Monday, November 10, 2014

At Least *Some* Students Were Disappointed At The Immaturity

And this is at Dartmouth, they of the Ivy League.  Here were some of the questions asked of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who spoke there recently:
A student at Dartmouth College asked Texas Governor Rick Perry Sunday if he would accept anal sex in exchange for $102 million in campaign contributions...

“Do you (Rick Perry) dislike bootysex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?”...

“I know you have been very strong on all foreign policy issues, including Somali pirates, but what is your stance on butt pirates?”
I thought liberals were against anti-gay slurs. My bad.

The immaturity wasn't lauded by everyone:
“They were phrased in incredibly insulting ways, and I’m horrified,” Michelle Knesbach, president of the College Republicans told The Dartmouth. “We allow people to ask policy-driven questions, but when they’re phrased in an insulting manner, we try to avoid that, because it just detracts from the overall political discourse we can have on campus.”

Spencer Blair, the president of the College Democrats and a writer for The Dartmouth, also thought the questions were disrespectful to the governor.

“I think it’s really disappointing that anyone would undermine a serious political event with sexually explicit questions, and neither I nor anyone from College Democrats would ever condone such behavior,” said Blair. “We appreciate Governor Perry visiting campus, as we encourage any sort of political engagement and discourse here at Dartmouth.”

However, Packer thought the questions brought up legitimate concerns.

“People that are opposed to this act are opposed to it because they think that it hurts their political discussion,” said Packer (a sophomore who wrote the questions and distributed them beforehand). “I think the desired effect was to point out that their political discussion is not meaningful.”

Packer said the questions did not achieve their “desired effect.”

“Since the event organizers knew what we were doing before it happened, they sort of controlled the lens through which the questions were viewed,” said Packer. “The questions – they’re funny, right? I think they’re funny. I think a lot of people think that they’re funny, but since the event had control over the framing of the questions, nobody in the audience laughed. They booed.”
Someone named Packer shouldn't be making gay jokes, knowwhatImean?

3 comments:

Ellen K said...

I think at best we could say Packer has a sophomoric sense of humor. I wonder if he giggles in a similar fashion at racist jokes?

Ellen K said...

I'm not sure exactly when it became okay to denigrate your opposition without bothering to discuss the issues, but it's really hurting us as a nation.

maxutils said...

Which brings to mind … while we're trying to get the Redskins to change their name, where is the outrage against the Green Bay mascot? Especially since it was derived from meat packers?