There are a few more cases than just one. There are legal precedents that set the standard, so we already have the answer. It doesn't stop being illegal just because you're doing it all of a sudden. If it was torture last week and you start doing it on Saturday, it's still torture. That's obvious, and we wouldn't be wondering about whether or not it was torture if we hadn't started doing it. The pussyfooting we're doing now is just so we can rationalize to ourselve why we aren't arresting people for doing things that are clearly illegal, wrong, and repugnant to common human decency.
Yes, they have a very good reason to keep it secret--it's illegal, and they'd go to jail if it was openly admitted they were doing it. If people had to face what their govt was doing, they'd be guilted into asking for action. Why do you think Bush demanded amnesty/immunity for interrogators? You don't talk about amnesty or immunity for something you know to be legal. The national security argument doesn't make torture okay. Saddam no doubt thought it was vital to his national security to gas the Kurds.
Of course, I'm sure a bunch of people will respond, "Oh, sure, there is no warrantless surveillance...THAT WE KNOW OF." Oh, how convenient: arguing about something that we can't prove one way or another? Please, let's keep the discussion in the realm of known facts, namely, that TSP no longer exists.
Let's try two more commonsense questions. In light of the fact that we prosecuted people in the past for war-crimes after they waterboarded people, is waterboarding torture? Does the US government waterboard people? Simple questions, to which we can't seem to get answers.
Even to stick with the eavesdropping--ask the President (or VP, or really anyone up there) whether the US government wiretaps US citizens without a warrant. Do you think you'd get a straight answer? Or do you think they'd say "all activities are strictly within the law," which is an evasion.
We can't even get answers, yet we aren't allowed to worry? It isn't paranoia if it's real.
Yes, but their bosses loved them. People who say they can multi-task well, and who succeed in keeping the things they're juggling from hitting the ground at least until they're out the door, are highly regarded by management. The guy who says up front that the expectations are unrealistic isn't going to get promoted. Ergo--everyone pretends to multitask well.
(And while we're at it, men in general have much higher pain thresholds than women. I have no idea why people keep perpetuating the ridiculous notion that it is the other way around).
Because if we stop flattering women they won't sleep with us. Getting along with women, especially in a relationship, requires acting as if you put credence in women's intuition, their superior multitasking capability, their higher pain threshhold, their superior childraising skills, etc. Men have their own stupid vanities, but as I don't try to get men into bed, they don't frustrate me as much.
I know plenty of people smarter than me who happen to be dumber than me. That made me feel good, till I realized all the people I also knew who were dumber yet smarter than me. By these statements I mean that I know people who are analytically smarter, mathematically smarter, yet not well-read at all, and I also know people who are, at least on paper, better-educated, but don't seem to know much outside their career field. I've worked with people with Master's degrees who didn't know who Freud or Stalin were.
I actually don't even want to know my IQ. I'm only as smart as I am, and finding out that I'm 102 vs 135 wouldn't help me. It would only create an inferiority complex, either way. Either I'll view myself as dumb (if the score is low), or wonder why I'm so mediocre despite a high score. Can't win. I already have the problem of being overestimated. I'm fairly articulate and I read, which gives the illusion of higher intelligence.
I grew up wanting to be a layyer. Actually, I grew up wanting to be Alan Dershowitz. Then he came out in support of torture. It sucks when your heroes turn out not to be too heroic after all.
I didn't call anyone a Nazi or KKK member, nor did I imply that--I said that the word bigotry is used in relation to those people. If the current Pope didn't say that the Church's trial of Galileo for heresy was correct, that their threatening him with torture was correct, then yes, the scientists overreacted.
Back to the bigotry angle, it would be bigoted if they objected to his presence just because he was religious. But the allegation is that he agreed with the Church's prosecution of Galileo for heresy. They objected to a very specific action (even if they were mistaken about his intent), not the bare fact that he believes in God. To use an extreme illustration of the difference, criticizing Bin Laden for calling for the destruction of the USA isn't religious bigotry. Criticizing the Taliban for their repression isn't religious bigotry. If a Muslim scholar agrees with the death sentence directed against Salman Rushdie and professors are outraged, that isn't religious bigotry--they aren't made that he's religious, but mad that he's okay with assassinating someone for heresy.
I frequenly hear about "bigotry" or "persecution" against Christians, when what actually happened was that someone opposed prayer in schools, opposed government sanction of that person's religion, got tired of being witnessed to, etc. There are a lot of people crying persecution any time anyone disagrees with them. That isn't exclusive to Christians by any stretch of the imagination, but it is relevant to accusations of religious bigotry.
Of course atheism is a religion, it is a system of belief about the supernatural nature (or lack there of) of this universe.
Then what word do we use to denote the lack of religion? I'm a medic, and apnea means the absence of breathing. Arhythmia means the absence of a (heart) rhythm. A-something means not-something or lack-of-something, not dogmatically-anti-something. When I use atheist to describe myself, I mean that I lack theism. So if my lack of religion is now a religion (a strange feeling, let me tell you), what word would you recommend I use to mean what I formerly meant by atheism?
I don't like the word agnostic, because I consider it an evasion. I'm agnostic about God to the extent I'm agnostic about Mithra, or for that matter Mothra. Are you agnostic about Bigfoot and ESP? I don't believe in them, but I'd hardly call myself agnostic about them--I'd just say that I see no reason to believe in them, which is my approach to religion. What word do we use for people who just don't believe in religion? If only we had a word already that meant "lacks religion." Hmm.
it sounds more like a science-as-religion bigotry to me
The Pope said that torturing scientists whose research deviates from holy writ is okey-dokey. Well, he said that when they did it in the past it was okey-dokey. I'm not sure if he said, "but we shouldn't do that NOW, mind you..." but Galileo is one of the first dramatic examples of science trying to slowly freeing itself from the shackles of religion. Galileo is a sort of rubicon, where people started saying, "maybe letting religion run everything isn't really a great idea..." And when scientists protest that this apologist for torture is going to speak at their school, you invoke bigotry, the word used in reference to Nazis and the KKK?
If scientists capture the Pope and threaten to torture him to death unless he recants all religious positions that don't match modern science, then it would be bigotry. It's not "just like" something if it's different. Sorry.
Civil disobedience is breaking the law. Thoreau and MLK both broke the law, deliberately, to highlight that the law was unjust. That is civil disobedience. You're welcome.
Inclusiveness is a societal value that not many believe in. Oh they do to a point, but people of both the right and left have their exceptions. Many (most, possibly) Americans would support the idea that an employer should have the right to deny employment to non-Christians. I find that repugnant. But would I hire someone I knew to be in the Klan, even if they had a spotless employment record and all the requisite education and qualifications? I doubt it.
The open society has always been under attack. Mostly by social conservatives, but from the left as well. The whole opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and the idea that you can't discriminate against blacks in hiring, is couched in terms of "employers should be free to hire who they want..." and so on. But then there's my Klan example above, and I can't say that I wouldn't discriminate against someone I felt to be a racist, or a homophobe.
How do employers deal with the 'evangelizing at work' thing? How do you convey in an interview "we want Christians working here, but keep the proseletyzing at home"?
you'll have learned that the woman is always right, even when she's wrong. They hold grudges if you insist that you're right, and if you happen to be right and it happens to be obvious, the grudge will be even more acrimonious. I almost said they would hold it longer if you were actually right, but they hold them forever anyway. It's just easier in the long run, and better for your quality of life, to apologize and act as if they're right.
If you think I'm sexist, try dating women for a while. My ex, who is now batting for the other team, took only a couple of months to tell me, "Wow! You were right--women really are like that!"
I'd guess "no one" is pretty close. I've never met one who was. I used to call myself libertarian, and I thought I was one at the time. But I realized that I don't want a society with zero safety net. The 'moment of clarity' came when I was talking to a doctor about health care for the homeless and we hit a tangent.
On a basic level, what do you do when a poor person dies in the street? Leave them there? Someone haa to pay to pick them up and put the body somewhere. But if no one stands to make a buck, I guess we do nothing and it decomposes in situ. If public health isn't profitable, we die of the plague because it would be tyranny for the government to fund or mandate immunizations. There are many examples.
Libertarianism sounds great on paper. At 17, I thought Ayn Rand was great. I'm not 17 anymore. I'm not prepared to say that all libertarians are selfish, but I do detect a strong element of "I'm sure as hell not paying for your wife's pills!" in a lot of this. I read Mises too (still have a copy of Human Action, but I see what I see, and I don't see many arguments in the real world that are really based on Mises or Rothbard. I just see a lot of people who think they are John Galt.
John Galt was fictional--in real life, the railroads survived and flourished because government used taxpayer money to conquer those pesky Indians, took their land, and gave it to the railroad barons who then charged the public to use what the public had already paid to secure for them. There are many, many rugged individualists, passionately opposed to government intrustion, who got rich off the government teat. Take them away, and you don't have much of a movement.
Either "the government doing stuff for people" is creeping socialism, or it isn't. Government paying for healthcare costs (via the taxpayer dime, naturally) is resisted by the right not on grounds of cost, but on grounds of "that isn't the government's business--the government should stay out of it!"
Bringing up farm subsidies and set-top TV boxes as a counterpoint to this, to highlight the politically-aligned selectivity of the objections is quite relevant. People who believe in small government believe in small government, and would object to this subsidy just as they would object to farm subsidies.
The problem is that many who claim to believe in small government don't really believe in small government. They just use the phrase to sloganeer against those programs they don't like, while being okey-dokey with government outlawing gay marriage and marijuana/prostitution, redefining torture, exempting the President from any and all laws, and and so on. Small government indeed.
You don't read classics to find out what happened to Hamlet. Hint: he dies. I've read The Brothers Karamazov three times. Probably read Maugham's The Razor's Edge five times. The books effect me differently every time.
I don't mean back-to-back readings. Readings have been 2-5 years apart, and the way my perceptions change show me how I have changed. Also, you see more when you have a deeper background in themes the book touches on. How you read Camus's The Stranger as an angsty teenager is different than your reading as a 35-yr-old who has read something about existentialism. So yes, you do profit from further readings, if you read books that are good for more than entertainment.
The common view is that energy from a coal plant is cleaner than having tens of thousands of gasoline engines, and the energy source is domestic, i.e. not requiring a $.75 trillion military to occupy the Middle East. A single auto may make less pollution than a single coal plant, but that single coal plant is easier to make clean than are the tens of thousands of gasoline-powered cars it could power via the plug. This issue has been heavily talked about, so stop pretending that it's a conspiracy of silence. You might disagree with "the greenies" and that's fine, but you make yourself look like a moron by pretending that none of the greenies have looked into the issue.
The issue isn't whether to pollute or not pollute. The issue is how to pollute less.
Worst case scenario, power from the plug comes from coal. It's still cleaner than burning gasoline.
The way I look at is this. I have x dollars to spend on a car. If I spend those dollars on a conventional car, I get to buy much more gas. Every dollar spent on gas sends money to Saudi Arabia and the Wahaabi extremists who want me to die. Every dollar spent at the pump keeps us in Iraq, and in the larger picture in the middle east as a whole. Every dollar spent at the pump increases the chances that the govt will let oil companies drill in Alaska, Yellowstone, wherever. Ever dollar spent at the pump is a dollar telling the US govt that I'm just fine with the US energy policy.
Or, I could pay the "hybrid tax" and give my money to Toyota or some other car company. Every dollar spent on hybrid technology is a message to the car companies that I want more fuel-efficient cars. Every dollar spent on a hybrid tells the US government the same thing. Every dollar spent on a hybrid goes towards making hybrids profitable and attractive as a technology they might want to develop further. This choice doesn't make anyone a saint, but I'd rather fund Toyota hybrid engineering than bomb-making by Wahaabi fundamentalists.
Driving a hybrid isn't "saving the world." You're just kicking the world in the groin less forcefully than the Ford F-150 driver next to you. I will get a Prius as soon as I can afford to ditch my old Subaru. I don't think of it as saving the planet. I'm just as concerned with not giving money to Saudi and other repressive regimes as I am in slowing global warming, conserving fuel, or whatever. The choice has different aspects, but either way the way we spend our money is a reflection of our values.
Why would the government prosecute breaking/entering that resulted in the conviction of someone they really wanted? Your reasoning would lead to a parallel to the snitch culture prevalent in drug prosecution. Cops employ snitches, who go out and solicit drugs, buy drugs, sell drugs, do drugs, talk about drugs, entreat people to find them drugs, snitch on everyone, get paid, don't go to jail, and do it all over again.
If you allow the government to benefit from law-breaking, they will look the other way on the law-breaking that benefits them. Be very wary about that.
Now if there was evidence that the thief was working for the police (for example they routinely handed over evidence to the police) that would be a different story.
In countries where everyone has turned into an informant, the government doesn't call them informants--they call them concerned citizens. The government isn't ever going to stigmatize their informants by calling them snitches.
I don't know what I would've done in their place. Philosophically and morally I know that searching the HD for jpg files is not very different than rifling through someone's dresser drawers looking fir dirty pictures. But when you're sitting there at someone's computer, it doesn't feel nearly as sinister. I've seen people do it.
What's weird is that this discrepancy between our actions in "real life" vs when we're sitting in the computer is also what lies behind the explosion of child porn cases. People who would never create child porn, or try to buy it in "real life," will search for it online and download it. For some reason, things done via the computer seem different. That wee little voice that tells us "you shouldn't be doing this" hasn't quite caught up. I don't think it's just the illusory feeling that you won't get caught--it's just so much easier to do stuff online.
Depends on what you use. If you encrypt every file separately, yes. But encrypted containers, via on-the-fly-encryption (OTFE) like Truecrypt, Drivecrypt, PGPdisk, etc, are not at all a hassle. You create a container once, and mount it when you want to use it. There is no excuse for not using encryption. How many horribly injured people once thought that seatbelts were too much of a hassle?
On Windows, I used to have a program that created files of random data--simulated encrypted files. Don't remember the name of it, but I'd guess it wasn't that complicated. Truecrypt would be easy to use in command-line mode to auto-create containers of various sizes with randomized passphrases--containers whose keys you don't know.
My thinking on this is that computing power is finite, so they (whoever "they" is for you) have to choose which file to try to decrypt, so if you have 100 fake encryped containers and 1 real encrypted containers and they can't tell the difference, they'd waste a lot of time. Of course there is always rubber-hose cryptography, but that's a different issue, and if you're enough of a concern to highly placed spooks or cops, you're screwed already, passphrase notwithstanding. Camp X-Ray for you!
Anyway, my point was (I do have one somewhere) is that how screwed would you be in the UK to have a file of random data that you can't prove isn't an encrypted container? Would what seemed originally like a clever trick to play on the authorities basically sentence you to life in prison, since there is no passphrase to turn over?
I know that kids exude attitudes. I have 2 teenagers. I get attitude. But dammit I went to high school, and I well remember seeing teachers (one or two in particular) needle the "attitudinal" kids into saying something, and then punishing them, perpetuating the whole "see--they're a troublemaker!" thing. No, it wasn't me--I know when to shut up, and I'm good at the whole irony thing. But even when it happened to kids I didn't like, I still knew the teacher was abusing their position and getting off on in.
authority figures are always to be given the benefit of the doubt. The person questioning authority is always a slacker, smartass, arrogant punk. Even if the authority figure is going against facts and logic, they are still to be given the benefit of the doubt an obeyed anyway. If they're complete idiots, we're to just assume that, in the larger scheme of things, it was better to let them have their way. Trust me on this. The alternative is anarchy.
I was taking a mickey-mouse "intro to computers" course (required for the degree) and the instructor said that, while old versions of Windows ran on top of DOS, modern operating systems are GUI from the ground up. I pointed out that Linux/BSD can be installed in command-line-only mode, and was unceremoniously told that "this is the answer to the question, so don't confuse people." Accuracy wasn't the point--the point of class is to fulfill the requirements to get the piece of paper. Education it isn't. He also didn't know about Knoppix, much to my dismay. How can you teach a computer course and not know about Knoppix?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they have a very good reason to keep it secret--it's illegal, and they'd go to jail if it was openly admitted they were doing it. If people had to face what their govt was doing, they'd be guilted into asking for action. Why do you think Bush demanded amnesty/immunity for interrogators? You don't talk about amnesty or immunity for something you know to be legal. The national security argument doesn't make torture okay. Saddam no doubt thought it was vital to his national security to gas the Kurds.
Even to stick with the eavesdropping--ask the President (or VP, or really anyone up there) whether the US government wiretaps US citizens without a warrant. Do you think you'd get a straight answer? Or do you think they'd say "all activities are strictly within the law," which is an evasion.
We can't even get answers, yet we aren't allowed to worry? It isn't paranoia if it's real.
Yes, but their bosses loved them. People who say they can multi-task well, and who succeed in keeping the things they're juggling from hitting the ground at least until they're out the door, are highly regarded by management. The guy who says up front that the expectations are unrealistic isn't going to get promoted. Ergo--everyone pretends to multitask well.
I actually don't even want to know my IQ. I'm only as smart as I am, and finding out that I'm 102 vs 135 wouldn't help me. It would only create an inferiority complex, either way. Either I'll view myself as dumb (if the score is low), or wonder why I'm so mediocre despite a high score. Can't win. I already have the problem of being overestimated. I'm fairly articulate and I read, which gives the illusion of higher intelligence.
No, none of that sounds familiar. Oh wait, I'm white. Sorry. You weren't talking to me.
I grew up wanting to be a layyer. Actually, I grew up wanting to be Alan Dershowitz. Then he came out in support of torture. It sucks when your heroes turn out not to be too heroic after all.
Back to the bigotry angle, it would be bigoted if they objected to his presence just because he was religious. But the allegation is that he agreed with the Church's prosecution of Galileo for heresy. They objected to a very specific action (even if they were mistaken about his intent), not the bare fact that he believes in God. To use an extreme illustration of the difference, criticizing Bin Laden for calling for the destruction of the USA isn't religious bigotry. Criticizing the Taliban for their repression isn't religious bigotry. If a Muslim scholar agrees with the death sentence directed against Salman Rushdie and professors are outraged, that isn't religious bigotry--they aren't made that he's religious, but mad that he's okay with assassinating someone for heresy.
I frequenly hear about "bigotry" or "persecution" against Christians, when what actually happened was that someone opposed prayer in schools, opposed government sanction of that person's religion, got tired of being witnessed to, etc. There are a lot of people crying persecution any time anyone disagrees with them. That isn't exclusive to Christians by any stretch of the imagination, but it is relevant to accusations of religious bigotry.
I don't like the word agnostic, because I consider it an evasion. I'm agnostic about God to the extent I'm agnostic about Mithra, or for that matter Mothra. Are you agnostic about Bigfoot and ESP? I don't believe in them, but I'd hardly call myself agnostic about them--I'd just say that I see no reason to believe in them, which is my approach to religion. What word do we use for people who just don't believe in religion? If only we had a word already that meant "lacks religion." Hmm.
If scientists capture the Pope and threaten to torture him to death unless he recants all religious positions that don't match modern science, then it would be bigotry. It's not "just like" something if it's different. Sorry.
Civil disobedience is breaking the law. Thoreau and MLK both broke the law, deliberately, to highlight that the law was unjust. That is civil disobedience. You're welcome.
The open society has always been under attack. Mostly by social conservatives, but from the left as well. The whole opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and the idea that you can't discriminate against blacks in hiring, is couched in terms of "employers should be free to hire who they want..." and so on. But then there's my Klan example above, and I can't say that I wouldn't discriminate against someone I felt to be a racist, or a homophobe.
How do employers deal with the 'evangelizing at work' thing? How do you convey in an interview "we want Christians working here, but keep the proseletyzing at home"?
If you think I'm sexist, try dating women for a while. My ex, who is now batting for the other team, took only a couple of months to tell me, "Wow! You were right--women really are like that!"
On a basic level, what do you do when a poor person dies in the street? Leave them there? Someone haa to pay to pick them up and put the body somewhere. But if no one stands to make a buck, I guess we do nothing and it decomposes in situ. If public health isn't profitable, we die of the plague because it would be tyranny for the government to fund or mandate immunizations. There are many examples.
Libertarianism sounds great on paper. At 17, I thought Ayn Rand was great. I'm not 17 anymore. I'm not prepared to say that all libertarians are selfish, but I do detect a strong element of "I'm sure as hell not paying for your wife's pills!" in a lot of this. I read Mises too (still have a copy of Human Action, but I see what I see, and I don't see many arguments in the real world that are really based on Mises or Rothbard. I just see a lot of people who think they are John Galt.
John Galt was fictional--in real life, the railroads survived and flourished because government used taxpayer money to conquer those pesky Indians, took their land, and gave it to the railroad barons who then charged the public to use what the public had already paid to secure for them. There are many, many rugged individualists, passionately opposed to government intrustion, who got rich off the government teat. Take them away, and you don't have much of a movement.
Bringing up farm subsidies and set-top TV boxes as a counterpoint to this, to highlight the politically-aligned selectivity of the objections is quite relevant. People who believe in small government believe in small government, and would object to this subsidy just as they would object to farm subsidies.
The problem is that many who claim to believe in small government don't really believe in small government. They just use the phrase to sloganeer against those programs they don't like, while being okey-dokey with government outlawing gay marriage and marijuana/prostitution, redefining torture, exempting the President from any and all laws, and and so on. Small government indeed.
I don't mean back-to-back readings. Readings have been 2-5 years apart, and the way my perceptions change show me how I have changed. Also, you see more when you have a deeper background in themes the book touches on. How you read Camus's The Stranger as an angsty teenager is different than your reading as a 35-yr-old who has read something about existentialism. So yes, you do profit from further readings, if you read books that are good for more than entertainment.
The issue isn't whether to pollute or not pollute. The issue is how to pollute less.
The way I look at is this. I have x dollars to spend on a car. If I spend those dollars on a conventional car, I get to buy much more gas. Every dollar spent on gas sends money to Saudi Arabia and the Wahaabi extremists who want me to die. Every dollar spent at the pump keeps us in Iraq, and in the larger picture in the middle east as a whole. Every dollar spent at the pump increases the chances that the govt will let oil companies drill in Alaska, Yellowstone, wherever. Ever dollar spent at the pump is a dollar telling the US govt that I'm just fine with the US energy policy.
Or, I could pay the "hybrid tax" and give my money to Toyota or some other car company. Every dollar spent on hybrid technology is a message to the car companies that I want more fuel-efficient cars. Every dollar spent on a hybrid tells the US government the same thing. Every dollar spent on a hybrid goes towards making hybrids profitable and attractive as a technology they might want to develop further. This choice doesn't make anyone a saint, but I'd rather fund Toyota hybrid engineering than bomb-making by Wahaabi fundamentalists.
Driving a hybrid isn't "saving the world." You're just kicking the world in the groin less forcefully than the Ford F-150 driver next to you. I will get a Prius as soon as I can afford to ditch my old Subaru. I don't think of it as saving the planet. I'm just as concerned with not giving money to Saudi and other repressive regimes as I am in slowing global warming, conserving fuel, or whatever. The choice has different aspects, but either way the way we spend our money is a reflection of our values.
If you allow the government to benefit from law-breaking, they will look the other way on the law-breaking that benefits them. Be very wary about that.
I don't know what I would've done in their place. Philosophically and morally I know that searching the HD for jpg files is not very different than rifling through someone's dresser drawers looking fir dirty pictures. But when you're sitting there at someone's computer, it doesn't feel nearly as sinister. I've seen people do it.
What's weird is that this discrepancy between our actions in "real life" vs when we're sitting in the computer is also what lies behind the explosion of child porn cases. People who would never create child porn, or try to buy it in "real life," will search for it online and download it. For some reason, things done via the computer seem different. That wee little voice that tells us "you shouldn't be doing this" hasn't quite caught up. I don't think it's just the illusory feeling that you won't get caught--it's just so much easier to do stuff online.
Depends on what you use. If you encrypt every file separately, yes. But encrypted containers, via on-the-fly-encryption (OTFE) like Truecrypt, Drivecrypt, PGPdisk, etc, are not at all a hassle. You create a container once, and mount it when you want to use it. There is no excuse for not using encryption. How many horribly injured people once thought that seatbelts were too much of a hassle?
My thinking on this is that computing power is finite, so they (whoever "they" is for you) have to choose which file to try to decrypt, so if you have 100 fake encryped containers and 1 real encrypted containers and they can't tell the difference, they'd waste a lot of time. Of course there is always rubber-hose cryptography, but that's a different issue, and if you're enough of a concern to highly placed spooks or cops, you're screwed already, passphrase notwithstanding. Camp X-Ray for you!
Anyway, my point was (I do have one somewhere) is that how screwed would you be in the UK to have a file of random data that you can't prove isn't an encrypted container? Would what seemed originally like a clever trick to play on the authorities basically sentence you to life in prison, since there is no passphrase to turn over?
I know that kids exude attitudes. I have 2 teenagers. I get attitude. But dammit I went to high school, and I well remember seeing teachers (one or two in particular) needle the "attitudinal" kids into saying something, and then punishing them, perpetuating the whole "see--they're a troublemaker!" thing. No, it wasn't me--I know when to shut up, and I'm good at the whole irony thing. But even when it happened to kids I didn't like, I still knew the teacher was abusing their position and getting off on in.
authority figures are always to be given the benefit of the doubt. The person questioning authority is always a slacker, smartass, arrogant punk. Even if the authority figure is going against facts and logic, they are still to be given the benefit of the doubt an obeyed anyway. If they're complete idiots, we're to just assume that, in the larger scheme of things, it was better to let them have their way. Trust me on this. The alternative is anarchy.
I was taking a mickey-mouse "intro to computers" course (required for the degree) and the instructor said that, while old versions of Windows ran on top of DOS, modern operating systems are GUI from the ground up. I pointed out that Linux/BSD can be installed in command-line-only mode, and was unceremoniously told that "this is the answer to the question, so don't confuse people." Accuracy wasn't the point--the point of class is to fulfill the requirements to get the piece of paper. Education it isn't. He also didn't know about Knoppix, much to my dismay. How can you teach a computer course and not know about Knoppix?