Planetary Eulogy: Well, I would argue there's a big difference between the gov't limiting free speech for everyone and an academic institution limiting hateful speech b/c they feel it impedes education. However, I've spent a lot of time on academic campuses and I've yet to meet people who actually believe certain words shouldn't be allowed to be spoken. Maybe the political correctness debates happened before my time or something. I do think that campuses are more sensitive to the connotation of words and phrases and academics try to choose words that are either specifically more morally neutral, or, in some instances, belie a specific interpretative bent. But in my experience it's a myth that the administration wanders around college campuses rabidly policing every word that comes out of a student's mouth. It's a myth, though, that seems to have a lot of traction.

patron002: Clearly I'm not an unbiased source, but I don't think the Dems have particularly sucked-up to the scientific community...and certainly not to the extent that Repubs have to the religious right. And I don't think valuing free discourse means that people with lots of education are better than anyone else. Our economy is on the brink of collapse b/c of people with lots of education (especially financial modelers with PhD's). I don't believe having more degrees is always better. Overall the Dems have attempted to carve out for themselves the demographic of people who care about social programs but not about 'moral values' legislation. My argument is that scientists specifically may or may not care about social programs, but 'moral values' legislation is a threat to their livelihoods. It's not about feeling superior, it's about not being able to do your job. Yes there are many scientists who also feel superior b/c of their educations, but those scientists also have utter contempt for anyone in gov't Dem or Repub. They just might lean Dem b/c they feel like the party platform is practically more favorable to their work. (The argument that science funding increases under Repub presidencies seems to me a red herring. You need to know 1) who controlled Congress and 2) what's being defined as science funding. B/c military funding goes up with Repubs, certain types of funding for projects that DoD might support goes up as well. But in my experience the scientists and engineers who work on DoD supported projects typically lean Repub anyway...which offers more support to the idea that non-DoD funded scientists' leaning Dem is a practical matter)