THIS IS ALL SO, SO SILLY …
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again … institutions of higher learning should be free to pursue their destinies in the private sector, competing for the best and brightest young minds (assuming America still produces any of those) in a free market with private resources.
There is simply no place in higher education for taxpayer subsidization …
Taking colleges and universities off the government dole would not only save billions of tax dollars each year, it would eliminate ridiculous feuds like the one currently transpiring between the S.C. General Assembly and the University of South Carolina Upstate – a battle of competing views on homosexuality that has turned downright petty.
Here’s the debate in a nutshell: USC-Upstate is all about spending money on pro-gay propaganda – while the “Republican-controlled” General Assembly would rather spend money on, well, pretty much everything but pro-gay propaganda.
In response to USC-Upstate’s pro-gay propaganda, the General Assembly has symbolically cut small amounts of funding to “punish” the school. And in response to those “cuts,” USC-Upstate continues to push the envelope.
The latest?
This story from the website Campus Reform, in which we learn that USC Upstate has hired motivational speaker “Butchy McDyke” to instruct its students in a seminar entitled “How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less.”
We thought this was a joke at first, but apparently not …
(Click to play)
Wow …
USC-Upstate refused to tell Campus Reform how much tax money is going toward this production, saying it would only respond when the outlet asked “how much money has been spent on heterosexual literature.”
Cue apoplexy among the leaders of South Carolina’s “religious right” in 3, 2, 1 …
64 comments
Taking higher education off the goverment dole would also make higher education unaffordable. But so what….right?
“Higher education” doesn’t mean what it used to.
Yea, this ain’t the 60s!
It is the 60s. 60% of the grades given out in college are A’s.
If I talk only in ad hominem, you talk only in old, tired stereotypes from the old people’s zeitgeist.
Holding a grudge I see. Huh, I didn’t figure that in you.
Old people’s zeitgest *is* a little classier(is that a word?) than perpetual ad hominem’s though. Although in fairness, I don’t quite see you in that mode perpetually.
Holding a grudge I see. Huh, I didn’t figure that in you.
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what can I say? I’m weak. Help thou mine grudgingness, cleanse my senseless and vile communications and free me from the bonds of simpletonness for my family’s sake.. for I have been exposed to the stupid of the Tea Party, and it has entered through my nostrils and poisoned the water that I do drink, and am sick with it.
I sit in the public square, scratching my boils with potsherds for my transgressions, and the sun does vex me… my wife stands at the door of my house and curses me – “curse the liberals and die!”
Yet I remain!
“Yet I remain” ……….what? Keep us not in suspense!
I remain.. as in.. I’m not giving up.. I’m holding out for Laker’s tickets.
Mustuv bin a gradjut of USC Upstate “…10 Days or Fewer”
Actually, either “less” or “fewer” is correct. One is a length of time, the other is a number of days.
What would Willy have said about the Land Grant program? Oh, wait. If he had been around in 1862, it would not have mattered. From Wikipedia:
“The Morrill Act was first proposed in 1857, and was passed by Congress in 1859, but it was vetoed by President James Buchanan. In 1861, Morrill resubmitted the act with the amendment that the proposed institutions would teach military tactics[5] as well as engineering and agriculture. Aided by the secession of many states that did not support the plans, this reconfigured Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862.”
Way to maintain the tradition of the Old South!
Clemson and SC State are Land Grant Colleges, but don’t let that color your attitude.
Next month they are going to bring in Sucka MyDick to lecture on “how to turn a lesbian into a nymphomaniac heterosexual”
Best post ever on fitsnews! Well done!
I think that one’s gonna sell out in the first five minutes.
You F;#+!n Dumb@$$….the amt. Cut was equal to the amt the gay activists was kicking back to tbe talentless gay
suck in silence
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comon Damned Tango… thrill us… suck what? HUH? SUCK WHAT?
Can we simply hurl insults at this ridiculous, barefoot, over-acted, unfunny chic as a fairly typical waste of taxpayer funds without jumping down into the fray attendant to the whole gay / not gay debate madness? If so, I would posit that she sucked pretty hard. If this comment somehow draws me into the underlying debate, I formally withdraw the statement. On a side note, getting the cost will be easy, though, if USC/U spent the money. The FOIA is a wonderful thing.
Unfunny is pretty much spot on. The whole thing felt forced. But like I said in another post, half of the crowd looks like hipsters, so whatever.
To the point that it was uncomfortable to watch, I thought (and not because lesbians make me uncomfortable- I love me some lesbians). As you say, I think maybe I’m just not cool enough to want it to be funny.
Wow, USC-Upstate, way to start round two of your budget cuts… Seriously, I mean do you want to go out of business?!.. because, the General Assembly budget cuts are really the least of your worries as your typical USC-Upstater ain’t exactly going to be from Liberalville… yep, good bye to enrollment means good bye to your school…
Glad Fits got his “Gay” segment on out of the way Monday.Leaves him time to concentrate on other stuff the rest of the week.
I’ve never heard so much forced laughter in my life. Kudos to her finger work though, I’m sure her being a lesbian has probably helped.
I wonder how much the suckers, er-um…parents are ponying up for this crap.
Don’t be a hater! I’ve been a lesbian since I was 16 or so…
I’m sure her being a lesbian has probably helped.
Is she even a lesbian? I wonder.
And then there is this Letter to the Editor from a “Branch” (aka USC-Upstate) in today’s Spartanburg Herald-Journal. It’s almost hard to believe this is real. “Bronies?”
http://www.goupstate.com/article/20140331/LETTERS/403311000/1129/OPINION?Title=Monday-s-letters-The-study-of-Bronies
Yeah, brony is a thing.
Enough of this private sector worship. Look, does the private sector do stuff well. Yes. Does the public sector do stuff well? Yes. Do they both do stuff bad…yes. It’s not an all or nothing approach. You can have both co-existing to the betterment of society.
I know FITS will likely never give you the real story here, but if you do even a smidge of research on the world’s top places to live, best per capita GDP economies, best education outcomes, best environmental records, lowest crime rates, etc….you’ll find those “socialist” countries keep popping up at the top. Why? Because they invest heavily through progressive tax rates back into the public purse for a start…but we’d never do that now would we…cause it would take our freedom.
Seems like many ‘socialist’ countries are at the other end of the spectrum also.
Now….what do all the “successful socialist” countries have in common, other than being socialist?
Do tell…
I’ll give the politically correct answer and say they are built on older, more established civilizations.
Ron Paul doesn’t live there?
African swallows?
No Republicans, no Tea Party
Socialized Medicine
Right! North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, China, Venezuela, Nicaragua
FYI, those are either dictatorships or communist countries…plus, they are not anywhere near the top 10 nations on earth. Try Sweden, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia on for size.
Heck you may even want to go to Forbes Magazine, that bastion of capitalism run by flat tax darling Steve Forbes, and look up best countries for business. And the top ten for 2014 are (drum roll please)
1. Ireland
2. New Zealand
3. Hong Kong
4. Denmark
5. Sweden
6. Finland
7. Singapore
8. Canada
9. Norway
10.Netherlands
Thilly, not silly!
Why do we need a class. Just have the gay lovers drive up to Asheville – there are lots of them up there sipping Belgium wheat beer.
I’ve you don’t like Belgian beer…there’s something wrong with YOU!
Good old fashioned Southern Style homophobia on display in the comments.
You act as though homophobia is objectively wrong. This isn’t something like racism, this is disgust with sexual degeneracy.
Meh. Not sure if troll or bigot. Not sure it matters either way.
Good old fashioned Northern Style heterophobia on display in your comment.
They are an exclusive, intolerant group that seems to run USC Upstate. LGBTQ groups don’t seems to value my perspective. None of those letters include me (BT does not stand for Bible Thumper). One of their talks called “The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays” I felt was putting me down. I felt marginalized.
Why can’t we just all get along and accept each other as equals. I don’t understand why this group needs to put down others, who are different. We have a lot in common. Just like they embrace terms of derision like Queer, I have embraced “Bible Thumper” (though only anonymously) also a term of derision in mainstream media and frequently used on this website.
Perhaps the state has funding available for a similar seminar to help all the others like me feel accepted and welcomed at USC Upstate. No! This is a idea ahead of its time. For now I am forced to live on the margins of society living in the fear that I might be outed as a Christian, subject to the ridicule so frequently heaped upon them.
Butchy McDike? If that aint april fools, I am going crazy.
This is an April Fools joke, right?
comes the reduction to being USC – Spartanburg once again… Coastal Carolina doth NB this well as it falls.
Anyone who takes this lady’s comedy routine as anything but just that has a broken sarcasm meter.
It’s comedy?
I never said that I found it funny.
with all that is wrong with SC, with politicians, appointees inappropriate behavior, financial crisis for many, violent crime, etc., that USC upstate, or any other campus would waste money on such triviality is another sad commentary on those in leadership positions. what about training on how to get a job, how to present yourself at an interview, etc. a student’s “orientation” does not need to be on the curriculum of the university. shame on whatever numbnut implemented this presentation. apparently, the schools priorities are as screwed up as the rest of sc.
It’s marginally better than paying money to have Jenny Sanford, or worse, Sarah Palin, give some stupid lecture.
But seriously, people don’t go to college to get jobs, they go to get degrees. Public and private colleges both have worthless degrees because students with no direction ask for those kinds of degrees. Colleges learn to give students what they want, not what they need, and they learn to get what they want as well by loading the student up with tons of student aid and loans to milk them for every dime they have. (This isn’t what public schools should be doing at all, but we don’t have anyone keeping them under control, and we certainly aren’t funding them properly.)
Either way, this amounts to a trivial side item with a negligible price tag. The problems in SC and the problems that students have finding jobs requires complete overhauls of the system to fix, as well as complete changes to how we prepare younger generations for their future. Your outrage is somewhat understandable, but entirely misplaced. This little shindig is nothing more than a fart in the wind compared to the problems you seem to be concerned with.
No need to be pissed at a few thou being dropped into something like this when there’s millions upon millions being spent on worthless degrees and unnecessary additions to campuses. The public shows more outrage at curriculum choices that involve homosexual themes than it does having a broken public system that is in dire need of repair. That shows a far sadder commentary on the public at large than anyone in leadership of any of these colleges, or the state itself.
“Thousands of unprepared students wasting their time and money at college is just peachy, but you better not make them read a book about a gay person!”
Welcome to SC.
I watched the video and now I’m a lesbian. True story.
This whole farce is really getting sad. Get over it people. Half the crowd looks like a bunch of hipsters anyways.
I believe you! I’ve been a lesbian for over 30 years, but became *even more* lesbo after watching the video, even though I am not a hipster. Weeeeeird…
I did not read all of the reply’s though i may agree with some and disagree with others i think the big picture here is why is an educational institution spending anything (no matter where it comes from) on anything other than furthering education? Their mmonies should not be spent on any type of propaganda but should go towards some educational benefit for the courses offered by that institution. Period! Doesn’t matter if it is public or private funds education is just that and propaganda has nothing to do with it. neither does gay or straight.
Their mmonies should not be spent on any type of propaganda
What propaganda?
This isn’t propaganda. This is a horrible attempt at comedy and a waste of time, sure, but propaganda? The required reading isn’t propaganda, either. “Reading about gay people” is absolutely not the same as “being indoctrinated into homosexuality” or whatever these guys want to believe.
I personally think USC Upstate is just being targeted, possibly by a parent or group of parents who have sand up their nether regions and have nothing better to do than to complain about it. I went to a technical college and had to read a short story involving a gay person. I wrote a 7 page paper on it and even had to research it. Big whoop. The educational portion of reading a short story, comprehending it, researching what others wrote about it, and writing a paper detailing it, was served regardless of the subject matter of the story itself. And I only took two English classes in college, so this wasn’t “up there” in some English program, it was something just about any student there was likely to take. There was never any protest from any of the students in my class. There was never any outrage. People just did it and moved on with their lives.
Again, the fact that -this- is a big deal, and not the general state of education, speaks volumes as to how sad our priorities are in this state.
Doesn’t matter if it is public or private funds education is just that
Private colleges can do, to a certain degree, whatever they want.
Public colleges should be concentrated on affordable, quality education that will make a person more likely to succeed in life. That’s something worthless degrees will never do. That’s something burdensome student loans will cripple. That’s something unnecessary things will not help. But unfortunately that is something we as a state have thus far failed to address.
But, again, the “outrage” is misplaced and nothing will improve.
USC Upstate used to be a great school. Now it has turned into an embarassment. Those that are supposedly “educated” are too ignorant to realize the damage to the school from their pursuit of their personal agendas. The agenda of Johnson and Caster will result in many people losing their jobs at USC Upstate as students choose to pursue degrees elsewhere. Yes, there is no debate or argument against academic freedom, but these personal agendas dominate all activities at the university. Where is the middle ground? Alumni giving will drop corporate sponsorships will diminish because the corporation will not want to mentioned as funding these one-sided events and caught in the media controversy. It is a certainty the legislature will not increase funding and could very well reduce state support. Why is balance and perspective totally vacant at one of our leading state institutions?
It is still a good school. A handful of faculty are just going too far with the constant push of their homosexual agenda. It’s just a shame they think they have to push the envelope on every book, movie and play.
State implementation of systems of public education was mandated in the 1860s. USC-U does it with less than 14-18% state support, cheaper than almost all others. Fits should work on getting thr law changed or pick on the more expensive.
It’s the press pouring the fuel on the fire.
Sniff. I smells something.
“pro-gay propaganda?” That is one of the dumbest phrases I have heard. It’s obvious that in pursuit of its libertarian views, FitsNews seems to be pushing the same silly talking point as so many others.
Chancelor Tom Moore put a end to this in a big way! He sure told those ignorant legislatives how it is really. Usc Upstate is number 1 in best cost per administrators and makes big money on sports and food. Usc Upstate has the best nursing school in the state better than MUSC USC Clemson and all the others.