<p>“Liberty” has has a very checkered history as an absolute guarantee of freedom from government restraint. The Puritans came to Massachusetts for religious liberty - then used that liberty to hang itinerant Quakers. White Southerners fought for the liberty to enslave other human beings. Nowadays, the 1% demand the liberty to … oops, better stop, don’t want to turn this into a political thread. :eek:</p>
<p>If by “squashing student protestors” you mean eventually deleting comments on Facebook than they did squash them like bugs. But there were comments in the student paper and other venues. Overall it seems not that many were all that upset.</p>
<p>[For</a> Liberty students, graduation a moment of celebration, with or without Romney?s speech – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs](<a href=“http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/12/for-liberty-students-graduation-a-moment-of-celebration-with-or-without-romneys-speech/]For”>http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/12/for-liberty-students-graduation-a-moment-of-celebration-with-or-without-romneys-speech/)</p>
<p>Also the student paper coverage–well done and some good comments.</p>
<p>[Commencement</a> commentary | The Liberty Champion](<a href=“http://www.libertychampion.com/2012/04/commencement-commentary/]Commencement”>http://www.libertychampion.com/2012/04/commencement-commentary/)</p>
<p>barrons, if there were a Venn diagram containing “Liberty University” and “UW-Madison” I believe you would be alone in the overlapping area. :)</p>
<p>^LOL! Agreed.</p>
<p>Although I think you could say that about any non-Liberty student that would say what he’s been saying on this thread.</p>
<p>Well andrew-you claim to know a lot about a lot of colleges you have never been to. Maybe your claims are also faith based too–but your bible is just US News.</p>
<p>barrons- the real point is that Liberty DOES have a bad reputation. There is no way around that. I really expected some of the people I was with in VA to speak up in support like you do- at least a little bit- but no one did. I think that’s really all you need to know about the place.</p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to dis you.</p>
<p>Also, I hate us news.</p>
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<p>Agreed, they didn’t even rank my high school even though Newsweek did <em>tear</em></p>
<p>Also, they’re an AWFUL way to measure the worth of a college. None of the “colleges that change lives” (based on factors like good financial aid, graduate success, and happiness of students) are anywhere in the top tier.</p>
<p>Obama speaking at Barnard doesn’t stand out to me, but Romney’s choice speaks volumes about the political nature of Liberty University. There are plenty of more reputable conservative schools he could have spoken at, but he chose the most extreme one.</p>
<p>lol…you make it sound like there is only ONE country-wide graduation date and time and the candidates had to choose only ONE that they could speak at. In truth, graduations are held over a period of a few weeks, and some are morning, noon, and night, so a candidate can speak at many, many during a graduation season. Perhaps Liberty’s grad date and time was unique enough that Romney didn’t have another conflicting offer. And/or maybe he was already speaking at some nearby venue, so including that was an easy do. </p>
<p>To suggest that with many conservative schools to choose from and that he chose the most extreme one, is misleading because it suggests that he refused all other requests and went with this one. In truth, because of the many weeks of graduation dates, he could be speaking at many college graduations.</p>
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<p>But he didn’t. He spoke at one school, and it’s a school that has an ideological position stating that his religion is a cult.</p>
<p>That is a religious position, not an ideology. Ideologically they are closely aligned with him hence their political support for Romney. They CAN do both.</p>
<p>mom2, if that is true I couldn’t find any evidence of it, and I looked.</p>
<p>Presumably both Romney and Obama are busy and can’t spend all their time on the graduation circuit. Romney’s choice was strategic, for the reason DavidS mentioned. He needs to do everything he can to counter the belief that Mormonism is a cult. (Which is pretty funny because I’d say the evangelical far right is more cult-ish than the Mormon faith myself.)</p>
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<p>All religions are cults… “Cult” has a bad connotation, but a very standard denotation.</p>
<p>cult
[kuhlt]
noun
- a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
- an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
- the object of such devotion.
- a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
- Sociology: a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.</p>
<p>Religion is a subset of cults, but not all cults are religions (e.g. “cults of personality” – see Che Guevara in many parts of Latin America).</p>
<p>It will take a long time (if ever) to live down Liberty’s founding by a TV evangelist.</p>
<p>Well, without him it would not exist either. He built it from nothing with chewing gum and wire. Now it is a Billion dollar asset to the area and has created 1000’s of jobs. So, it could be worse. UVa was not moving in and the small privates were not doing much either. How do you feel about companies that help build nuclear weapons and nuclear power? Lynchburg has those too. We kinda like them.</p>
<p>Too late for him to pull an Oral Roberts to raise more money. Too bad Billy Mays coudn’t found a university before he passed away.</p>
<p>Seriously, it’s great what it may be doing for the area but there is no comparison reputation-wise to the University of Alabama (which was the OP’s original question).</p>
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I would feel more comfortable if we divided this into two questions with two very different answers.</p>
<p>This thread has degenerated into an off-topic political flame-fest.</p>
<p>Any discussion of Liberty University by non-like-minded people is doomed from the start.</p>
<p>You guys aren’t going to change anyone’s mind. I don’t know why you wasted your time.</p>