Harvard President Claudine Gay Resigns (thecrimson.com) 363
The Crimson: Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University's history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision. It is not clear who will be appointed to serve as interim president.
University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay's decision to step down. Gay's resignation -- just six months and two days into the presidency -- comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.
University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay's decision to step down. Gay's resignation -- just six months and two days into the presidency -- comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.
An institution that penalizes plagiary (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't celebrate until we hear who's the replacement,
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I wouldn't celebrate until we hear who's the replacement,
Why not? If the issue was the plagiary - assuming they are not appointing another known plagiarist; why should we not celebrate justice being done, and every at Harvard right up to its president being held to the same academic standards?
Or was this about something else, like 'head taking' ? As CNN has seemed to imply? If it was that was foolish there is a exactly no chance of anyone but some radical leftist woke-scold getting the top job at Harvard given the rest of its leadership. If you were thinking alo
Re:An institution that penalizes plagiary (Score:5, Insightful)
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right well I don't see that changing do you. Sure the congressional testimony was a disaster for her and several other university presidents. I agree they should all be gone.
However look Harvard's remaining leadership was not going to oust her over that. They as much as said so. So decent Americans went finding something else they could hang her for and they did. Which is all fine, even good I guess. However Harvard's board makeup has not otherwise changed. They are going to appoint someone who fundame
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She's next on the list. She actually has degrees in political science and genetics. It will be fascinating to see how she handles or continues to cope with the gender diverse activists who are campaigning for Hamas and for Jewish genocide with the refrain "From the mountains to the sea!" It is equally fascinating to see how someone with a degree in genetics deals with the politics of gender ideology and its new focus, anti-Semitism.
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She was an Equity Hire. Her qualifications for a professorship, especially at Harvard, were dubious at best, much less the presidency. It's what happens when you elevate mediocrity.
Re:Are you talking about the 30k Gazan citizens (Score:5, Insightful)
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You are also trying to redefine the question that was asked. You can't remain honest for a second on this issue. You are also ideologically captured and out of touch with reality.
This is really easy. Calls for genocide are bad mmmkay?
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Re: Taking her comments out of context (Score:3)
Osama bin Laden was the son of a VERY wealthy businessman, he had power and connections long before US soldiers landed in Afghanistan.
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Their public policy does not work yet some how they are able to remain resilient against the external threats.
Reality check - systems of political organization and philosophy you would consider 'right wing extreemism' have build empires that have spanned contents and stood for centuries throughout history.
What modern counts as modern progressive-ism; basically marxism/leninism, has yet to produce anything that has lasted more than about 70 years, during which most of the time most of population was not mise
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What really killed her is that the questions made obvious her hypocrisy on the issue of free speech.
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Nah. State that the university has a policy against it, and even free speech has its limits.
Free speech has no limits.
Cite "fire in a theater".
Free speech != free anarchy. There is a difference between communicating thoughts and ideas and doing whatever you damn well please so long as you use your voice to do it. The scenario you describe is no more a matter of free speech than shouting the trigger word "kaboom" into a voice activated explosive.
Re:An institution that penalizes plagiary (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:An institution that penalizes plagiary (Score:5, Insightful)
Should not be led by someone who has been caught plagiarizing.
An institution that claims to support "inclusion" should not limit the number of Asian Americans.
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They absolutely should limit any and all ethnic groups. Inclusion based on ethnicity is racist and exclusionary. Every ethnic group should be excluded by default.
Here's an idea: make inclusion solely based on merit. It's an institution purposefully created for the purpose of fostering merit. That should be the only thing they use as basis.
What they're doing now - as are all educational institutions in the US - is not only racist, but it's like having a time requirement for completion of the 100 meter dash a
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They absolutely should limit any and all ethnic groups ...
This sentence likely needs reworking as it contradicts what follows. Merit does not limit any ethnic group.
... Inclusion based on ethnicity is racist and exclusionary. Every ethnic group should be excluded by default. Here's an idea: make inclusion solely based on merit.
You are erroneously conflating "exclusion" with "not a consideration". Again, needs reworking.
Fix K-12 to fix underrepresentation (Score:3)
Any system that selects on merit ends up biased towards Asians, Whites and Jews, because they are up the pointy end of the IQ bell curve.
No. They are less impacted by the many failing K-12 school systems in the country.
If you want to fix underrepresentation you fix K-12.
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If that were truly the case...then Joe Biden should get tossed out of office too.
He's been publicly caught plagiarizing numerous times over the years, it's almost like he can't help himself.
Example here '88 Presidential run [youtube.com]
And His recent Climate Plans [youtube.com] published.
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I'm starting to doubt that any US politician represent the population in any way, shape or form.
It's like they live on a parallel universe with completely unrelated problems.
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'88 is undeniably true and he rightly payed the price as he was pushed out of the race pretty quickly after that.
The second video though, thank you for reminding me why I don't watch TYT that much, it's really funny listening to them question if Biden cares about climate change at all and give him slim chances of winning, only to win the presidency and enact the most sweeping climate legislation in American history.
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I find your terms acceptable.
If plagiarism were the worst of either of their offenses... well. Let's just say the world would be a much better place, and people could get both education and Russian vodka with fewer hassles.
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I heard they couldn't accept her letter of resignation. She copied it from Liz Magill and forgot to change the letterhead or body.
What is Harvard good for? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just been made clear even the president of Harvard isn't significantly more qualified, politically deft or even less academically dishonest than you'd find elsewhere.
What is the point of these non-meritocratic elite universities anymore?
Re:What is Harvard good for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Same as it ever was.
Getting connected to others, including students with wealthy families, private equity/venture capital etc..and being able to work those connections to get jobs as non-founder CEOs, General Counsel etc or to be able to raise money to become founding CEOs.
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It's already illegal to use IQ tests (with some exceptions). That's why employers used to use degrees as a proxy, although recently they seem to be getting cautious about that, too.
The object of the game is to make sure the employer has no objective data by which politically preferred people can be disqualified.
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Median IQ levels vary dramatically from one country to the next.
This speaks to me of a large degree of bias in the test.
I have a lot of trouble believing that the smartest Nepalese are less intelligent than the dumbest Japanese.
That being said, intelligence, even imperfectly measured, is such a huge predictor of success, that I can't in any way blame those who seem some sort of indicator thereof.
I don't have a lot of answers on this subject, but I do recognize that there is a problem in need of a better sol
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Giving IQ tests to immigrants, historically, was basically a measure of how well they understood English, and secondarily whether the examiner was prejudiced against them.
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Do you realise that contents of IQ tests are language-agnostic?
(Provided a sufficiently developed language, i.e. it has basic mathematical concepts, some aborigine languages of barely contacted or uncontacted tribes may be missing these).
So you can just administer the test in immigrant's native language.
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Look up the history of the Stanford-Binet IQ test.
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What is the point of these non-meritocratic elite universities anymore?
You answered the question, "getting connected to others, including students with wealthy families, private equity/venture capital etc.."
Now there are plenty of success stories of non-wealthy people making it their own way through the Ivys but those type of people likely would be successful no matter where they went but prestige is still prestige.
That said the Harvard Business School has been the subject of discussion for it's negative role in driving the craven behaviour of American capitalism and the MBA c
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What is the point of these non-meritocratic elite universities anymore?
Being accepted marks you as a member of the in-group. Even if you end up flunking out. Getting accepted to Harvard gets you more Hollywood points than graduating from pretty much anywhere else.
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When I worked in New England there were many I worked with who benefited from that system. More family connections than smarts.
One was particularly egregious. Simply could not perform engineering tasks but shared common traits with many of the company leadership and also family connections. Glad to know the company no longer exists.
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Q.What is Harvard good for? A. The alumni network. (Score:2)
What is the point of these non-meritocratic elite universities anymore?
The alumni network. This manifests in many meaningful ways, for example student entrepreneurial projects. Competitions offer more prize money. Access to Angel investors and VCs is so much easier at early stages. Welcome to the big, err "rich", league and all the support and protection that comes with.
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Re:What is Harvard good for? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've had so many more experiences with harvard grads since then, it would be a chapter of a book to type out, but the summary is about 25% did well and the rest were disappointing.
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"Gentleman's C" only works for undergraduates (Score:2)
They were STEM PhDs so perhaps that has something to do with it.
Yes it does, the "Gentleman's C" that allows for graduation only works for undergraduates.
Re:What is Harvard good for? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've worked with many Harvard graduates, ranging from the college to the business school to the law school. I can't say any of them are smarter, more qualified and better at their jobs than others who attended far less prestigious schools. It seems the key benefit of a Harvard education is getting connected to others, including students with wealthy families, private equity/venture capital etc..and being able to work those connections to get jobs as non-founder CEOs, General Counsel etc or to be able to raise money to become founding CEOs.
It's just been made clear even the president of Harvard isn't significantly more qualified, politically deft or even less academically dishonest than you'd find elsewhere.
What is the point of these non-meritocratic elite universities anymore?
There was a time when the Ivies had the best and the brightest in academia, and an Ivy degree was truly a mark of quality and achievement. But that's long gone. Two things happened to change it: the massive postwar expansion of higher education (driven by increased access to college via the GI Bill for veterans), and the dumbing down of admissions standards by the Ivies themselves. The Ivies are still "selective" in that a small percentage of applicants get in. But the admission criteria is now greatly influenced by non-quantifiable things, such as essays and clubs/activities/activism outside the high school classroom. The admissions committee isn't looking for the best and brightest, they're looking for "the right mix", which is influenced largely by politics.
So other elite schools that are math/tech driven still go mostly by grades and test scores (MIT, Cal Tech, etc), an and so-called "Public Ivies"... high quality state schools (Cal Berkeley, UNC, Michigan, etc) long ago strove to equal or better their classroom product with the Ivies.
The grad schools at the Ivies are where they still shine. Harvard Law and Medicine are as highly competitive and rigorous as they've ever been. But undergrad? You can get as good or better an undergrad education pretty much anywhere else (especially with the heavy reliance of grad students as instructors in freshman courses at the Ivies).
The only real advantage you have with a bachelors from Harvard or Yale, vs a bachelors at Typical State U. is networking with the powerful and connected. A degree from Princeton is going to open more doors (and more lucrative doors) than a degree from your local state U. THAT'S why you go to an Ivy... to get that internship or that job with NBC or the Washington Post or the US Senate.
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I'd differ only in the reason why. The creation of the national security state postwar required a massive expansion in higher learning, and government subsidy played a strong part in creating that expansion. There are some good texts on how and why this happened, but it was no accident.
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One thing I saw at MIT vs a state school is there are a lot more opportunities to work ahead of the curve and do things like participate in research (UROPS).
It maintains our ruling class (Score:2)
The next hire (Score:4, Funny)
They're going to need to hire a Jewish, black, non-binary transsexual furry with no university degree to make amends for this debacle.
Re:The next hire (Score:5, Insightful)
They're going to need to hire a Jewish, black, non-binary transsexual furry with no university degree to make amends for this debacle.
I don't know who Harvard will hire to replace Gay. But it'd lay cash that we can pretty much guarantee that it won't be a white male.
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True, but the person will also not be gay. *rimshot*
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You assume too much.
surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Very surprising that Hardvard would retreat from its march to woke perfection.
Of course Gay got there not only on the woke quota, but indeed her entire field of study, one of the "grievance studies" fields, is itself almost entirely bogus, which is why the plagiarism was rampant in the first place. (Although I believe technically it was "political science," in her case it was essentially "black studies" under the aegis of political science.)
I can imagine two possible *real* reasons for the resignation:
1. There are even worse transgressions that haven't yet come to light that would surely kill her off anyway, so better to cut it off at the pass.
2. Since the main function of a college president is to raise money, the corporation saw the writing on the wall and finally gave her the bum's rush.
Or maybe the corporation realized she was not fully qualified in the woke pantheon, as they had mistakenly assumed, like many others, that Gay was gay.
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Good grief. I'm going to spoil your fun with some actual facts. Who am I kidding!
but she broke the woke narrative allow students to side with Palestine not Israel.
Hm so let's see what she actually said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wor... [bbc.co.uk]
that's not "siding with Palestine over Israel", that's siding with genocide.
So f
Re:surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Re: surprising (Score:5, Informative)
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That analysis is wrong. The far left is where you generally find the pro-Palestine support, so it's not a woke issue here. I have a number of very liberal Jewish friends who are really pissed off right now at other liberals for not fully supporting Israel. There is plenty of antisemitism on the far right, but those same people stand by Israel against any Muslims. In short, it's complicated.
(I think I managed that without going into my own positions on the matter, as I don't think I would sway anyone her
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Yeah I have to say I am getting kind of disappointed by a lot of the more left leaning commentators and outlets in regards to it feels like the Israel/Palestine issue has driven them off their rockers and like you said, is alienating them to the larger, more moderate liberal folks. It is showing there is a sort of antisemetic horseshoe on the far end of both political spectrums.
The type of issue that is just absolutely terrible for the internet and social media since it really is complicated and it's a con
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The issue to me is not Hamas vs. the Israeli government. Both are guilty of the murder of innocent civilians.
The issue is whether the murder of innocent civilians, on either side, is acceptable.
My position is that it is not.
And in most respects I am further to the right - by a lot - than Pinochet.
What an L (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's complicated.
Just about everyone is lying so you know it's a real shitshow.
She's a fraud, but that's been widely known since before she was were appointed.
Harvard academics do not want to be seen as being susceptible to bullying and bribery so they supported her but the reasons stated were mostly lies too.
It's well known that Ackerman attacked her not because she was a fraud but because she was unwilling to "crack-down" on legal but awful speech on campus. Even non-awful anti-Israel speech.
But it appea
Re: What an L (Score:2)
And she has created the most picture book perfect negative case of diversity-hire with the absolute lowest record of deserving the position to date! Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And shameless abuse of pseudo-victimhood.
She is hurting other careers with this. And destroying formerly good reputations.
A true and utter L of epic proportions.
Re:What an L (Score:5, Insightful)
https://scholar.google.com/cit... [google.com]
Yes, someone going into administration is going to have fewer publications than a focused lab rat, but even by that metric there are again, literally, community college professors with more publications to their name than Gay. So if publications really don’t matter for a college president, and all that matters is fundraising, why not just have an MBA or even a mere BA in Business Administration as the President? College Presidents are still expected to be scholars, and a joker like Gay is not fit for the station.
Re:What an B (Score:2)
Re:What an L (Score:5, Insightful)
Good, but not dealing with nazi sympathisers (Score:2)
In looking into the allegations behind this resignation I read articles outlining the complicity of Harvard (and other American institutions) in whitewashing Nazi war criminals. Given the quantity of statues removed of people with questionable actions (my preference is that in most cases, education in the form of an explanatory plaque would assist in providing balance to the typical one sided explanations on the statues of the personâ(TM)s actions) it seems odd that Harvard still has a chair and profes
She's an antisemetic fraud... (Score:2)
She has outright refused to condemn the hatred against a group of people based on cultural and religious leanings, specially the Jews. If she wore an SS uniform while on video or giving a speech, and didn't mention it, didn't say anything antisemitic, and refused to comment on it when called it, she would still be an antisemite. There is no argument that her refusal to act, was an intentional display of antisemitic support.
The other allegations levied against he
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If the plagiarism charge is substantial, then universities and corporations for C-level hires should start vetting candidates more. There must be some company you can pay a reasonable fee to look for likely plagiarism in somebody's body of work. I think some professors already use anti-cheating tools of that type for school assignmen
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Antisemitism is bad. Genocide is bad, but we need to have a place where we can discuss and address why these ideas are bad.
It should be self evident that genocide is bad - there isn't much discussion to be had on that. And the president of Havard should have been able to better articulate that calling for the genoicode of Jews to Jews is threatening.
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Right wing Nazi? (Score:3, Informative)
Are Nazis actually right wing? In order to answer that question you have to define right wing - and once you try to do that, sticking a 'right wing' label on the Nazis actually gets quite tricky. Economically they certainly didn't epitomise the free market economics of Maggie Thatcher. They didn't have a Scruton type Conservative bone in their body. They didn't go for the nationalisation of ordinary industry - but then most left wingers don't approve of that any more. They were vicious authoritarians - but
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Right and left are relative, with respect to the prevailing political spectrum, which obviously differs according to time and place. In the context of Germany, the Nazis were opponents of the communists and the social democrats, so yes, they were right wing with respect to their opposition. They couldn't reasonably be considered anything else.
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And yet, the Nazis were pretty bullish on lefitst things like, you know, socialism: forced conscription, state schools, state run eugenics and breeding programs, and on and on...
The one inconsistency, from a modern point of view, is that they were anti-lgbtq as a symptom of being anti-jew.
Honestly, from the lens of history, being anti-jew is the most correct part of leftist ideology. It's quite the dichotomy.
Re:GOP Culture War Wins Again (Score:4, Informative)
"these same people get upset for letting some of the ideas from conservatives spread on campus"
You sweet summer child.
Is your scope of history really so narrow that you think racism, and specifically "anti-semitism" is a "conservative" problem?
You can find example after example going back 200 years in this country alone of Democrats and leftists being the racists. Globally, it's a pretty consistent pattern too.
You can screech "the sides switched" all you want - and still be wrong.
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You can screech "the sides switched" all you want - and still be wrong.
They did. It's a proven fact.
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You can screech "the sides switched" all you want - and still be wrong.
They did. It's a proven fact.
Switching from being racists south of the mason-dixie line to racists north of that line is not the sort of 'switching sides' Caimlas was referring to.
When the Federalist party floundered, the Democratic-Republican became the Democratic party, first fighting with the National Republican party, then the Whig party, then finally the Republican party when Lincoln was elected as the first republican party president.
After that you had the KKK as 'the military arm of the Democratic party' and when the south final
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With Lincoln, Regan, and Trump on one side, and the KKK, Planned Parenthood(obfuscated eugenics program), Clinton, Obama, BLM, and Wokeism on the other, I know which side *I* consider to be consistently and unabashedly racist for the last 160+ years.
Please, Reagan would get called a leftist woketard if he tried to run on the republican ticket today. Remember when he got rid of open carry laws as the governor of California? Pepperidge Farms remembers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] How about the time he called for amnesty for anyone in the country illegally? Pepperidge Farms remembers that too. https://www.npr.org/templates/... [npr.org]
The fact that you called Planned Parenthood a eugenics (the wrong term, moron) program shows how batshit off your rocker you
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Democrats started the Culture War, the first victims were Christmas, and the Pledge of Allegiance... This nonsense started in the 70's if not before.
My kids, in a Democratic state, say the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school. They sang a Christmas song at their holiday concert. I wished many people "Merry Christmas" over the holidays and no one got offended, nor did they complain about Nativity scenes. These are straw-man attacks made by people who want to stoke a culture war. Stop pretending that anyone took Christmas from you. And regarding the pledge, it should be conservatives who are upset about that. Saying a "pledge of allegiance" is A
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Re:woke is code for jealous bitches (Score:4, Funny)
Come for the tech, stay for the elevation of pedantry above all else. Well played.
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Not even the KKK?
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If you hate Jews, you aren't fit to lead any organization.
What's the connection between tribal hatred and fitness to lead an organization? Why are they mutually exclusive?
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I'd go further. If hate for any group is a prime motivator of your actions, you aren't fit to lead any organization. Any group includes things like Pot Pol.
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If you can't understand the basic facts, then you aren't fit to comment on adult matters.
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Wasn't this the kind of witch-hunting thing that was going on in Germany after 1933 and in the USA after the mid-1950s? Sounds like a pretty scary time to be a public figure in.
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If the Democrats were smart, they'd make donations to whatever Republican hopeful has the least chance of winning in November and quietly make donations to their campaign, hoping to end up with a candidate that even Biden can beat. Of course, they'd have to be careful about this to make sure that they don't get caught. Even if they're not breaking any laws, having this come out before the convention would be th
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Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particularly glad that these lovely children were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
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Thank you for this glorious comment.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
So, have a protest at Harvard and yell out "KILL ALL THE BLACKS !", or "KILL ALL THE FILTHY TRANS !" and see how you go.
It's merely free speech, AmIright ?
You're not too good at this whole "logic" thing, huh ?
The point is, hate speech is being protected by Harvard. Not all hate speech, just the latest fashionable Leftie cause.
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Hell, we started a 20 year war because 3000 people died.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
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When Britain extracted itself from the area Israel declared itself a country and was immedia
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations on having the most myopic and incorrect view out of all the ones myopic and incorrect views possible.
You do know there are jewish people outside of Israel, right? And that all jews don't share a hive mind with a singular view of any particular issue or event?
Please take your casual antisemitism elsewhere, we're all stocked up here with much higher grade antisemitism from the regular deranged loonies that have been doing this for years and will beat you with their experience at being hateful shitbags.
You just aren't going to measure up with this half-wit show of beer-league amateur antisemitism. That may play on Tiktok, but Slashdot just requires a higher quality product.
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Maybe you're the idiot?
It's always possible, but in this case I highly doubt it; you're the one thinking that a billion people that all apply the same generic religious label to themselves will all come to the same conclusion when presented with an amazingly intricate and delicate problem with the highest levels of sensitivity and consequences.
Note, that's not even true of people OBSERVING the ongoing war in Gaza - you have Jewish people who want the bombing stopped, while you have other Jewish people signing orders to drop more