RANT: I just walked out on a Bushevik guest speaker at my Uni.

[leftyclimber]

The seminar was supposed to be on ecological monitoring in the National Park Service. Good stuff, I'm curious. Fine.

I'd tried to do some checking on the speaker (whose name escapes me at the moment -- can't find the flyer) and the only thing I'd been able to find was that he was a Congressional staffer of some sort. Don't know what side of the aisle. So I pays my money and I takes my chances.

Dude starts out innocuously, taking a quick survey of who's there and what they study. Then moves on to "how many of you hunt or own a gun?" I don't hunt, but I target shoot, so I raise my hand, along with about a third of the people there. (Hunting is prohibited on NPS land, except for some tribal subsistence hunting in Alaska ... WTF does this have to do with park ecology?)

He follows up by saying, "Good. I think more people need to do this," and makes some comment about how much more redneck-y things were here when he was at the university ... everyone carrying guns to class or some such nonsense. Again, WTF does this have to do with the National Park Service?

Then comes the kicker. His little diatribe begins about how you need to know your enemy ... the environmentalists. How screwed up their agenda is and how "they" can get in your way. As I am a proud "they," I lean forward a bit to see where he's going with this.

Well, you see, environmentalism, for the hard-core enviros, is a religion. And that's a problem. Because while everyone can have a spiritual experience "out in the woods," the problem with those "they" folks is that they worship the creaTION and not the creaTOR.

Well, along with being a proud They, I also a do not believe the Earth is 6009 years old, or that Government representatives should be injecting religion into discussions about the damn National Park Service. I also believe that if you come to speak to a university about ecological monitoring, you damn well better be talking about THAT.

I stood up and left. From the far side of the room, so everyone got to watch me go.

Should be interesting to hear what my colleages have to say once they've gritted their teeth through this tripe. I lasted approximately two minutes. I don't see how they can stand it.

:argh:

Okay. Enough. Just had to get that off my chest.



edit: being pissed off is not conducive to good spelling or coherence.

[Cerridwen]

1. Good for you!

and Welcome to DU!

:hi:

May I suggest you ask for your money back. I presume you didn't intend to pay to support a political fundraiser.

[leftyclimber]

3. Luckily...

...I got in free.

I should still ask for my money back. ;)

Thanks for the welcome! I've been here a while; I just post infrequently.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. hey, the world is 6,010 yrs old, not 9. get your facts straight.

the hubris of some people! I mean, really!

Good for you for walking out. I only hope you would have made some pointed comment on the way.

[leftyclimber]

4. 6,010, then.

But I don't believe that either.

Thanks for making me laugh.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. anytime. We can all use a laugh. I look in the mirror for one, usually.

[Lasher]

5. You must have walked into the wrong room.

Sounds like this seminar was on the dark ages. Ecological monitoring in the National Park Service must have been in the next room, or something.

[Union Thug]

6. Good for you. Half-witted morons like this shouldn't be...

encouraged... creation/creator...gawd..puhleez... Another bot brought to you by the Ministry of Propaganda...

[Terran]

7. You should have stayed

and then ripped him a new one during the Q&A.

I just attended a conference put on by a very liberal/progressive organization here in Missouri, and the first keynote speaker was some Texas minister/lawyer who gave a speech about how the doctrine of separation of church and state is an unenforceable legal fiction. Needless to say, everyone in the room was in 'WTF?!' mode during the speech, and then he proceeded to get grilled mercilessly afterwards. I've never seen that group be so overtly hostile to a speaker at one of its conferences before. I was tempted to walk out, but it was more fun punching holes in this idiot afterwards.

[leftyclimber]

8. I thought about that

But I was losing my temper and would not have been able to do it appropriately. No sense in making the reality-based community look stupid by throwing a tantrum, which is prolly what I would have ended up doing.

One of my faculty is there, and I'm sure he will do a spectacular job in my stead. I wouldn't want to be an idiot at a podium when he's there to raise his hand.

[melissinha]

9. let us know who it was

should be interesting to read about.

I suggest that you consider writing a LTTE to the college paper letting the administration of school and most specifically sepcial events that they should consider vetting their speakers more closely before they book these people for speaking engagement in front of a legitimate college audience.

[ComerPerro]

10. That's just strange

What the hell were this guy's supposed qualifications, assuming he had any at all.

And what the hell was the purpose of his visit, if he was just going to lecture you on creationism?

[sinkingfeeling]

11. Must be one of those 'pre-screened, Bush philosophy' middle

managers now required at NPS.

[rogerashton]

12. (round of applause)

Funny thing about that, though. A year ago I got roped into being one of the "section hands" (teacher in charge of a section) of an interdisciplinary class on sustainability that my university gave. I was the token economist. I pretty much stayed away from the planning side of it, but one of the guest speakers who was brought in was an evangelical Christian environmentalist. New to me. And his claim was that there is a growing evangelical Christian environmentalist movement, that evangelicals who heard the case put to them in Biblical terms tended to be very supportive and to come out rather extreme. The sociologist on our team, who brought the guy in, chuckled about how the Earth-Firsters loved his position on the issues, for all they did not buy into his Christology.

So keep in mind that the person you walked out on was a politician, not necessarily a representative of anything but power.

http://www.creationcare.org/

I'm pretty clear that that's a good group. If they were not, the following group would not hate them as they show they do.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7115.htm :puke:

[spooky3]

13. If you are at a state supported school, I hope you'll file a complaint.

At the very least, the speaker should have kept the religious elements out of the speech.