February 8, 2005
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT "LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG..." STUFF?:
Lecture causes dispute: UNLV accused of limiting free speech (RICHARD LAKE, February 05, 2005. Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A UNLV professor under fire for comments he made about homosexuals during a class lecture last year demanded Friday that the university stop threatening to punish him."I have done absolutely nothing wrong," said the professor, Hans Hoppe, a conservative libertarian economist with almost 20 years teaching experience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. [...]
Hoppe, 55, a world-renowned economist, author and speaker, said he was giving a lecture to his money and banking class in March when the incident occurred.
The subject of the lecture was economic planning for the future. Hoppe said he gave several examples to the class of about 30 upper-level undergraduate students on groups who tend to plan for the future and groups who do not.
Very young and very old people, for example, tend not to plan for the future, he said. Couples with children tend to plan more than couples without.
As in all social sciences, he said, he was speaking in generalities.
Another example he gave the class was that homosexuals tend to plan less for the future than heterosexuals.
Reasons for the phenomenon include the fact that homosexuals tend not to have children, he said. They also tend to live riskier lifestyles than heterosexuals, Hoppe said.
He said there is a belief among some economists that one of the 20th century's most influential economists, John Maynard Keynes, was influenced in his beliefs by his homosexuality. Keynes espoused a "spend it now" philosophy to keep an economy strong, much as President Bush did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Hoppe said the portion of the lecture on homosexuals lasted perhaps 90 seconds, while the entire lecture took up his 75-minute class.
There were no questions or any discussion from the students about the homosexual comments, he said.
"I have given lectures like this for 18 years," said Hoppe, a native of Germany who joined UNLV's faculty in 1986. "I have given this lecture all over the world and never had any complaints about it."
But within days of the lecture, he was notified by school officials that a student had lodged an informal complaint. The student said Hoppe's comments offended him.
Is he saying George Bush is gay? Posted by Orrin Judd at February 8, 2005 6:51 PM
Thought experiment: Would the universicrats have gone so Draconian if a 60-year-old student had professed offense at the generalization about planning by that demographic? Of course not. Inference: The complainant has photographs of the deans in catamite contortions at the last staff holiday party.
Posted by: Axel Kassel at February 8, 2005 7:16 PM"Is he saying George Bush is gay?"
No, but he's very happy!
Posted by: Oswald Booth Czolgosz at February 8, 2005 10:32 PMWhat we are seeing, quite literally, is that the inmates are running the asylum.
These matters are being judged, bit from the viewpoint of a reasonable man, but from from that of the "reasonable pervert," a contradiction isn terms. If it seems that the perverts have more rights than the rest of us, it is because the perv is recognized to have a thin skin.
There is a certain logic to this, albeit one that should have been inadmissible. Is it a racial slur, for example, to call someone a "White man," or it is fawning flattery? Always remember that names are linked to reality, and are not to be manipulated at will.
Fortunately for the non-pervert, this point is overly abstruse for general consumption, and we may persuasively demand equal treatment.
Posted by: Lou Gots at February 9, 2005 5:35 AMThe 'protected minority' concept inherent to American constitutionalism has been twisted and turned to the point of insanity. Add in the concept of 'hate' where hurting one's feelings becomes a matter of potential civil litigation and the situation described above will become more and more common. The country is slowly going nuts. The inmates have been gaining control of the asylum since FDR threatened to pack the courts if he didn't get his way. The law truly is an ass albeit an arbitrary and frightening ass particularly in its developing realtions with basic social institutions. 'Perverts', as Lou describes them, and their feelings are 'protected'.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at February 9, 2005 8:25 AMHoppe's theory seems to go against the reaction of Andrew Sullivan, who was offering up criticism of Bush's uncautious economic spending (in his eyes) about a year before Sullivan went wacko over the president's support of the Defense of Marriage Act.
On the other hand, this could mean Andrew is a closet straight. Or something.
Posted by: John at February 9, 2005 8:43 AMActually, Keynes is the great counter example. After WWI, he went straight, married a ballerina, and stayed that way.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at February 9, 2005 11:50 AMRobert,
Did they have kids and did any of them look like him?
Posted by: Bart at February 10, 2005 6:34 AM