Some Poignant Thoughts on Undergraduate Ed

Here it is, from Mike Rowe.

 

Or any education. Precisely. Also file under "why I dislike modern so called conservatism, part 25".

 

Host: “In England college courses are 3 years. What do you feel about a 4 year degree?”
Fox Guy: “We should get ‘em done in 2 years. That will be better.” Then he blamed Biden for doing student loans assistance. Pure Fox at Fox Business.

In England their Bachelors degree is 3 years?
A 4 years USA Bachelors degree is ok to me.
We do have 2 years degrees. Associate degree is a 2 years degree. If you shorten the Bachelors you also have to shorten the Associates degree too?
Also, there were bank bailouts. TARP? There was PPP loans for businesses converted to free money grants that did not need to be repaid. Noooo, don’t help student loans because we didn’t get a degree. We don’t own banks? College students and graduates didn’t own a business and got a PPP loan?

 

Honours degrees can take 4 years.

 

Yes they do.
In Canada, they have to be different from US, so they use UK nomenclature. They also pretty much always end up being exactly like US - so almost all degrees are Honours, 4-year degrees. Distinction without a difference.

 

I hope this is a satirical comment since it requires an amazing mischaracterization of what was said. For a group that dislikes higher ed, conservatives are responsible for a vast amount of private universities and grad schools.

 

No. UK has Foundation Degrees that are 2 years, just like our Associates.
Here's a full explanation from Northumbria University:

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/study-at-northumbria/courses/ba-hons-business-and-management-distance-learning-dupbng1/options-after-foundation-degree-blog-org/#:~:text=A foundation degree is classed,gain a level 6 qualification.

 

4 years is definitely too long for a degree that does not lead to a job. Students should have learned basic math and English in high school therefore the basic ed requirements are redundant and a WOT.

 

It wasn't always that way. Back when I graduated from High School, 1960 - only about 10% of grads went on to Uni. There were TONS of 3-year degrees awarded then. Most of the people getting Honours (4 yr) degrees did so to get to further study - Master's and up. They certainly weren't a majority.

A big swath of grads took three year degrees back then, and went on to their "lives of quiet desperation." (Oscar Wilde.) Fully a third of grads (mostly Arts) in those days went on to Teachers' College or O.C.E. (Ontario College of Education) and became teachers.

3-year grads in 1960? All kinds of them!! And 3-year degrees saved money. University tuition was $450-500 a year. That was a lot of money back then.

 

It's a pretty safe assessment.

 

It's like saying they are not against all immigration, just "illegal" immigration. Just because they have some token "good apples" to parade around doesn't mean they are not hostile to the very concept and would not rather see all of us gone.

 

Wowee.

I'd hardly call it "some token good apples." Frankly, I'm severely conservative. That is, I'm "a theocratic monarchy would be nice" conservative. Yet, I'm happy you're around. On the sliding scale of political ideas, freedom trends right.

 

Facts have a liberal bias.

 

I think it's safe to say that freedom correlates strongly with progressivism, and that society has become increasingly more liberal over time. Conservatives, by definition, work not to prevent this but instead to slow it down. There is no preventing it, nor is there any return to an earlier, more conservative time. Time, and progress, marches on.

 

"Are you trusting me, or your own lying eyes?"
People identifying as "conservative" keep electing officials slandering immigrants. Trump smeared family immigration, employment-based GC, asylum, and DV lottery (that's ALL 4 major groups of legal immigration BTW). Immigration policy under 45 was the domain of Steve Miller, an actual white supremacist who made over 100 sadistic changes to rules and procedures. The laters GOP immigration reform bill, enthusiastic endorsed by Trump, is Purdue-Cotton - cutting legal immigration in half. You can get all technical on how Fascism isn't technically conservative - or just keep it simple and say "Conservatives hate immigrants", along with other groups.

Eeek, o-okay.

 

I'd hate to count 45 as a conservative, given that conservatism is a historical movement with relatively static presuppositions. If we have to insist on a taxonomy, I'd say he is whatever will result in his election, as with the vast amount of federal politicians. His recent policy changes and statements which betray conservatism seem to bear that out to me. For example, I don't think I've ever heard of a conservative advocate for the appointment of judges who will support this or that social issue. Rather, exegetical structuralism is a foregone conclusion among conservatives. Take his views on deregulation. They trend more right than 44, but are hardly conservative. But alright, let's put everyone in the binary and redefine the terms as we go. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be a lib. As far as immigration, I suspect we clearly have some fundamental differences well beyond contemporary policy (e.g., the definition of a nation-state). Personally, I don't share most "conservative" sentiments regarding immigration as often demonize a vast array of demographics as a monolith, and they are not nearly conservative enough.

Technical? Nah. If we have a scale with the plotting of political ideologies, and the scale depends on personal liberty, fascism, like communism, is certainly at the extreme left. Merely because fascists tend to imbibe nationalism doesn't make them conservative any more than playing with a Little Tikes doctor kit makes one a physician. Can we really say any fascist embodies the fundamentals of conservativism without completely redefining the term?

It takes all kinds. Just as there are progressives who hate conservatives, there are conservatives who hate immigrants. Both are wrong. I have a friend who is Cuban. He lived for decades under that regime. He is as politically conservative as the day is long (in the summer anyway). He also entirely understands the plight of the immigrant since he arrived on our shore on a semi-swamped makeshift boat. Regarding immigration, he'd likely tell you that order is necessary for liberty and not liberty for order.

I suppose I divulged too much. Let's call it neo-theocratic Calvinist monarchism with an Aquinas flair. The kind that would make Moses, Constantine, Kuyper, and Reagan happy all at the same time.