Shut up and get back to the microwave!
You can’t tell me what to do! You don’t <i>own</i> me! Pig!
Get back to the fucking microwave, or I’ll take your hot pockets and throw them in the garbage, I swear!
Steve is far wiser with this statement than I expected him to be :P. Tactically, laughing at your opponent is a good way to shake their confidence, provided you can do it right. It’s not logically legitimate, yes, but I draw no quarter with the wilfully stupid. It’s best followed by a thorough fisking, capped by a flourish of rhetoric to make your statement at least partially stick in the minds of the audience (the whole class, I suppose, provided they weren’t doodling on their arms during this).
It’s because you ranted about stupid people. He likes anyone who does “thinks independently” like that.
Here’s the thing; thinking is harder than feeling. We can make emotional decisions at the drop of a hat, but thorough, critical thinking has an arduous learning curve. Some people, usually scientists but also some polisci-ers, compsci-ers, philosophers, et cetera, practice enough to get good at it, but that’s rare. I was somewhat disgusted with my Speech class, where the debate section had more to do with how to undermine your opponent’s <i>ethos</i> rather than attacking their arguments.
That said, many (precise proportions will always be in contention) members of these popular “movements” are only so because they offer them convenient definitions, a feeling of power and a complete lack of work required to be “informed” and “intelligent”. As such, you’ll find many “feminists” who are simply angry at men, “pro-black” activists who are really only mad at white people, and “pacifists” who are simply afraid and are trying to control violence, rather than eschewing its use altogether.
Watch a peace protest sometime. Yeah, these people are really peaceful <_<.
I’m reminded, tangentially, of a person who said that their reason for taking the Intro to Psychology class at our high-school (a class I dropped like Michael Jackson’s baby) was “to learn how to read people’s minds.”
But, as a piece of provicnial wisdom, take these two versions of a quote, both equally applicable.
“Don’t argue with an idiot, as a passerby might be unable to tell you apart.”
“Don’t argue with an idiot, because he’ll beat you with experience.”
That’s the sort of thinking that’s going to perpetuate more stereotyping and bigotry. 
But stereotyping and bigotry is FUN.
I hate those people violently.
Don’t ever argue with these people, they will never concede anything and the entire class and teacher will resent you for wasting time.
Everyone has prejudices (if you say you don’t, you’re a liar) but us folks with brains try to overcome them when we discuss and we try to realize when our biases are interfering with our speech. We’re not always successful, but at least we try.
Folks without brains, though, are run by their prejudices and wouldn’t budge them for a big apple.
Btw, I went through five and a half years of university without ever having to be in a class that involved discussion, woo go me! Except for one about Software Re-Engineering, but that was more of a milieu where we all ganged up on the authors of academic papers and blasted them for being a) badly written; b) completely not useful; c) flawed; or d) too confusing to be understood. That was fun sometimes. 
This reminds me of the time when my teacher actually put me in detention for bringing up that a school-sponsored girls’ math/science camp (there wasn’t a boys’ one, or even to my knowledge a co-ed one) was discriminating. She said I was trying to keep women down, and I explained that not letting males in was discriminating, I wasn’t saying that it was wrong for women to be interested in math. She told me to think of it as encouraging and a good thing. I asked her if she thought slavery was encouraging and a good thing, for white people, and she put me in detention.
Whoa, you have some fucking stubborn people in your class. Maybe it’s because I live in Canada(hahah just kidding there’s tons of stupid people here too), but I haven’t encountered any overly stupid or annoying people in any of my college classes. I have a pretty short tolerence for stupid people, too, so I think I would notice it if there were any. I guess I’m just lucky so far.
Sorry to hear about them, maybe you could try ignoring their needlessly aggressive comments. Though I’m sure you already have.
Oh, Canada just has a different sort of stupid self-identity. I’ve noticed an overall attitude that we’re supposed to be <i>proud</i>, or something, that we’re so much more <i>tolerant</i> and <i>liberal</i> than those <i>Americans</i>. I can’t stand that.
You might be noticing that more cause you’re in college so you tend to associate more with teenagers and ex-teenagers. I know my campus has its fair share of Amerikkka type students.
I actually got that mostly from the media, not from my immediate environment…
Well what i was meaning was that they really did start the whole sexism thing. er…not any better huh…well it was a long time ago this is the futur stop going to the past IT’S OVER DAMMIT…er
Since the dawn of man there has been sexism, where did you hear that white men created/started sexism anyway?
Edit: dawn of man sounds kind of stupid. What I ment was, that there is sexism in cultures all over the world. White people were not the pioneers of sexism.
ack thats wrong on my part i think i meant just man >.<
Feminism for the sake of feminism, something your classmate sounds like she indulges in, is like shooting yourself in the foot because you don’t like the shoes you’re wearing. It only makes you look stupid, and knowing you’re stupid, the shoes are probably good and your taste is just poor.