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VICTORY FOR REDNECKED PHILISTINES
The government’s move to scrap compulsory student unions is totally driven by ideology, according to Michelle Grattan. And compulsory unionism wasn’t? She continues:
The strength of feeling among the university administrators came out in Sydney University’s vice-chancellor Gavin Brown’s pithy reaction. The student unionism bill’s passage, he said, “is a temporary victory for the rednecked philistines that will damage Australia’s reputation internationally”.
From now on we’ll be known as the country that doesn’t compel students to join unions. Imagine the shame!
A group of Liberals have brought to the Parliament their old university wars with the left. They’re determined the campus groups should be denied funds for political causes and activities, and are unconvinced that compulsory student funds can be quarantined to non-political uses.
The legislation won’t deny funds for political causes; it simply removes the unfair requirement that political causes be funded by those who have no interest in them. Student politicians are free to raise funds by other means. Hey, it might actually teach them something.
This is absolute rubbish. Only a small minority object to the banning of compulsory fees for political activities. What most object to is that the Act goes much further than this in that it bans unis from applying compulsory levies for ALL extracurricular purposes.. This is disgraceful stuff, driven by blind ideology and will effectively destroy a lot of campus life, including eg.sport.
I agree with you on most things, Tim, But you’ve got this one arse up.
#4: pay for what you use. compulsory fees are extortion.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 11 at 03:37 AM • permalinkOnly a small minority object to the banning of compulsory fees for political activities.
And now we will reconcile that statement with the fact that the overwhelming majority of those publicly complaining about (and earlier agitating against) VSU are reliably left of center, if not far-left…I guess lefties are just so much more interested in uni sports clubs, eh.
I wait anxiously then for the next “reform” - ie the voluntary payment of texes, council rates etc etc. There are many things my taxes pay for that I don’t use. Hopefully the next reforms will enable me to opt out of them.
This is just stupid, sloganeering crap. There would have been almost unanimous support for legislation which outlawed the use of compulsory fees for political activity of any kind, including especially “mindless leftist pabulum”, but which enabled normal university extracurricular activities to continue.
The Governemt has chosen instead to effectively destroy Uni life as we have known it on the alter of mindless ideology.
ozpat:
You still haven’t explained why my student fees should go to subsidise your sporting activities which I had no interest in, did not participate in, and had nothing to do with the reason I went to university. Perhaps you would care to pay for my mortgage?
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 12 11 at 04:46 AM • permalinkOh cripes, I don’t think I can discuss this issue again.
I note it doesn’t come in until 2nd semester. I have enrolled in a course for 1st semester.
To lighten the mood, some of my favourite moments related to forking out the student services charge (which, as we know, I support for some activities and not others) are:
Getting trapped at the front of a house music concert and being surrounded by pot smoking young people during orientation week. Typically, the student union didn’t put on any music for old geezers;
Having the young wealthy man on the executive of the ALP Club raise a motion in favour of the Communist Youth Movement of Cuba. I abstained and pouted;
Voting for the environmental officer candidate who said he was going to mine the great court. His opponent was this nasty little girl from Socialist Something or Rather; and
Going to one student council meeting and never going back because it was as boring as buggery.
Posted by Major Anya on 2005 12 11 at 04:48 AM • permalinkOzpat, I heard a rumour that bars, sporting clubs and cafeteria’s exist outside of universities. They manage this by providing goods and services that people want to participate it in or buy. I suspect the same will continue on campus without the bleeding of hundreds of dollars from the students who don’t want to participate.
Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2005 12 11 at 04:54 AM • permalinkIn the 80s I marked the part of the enrolment form relating to student fees, ‘paid under protest’. The student union, at GIAE (as it was then, before it became a Dawkins-ized Monash campus), did one worthwhile thing: organised cheap on-campus accomodation for weekend lectures. The rest was all rubbish: posters everywhere about saving Gippsland forests, organising the ‘womyn’s room’ for aggressive 20 year old boiler-suited types with superfluous facial hair. The one thing they didn’t crap on about was greenhouse gasses. Not surprising, since GIAE was host to the Coal Research Institute and sits in the middle of the biggest coal field in Australia, which provides most of the work in the district.
Two decades later, as a postgraduate at Deakin, I subsided pop concerts, skip trips, Great Ocean Rd treks, Friday night piss-ups, and other assorted things me and my fellow students were not at all interested in. Canteen catering was now outsourced and normal commercial prices. It never looked too good, but it generally tasted OK (if you were starving).
I think what killed enthusiasm for student unionism is the changed student demographic. At Deakin most (all, in some lectures) of my fellow students were full-fee paying Asians with ESL. They appeared to have little interest in the union. Most were doing a full study load (more than a full load in many cases) and working long hours as well.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 12 11 at 05:00 AM • permalinkJust to clarify - I am certainly not an academic, or a student, and I have nothing to do with a university, It is, unfortunately, 35 years since I finished my uni education.
The simnple point is that university is, or should be, a social and community experience as well as a narrow study oriented one. The cost of it should be spread evenly across the student population so that everyone can enjoy the experience if they want to, not just those who can afford to pay the full cost - just like taxes, rates, etc. Not a particularly novel concept.
And to all those who keep trotting out their horoor stories about the misuse of union fees by the denizens of the moron left, I’l try to use words of one syllable, as you don’t seem to have followed the debate so far. I TOO THINK THAT FEES SHOULD NOT BE SPENT ON STUFF LIKE THAT.
#18: you finished uni 35 years ago? you must be well up to speed on current campus life then! lol!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 11 at 05:16 AM • permalinkThis isn’t an issue about unions - the issue is compulsion.
I’m a member of a union in my current work place - have been for twelve years. membership is optional - and almost universal in a 14000 strong workforce. I’m a member because they provide a valuable function.
Let’s see just how valuable and viable student unions are by removing the compulsion. That will be the greatest demonstration.
Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2005 12 11 at 05:18 AM • permalinkDeo - if you can’t make any more intelligent commets, just fuck off, mate.
Right, Ralph, it’s nothing to do with unions. It has to do with stupidly preventing universities from applying a levy, under whatever name, to spread the cost of providing important campus services.
Have a look at what Barnaby Joyce proposed.
Michelle Grattan (labelled by Mark Latham as ‘the Anti-Christ’ and described in his Diaries as “weird and spooky”) appears genuinely shocked that the Government is actually implementing its policy.
The reaction of the Vice=Chancellors in their capacity as the shop-stewards of compulsory student unionism and the leftist student union officials who had placed so much faith in their successful lobbying of Senator Barnaby (“No Choice”) Joyce is entirely predictable.
This has been a truly glorious victory for the true believers and also neutered the malign grandstanding by Senator Joyce. In addition to the legislative carriage by Education Minister Brendan Nelson, credit must also go to the dedicated efforts of others such as Senator Mitch Fifield, Sophie Panopoulos MP and Tony Smith MP. Credit also to Senator Steve Fielding who delivered the final vote and has since been targeted by extremists because of it.
OzPat,
My problem with student union fees is this: I attend Sydney uni 2 hours a week for lectures. I work full time. I have no interest in the uni social set or sport. I don’t need any student services because I’m not disabled, a homosexual, a dv victim, in need of childcare, in need of friends or in need of study help.
I already pay taxes to help support disadvantaged people and do my bit for society.
Why should I pay another “tax” to support services I do not use? On a cost benefit analysis, this money does nothing for me.
Hello everyone, this is my first post.
I’m one of these strange people known as the swinging voter.
I despise student politicians regardless of their political allegiances. During my time at the ANU in the early 90’s, the student union was a strongly right-wing organisation. From my limited contact with the Uni now, it appears that the left is now in control, however, this has fluctuated over the years, the same way any healthy democracy should.
My professional role amongst others is to support single mothers in their endeavours to attend university. This is challenging enough in the current climate, however, in the absence of subsidised childcare, will be all but impossible.
What I’m asking you all to consider is that this legislation, though admirable in the sense in will halt vile student politicians in their tracks, is a body blow to all those who rely on a number of aspects of the student union, including childcare and counselling.
This could have been handled much differently, and an exemption could have easily been passed to ensure money didn’t filter to political causes on campus.
Posted by gustov_deleft on 2005 12 11 at 05:57 AM • permalinkAt the university campus where I work about 60% are part-time students which means that they usually work full time and attend lectures in the evenings and even on weekends. The only service they use is the cafeteria and that’s poor quality and overpriced. What’s more, the student union has banned most drinks and food dispensing machines from the campus as they were taking business away from the cafeteria. The students union couldn’t give a toss about the students on weekends. I bet not many of the part-timers will object to VSU.
Why are those campus services important to people who don’t use them and have no interest in them, Ozpat? More importantly, why are they forced to pay for others’ enjoyment of them and get nothing in return?
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 12 11 at 06:04 AM • permalinkThe simnple point is that university is, or should be, a social and community experience as well as a narrow study oriented one.
The left’s approach to ‘community’: make it compulsory.
What’s the big deal? If unions offer a valuable service, students will voluntarily pay for it. When I was a student, I was young and living at home and could afford to enjoy the bars, cafes and the gym on campus (although you had to pay an extra fee to use the gym).
By contrast, a friend of mine was a single mother and was on campus only for lectures. All her other time was spent looking after her child and working part-time. Slugging someone like her $400 a year for services she would never use is a disgrace.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 12 11 at 06:12 AM • permalinkOzpat
You’re missing the point. Just because YOU believe something to be good, does not mean that it should be compulsory.
Some of the American readers may be able to help out here…I think it was Thomas Jefferson who declared that the greatest achievement of his life was to repeal the custom of members of dissenting churches, of which he was one, from payment a tythe to the Church of England.
What gets people’s backs up is being forced to pay for something which they have absolutely no control over and no interest in.
It would be better anyway if students undertook a lot of their sporting and cultural activities in the community proper. It costs nothing to play rugby for your suburban club. I played for several years in two different non-university clubs. The idea that every sport you play and every pottery class you take has to occur on campus is just childish.
I was thinking of an episode of <>Sex In The City</i> in which one of the male cameos boasted about not having left Manhattan for five years. Some people have that sort of idea about their college years - that somehow they should be entitled to live in a sophisticated Shangri-la village for the duration.
As for on-campus life, students are free to raise money for clubs on commercial lines; free to conduct donation drives for charitable purposes; free to organise concerts for profit etc. Students should be encouraged to see themselves as part of the community, not extraneous to it via public largesse.
Yes, Blogstrop. I agree, those student union wallys who are bleating like a goat tethered in a cold breeze about the end of compulsory student unionism can only blame themselves.
If the system had not been abused, it would not have been changed.
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2005 12 11 at 07:03 AM • permalinkFrom the Sunday Age today:
FAMILY First Senator Steve Fielding may have to get used to angry students camped outside his Mount Waverley office.
After casting the deciding vote in favour of voluntary student unionism on Friday and having had his office vandalised, he has been warned by student leaders that they will be heading his way tomorrow…
Monash University Student Association president Nick Richardson said he did not know anything about the vandalism of Senator Fielding’s office, but believed it would have been the work of students.
Robert Nicholas, education officer (education officer!!!???) for the Queensland branch of the National Student Union, said the vandalism of Senator Fielding’s office was a legitimate expression of students’ anger at the bill.
“He has made himself a political target by voting for the legislation so he’ll have to live with the consequences,” he said.Note the jocular tone of the report. One can expect of course Age editorial outrage to follow over vandalism and threats to an elected member of Parliament (NOT). Leftist students as illustrated above, need education on what democracy entails. Without wanting to be melodramatic,
isn’t the attitude of these student leaders somewhat brownshirt?The tax analogy is crap. Just because we have three levels of government already slugging us taxes, duties and rates is no justification for accepting another one. Those who want to enjoy the “community” aspect of uni life should pay for it; those who already have a busy life and just want a bloody degree should not have to subsidise them.
The tax analogy is crap. Just because we have three levels of government already slugging us taxes, duties and rates is no justification for accepting another one.
Absolutely.
There are some things - defence and police, for example - that just don’t work on a user-pays basis.
But things that can work on user-pays should be left to do so. Including our beloved ABC and SBS.
Lets see how good the student unions and services they provide are regarded when people aren’t compelled to join. Membership will be < 5% of students. The world will end - the wanker politicians will be out of their paid jobs (this is why the ALP hates VSU - trainee politicians will no longer be able to sponge off the rest of the students who don’t give a rats arse for what they do), and the crap food served up with surly service might be replaced by something worth paying for.
While we’re at it, taking away funding for wanky activities, lets go on to why do we fund things like the arts, theatre, opera etc for the small minority of people who use them.
Posted by Living in Canberra on 2005 12 11 at 07:45 AM • permalink#30: What gets people’s backs up is being forced to pay for something which they have absolutely no control over and no interest in.
It’s clearly been forgotten that all students who pay the services and ammenities fee democratically determine how their money is spent through the annual elections. Not only are the elections more frequent, but when you look at the scale of the elections, you’ve got a much better influence over how your $500 is spent by your student union, then how the thousands of dollars in tax you pay is spent by the government.
Posted by brendanfox on 2005 12 11 at 08:00 AM • permalink# 25, who is so concerned about the impact on childcare.
At my uni the student Union, Guild and university all provide parallel childcare facilities, for a total of 29 families between them. The union has a budget of over $20 million, the Guild arond $7 million. Childcare, bars, sports and culture all exist outside universities. If we decide they need extra subsidies, why single out students (hardly the most affluent group) to bear the cost.
Aren’t $500 upfront fees bad for access equity, especially for single mothers?
Posted by neWinSituation on 2005 12 11 at 08:19 AM • permalinkWhat makes me vomit is the feigned concern for “single mothers” and other poor students having to pay a levy.
First, they will undoubtedly miss out on the campus activities they can currently enjoy because they will never be able to afford to pay for them on a strictly user pays basis.
Secondly, it really is nauseating to hear such bullshit from those who presumably support the rest of Mad Brendan’s tertiary education policies, which have without exception massively increased its cost to students. Now you are all sooo concerned about the poor single mothers having to pay a moderate universally applied levy?
Don’t give me the shits!
On this issue you mob almost rival the cretin left for self-delusional hypocrisy.You’re advocating the fascist suspension of freedom of association, ozpat. Apparently because a free tai-chi class has been raised in your imagination to a fundamental human right.
If you graduated in 1970, may I respectfully suggest that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
The post-Whitlam return of a user pays principle was the work of the Hawke-Keating government, not “Mad Brendan.”
The student unionism bill’s passage, he said, “is a temporary victory for the rednecked philistines that will damage Australia’s reputation internationally”.
Yes, he’s right. Why, just today, Hong Kong’s Chinese- and English-language press ran this story on the front page. And as I look out my window, I can see locals painting banners that say in Chinese “Down with Rednecked Philistines in Australia”. I expect to be lynched tomorrow by irate Cantonese as I leave my building.
I can’t think of very many university services that are non-excludable (and therefore will suffer from free-rider issues, necessitating exaction of fees), thus there is no need for compulsory exaction of fees.
OT: how much of a legend is this guy?
Solo Australian protester urges freer tradePosted by benson swears a lot on 2005 12 11 at 09:47 AM • permalinkWhat I don’t get is why is this a national government issue. Shouldn’t individual institutions of higher learning be free to set their own policies on this? Therefore, if you like compulsory fees you could go to We-Know-Best-What-To-Do-With-Your-Money U. and if you want to pick your student services a la carte you could go to Libertarian U. You people are missing the point: This shouldn’t be the business of the national government. /DUCKS
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 12 11 at 11:03 AM • permalink#46: that’s the andrew norton argument, it fails on the grounds that universities are not private institutions - they receive substantial govt funding and he who pays the piper calls the tune. point taken for private unis though
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2005 12 11 at 11:32 AM • permalinkOzPat — TANSTAAFL, baby. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. You want it, you pay for it.
Here in the states we manage to take care of things like handicap access without compulsory unionism.
And how many campus activities does a responsible young single mother have time for, exactly?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 11 at 12:42 PM • permalink#18 ozpat:
The simnple point is that university is, or should be, a social and community experience as well as a narrow study oriented one. The cost of it should be spread evenly across the student population so that everyone can enjoy the experience if they want to ...
What about those who believe that the typical university “social and community experience” should include lots of indoctrination about leftist causes? What makes your opinion of what’s worthwhile more correct than theirs?
You see, that’s the beauty of leaving things to the marketplace - everybody gets to set and implement their personal preferences. You obviously think that your personal preferences should be everybody else’s, as well. Not very right-of-center of you.
In other words, if you’re looking for self-delusional hypocrisy (as per your #42), your own posts are pretty much the definition of it. You don’t seem to have the slightest grasp of the concepts at hand, and you’re trying to cover it with mindless shrieking about how the sky is falling on those preeeeecious university institutions.
BTW, I seem to recall that you posted yourself into a hole with sudden outbreaks of stupidity a couple of times before, so I guess you’re just playing to type here. Do stop digging now.
#47: Shouldn’t at least the states decide on the public unis, then?
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 12 11 at 01:03 PM • permalinkOn this issue you mob almost rival the cretin left for self-delusional hypocrisy.
Ozpat, you comments here on this issue have become increasingly abusive. If you don’t stop it I am going to do to you what I just did to another troll.
Incidentally, universities here in the US manage to have thriving extracurricular programs, like sports, without charging every single student a huge whopping fee. There are student fees, but they are usually not that much, and they vary from institution to institution, depend on whether they are private or public—for example, here is what the University of Central Florida charges for their total per-credit-hour fees, as you can see there are things like athletic fees and so on. True, when I was going there (last time two years ago) I would rather not have paid the athletic fee, as I had zero interest in sports, but at least these fees are earmarked for athletics, not put into some sort of vague student use bin for whatever the current groups popular on the campus feel like doing with them, as I gather had become the case in Australia. Maybe your university system should work out something like this fee system, so that your precious sports will be saved from the financial axe.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 11 at 02:34 PM • permalinkI’m a student at a very large state uni. All that social and community experience stuff can just go to Latvia for all I care. I have a hard enough time getting all my studying done and getting enough sleep. In my experience, the people who are totally involved in the social/political/sports scene get really sucky grades. Are you going to school so you can study for your future career or so you can organize Chicana Wymyn’s Poetry Slams?
(yes, I’m in a bad mood. It’s finals week.)
Posted by Sarah Brabazon-Biggar on 2005 12 11 at 04:19 PM • permalink#44—regrettably, you are correct. It is a little-known secret that college fees are the first thing that comes to a foreigner’s mind when Australia is mentioned. Why, I can look out my window at Glendale, California, and practically see the waves of indignation being generated and floating west. It is seared—seared—into my memory.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 12 11 at 04:46 PM • permalinkLet me start that again.
Ozpat
I agree there might be room for allowing individual universities the option to charge admin fees to cover some services. If the legislation doesn’t allow for that I suppose it was to avoid loopholes where “political clubs” are established and the admin fee used to subsidise them - thereby circumventing the intent of the law.
I wonder how much extracurricular activities on campus will suffer. I’d imagine the subsidy provided by universities to many clubs goes beyond the distribution of union fees and comes in the way of facilities etc. I remember the cricket grounds at Macquarie Uni and the clubhouse. I may be wrong but I’d imagine the subsidies at work there go way beyond the annual fee from students and even beyond membership fees by non-students.
As for less funds for political action. How much money does it really take to get students to a protest? Don’t they just catch the bus or train? If they have to buy their own cardboard and textas for pithy signs I’d hardly imagine that would break them.
Time will tell. Having lived in the states though, the lack of compulsory union fees doesn’t seem to have harmed their campus life, although they may effectively pay for it through normal fees.
“is a temporary victory for the rednecked philistines that will damage Australia’s reputation internationally”.
That’s it!
I’m cancelling my plans to visit OZ!
I just read in my local island paper that you “rednecked” fascist warmongering “Philistine” honkeys are too anti-people.
Anyway, the word “Philistine” (vulgar, artless, barbarian) is the etymological root for the word Palestine. Could this statement by Sydney University’s vice-chancellor really be a crypto-racist attack against Palestinians? Gavin Brown doesn’t sound like a Zionist name and he is apparently opposed to VSU?
Ooooooy…This is so confusing. Please dear goddess, when will Howard Dean make a policy statement to give me some direction?
I really wanted to bask in the shadow of Ms. Kingston. She’s famous you know…
Probable difficulties with voluntary decisions
The would-be scientist Jennifer Zhu said she regretted the end of mandatory union fees.
“A lot of services won’t be available for everyone because people won’t be paying the fees,” said Ms Zhu, who is hoping to get into Monash’s science scholar program. She said she would probably pay the voluntary service fees. “I probably will just so I have the services as a back-up if I need them,” she said.Not only are the elections more frequent, but when you look at the scale of the elections, you’ve got a much better influence over how your $500 is spent by your student union, then how the thousands of dollars in tax you pay is spent by the government
Yup. That’s why we have voter turnouts at QUT that would make the Great Satan blush. The most total votes for a position in 2005 was 1938 (PRESIDENT) and the least total votes for a position in 2005 was 5 (DISABILITY SERVICES CO-ORDINATOR). In 2004 QUT had an enrollment of around 40,000 students. So this is a 5% voter turnout.
Posted by drscroogemcduck on 2005 12 11 at 09:39 PM • permalink42:
What makes me vomit is the feigned concern for “single mothers” and other poor students having to pay a levy.
We should look at the, ahem, root causes, viz, being single and a mother.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 12 11 at 09:54 PM • permalink#42 What makes me vomit is the feigned concern for “single mothers” and other poor students having to pay a levy.
Ozpat this ridiculous statement doesn’t even dignify a response.
And, typically, you haven’t responded to my fundamental point: Why should disadvantaged students who spent very little time on campus since they were busy earning a living have been forced to subsidise my beer drinking activities for four years?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 12 11 at 11:14 PM • permalink#53, “so you can organize Chicana Wymyn’s Poetry Slams?”
Some years ago, I was doing some campus recruiting for my company at U.C./Berkeley. While crossing the campus, I saw a poster on a kiosk announcing an upcoming meeting for the “Lesbian Chicana Lawyers Guild”.
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2005 12 11 at 11:49 PM • permalink#64
Yeah, you should have seen the gang wars between them and the Transgendered Basque Philosopher Association.Posted by Sarah Brabazon-Biggar on 2005 12 12 at 12:47 AM • permalinkSo, Andrea, it’s OK to be “abusive” as long as you are not disagreeing with the prevailing hardline ideological position - is that right?
Hey, Ozpat, don’t fuck with me. I asked you nicely to put a sock in it, and you come back at me like some nasty little teenage twit with trash talk. To review, here are some of your well-considered, thoughtful comments:
“Sensible” to you means, I take it, “not disagreeing with anything I believe in.”
Bolds added by me.
Deo - if you can’t make any more intelligent commets, just fuck off, mate.
And from this comment, these gems:
What makes me vomit is the feigned concern for “single mothers” and other poor students having to pay a levy.
And,
Secondly, it really is nauseating to hear such bullshit (translation: “your stubborn refusal to adopt my views!””) from those who presumably support the rest of Mad Brendan’s tertiary education policies (it would be interesting to know where you get this idea, since so far no one has brought up this subject—perhaps you moonlight as a psychic?), which have without exception massively increased its cost to students. (Well then isn’t a cost decrease in something a good thing? But never mind…) Now you are all sooo concerned about the poor single mothers having to pay a moderate universally applied levy? (Well, yes, one would think that a struggling single mother would have even more trouble paying for things than a student living at home non-encumbered by a child of her own, or someone working full time and going to school part time. So therefore said single mother not having to pay a fee for all these wonderful things that she supposedly will be dying to use, which from what I have read so far seem to consist of enabling students to get drunk on campus, eat badly-prepared food on campus, go to sports events, and have the whales saved in her name by Gay Marxists for Peace—and none of which, except possibly for the food, seem to me to be anything a young single mother would give two tosses about, much less be overjoyed to have to fork over a bagful of cash for—seems to me to be better than her having to pay for them. But what do I know, I’m just a single middle-aged American who doesn’t have the deep insight into unmarried college-age mothers like an Australian male (I presume) who says he hasn’t been to college since 1970.)
Don’t give me the shits! (You seem to be doing a fine job on your own.)
On this issue (“where, for some shocking and confusing reason, you disagree with me!”) you mob almost rival the cretin left for self-delusional hypocrisy. (Well. I think we’ll let that one stand alone in its full, shining glory.)Comments in italics mine.
As what I have to say runs over the 5,000 character limit here, the rest will be in the next comment.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 12 at 02:28 AM • permalinkContinued from comment number 66.
You know, it occurs to me after running down that list that I have let you abuse these people long enough. You show the same sputtering fury that leftist trolls show (before I ban them) when they encounter an idea that they don’t like. You have given very little reason for the people here to change their minds, other than the fact that YOU seem to think that this fee was a good thing because it somehow forced university students to be “part of the community” or some such nonsense, even though none of the extracurricular activities mentioned seemed to have anything to do with any “community” except the increasingly closed and insular one of the university itself. But that’s neither here nor there. Other people—such as Darlene Taylor—managed to make their different viewpoints known without resorting to gutter language. You, on the other hand, were abusive from the get-go. (And considering the fact that your anger stems from your inability to get anyone to agree with you, your comment to me on how I expect everyone to march in lockstep with the “prevailing ideology” is hilarious, in an “I’m laughing at you” kind of way.) I don’t really see any reason why I shouldn’t ban you like I do any other troll who substitutes personal attacks for reasoned discussion. Can you give me one?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 12 at 02:32 AM • permalinkOkay, smartass, you’ve got what you obviously wanted. Now you can join all the other Crushed Dissenters in victimhood.
Hooray for the Prevailing Ideology™!
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 12 at 09:34 AM • permalinkHuzzzah Andrea!
You want I should send word to our Belligerent Rovian Goon Squad to finish the dissent crushing?
We’re an oafish and infantile fascist “orthodoxy” after all…And we’ve got our rep to maintain you know.
You did tic the ‘Cannot post anywhere on the pan-galactic internets’ option in the Banning Dialog box…Right?
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You’ve got to feel sorry for Michelle Grattan . . . . still fighting the 1996 election.