[FRIAM] Liberal dilemmas

[Prof David West]

Marcus, you seem to miss my point; perhaps just baiting me.

Honors at Highlands: this was part of a policy, stated publicly at a Board of Regents meeting, "Highlands exists to provide degrees to Hispanic students that could never obtain one at any other university. Honors degrees, curricula, and courses are racist reasons that students from northern New Mexico cannot succeed at other universities and, as such, cannot be tolerated at Highlands."

Posters: woman in question was a 30+ year old grad student (we shared the same advisor). The posters were in my office for my enjoyment, purchased at the university bookstore. Meeting was held in my office at her request. They were prints of Dali work considered "great art." The human figures are totally androgynous as well as being distorted in typical Dali style. Her motive for filing the complaint was, she stated in an email a year later, to discredit me with our advisor who she thought showed a preference for my work over hers. The HR office, because of their "enlightened liberal policies" accepted her complaint on its face, no investigation; as the same policy stated one was not needed because, as a male and academic staff, I had no defensible position to consider.

Ranchers: this particular family took 'stewardship' seriously and made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of improvements to public land. but my point is simply that bureaucrats, kowtowing to liberal environmental lobbyists set policy without regard to any 'facts on the ground' or any science, simply on liberal philosophy of how things "should be."

Access: I too am a taxpayer. There are some very nice hot springs on BLM land near by. They are maintained and upgraded by a volunteer public group (pretty informal, word of mouth kind of stuff). Being old and feeble, my access is increasing dependent on the use of an ATV. BLM policy dictates constant reduction of motorized transport on that land, so it will not be long before my access is de facto denied. This is a personal example of a "woke" policy on increasing wilderness designations thereby denying access to elderly, handicapped, and otherwise marginally abled.

You asked for examples of liberal actions/policies that caused harm, to me specifically, but by implication in general. These are tangible examples. The fact that you agree with the policies and actions does not mitigate the harm caused.

davew




On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, at 4:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Welfare ranchers, indeed.   The rest of us have to constantly modernize our skills..  But freeloading off the public land and environment that’s “multigenerational” and must be preserved?  Why?
>  
> Marcus 
>  
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 1, 2021 3:17 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Liberal dilemmas
> 
>  
> I owned 40 acres in Torrance County, NM which was adjacent to a national forest.  Ranchers were charged $1.21 per acre per year to use the NF land for grazing.  I could have made $48 per year by charging a little less than the feds.  My property taxes were $40 per year.
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
>  
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2021, 1:50 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>> Dave wrote:
>> 
>> < More significant: I have had my curricular materials censured and have had my job threatened on a number of occasions because it was deemed inconsistent with liberal values. Ironically, many of these events occurred when I was teaching at a Catholic university where I could, with impunity, challenge religious orthodoxy, but not liberal woke snowflake orthodoxy. I was once censured by the University of Wisconsin HR department because a female student filed a sexual harassment complaint because I had a meeting with her in my office where I had three Salvador Dali prints on my wall and "she was forced to look at breasts the entire meeting." Her complaint was upheld because neither the content of the Dali prints nor my intent or rational for having them in my office mattered — only her subjective feelings. At Highlands I was forbidden to offer Honors courses or any opportunities to earn extra credit in a class by tackling extra hard problems (these were software courses) because doing so was racist and unfair — simply because more non-Hispanic students obtained the extra credit or the honors designation. >
>> 
>> So the university had the expectation that before advanced classes could be offered, there needed to an unbiasing of the candidate pool for those classes by adequately training everyone (every demographic) that was potentially feeding in to them?  Ok.  If the university wants to do this, or incentivized to do this, it is really just a matter of private/public strategy.   If you don't want to work for a university that has this "fair" strategy, then don't.    As for subjecting young students to strange imagery, I can see why one would not want to do that.  Just as it would strange for a female professor to dress like a hooker.   Organizations can have dress codes.   Don't be a fool, universities are just another kind of business.  You mess with the business, you will have a problem.  It would be better if your department heads were "upstanders" and just said, "Hey Dave, how is this art helping your students?"
>> 
>> < Not personal, but a relative: multi-generational ranch with Federal grazing right. Hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years were spent enhancing the Federal land, containment ponds for water that reduced erosion and flash flooding without diminishing runoff contribution to watershed; planting of native grasses, elimination of  deadwood, etc. etc. End result was the ability to safely and sustainably graze X number of cattle. About five years ago, BLM issued a new policy dictating the maximum carrying capacity of Federal lands. The math was based on lowest common denominator. The policy was, at the behest of preservation groups, written with the specific intent to minimize and eventually eliminate the use of public lands for grazing. (Also mining and motorized recreational vehicle use.) Bottom line, allotment was taken away because it violated the numbers — not because there was any evidence of actual harm. >
>> 
>> I'm a taxpayer.  Why should I want off road vehicles or cows on federal land?  I don't care about either of those things.   This is a weird entitlement that these folks have in mind.  As far as I was concerned the Bundy principals in Oregon deserved to be met by A-10s.
>> 
>> Marcs
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