Help me battle my teacher's indoctrination

[Seether]

I am taking several political science classes this semester for my minor, and one man happens to teach two of my classes. During the classes he likes to ignore essentially all that is in the book and talk about current events which he leads into the propagation of his beliefs, which seem very socialistic. While I normally am relatively quiet in classes, the things this guy says forces me to be active just to try to cut some of the bs out and at least show another view point. Also, one class is a constitution study class which all teachers need to take so he is in a sense influencing many future teachers. So onto his points.

He consistently refers to Enron and the sub prime housing collapse as failures of the "unregulated free market".

My full knowledge of the Enron fall is limited so I have not been able to challenge him on that point at all, but I was thinking this.... The accounting of public companies is regulated, if someone lies on the financial sheets they are breaking the law, thus it is not a failure of regulation, it is a crime. Much in the way that the murder of people is regulated by laws although some choose to break them? Is this a decent argument?

Then he speaks of the sub-prime lenders and how they screwed over people (he also mentioned how lenders would help people set up fake jobs to get approved for the loans). My retort to this argument is that the transaction was based on free will and that the people getting these loans should have looked into the details before getting loans they can not afford.


He also advocates the redistribution of wealth from the "capitalist who harnesses the labor of society for his gain" and wants an increase in taxes. He named off a bunch of people making 20 million+ a year and said they should be paying more, and cited that the 95,000$ ceiling on social security tax is not fair. He also advocates the creation universal health care, and criticized Bush's veto by comparing it to iraq war spending. He has also asserted that with the government managing social security there is a 1% cost of handling the money, yet if it was done privately there would be a 20-30% fee.

When he was going on his rant of the need for more programs I made the following statement, which is slightly paraphrased.

"The largest social program instituted by the gov was social security, which there are now giant predicted short falls in the future, and it is likely that everyone in this classroom will have no chance of seeing a dollar from social security, how can the government be trusted to make socialized health care viable"

I feel like he kind of dodged the answer as he said there was 5 trillion in IOUs in social security from the government because they had spent the money and then he made some comment about military spending.

I stated that that shows that we can not trust the government with holding our money in to which he went into an anecdotal story of an old friend of his who never wanted to pay social security tax, dodged it, and is now being supported by his wife who is 70 and still has to teach to support her husband. A total dodge of my question.

Like many advocating massive social programs he mentions the Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden as essentially Utopian societies which we should model our social programs.

A lot from what I have read on these boards has led me to believe that it works there due to having a smaller homogenous population, but he was saying they have a large amount of immigration like the US. (Although I have heard it is very hard to immigrate there).

I'm kind of lost on an argument here other than our countries demographics makes it not viable?

I'm sorry if this post doesn't come across the best but I just can't handle this guy's massively socialist arguments be given a pulpit to speak to hundreds of students and no one at least trying to address the other side of his arguments. Any comments/criticism on the arguments I have used is appreciated and any firepower to send back my teachers way is greatly appreciated. I'd like to address his foreign policy views as well but I'll see how this goes at first. Thanks for any contributions.

[saucyspade19]

well, google Ward Churchill for starters. Professors do not have the right to just spout rhetoric and propaganda in the guise of fact, and you are well within your rights to report him to the university.

There is some student equal unbiased rights or something that came up a lot during the Ward Churchill debacle, that would be another good place to start.

However, your best bet is to fly under the radar in the class. Don't peg yourself out as a nonbeliever in class discussion, but rather an "admitted lehman" on his topics. Act like you are interested and consider his thinking valid. Write your papers toward his bias even if you don't believe it, and get a good grade while trying to get him removed.

[iron81]

What is the other class he teaches? The OP has very little shot at getting the professor fired: if a professor is teaching a Poli Sci class, he may give his opinions on Poli Sci. Churchill was not fired for his radical views, but rather for plagiarism.

[UATrewqaz]

Ask him if he agrees with people who push their morality on others, because that's all he's doing.

He thinks it's immoral for someone with 20 million+ a year to try to make more, so he wants to stop them with the government.

Really no different from any other group trying to legislate morality.

[guids]

One reason I like Sean Hannity-

Get permission to tape the class, ask "questions" durijng class that lead him to spout his socialist drivel, mail into hannity and get national attention to the problem.

[EricLindros]

Refer to him as James Taggart when you speak to him.

[PLOlover]

so let's get this straight, a guy who works for the government thinks government is the answer. why would you be surprised?

but I think he has a point about enron and deregulating the energy thingee.

as for social security, just run the numbers for ROI of your social security tax (include both parts, part you pay and part your employer pays), including inflation, and ask him what he thinks of the rate of return, especially given that if you die it can't be transferred.

[Copernicus]

Neither you nor the prof have a very solid understanding of Social Security. Search for threads on SS here where misunderstandings similar to yours are rebutted.

The most glaring error he makes is calling for lifting the income ceiling. Social Security already has significant wealth transfer aspects. The benefit formula is front-loaded in favor of lower wage earners compared to their contributions, but at least some recognition is given to higher contribution levels in the form of benefits, and the formula is capped at the same levels as the contributions are capped. To take the ceiling off taxes without simultaneously lifting the ceiling off the benefit formula is just another general tax in disguise.

Enron he is clearly off base on. If he truly believes the market is free and unregulated, he should have his tenure revoked, it isnt even close. Youre response at least digs at his foundations.

Likewise sub-prime. The market is far from unregulated, and the less regulation there is, the more likely deceitful practices would occur. The description of the situation as a "collapse" is a bit hyperbolic as well. Most of the echoes of sub-prime itself are already fading. The underlying weakness in the housing market is not due to sub-prime, its just part of the cycle housing has always experienced.

His numbers of 1% vs 20-30% fees for public vs private handling of SS is ludicrous, and he should be embarassed for using them.

Search for Iron81s recent thread on this which has more realistic numbers from a government study. I point out some of the inconsistencies in those numbers in the thread, but his 20-30% is so far off he truly is off in Ward Churchill territory.

[saucyspade19]

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
so let's get this straight, a guy who works for the government thinks government is the answer. why would you be surprised?

but I think he has a point about enron and deregulating the energy thingee.

as for social security, just run the numbers for ROI of your social security tax (include both parts, part you pay and part your employer pays), including inflation, and ask him what he thinks of the rate of return, especially given that if you die it can't be transferred.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you run those numbers and properly account for all of the benefits SS provides you'll find the ROI for lower wage earners is much higher than you think. Even for higher wage earners it is no worse than the risk free rate of return, despite the inherent transfers.