16 hours ago
Monday, November 21, 2005
War by Metaphor
He meant it only in the metaphoric sense. Thus said a New Jersey college professor after getting in trouble for saying, “real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people’s needs.” This John Daly, an adjunct English intructor at Warren County Community College, wrote in an email to a student who was organing a campus lecture by a returning Iraq veteran. Daly did not stop there. “I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like yours won’t dare show their face on a college campus,” he wrote to the lecture's organizer, Rebecca Beach, a freshman. Welcome to college, Missy.
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16 comments:
John Daly should stick to drinking and playing golf.
My favorite part is Daly's statement that "groups like yours won’t dare show their face on a college campus." He then complains that his academic freedom is violated if he is punished for his uncivil (to say the least) behavior. Thus:
1. Punishing professors for anything they say - a horrible violation of academic freedom.
2. Professors using their influence to keep groups they don't like from speaking on campus - totally acceptable.
The sad part is that I don't think these people even recognize the inconsistency. Or maybe they do, which makes it much worse.
It sure hasn't come to the point of mutiny yet.
Yet?
That sure was a snarky little comment.
Look KwAwk, this has been covered by a number of media outlets including a number of local NJ papers (none of which are part of the vast right wing conspiracy based on my personal experience). All refer to her e-mail message to which Daly responded as being a notice that there will be a member of the armed forces at the school to discuss his experience in Iraq. Now, if her e-mail was somehow inflammatory, I would imagine that that would be part of the story and that Daly might have raised the issue. The media and Daly did not raise this.
Daly's reaction was out of control and he should be fired for it. Personally, I think that he is a coward who thought that he could bully some girl via an e-mail and attempt to get others to join him in stifling the free exchange of ideas.
One bonus of the story is we get a first hand read of the silly and infantile thought proceses and what passes for argument that is very representative of a lot of academics these days. I say Daly is going to be stuck in the CC world for a long time.
John Peter Daly (to help first commentor anonymous a little) is a metaphorical kind of guy but not the first time he's waxed metaphoric, though maybe the first time he's done it on the East Coast.
http://thedustyattic.blogspot.com/2005/11/who-is-john-daly.html
Kwawk:
But ya see you just gave yourself away. No one said that she was an unwitting person, just a student who got harrangued by a professor at her college.
Your sympathy for Daly is all I need to know about you.
Dusty, I believe first anon knew it wasn't booze-hound PGA member John Daly but some shitty little leftist community college English instructor who only has a Masters.
kwawk:
Just curious -- how often do you use the phrase "left wing" in your writing about liberal groups?
Jacko:
C'mon. Don't pull that I am reasonable, both these people are assholes schtick.
She is 19. He is a professor. We don't make a federal case when some stupid college kid wears a button that compares Bush to Hitler (which I see all too often here is NYC) The Kwawk calls the fliers inflammatory. I would call them provocative and in the same league as the buttons I mentioned above.
We should make a federal case when a professor goes off like this one did. He is an asshole and a bully and needs to be called out.
The 19 year old may yet grow up and moderate her views. The professor is unlikely to grow up and should ply his trade somewhere else than on the taxpayer's dime.
But what seems to happen a lot of the time is that the conservatives feel the need to make intentionally inflamitory and outrageous statements just to get attention.
You obviously have never been to a college campus in the United States. The smelly leftists have a monopoly on making intentionally inflamitory and outrageous statements just to get attention. Haven't you heard of chimpyMcHitler or "Bush is Hitler"? You really don't get out much.
I work at a small private midwestern university and I see that crap every day. This is in a extremely conservative state and a rather conservative city.
Hey Kwawk -
Get the hell out of here with that stuff. You apparently do not live in this country or if you do you are oblivious. You leftists make a federal case out of everything. Have a tongue-in-cheek bake sale to show the absurdity of affirmative action and you are practically thrown out of school. Dare to publish a periodical like the Dartmouth Review and have them stolen or destroyed (if you are lucky and not brought before some PC student kangaroo court). I could literally go on all day and you know it. Get real.
Go ahead and read Daly's e-mail in the most innocent light, but there was still an implied threat there which I would not characterize as "snarky". Couple that with the hope that American soldiers would be killed and this is a pretty violatile e-mail.
Daly should step up to the big boys with that kind of stuff and not some college girl.
I hope that you do get a copy of the e-mail and I will also ask.
He didn't curse, he didn't call her names.
I guess calling someone a fascist doesn't count as name calling?
Stick a fork it in Kwawk, it is over. Stop trying to defend an idiot, it really starts to make you look like one (is this name calling?).
N.B. Daly stated that if he knew she was a student, he would have written the letter differently. Doesn't that say something? There is a difference between a student and an instructor. One holds a more powerful position; even if the student is not taking one of the instructor's classes. That is why there are rules against faculty-student sexual relations.
Kwawk said:
1. He didn't chase Ms. Beach around campus throwing copies of the Communist Manifesto at her. He simply sent an email back to her. He didn't curse, he didn't call her names.
2. She did so using language bound to insult at least half of the population of this country.
So, her email was insulting and inflamatory and his response was sunshine and lollipops? Now that is an unbiased and objective analysis of the situation.
Point of Clarification: I am anon 2:45. I think Daly is a class A asshole. His email is totally off base and reprehensible. He is perfectly entitled to his opinions (no matter how stupid they are): however, he should not be fired solely for writing the email. His contract shouldn't be renewed because he lacks judgment and he doesn't respect the idea that a university/college/community college is a place of free ideas and expressions.
I am just an old retired uneducated fellow but I have children and grandchildren in college. They have all suffered the same sort of bullying by instructors/professors. Many so called professors cannot contain their liberal views and try to force them on students who feel that America is a Great place. I believe that political discourse is beneficial if intimidation is not part of it. College campuses are overrun by liberal socialists because most of these professors could not make it in the world nor could they contribute to the general welfare or the economy in any signficant way.
Daly needs to be fired and required to make his way without the taxpayer footing the bill for his socialist agenda.
Well, the professor quit.
I couldn't find her email, but found his:
Dear Rebecca:
I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster "Communism killed 100,000,000" is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers. The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter--their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders. If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.
I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs--such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.
Prof. John Daly
This guy's thinking is, sadly, typical of many holding positions in higher education.
It would be easy and also pointless to "Fisk" this disjointed rant.
In the end, I can't see the university being worse off with this guy's departure. He shows the intellectual weight of a coffee-house nihilist. More to the point, radicals have found words have consequences.
It's just a shame someone that flighty stood in front of kids paying good money for an education.
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