I’ve been naughty and haven’t made any YouTube videos in a while (I have to change that, if only I had time), but would you believe I still get comments on stuff I made months ago? Here’s a recent comment made on my video about Jordan Peterson’s PragerU video on those darned liberal arts universities. It’s all racist talking points while accusing Democrats of being racist, but of course they wander all over the place with all kinds of random boogity-boos.
Why does school cost so much? Gov offers more loan money to students who have no business being in school. Then what does the wonderful university do? Yep you guessed it raise tuition. The whole alt right dog whistle thing is a low blow, so far from the truth. Why do some left Leaning universities like Berkeley try and ban Ben Shapiro? Does he have alt right dog whistles lol 😂. Mr. left professor how many genders are there? Another question do support or oppose the death penalty? Are you pro choice or pro life? Those two questions can tell a lot about someone. The left has done more harm to this country then good. Democrats and slavery, kkk, Jim Crow. Once the blacks switched parties in the thirties it’s been all down hill. The more black government officials at the county, city levels the more corruption. Teachers unions have ensured the black inner kids a horrendous education. That fucking pisses me off that unions and make no mistake they give more campaign money to democrats and it has caused inner city schools to be horrible. I’m sorry I don’t care as much about men and women transitioning into whatever they want to be called as much as Obama did. When Obama and his education secretary saw how bad things were they said they needed to act. Well still waiting President Obama! Let’s be perfectly honestly the Left doesn’t care about black kids if they did there would be vouchers and choice. The thing is everybody knows what needs to happen but it would cost the Democrats dearly at election time. I say once and for all stop oppressing black people.
So much incoherence and contradictions! I should whip up a video about how there are far more than two genders, to pick just one example of its nonsense.
My little video focused on just one collection of bogus claims by one cranky Canadian fart, but PragerU is a far more poisonous set of lies than that…and yet somehow they’ve avoided the mass demonetizations that afflict my liberal friends, or even the raving right wing nutcases. Money greases a lot of wheels at Google, I guess. Rather than wasting a lot of time on this one fool’s comment, I’ll just point you at this recent analysis of PragerU.
It’s not enough to just say that PragerU isn’t an actual university. It’s outright propaganda, and those appearing on the channel are propagandists.
As an institution, PragerU has proved to be toxic, and it should be best understood as — as its “About Us” page notes — a “digital marketing campaign.” If one of Prager University’s goals really is to “[make] the world a better place, five minutes at a time,” it deserves a failing grade for its current output.
my recent first encounter of Prager U. was a video by one of their professors giving a lecture of the history of the Democratic party being the racists the liberals accuse the Republicans of. That Democrats grew the slave trade which the Republicans abolished, and the Democrats established the Jim Crow laws afterwards. snip. end of lecture. Stopped by saying the “flip” between the Democrat platform and the Republicans never really happened.
I think the flip in their policies is pretty well established and to deny it tells me Prager U teaches racism as a facto fo life and the Republicans fight it. This puts them at the bottom of my list of education facilities.
And yet there is an excellent PU video out there done by an historian from WEst Point about how the Civil War was really all about slavery and how the confederates were really traitors. Stopped (non-digital) clocks I guess.
I see Dennis Prager trumpeting PU occasionally in an ad before an online crossword puzzle. Fortunately the sound is off and I can skip before he finishes his spiel. I think I listened once and pretty quickly caught on to what a “5013 non-profit conservative digital media organization” means.
slithery tove @ #1 — There was a pro-slavery faction in the Democratic party in the 19th century. The split with the not-so-pro-slavery and abolitionists helped Lincoln get elected. The South remained staunchly Democratic, or Dixiecratic, until the mid-1960s when disaffection with Johnson’s Great Society and desegregation was used as a wedge issue in the Republican’s Southern Strategy
And the fact that the government, especially when run by anti-government/anti-intellectual right wingers, has been slashing public funding to universities for decades has NOTHING to rising tuition costs?
Also, who exactly DOES have “business being in school?”
No doubt, the author would claim that’s it’s hypocritical to be opposed to the death penalty and support abortion rights because a nearly-microscopic blob of barely-differentiated cells without consciousness and the ability to feel pain is EXACTLY like an adult human being. Their inability to tell one from the other tells me a lot about them.
Not only can’t this person tell the difference between a fetus and a adult human, they also can’t seem grasp the difference between political ideology and political party. Also, why would they assume the “Left,” the side of the political spectrum associated with social, racial, and economic equalty, would be racist, as opposed to the “Right,” those who tend to believe in tradition and the authority of those on top of the social pecking order?
Citation required, and what specifically makes African-American public officials “corrupt?”
No, that would be an educational system funded by property taxes combined with generations of racism and segregation driving down property values in Black neighborhoods, ensuring that their local schools are grossly underfunded.
The “Left” cares enough to support free, no-strings-attached, public education for all. All “school choice” would do is ultimately deny education to the poorest while giving control of what our children are taught to the corporations, or worse, the churches.
If what we want is oppression, I hate to see what the author considers liberation.
Matt Yglesias says one question can already tell you a lot. It’s pretty obvious, and I can believe it.
I am not sure how it would apply to alt-right or charlatans like Jordan Peterson. And if he’s what passes for a public intellectual today, I give up. Didn’t Camille Paglia have the same schtick 30 years ago?
Robro: what specifically makes African-American public officials “corrupt?”
Can’t you tell just by looking at them?/s
Since I can come up with a far longer list of corrupt white politicians, it’s obvious he only reads The Daily Stormer and Breitbart. I’m surprised he didn’t say anythin about “The Jews.”
Can someone like this even pretend to be offended by being called a racist? I mean, if you go off on a long incoherent tirade about “the blacks” you are by definition a racist.
I get the feeling that this person would wear the label “racist” proudly.
Jonathan Norburg@9
Possibly, but I could also imagine them going off on a “No, you’re the real racist.” rebuttal.
I’ve never heard of PragerU before today., yet I am on youtube a lot.
damien75@10 I don’t see it either, but my kids (13 and 15) apparently see ads for it.
@Paul BC
Your kids are probably seeing it because they tailor their ads more to young, impressionable people in order to get more converts. Older liberals are less likely to change their views. They may be intellectually dishonest and manipulative, but, unfortunately, they are not dumb.
It seems to me that the question “how many genders are there?” is the same sort of question as “how many colours are there?”. It is not a phenomenon readily amenable to numerical quantification.
It is also amusing to see American far-right people talk about the Democratic Party as if it is “the Left”. By European standards the USA does not have a political left.
Oddly, I’ve been seeing ads for Prager U and Pureflix at the beginning of videos by Sci Man Dan and Professor Stick, lately. You’dthink they’d be on flat earth videos, but no, their on anti-flat earth media. Go figure.
I’ve watched several Prager U videos and with one exception they’re all repeating they same mantra, that everything you believe is the exact opposite of what you think. The exception was the one about the roots of the Civil War and Reconstruction, almost allof which I already knew. His attempts to redefine Liberalism are simply pathetic and his attempts to show that true science proves the Bible are just laughable. Or they would be if they didn’t have so many views.
methuseus@12
I do get a lot of very strange clothing ads.
@14
That’s because that’s Youtube’s very profitable (aka abusive) business model: Bait “content creators” into engaging each other. Keep confronting them with the opposite viewpoint. It feeds the outrage, encourages conflict. YT couldn’t care less if views come from the right or left. As long as people “engage” with their crap and watch paid-for ads.
So, it (very un-subtly) encourages political enemies to keep engaging each other (posting response videos to response videos to response videos… etc.). They are fostering “healthy debate” in the “marketplace of ideas”, don’t cha know?!
It’s about “free speech”, you see?! Let’s talk about whether brown people are really human. Let’s talk about IQ! Again. This is all very intellectual, Sam Harris will tell you.
It’s outrageous, I’d say. And that’s exactly the point. It is outrageous. And that’s why it’s not only allowed, but encouraged and promoted.
As long as people on YT keep barking at each other, YT profits. So of course, it welcomes rightwing extremist content. Not because there is a particularly large audience, but because there will always be decent people who can be suckered into engaging these idiots endlessly. YT literally feeds off of human misery and bad ideas. Sure, it hosts plenty of wholesome content, but it also simultenously provides a platform for the worst ideas imaginable.
There is no barrier to entry on YT. ANYTHING is permissible, as long as it’s not literally illegal.