[flames1971]

Did you even ask him positive questions about Liberty?

what he said.

what they said

[SuperJon]

I laugh at you because you claim you report the news when really all you do is report what other people have already reported.

In the first two pages, there have been a grand total of four original articles that you guys wrote, three of which were about The Unlikely Disciple.

Of the articles you've posted with a paragraph of commentary, you say you want to see Jerry Jr "enrich the stock of models with Wake Forest and Baylor." Ok, let's try to make our school after a school that has no religious affiliation whatsoever (Wake Forest) and one that is only religious on paper. That's a great idea.

[Liberty Freelance]

Super Jon,

Liberty should invite commencement speakers they disagree with because (wait for it) Liberty might not be right about everything. It's the same reason I've invited you to post on our blog. You could defend censorship of the Champion. There are governments that censor their newspapers. There's an argument for it. Or if you disagree with censorship, but are just trying to play devil's advocate by mocking other things on our blog without actually putting up any defense for censorship, then you could do a post on something else. The power of positive thinking, perhaps? So far, though, you've ignored my invitation and preferred to hover around this message board and call people "idiots." Nice . . .

It's obvious why Liberty should allow dissent at graduation. Students should be deciding for themselves what they believe. Just as you tried to find out if I had edited my interview (I, of course, did not), why would you want edited worldviews? Why do you trust that Liberty's administration knows which ideologies are best for you to hear? Why are you so skeptical of my blog, yet not more skeptical of Liberty? Skepticism is not necessarily negative. It's healthy.

[Liberty Freelance]

Wake Forest is Southern Baptist.

Anyway, you're clearly not up to the task of having a conversation with the grown ups. I've got other stuff to do.

[phoenix]

I'm a bit curious as to how involved Kevin Roose is with The Liberty Freelance. Not making an accusation, not saying it's not a good thing -- I'm saying that the stated purpose of the Freelance seems like something that Kevin would be in support of and involved with.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through The Unlikely Disciple - one of the things that I'm impressed with is the writing style. I'm also a bit amused at some of the reactions the book has gotten -- read the Huffington Post article on it, especially the comments. People want Roose to go through deprogramming because it's obvious Jerry Falwell's evil brainwashing machine got a hold of him in the semester that he was there. Of all the unfavorable reactions to the book, the most mouth-foaming angst seems to be coming from the secular left rather than the religious right.

{edit} And Wake Forest WAS Southern Baptist. It is no longer on the SBC list of Southern Baptist colleges and universities (http://www.sbc.net/colleges.asp).

[RubberMallet]

Wake Forest is Southern Baptist.

Anyway, you're clearly not up to the task of having a conversation with the grown ups. we've got other stuff to do.

ftfy

[SeoulFlame]

Lib Freelance,
Your argument is like saying liberal schools like UC Berkeley, NYU, etc. should invite evangelical Christians to be their commencement speakers even though they oppose everything they stand for, just to have a “free market of ideas”. UCB students did not choose to go there because of their conservative values, and LU students don’t go to LU to listen to people that oppose their values at their graduation.
It sounds like you are at a school that does not represent your values. Why don’t you leave and go somewhere where you can be happy and enjoy your college experience. Just sayin’.

[SuperJon]

Wake Forest is by no means Southern Baptist. They've been autonomous since 1986.

Liberty can bring in speakers they disagree with during convo and other things, but graduation is not that place. Students don't want to hear someone they absolutely disagree with at their graduation.

Tell me where I've defended censorship. I haven't done it. I have said it's not unusual for those things to happen, but not that I agree with it. Once again, like many things, I disagree with it but understand why it's done.

I've been skeptical about Liberty plenty of times. That's why I've asked questions to people that actually know what's going on instead of posting on a blog. I could find out the truth as opposed to just complaining about it.

[Liberty Freelance]

phoenix,

Roose has nothing to do with the Freelance. We're anonymous to him, just as we are to you. The reason he might support our purpose is because it's a pretty mainstream purpose. We don't have a lot of controversial ideas: freedom of speech; a marketplace of ideas; strengthening Liberty's academic reputation. Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't gotten more support on here. I'm also a little disheartened by the apathy since many of you are Liberty students.

[SuperJon]

Lib Freelance,
Your argument is like saying liberal schools like UC Berkeley, NYU, etc. should invite evangelical Christians to be their commencement speakers even though they oppose everything they stand for, just to have a “free market of ideas”. UCB students did not choose to go there because of their conservative values, and LU students don’t go to LU to listen to people that oppose their values at their graduation.
It sounds like you are at a school that does not represent your values. Why don’t you leave and go somewhere where you can be happy and enjoy your college experience. Just sayin’.

That's another thing. We got Ben Stein to speak this year because another school disagreed with his word on creationism so they got rid of him. Are you going to start a blog about them saying they censor the free sharing of ideas?

[SuperJon]

strengthening Liberty's academic reputation

Let me tell you something right here:

That's

never

going

to

happen.

It doesn't matter how great our academic programs are, our reputation is never going to be strengthened. Maybe you should worry more about our actual programs and not how they are perceived.

[El Scorcho]

Yes. And when you leave Liberty, you'll come across gay people as well.

Don't look now but your arrogance is showing. Might want to zip that up.

[Liberty Freelance]

Valid point, Super Jon. My mistake. But there's nothing wrong with autonomy.

http://www.wfu.edu/wfunews/1999/111799h.htm

I don't take your ideas too seriously, Super Jon, because you've just attacked us from the beginning. You're not interested in helping our blog, or you would be helping us. I've asked you to help us. So you're basically doing to us what you accuse us of doing to Liberty. Can you imagine someone from Liberty seeing our blog and asking us to provide our counsel so their would be an opposing point of view? That's what we've asked you to do. The only difference between us and you is that anything we've posted that you consider negative about Liberty is actually a proposal for them to do something positive. But you have proposed nothing to us. You just get entertainment out of saying you "laugh at" us, and the like. But that doesn't help anyone. Why are you talking like that? What is that supposed to accomplish? You're just going to verbally abuse us into submission?

[Liberty Freelance]

Super Jon,

I went to Liberty. I have a vested interest in the school improving. And so do you. And so does everyone on here. So why would I start a blog about another school that I didn't attend?

And I made this point about an hour ago: who cares if other schools censor speech? That doesn't justify Liberty doing it.

[SuperJon]

Why should I write something on your blog? It's your blog. I don't need to do something that you intend to do. There's no point in it. If you have a point to make on your blog, make it. I'll continue to make mine right here and have it read by 20x more people than your blog would be read by.

[SeoulFlame]

This brings up a topic that we have talked about before. Why do people continue to attend Liberty if they don’t like or agree with what the school stands for? It seems ignorant to me for people to badmouth the school they are attending. That is like (insert witty parallel here). People! There are universities for every kind out there. It seems like transferring to a place you enjoy would be logical. I know Liberty has some issue, like every organization in the world, but look at the big picture of what LU has accomplish for the Kingdom.

[SuperJon]

Super Jon,

I went to Liberty. I have a vested interest in the school improving. And so do you. And so does everyone on here. So why would I start a blog about another school that I didn't attend?

And I made this point about an hour ago: who cares if other schools censor speech? That doesn't justify Liberty doing it.

You're saying we need to act like other schools and promote free speech and free market of ideas when in reality, other schools don't do that.

I would much rather my alma mater have good programs that produce quality individuals than have decent programs that produce decent individuals that people think would be good. I'd spend more time and more money to help the programs actually improve rather than improve their reputation.

[Liberty Freelance]

The point is that you can't marshal a legitimate criticism of our blog. All you do is throw around labels. And when you're challenged to defend yourself, you get off topic and start talking about the percentage of your readers on this message board to the percentage of readers on a two-week-old blog. You act as if you're such a scarce commodity on this message board that you can't afford to spread any of your wisdom anywhere else. I mean, who would be here to call people "idiots" if you spent 20 minutes writing a real argument somewhere else? I guess there's only so much time in a day. And you must spend all of it on this blog, where you get a lot of readers who no doubt come here to get the benefit of your quick wit and sharp analysis.

So forget it. You can't defend your criticisms. We get it. In a nutshell: you don't like us. There doesn't seem to be much more too it . . .

[Liberty Freelance]

Seoul Flame:

You're missing the point, wide right. This is a common fallacy. People go to Liberty for all manner of reasons. People who are 18 are pretty immature, and many end up there because of their families, scholarships, sports, location. Who knows? Who cares? It doesn't matter. The point is that people are there. And they have concerns. Those concerns must be met on the merits. They're objective concerns that are separate from the people voicing them. You have to look past the speaker at the idea and take it for what it is. Why they're at Liberty or continue to go there is irrelevant.

And yes, Liberty does many great things. But there's a lot of room for improvement. America does great things, too. But heaven forfend that the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal be censored because they're a little critical and some people take offense to criticism . . .

[SuperJon]

How have I not defended my criticisms? I've had one main problem with you from the get go and I've explained why multiple times.

[Liberty Freelance]

Super Jon,

Good points. I agree with you, to an extent. But looking for a job is like getting a cup of cold water in the face. Fair or not, reputation is a huge deal. But I do agree. It's better to have good people who work hard and don't expect to have things handed to them. That's a huge plus for Liberty. I'll give you that. But there are also Liberty grads who have screwed up. So some employers might not view Liberty as positively as you do. And improving the school's reputation is not mutually exclusive with producing good, hard-working, and effective graduates. We can do both. And we should strive to do both.

[Liberty Freelance]

You've explained that you don't like our approach. You expect us to find everything positive with Liberty, but overlook it's negative side. But you focus on the negative side of our blog, which I've been defending this whole time, and refuse to pull anything positive out of it. So it's a little frustrating to even discuss it with you.

[SuperJon]

We can't change our reputation. It's not going to change. In general, people are always going to criticize Christian education and our founder. That's just how it is. You're not going to change that.

[SuperJon]

You've explained that you don't like our approach. You expect us to find everything positive with Liberty, but overlook it's negative side. But you focus on the negative side of our blog, which I've been defending this whole time, and refuse to pull anything positive out of it. So it's a little frustrating to even discuss it with you.

If that's what you think I've been saying, then you haven't been reading at all.

Criticize all you want. I don't have a problem with that. But for people to take you seriously, you've got to give credit where it's due to go along with your criticisms. I also ask you to look into the things you're criticizing (the ski slope) instead of just complaining about them.

[Liberty Freelance]

And we're the negative ones? I wholeheartedly disagree with you. There are plenty of things that can be changed that could change our reputation. Keep up with our blog for awhile (more than two weeks). We'll have plenty of ideas.