting that material at this institution. Changes will be made which may impact the study goals of students present here, and we will do all in our power to help those students not directly affected by the above announcement to find positions among the student bodies of other institutions more closely aligned with their educational goals. We will notify the student body of those changes as they are made.

Of course, another round of mewling capitulation is far more likely, rather than the fortitude to demand an environment in which students of all racial backgrounds and varied belief systems can engage in intelligent discourse and learn.

Thus, another institution of higher learning bites the dust, and goes on the ever lengthening list of places neither I, nor other elders of my clan, would not permit family members to go.

[endicom]

Thus, another institution of higher learning bites the dust, and goes on the ever lengthening list of places neither I, nor other elders of my clan, would not permit family members to go.

It looks like Evergreen has long been a lost cause. Online schools are looking better all the time.

[Smokin Joe]

It looks like Evergreen has long been a lost cause. Online schools are looking better all the time.

When they aren't scams. Some classes just can't be done online. Brick and mortar is getting insanely expensive if the school is any good.

[endicom]

Some classes just can't be done online.

Most undergraduate courses can be. Today you can 'test out' of most undergraduate courses with CLEP, DSST, Saylor, etc. Here's an idea of what's available: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YdG-SXoHloExcF4EaQRnrD60zeqvt6AWf9alLJ3P4l8/pub?gid=0

You can get a bachelor's from one of the three assessment schools, Excelsior College, Thomas Edison State College or Charter Oak State College. With that bachelor's degree you can go on to a master's at Bigass U if you wish to.

[Smokin Joe]

Most undergraduate courses can be. Today you can 'test out' of most undergraduate courses with CLEP, DSST, Saylor, etc. Here's an idea of what's available: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YdG-SXoHloExcF4EaQRnrD60zeqvt6AWf9alLJ3P4l8/pub?gid=0

You can get a bachelor's from one of the three assessment schools, Excelsior College, Thomas Edison State College or Charter Oak State College. With that bachelor's degree you can go on to a master's at Bigass U if you wish to.

I'm a geologist.  A handful of pebbles and photographs is no substitute for getting out and doing fieldwork. Unless you have a lab at home, you aren't going to be doing geochem, x-ray diffraction, making or analyzing thin sections, SEM work, learning how to sample outcrops or ore bodies, etc. The feel you get for structural geology from looking at maps and pictures is nothing compared to being there. Sedimentology without sediments is just statistics. Finding a fossil is far different from just looking one up in a book.

Are there classes which can be adequately covered online? Sure. An enormous number of basic requirements, and in some majors, advanced classes as well could be adequately covered online.

There is a lot that can't. If the course has a lab requirement, (Think Chemistry, Physics, Geology, a lot of biology and pre-med, essentially the core of STEM), either the student will have to have some serious resources to work with, or they will need to be there. Fewer than half of the 54 semester hours I had in Geology would have been adequately able to be covered on line (and none of the core courses for the Major). Lab courses in Biology, Physics, and Chemistry would not have been able to be covered on line, and in those days, the computer courses either. (There was no 'online, then and few had keypunch machines or teletypes at home).