Thanks to the mysterious workings of Australia Post, I received in error this letter originally intended for Nigel Freitas:
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Greetings, future Captain of Industry!
I’d like to extend the warmest of welcomes to you and your trust fund sponsor for choosing Young Liberal University, Australia’s newest and fastest-growing campus.
After careful consideration of your academic record, and even more careful consideration of the cheque you enclosed, we are delighted to accept your application. I can also confirm that we mailed your receipt to the Bahamas address you specified on the post-it note labeled *VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!*
At YLU, we guarantee academic freedom for every student. And I don’t mean that obsolete notion that academics should be free to pursue the truth without fear or favour. Real academic freedom exists where students like you are no longer required to engage with any ideas other than those with which you arrived. And we guarantee that’s exactly how you’ll graduate.
Our motto is Truth through Balance. Truth is more precious than anything, especially evidence that contradicts the Truth. And Balance helps us arrive at the Truth by ensuring that everything and everyone remains in their Proper Place.
That is why our fair and balanced curriculum includes:
- Chair of Flat Earth Studies: to address this long-neglected aspect of geographical research.
- Karl Rove School of Pre-Emptive Existentialism: Can you solve the world’s toughest philosophical conundrum — I Know You Are But What Am I?
- Andrew Bolt Institute of Environmental Studies: Prerequisites are Cherry-Picking 101 and Advanced Moral Indignation.
- The Wilson Tuckey Centre for Indigenous Research: Now conducting ground-breaking research into the benefits of breeding out the colour, why missing children aren’t missed all that much; and a shiny, happy look at labour gangs.
And, as a special preview of our next semester’s courses, I invite you to consider:
- The Mervyn Bendle Armchair of Peace & Conflict Studies
Learn at the feet of the master as you grapple with such tough questions as: Are false dichotomies just rhetorical tricks to support spurious arguments, or can they reveal the traitors in our midst?
- The Who You Know Sociology Centre
Announcing our latest course – Oppressing the Subaltern in the 21st Century: explores the interplay of language and power as used by the nation-state and mass media in the suppression of the KKK, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and other free thinkers.
But of course, university life is about so much more than just hitting the books. We also have a vibrant Arts and Sports curriculum that includes:
- The Miranda Devine Gallery: Come and view Michaelangelo’s David as it was always meant to be seen — locked away in the basement of the Vice Squad’s Child Protection Unit.
- The Grace of God Holy Rollers: Our ever-reliable singers are in unison on every single word, and you can even preach to the choir!
- Alan Jones Memorial Rugby Foundation: With new coach Tony Abbott, you can engage in all kinds of drug-related misdemeanours, sexual indiscretions and sublimated homoeroticism, secure in the knowledge that what goes on tour, stays on tour.
At YLU, we also look after our students with a host of support services, and our Dean of Students Keith Windschuttle is always available to help with your revision.
Finally, isn’t it reassuring to think that once you graduate, our alumni association the Old School Tie Society, will be ready to assist you with access to the nation’s boardrooms and most prestigious clubs? (no ladies, please.)
So, once again, thank you for choosing YLU. Together, we’ll bring out the White, Christian and British best in Australia.
Yours sincerely,
Kevin Donnelly
Founding Chancellor
Young Liberal University
Something relevant to this most excellent post Merc. Sometimes the satire just writes itself.
Yes, it’s Planet Janet who will surely hold tenure at YLU.
“together we’ll bring out the White, Christian and British best in Australia.”
Except Nigel Freitas isn’t white.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/
The opening definition of globalisation in Janet’s article sounds right to me. But I do have to criticise it for being accurate instead of left wing.
I have no idea if things are as bad in unis as the RWDBs claim. If they are things have changed a lot since I was a student. I only came across one instance of a lecturer demanding people be ideologically sound. I left that subjrct after doing a second year course and went back to major in history. In those days, and I think still, historians were guided by the evidence, not ideology. And you could study all ideologies, left and right, as they pertained to history in quite some detail if you did the philosophy and practice of history. I did, and was delighted to be introduced to writers I’d never have dreamt of reading, and some I’d never heard of.
History had enough common sense, and so far as I know still has enough common sense not to be distracted by the useless illiterate idiocy of post modernism etc.
Johnson, this is not the U.S. He may be hispanic, but that’s still “White” in this country.
Thanks for the wry smile.
Freitas is a name of Portuguese origin, though through his roots he may be of Brazilian extraction, Portuguese, Timorese and even parts of Bombay, the ideas expressed are what needs discussion not this.
Ironically the only time in my undergraduate career that I was marked unjustly on the basis of the marker’s biases was when one of my lecturers decided that he didn’t like my use of sources he regarded as unduly Marxist for an essay. That individual would nonetheless still not be welcome at Young Liberal University
He’s not Hispanic, he’s Lusitanian. That’s “white” even in the US. US official documents have no special “Lusitanian” category.
I hope that oversight doesn’t upset Johnson too much. As consolation, he can blame the US Gummint for it.
Katz, from what I can tell, the traditional definition of Hispanic covers Lusitanians. Though I am curious how you know he’s Lusitanian.
You forgot to mention the Student Social Club (aka Student ‘Unions are bad’).
In Frietas’s article as an example of the TEH EVEL LEFTYISM CONSPRIACY he lamblasts the actions of the Student Union for threatening the anti-abortionists. Well, so apart from the example given actually has nothing to do with ‘academic freedom’, because the Student Union has nothing to do with the academic body of the University or research or teaching in any form … but get this … at the time (“earlier this year”) **the Student Union was controlled by the Young Liberals** (to be precise, it was “FRESH!” the Young Liberal stalking-horse party). Their other main accomplishment was to place a cover charge on entry to the UQ student bar, “The Red Room”.
Mercurious, I Salute Thee
Tyro Rex,
The Liberals out at UQ are a very different species to Young Libs like Nigel Freitas. For an example see here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/meet-the-new-vanguard-in-culture-wars/2008/03/31/1206850812157.html?page=fullpage
The UQ Libs never supported the “Make Education Fair” campaign as it was conducted by the YLs. I personally found it interesting that when the Lib UQ Union Prez enforced union policy against the hardcore Pro-Life fanatics he got very little support from the campus Left on the issue. It seems to confound some people when young people on the centre-right break the usual arch-tory stereotype.
Just as it’s anachronistic to assume all young people on the left are hardkore activist members of socialist alternative, so too is it inaccurate to assume that young people on the centre-right are Gordon Gecko/Tory grandee wannabees.
In the same way that I cringe at descriptions of feminists as “hairy-legged lesbians” and environmentalists as “pot-smoking hippy”, so too I think it doesn’t serve the critical Left well to stereotype and dismiss young people on the centre-Right who are often just as diverse as their counterparts on the Left. That’s not to say that I support the actions of the reactionary or religious Right – which I don’t.
Btw, at UQ the student bar cover charge is gone. It was only there to ensure that the bar was able to break even. Strangely enough Tyro Rex, bars that aren’t on University campuses (or run by Liberals!) also sometimes use a cover charge to keep the bar in the black.
This general topic reminds me of a story related by the late Frank Knopfelmacher in an article on campus radicalism from the early 1970s.
There was a professor at a Czechoslovakian university in the 1930s who was a member of the radical left wing of the Socialist Party. He assessed his students using the Socratic method of one-on-one oral examination, of which he was a particularly severe practitioner. Over time it was noticed that he examined students from his own party much more severely than students of other, or no, political affiliations. When asked why he did this, he replied: “Because we can’t afford to have idiots in the Socialist Party!”. Food for thought.
P.S. I don’t follow his example in the courses I teach.
Incidentally, the UQ Union will continue to be in Liberal hands next year, unless the vote tally for President is an aberration of enormous dimensions. The primary votes were 2949 for the Lib candidate, 1487 for Labor Left, 576 for Socialist Alternative and 432 for a team called ‘Green Students’ which was actually a Liberal dummy ticket. Ouch.
A plague on Philistines!
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Whenever anyone capitalizes the word ‘truth’ without irony or qualification then you know they’re a totalitarian. And a liar.
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So why go in the first place? Why is that notion obsolete? (I do believe it unfashionable – unfortunately).
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Wank, wank go to the bank. Jesus fucking Christ on a really bad Friday afternoon what tossers!!! Liberal? I spit on all those who defile this beautiful word.
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Incidentally sweethearts, the history of commerce tends to show that the captains you so envy don’t have to bother with university. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, those who graduated, got the MBA probably work in his accounting dept.
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And Gates made his fortune ripping off Apple and selling facsimiles at a reduced rate. Jobs and Wozniak – they were inventive. They liked, um, different ideas and shit.
Rodney,
Sorry your numbers are based on an incorrect count. The final primary numbers are slightly more conclusive:
Liberals (FRESH): 3050
ALP CLub (NOW!): 1506
Socialist Alternative (Left Student Unionists): 571
Greens Students (Joke ticket): 438
Antonio, bars that do so usually have bands or some other sort of entertainment like a DJ or something – and it’s usually the band or promoter that takes the cover charge. I certainly don’t pay coperto just for the privilege of paying further money for a drink.
And yes, you are conflated with the young libs of Frietas’ caliber unless you denounce his anti-intellectualism, loudly, in public, at every opportunity I, or one of my fellow-travellers, demands it.
Go on, start denouncing.
Oh? That’s a joke. (D’uh) I’m slow this pm. Please tell me it’s a joke.
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Rodney – The primary votes were 2949 for the Lib candidate, 1487 for Labor Left, 576 for Socialist Alternative and 432 for a team called ‘Green Students’ which was actually a Liberal dummy ticket. Ouch.
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The ALP Left but no right-wing… mmm. I guess the ALP’s Right have been shamed since they broke the bank ‘ey? Innerestin’. Have the ALSF always been big at Melb Uni or is it just since SRCs became voluntary?
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The whole Student Ticket as cheesy brand name (which might’ve originated with the GU unaligned left) has to go. They shouldn’t be able to run a Greens ticket like that. Total fraud.
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As the Greens there can barely get it together to even register a club I don’t s’pose they kicked up much of a fuss.
Thanks for the updated figures Antonio (I think!). Jeez, as if it wasn’t overwhelming enough on the original figures… we’ve both been in elections where the total turnout was less than that primary for Brandon Carter (the Lib pres).
Adrien, the ALP Right haven’t been able to put together a proper ticket at UQ for the last 2 or 3 elections. They shoehorned themselves into the ‘Labor Left’ ticket – my referring to the ticket (which I was part of) as that was shorthand as the Labor Left were the primary movers and shakers behind the team. To be complete, there were a couple of office bearers and NUS delegates from the ALP Right, and a couple of office bearers and sundries from the Grassroots Left, also on the team – basically everyone to the left of the Liberal incumbents (except Socialist Alternative).
I think we’ve met in real life Rodney old bean. You’re on the ALP SL right? The Make It Cheap ticket? I read a shit-sheet about you the next day (assuming it’s you). Said you worked for the Tories um-ah. (Don’t know, don’t care btw). Just remember the only thing worse than being shit-sheeted is not being shit-sheeted.
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Funny the Tories still endorse NUS. Or will they ke-bosh it? On the one hand it’s part of the Evil Socialist Plot. On the other it’s an opportunity for National Farnarkling, Chestpuffery and Plane Travel at Someone Else’s Expense: Decisions, decisions.
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also on the team – basically everyone to the left of the Liberal incumbents (except Socialist Alternative)
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Um Rodney, the Trots are more conservative than people who leave One Nation for being too pinko. Seriously.
Student politics? What the hell is wrong with you people? Did nobody explain that you can get drunk and have sex at university? Yoof today (mutter mutter).
Yes, but will the YLU include The Ferdinand Marcos Institute of Public Administration?
David @ 21, my experience (albeit dated) is that getting drunk and having sex and being in student politics are not incompatible!
Umm Adrien, not sure who you’re thinking of but I’ve never been in the ALP Socialist Left. My time in the ALP was spent on the Right (hangs head in shame). And not sure of the Make It Cheap reference, but I spent most of the last election campaign working (theoretically) on my PhD at the Ipswich campus so I wouldn’t know the blow by blow in the main arena (Antonio, did I get shit sheeted??).
Oh wait! Maybe the shit sheet was from Socialist Alternative, since I am apparently solely responsible for them not being on the ticket and thus the Liberal win is due to me and thus I’m on the Tories payroll? That would make sense, maybe you’ve got the right guy after all.
“…my experience (albeit dated) is that getting drunk and having sex and being in student politics are not incompatible!”
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The New Onanism?
Adrien, have some respect for Rodney. He knows what he talks about and has always in my time played the game with a straight bat. I think you might be mistaking him for someone else. Rodney hasn’t been around ALP types for many MANY years.
Rodney, you weren’t shitsheeted by anyone this year – that I have heard about at least.
Tyro Rex @ 17 – On this site I have a number of time denounced the Libs when they have said or done things that I disagreed with. On the particular issue of the Education campaign I made my views really clear on another thread. I’m afraid you are just going to get a shrug if you think you can bait me as a right wing fascist! Let me make the point again though, young people on the centre-right are a diverse bunch, so let’s try a bit harder rather than repeating the same old TEH RIGHT cliche.
So what caused the FRESH landslide at UQ?
Antonio, I think you’ll find Tyro was sticking up for you, in a roundabout way. Demands for loud denunciation being something of an LP meme.
Paul Burns @ 3: Yeah, Planet’s opening sentence is pretty good, but the whole thing descends into madness about three words later. I couldn’t read it to the end.
The subject of the post is hilarious. Thanks, Mercurius.
Antonio – Adrien, have some respect for Rodney. He knows what he talks about and has always in my time played the game with a straight bat. I think you might be mistaking him for someone else. Rodney hasn’t been around ALP types for many MANY years.
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Um, I don’t think I disrespected him. If I appeared to do so it was inadvertent. From his points viz being involved with ALP tickets it’s fair to assume that he’s involved with the ALP. But cool… I did mistake him for someone else, hence:
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Rodney – Sorry I have this habit of using ‘University of Qld’ when I mean University of Melbourne. I also habitually call RMIT, ‘QUT’. Ye c’n take th’ laddie outta Brizvegas but ye cannae take the Brizvegas outta the laddie (even tho’ I’ve tried so hard!
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All of these Victorian era quadrangle-lawn places look the same to us Sandstone Types.
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I talked to a fella name of Rodney involved with the Melb Uni elections. The ALP Right bankrupted the Union a couple years back and he was shitsheeted. I don’t know if you were shitsheeted. If you really want to be shitsheeted I can do it. What would you like to be? A fifth column agent of Cuban Communism? A Neo-fascist skinhead? I know! An Animal Rights Terrorist. All three?
Antonio, thanks for the compliments, and may I return them by saying that I always enjoy reading your analyses on the too-rare occasions you post here, and have learned a lot from them too (even disagreeing with them, they’ve helped clarify my thinking on several matters). I can confirm the rejection of the ALSF campaign by the UQ Libs, too. Glad to know I wasn’t shitsheeted, it would have been a bewildering choice of priorities on the part of whoever was doing it!
Adrien, no worries. Since everyone on the left (except as mentioned before SA, who did want to be on the ticket also) was on a ticket fronted by Labor aligned students, being mistaken for ALP types is just one of the consequences we all had to bear, regardless of our own personal affiliations.
If the other Rodney had anything to do with bankrupting the Melb Uni union, he deserved to be shitsheeted!
Back into lurking mode now.
If the other Rodney had anything to do with bankrupting the Melb Uni union, he deserved to be shitsheeted!
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According to him – no. Since he was the one who told me I tend to believe him.
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You didn’t specify: Neo-nazi, Commie, Feral anarchist?
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I know: the Radical Vegan Wing of al-Qaeda.
lol the only absolutely 100% guaranteed example of ideological bias I encountered in my university studies came from the right-wing Bus-Eco dept.