Attack of the clones.

Dr. Steve Landsburg, an economics professor at the University of Rochester weighed in on the Limbaugh/Fluke fake controversy the other day by stating the following:

"Rush Limbaugh is under fire for responding in trademark fashion to the congressional testimony of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who wants you to pay for her contraception. If the rest of us are to share in the costs of Ms. Fluke’s sex life, says Rush, we should also share in the benefits, via the magic of online video. For this, Rush is accused of denying Ms. Fluke her due respect. But while Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position — which is what’s at issue here — deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty. I expect there are respectable arguments for subsidizing contraception (though I am skeptical that there are arguments sufficiently respectable to win me over), but Ms. Fluke made no such argument. All she said, in effect, was that she and others want contraception and they don’t want to pay for it."

Mr. Landsberg is basically stating the obvious here; Sandra Fluke's testimony was a joke and her arguments are laughable. He did however state that, "Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being". Ok, so Landsburg disagrees with Sandra Fluke, but his comments aren't mean spirited. That's allowed right? I mean the left has no problem with opposing opinions, they just want the tone of the argument to be appropriate, right? Not so much:

UR President Joel Seligman sharply criticized the professor, Steven Landsburg. Seligman’s statement, which was included in a Wednesday email of college news sent to faculty and staff, said that he is “outraged that any professor would demean a student in this fashion.”

There's that word again, OUTRAGE. Muslim extremists become outraged when a Danish cartoonist draws a picture of Mohammed. Liberal extremists experience similar outrage when their religion is attacked by someone disagreeing with them. It get's better though:

Protesting students entered Landsburg’s room at the beginning of his mid-afternoon class.“They formed a line between him and the class. And he continued to lecture,” said UR spokeswoman Sharon Dickman, who noted a couple of University Security officers were on the scene but didn’t need to take any action. After about 15 minutes, the protesters left but returned about 45 minutes later for the end of the class, which Landsburg dismissed about five minutes early.

Send in the clone army! Silence the non-believers!

I used to think the idea of tenure didn't really make any sense. I mean, this isn't the age of Copernicus. Academics don't really need to worry that their views could result in punitive actions being taken against them. The very thought that anyone would ever fire a college professor simply for stating an idea seemed medieval and absurd. Well, when I got to graduate school I quickly realized that I was dead wrong. Conservative students and faculty are actively and shamelessly intimidated and silenced in our universities. The very existence of the widespread term, "closet conservative", being used on our campuses is proof of this. There's plenty more proof though. Conservative speakers are rarely invited to speak at universities and when they are, the liberal cult army does their best to silence them. Here's a couple of quick examples of that, here and here. I have personally experienced this sort of institutionalized blacklisting on multiple occasions both in medical school and in graduate school. Furthermore, when not actively intimidating conservatives, university officials and professors simply marginalize conservatives. For example, at my medical school, extra credit was given for attending the "Medical Student's for Choice" club, but no extra credit was given to the "Medical Student's for Life" club. I sent an e-mail to the professor of the class about this double standard and was told that the Pro-life club did not contain any "medically related education". Yea right, fuck you.

So, getting back to my point, tenure is absolutely necessary because there is no question that professors like Landsburg would be immediately terminated if they didn't have this protection. Similarly, the entire Rush controversy is about nothing else other than attempting to silence conservative speech and this whole fabricated controversy was just a way to get Rush off the airwaves. Remember, liberalism is their religion and their outrage is not about women's health, or tone, or this or that, they are simply outraged that they have to live amongst non-believers. That's it.