Bullshit Tolerance Threshold exceeded

It probably won't surprise my liberal readers – I assume they come here looking for a laugh at my expense – to learn that I'm a high school dropout. When it got to the point where I was wagging more days than I attended, it was time to leave. It wasn't that there were better things to do; in the rural area where I lived there was nothing to do, not during the day anyway. Nope, I left school because I hated it.

I really liked the social aspects of school and enjoyed the mental stimulation but, since I'm lazy, I've always been classified as an "underachiever". (This underachieveing probably results from my very short attention span, but that's another story.) Like millions of other kids, I enjoyed school, pretty much did as I was told and didn't do any more work than was necessary to achieve satsifactory results.

Things started to change in the 7th grade. Up to that point I had been taught by one teacher for the whole of the day. Being of ethnic German stock I dutifully conformed to a teacher as an authority figure with whom I had a personal relationship. In junior high I was taught by multiple teachers, few of whom cultivated personal relationships with individual students – they couldn't, they didn't have the time.

Since I didn't really get to know these teachers as people I formed an opinion of them based on their teaching alone. It gradually dawned on me that some of these teachers were neither smart nor knowledgable. I still did as I was told but took less interest in what was being taught.

High school was a revelation: a few of the teachers were great, lots of them were Okay but many of them were fuck-ups. At least one of them had an alcohol problem. Some of them were outright thick. Others were simply strange. It became harder and harder to take any notice of anything they said. Naturally, I began to rebel and, I wasn't the only one. My year nine algebra class chewed up and spit out a succession of seven fuck-ups over the first six weeks before a teacher who could command respect was finally found.

School had become a complete waste of time. Petty rules were hard enough to take, teachers exceeding my Bullshit Tolerance Threshold (BTT) for period after period was too much. I felt trapped. I wanted to scream. I wanted to get up and walk out and eventually did.

When it dawned on me that I needed to further my education, I took the GED, securing an equivalency diploma. The ACT and SAT came next. Eventually I was admitted to a "party school" in the University of Texas system.

University was a hoot. Free love was the go – other than pregnancy, the worst that could happen could be cured with a penicillin injection from the campus clinic, apparently existing for no other reason than to keep such medical situations below the parental radar. The police didn't have the resources to enforce alcohol or marijuana laws. Independent thinking was encouraged. Life was good.

If a student disagreed with an instructor he was expected to speak out. Instructors of all political persuasions welcomed dissenting viewpoints and didn't mind if students came to their offices to discuss a point of contention. Hell, some of the instructors even welcomed students into their homes: I can clearly remember getting drunk at the home of an ultra-liberal English instructor while arguing about the war in Vietnam. (I am not a neo-con.) Consequently, my BTT was seldom exceeded because I really enjoyed going to class and was allowed to speak out.

After graduating I joined the US military. Odd you say, someone with an obviously low BTT joining the military. Surely the military would throw the BTTometer off the scale. Well, that was the point, sort of. If I was going to get anywhere in life I was going to have to raise my BTT: screaming or walking out are seldom viable options. The military wouldn't adapt to me, I had to adapt to the military.

Well, I'm nothing if not adaptable, so I fit right in. Sure my BTT was sometimes exceeded but the military has organizational purpose. Its rules and procedures have evolved over a long period of time. I didn't enjoy every minute of my military experience but I did learn a lot about functioning within a larger group.

When my active tour was up I decided to us my old GI BIll benefits to further my education. By this time I was living in Australia. I had no trouble getting into the program I wanted. I really enjoyed university and now the US government was going to pay my way, life was going to be good, really good.

Really wrong. University – the one I went to, anyway – had my BTTometer swinging. Like instructors in the states the locals were predominantly liberals but, unlike in the states the locals – some of them Americans – did not tolerate independent thinking. Any student silly enough to write an essay – assessment was almost totally essay based – that was politically incorrect was doomed. Don't get me wrong, not all of the instructors were far left and intolerant but most of them were. Regurgitation was the name of the game. It was the only way to survive. It took a huge effort on my part but I was able to keep my BTTometer in control and eventually passed the year-long course. (I wasn't the only one having BTT problems; one of the classes was so outrageously, liberally biased that one night, when the class could take no more, we revolted, threatening to to go to the dean en masse. There was an instant change in instructor attitude when someone suggested the revolt would look interesting in the newspaper.)

Where the hell is this heading? Bear with me, we're almost there.

After university I reentered the wonderful world of work. Unfortunately, I continually come into contact with academics who are both liberal and intolerant. These people are convinced they are right, refuse to consider opposing viewpoints and won't admit it when shown to be wrong. Arguing with a well informed liberal is fun and can be enlightening. With some academic liberals a mere mention of their name causes my BTT to be exceeded.

Take John Quiggin for example. I've been chasing him around for a while now trying to clarify a couple of points I'm unclear on. Given he's an academic I would have thought him eager to enlighten. Rather, he's keen to evade. He has exceeded my BTT but I need not scream or walk away, I can persist in my clarification efforts.

In his latest email Quiggin refuses to state unequivocally that it was his anti-spam software that not only blocked my comments to his site but also removed some of my comments and later replaced one of them. All he had to do was go to my site and type Y-E-S and that's where that matter would have ended. But, no, he emails me all irate and aggressive. Why?

Then there's the little matter of Quiggin's claim that the article Tim Blair – you knew that Tim Blair prick would be involved somewhere, didn't you? – linked to was meant to scare. In his email Quiggin says – in regard to another matter, I think (with Quiggin it's sometimes hard to tell what he's on about) – that if he hasn't retracted something he stands by it. Well, since he hasn't retracted his claim that the article was meant to scare, he must have meant it. I'm a bit surprised Quiggin thinks Professor Pavle Sicherl allowed his research to be used in what Quiggin sees as an obvious attempt to scare Europeans. Again, all he had to do was go to my site and type Y-E-S and that would have been that. Why all the smoke and mirrors stuff?

There is also a puzzling bit in Quiggin's email about me "demanding" a response to my "rhetorical questions". He completely lost me on that one.

The only thing I demand is a little respect.