Did we shoot ourselves in the foot with college kids?

[NNguyenMD]

When I left college not long ago, I could tell that the Rightward Student Organizations were getting more powerful, but I think that they were only able to do so by playing heavily off their resentment of the powergrip that our left-leaning student organizations were (which I assure you was a ficticious notion).

So are these "College Republicans" relying on some fantasy perception that they are being persecuted and screwed by the academic left?

I had a college professor for a few American Literature classes who was just an incredible instructor and proud liberal from hailing Michigan. We had a conservative student in our class who was very vocal about her conservative views (she reads her Lynn Cheney Children's books to her son) but they were always respectful in classroom discussion and probably got a long with each other better than anyone else in the class.

I personally think that they're making it all up, if anything I would think that college professors would enjoy reading papers challenging their views than realizing all year that he had been preaching to the choir.

Maybe the real reason that these conservative students feel so much pressure to agree with their professors is because they are too cowardly to actually make the challenge. If they get ridiculed in class for voicing their ideas, well I'm sorry "pobrecitas" but part of debating and critical discussion is learning how to effectively structure and articulate sound arguments. If they don't like the way that the class and instructor reacts to them, then maybe that means that they need more practice debating. Not everybody is going to hold your hand in college and giving you a pity trophy for trying.

If the perception is that academics are indoctrinating students to a specific political view, well maybe thats because the students whom they are influencing already felt that way from the begining, and feel inspired to learn more about whats going on in the world.

Once again...I grow discouraged at the tone...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-anderson28jan28,0,5967567.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[EVDebs]

1. New jobs are going to immigrants ...in

large part because entry level jobs of any kind would result in longterm employment of US workers with ensuing benefits of healthcare and pensions. Mon dieu ! Corporate capitalist/globalizationists can't have that, no no !

See "NATION’S IMMIGRANTS ACCOUNT FOR BULK OF LABOR FORCE GROWTH SINCE 2000 WHILE NATIVE-BORN WORKERS EXPERIENCE HEAVY DECLINES"
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.html

and also "The Benefits Trap" from Businessweek July 19, 2004
www.businessweek.com/magazine/ content/04_29/b3892001_mz001.htm
with the quote:

'Perhaps most important, in the global economy, long-established U.S. companies are competing against younger rivals here and abroad that pay little or nothing toward their workers' retirement, giving the older companies a huge incentive to dump their plans.'

No, they're not 'competing' with themselves, the global corporations are simply winning the Race To The Bottom, as Alan Tonalson's book labels it. Shedding US worker benefits and hiring immigrants on H1B and L1 visas, at lower cost again than a US worker would cost...yes, microeconomically it pencils out as profit in the short term, but macroeconomically in the long term it is a disaster in the making for this country, and eventually the world.

The US economy is 1/3rd of the world's annual GDP. US is about $11 trillion annual GDP, the World's is about $33 trillion. Two-thirds of the US GDP is made up of consumption, so about 20%+ of the world's economy is directly attributable to our consumption.

If outsoucing continues, and everyone knows these outsouced jobs to foreigners who do not match US consumers, and the new jobs the displaced US workers are getting don't pay anywhere near what the old jobs did...you've got a problem my friend.

College kids see that the media is presenting the only way out to create jobs follow the Republican game plan. Many are buying into this, since globalizers are embedded into both the Republican and the Democratic parties. The only voice against this folly is Lou Dobbs, on CNN TV and with a new book out "Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas".

We can only hope that the Dems and progressives wake up and 1) limit immigration for the near term, and 2) fine corporations that intentionally have hired illegal immigrants and/or hired visaholders in order to displace US workers (Dobbs has recently said a $10,000 fine per US worker displaced or illegal immigrant hired), and 3) reawaken the Union Movement in the US.

[nickgutierrez]

2. The 'College Republican' trend is overstated.

Of course these guys are going to get an excessive amount of attention -- they're Republicans. The media, which is to say the corporations that own the media, is dominated by Republicans, and they like airing opinions that are similar to theirs.

I'm a student at a prominent university, with a well-respected economics department, and our College Republicans are a joke. They have numbers, but are consistently shouted down at their events. The left isn't 'losing' colleges so much as the right is overexaggerating their influence.

[leftyandproud]

3. am I the only one that thinks "shouting down" is childish?

I feel so embarassed for our side when left wing groups shout down conservative speakers...makes us look like damn foola who aren't mature enough to even LISTEN to opposing views.

[sweetbutterfly]

6. No, you're not alone

It's a stupid thing to do...and diminishes clear thinking debate...saying "you're stupid" is just not convincing rhetoric.

[Rockerdem]

4. We lose them 5-10 years after they leave college

All the Republican college groups do it plant the germ of future attrition. They use the crutch of persecution to help grab attention. Down the road, the leaners will grasp at anything to justify their swap of values.

[Cats Against Frist]

5. I already covered this. It's a psy-op.

Make believe propaganda-created "reality." They've put out a string of these articles lately, and the funny thing is -- nobody but AEI fellows and right-wing shills are reporting this "phenomenon."

Of course Republicans are attacking college campuses, with that dreadful campus watch and all the money that's being pumped into College Republicans, but that's simply because the university is like the last bastion of reason, scholarly excellence and empirical research.

And we can't have that.

[robcon]

9. We lose them once they have kids.

It's not just age. Or marriage. But married with kids is a very strong indicator of Repuglicanism.

[w4rma]

7. College age voters were the only, I think, group that voted overwhelmingly

for Sen. Kerry. Dems may be spending *too* much time on them, actually and not enough on other groups.

[oneold1-4u]

8. As they come of age--

The high schoolers who will become the DRAFT will not go repub. unless they receive deferments from politicians that may very well give them out like passes to those whose parents have dropped plenty into the coffers of bush and repub. party!
Most in college now are learning about diversity, freedom to learn, and how submission of a country to a theocracy and demagogue power can happen. They would only turn right for the short privilege of power.