Friday, April 1, 2011

The NRA Visits Harvard


I wondered if the article were satire.

The talk, which attracted about 100 people, was part of the NRA University program that tours college campuses to educate students about the second amendment.
A whole hundred! Isn't that a riot? How many people are there on any given day, including students, professors and college employees?

Those who study and teach at Harvard are among the most intelligent people in the country.  Do you think that could account for the paltry turnout?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

14 comments:

  1. Total on campus population, while classes are in session, might be around 10K during the academic day, somewhat less in the evening.

    This:

    "As of 2010, Harvard employs about 2,100 faculty to teach and advise, approximately 6,700 undergraduates (Harvard College) and 14,500 graduate and professional students.[13] Eight U.S. Presidents have graduated from Harvard and 75 Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the university as students, faculty, or staff. Harvard is also the alma mater of sixty-two living billionaires, the most in the country.[14] The Harvard University Library is the largest academic library in the United States, and the second largest library in the country.[15]"

    is from Wiki:

    Someone I knew a number of years ago was a manager in Harvard's personnel dept. She told me that, at the time, Harvard employed about 15 clerical, administrative, technical and maintenance workers in addition to faculty and academic staff.

    So, yeah, 100 seems a bit paltry.

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  2. "Those who study and teach at Harvard are among the most intelligent people in the country."

    I've met some of them and read many more. There are some intelligent students and professors at Harvard, but as a rule they are idiots. Very well trained idiots, but idiots all the same.

    It was my young childhood ambition to go to Harvard, but fortunately I decided I'd be better off attending the School of Life rather than prep schools and Ivy League universities.

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  3. "It was my young childhood ambition to go to Harvard, but fortunately I decided I'd be better off attending the School of Life rather than prep schools and Ivy League universities."

    I've heard this line many, many times. To a man, the truth was the person simply didn't have the grades and test scores.

    Whenever you hear "School of Life" it's code for "not bright and/or ambitious."

    having been to Harvard and similar schools, most any presentation or talk will generate a pretty fair size crowd. Even pretty obscure topics will get an audience.

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  4. Director of the NRA’s Grassroots Division Glen A. Caroline said that the second amendment is vitally important to citizens’ safety, freedom, and, if necessary, protection against their own government.

    “I kind of look at the 2nd Amendment as an insurance policy,” Caroline said.

    Caroline said that Americans, who are law-abiding and mentally stable, should be able to buy guns free of government restrictions.

    He condemned a current law in Va., Calif., and Md. that prohibits citizens from buying more than one handgun a month.

    “It’s like saying you can go to church, but only on one Sunday a month,” he said of the law.


    There it is in a nutshell. NRA are a dangerous, un-American, wacko fringe group. "Protection against their own government?" I'm supposed to answer law enforcement with high-powered weaponry? Killing cops or county, state and federal agents is sort of frowned-upon where I live! "It's like saying you can go to church..." What a wanker! It's like saying there is a helluva lot of money to be made in straw purchases, let's not try to restrict that in any way. Either that or maybe the more feminine gun owners say something like this, "You know Clem? I'm kinda depressed today with Obama being president and all that. Let's go to Wal-Mart and buy some guns! Whaddaya say? Yahoo man!"

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  5. Anonymous was good for a laugh. Thanks Jadegold for pointing out that silly bullshit.

    I'll bet they would have had a better turnout in Troy State University in Alabama.

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  6. "To a man, the truth was the person simply didn't have the grades and test scores."

    Is that how you ended up at the Merchant Marine Academy, Guy? West Point and Annapolis wouldn't take you?

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  7. Anon: Actually, I was accepted at both and a few others as well.

    Guess that argument went down in flames, huh?

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  8. My earlier post should have 15,000 employees @ Harvard, not "15".

    Harvard HAS conferred an advanced degree on at least one extraordinarily stupid person, George W. Bush.

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  9. Actually I was accepted there as well. I would have been class of 1980. For many reasons, I chose not to go there. Most of the many reason had a dead president on them.

    To me the mow turnout is a symbol of what's wrong with Harvard and some of the other preeminent liberal schools. They are not liberal in thought. They have a codex of accepted thought and ideas and automatically any which conflict with their predeveloped mindset are to be labeled stupid and ridiculed as naive and pedestrian.

    They are after all Hahvahd, and they know what's best.

    Anyone who questions their authority or position is considered quaint and a rube. They are the most anti-intellectual body in America. They insist on conformity, resist creativity, and crave edification that they are the sole source of correctness.

    They do often have the best and the brightest as students but they have been failing that body, and shortchanging academic honesty for decades with an ethos that requires lockstep acceptance of it's intellectual superiority without any proof that it still exists.





    As to the smear against W, well let's see, he was a very successful private businessman, he was an operational pilot of Jet Fighter aircraft, he did graduate from Yale and much later as a grad student at Harvard he did earn an MBA. Yup. And when he got his MBA he was recognized for scholarship.

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  10. P, You're a day late for April Fool's jokes. You can't be serious about Bush. You do know that some people believe he was a lousy business man, always supported by his rich daddy, and that his degrees and college record came the same way.

    I'm still laughing at the 100 people who turned out for this NRA presentation at Harvard.

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  11. No mike I am not.

    W had a less than perfect ability to speak well in public which created a false image of him in the press.

    Talking to those who worked with him they all seem to regard him well, and it's hard to find someone who worked with him who openly criticizes his intelligence.

    He was certified to fly f102 and f106 fighters. That alone puts him fairly high up the ladder because they were very unforgiving delta wing fighters which required a lot of skill and awareness to keep from making a big black hole in the ground.

    He managed his fathers first Presidential campaign (the successful one) and seems to have managed that ok. He took a marginal investment in a start up oil business and made work quite well. He bought a major share of the Texas rangers and was able to reinvigorate a dying franchise and make it relevant and profitable.

    His grad school degree came after he was done drinking and he by all accounts was an exemplary student.

    You may not like him but he's a smart man.

    At least he didn't lie about his medals like Kerry, lie about his accomplishments like gore or screw everything that walked like Clinton.

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  12. Morning Friends,

    First visit -- getting my bearings on site zeitgeist.

    Indeed, last W paragraph threw me P -- you had me at "codex of accepted thought" (nice!) and P2-5 (generally). Agree.

    But such is also an easy target for folks like me who chose Brown U. (GS '90) -- Quaker roots, indep. thought and (way?) left politics -- over Ha/Ya/Prince. (DWM canon/curr.)

    For my buffalo nickel, the rel. low turnout's all on the NRA.

    Wow. 100 attendees -- which usually means 57 and change to hopeful, hard-working hosts (and gov. bean /chad counters alike) -- to me, not so much indictments of the U or audience/campus apathy or the kids hosting (I'm assuming they taped the posters around HarvSquare and the StuUnion) as unimaginative, least-resistance, shiny-nailed "strategic plan/placement" on campus by the NRA "Grassroots" (funny one!) folks. Nothing like "preaching to the choir" -- hosted on campus by the HRepC and HShootC!

    So what's the mission here? Hug our own and avoid challenging dialogue?

    You want turnout? You want to "expand the base," create "buzz?" You want to "grow" your youth pop? You want to "sow the seeds" of your mission? You want the truth? You want the truth, NRA? You can't handle the truth! . . . cause it takes Leadership! Leadership and Courage -- Gun Ownership & Rights is an AMERICAN principle, an American issue -- not just Rep. or Male, White (Go Mr. McD!) or Rural.

    Dare to take your message across the aisle -- request hosting at the HarDemClub or (they must have one) HarPeacefulNVClub, etc. -- now that'll get turnout -- that'll get some viral WOM/TV!

    Gotta dig to grow the garden! Get your fingernails dirty -- dare to break a sweat and engage fully!

    As it should (need) be ALL.ONE.NRA!

    [Now off exploring more. Thanks for the look and listen. Good site!]

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  13. CAM/LA, Thanks for that lively comment. I agree "it's all on the NRA," that incredibly low turnout.

    P, I have to admit that you may have a point about Bush. You still seem to be pushing a bit too hard, but it's true there must be more there than meets the eye. And his liberal opponents never mentioned the flying he did before he started having too many absences and kinda fizzled out altogether. Maybe that's when the cocaine and booze got him. The impression we had, we liberals, was that he was a total fuck-up from the beginning, which may not be completely accurate.

    Nevertheless, it isn't only and misinformed liberals who feel he was a terrible president, that he lied about 9/11 to start a needless war and was the proud leader of the administration that legitimized torture.

    So, although I can accept some of what you said about George W., I cannot accept the overall tone which seems to put him up on a pedestal.

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  14. The Boyking, George the Worst is war criminal. That is his signal achievement.

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