Florida Social Studies teacher needs remedial lessons in how the society works

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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FL teacher who routinely tweets ‘OBAMA IS A P*SSY’ upset at exclusion from Obama event

A Florida Social Studies teachers claims his right to free speech was violated when school officials barred him from attending an appearance by the President. Randall Scott made several tweets disparaging to the President. He said he’d rather ‘dine in Hell with Satan’ than to shake Obama’s hand, and that he is a ‘virulent anti-Communist and hater of Obamanism.’ Miami-Dade County Public Schools decided that perhaps he shouldn’t attend.

[emphasis mine]:

Since he was excluded from the presidential visit by school administrators and not by Congress or the Federal government, his Constitutional right to free speech was not abridged. He still has the right to say what he wants, and he is free to attend an assembly to do it. He just can’t be a part of the school’s delegation. His employers have the right to include or exclude anyone they want.

And another thing: If he is a ‘virulent anti-Communist’, why is he working for a public school? Doesn’t he know that public schools are created by socialism? That his salary is paid for by The People, and that public schools exist for the betterment of society and to promote the general welfare? He’s either stupid, or a hypocrite.

I think this guy needs to be sacked. Schools are supposed to be institutions of learning. Social Studies is ‘the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence’; not an indoctrination camp for teaching hatred and spreading falsehoods. He should not competent to teach the course, and so should be fired for incompetence. And firing him would be doing him a favour. The ‘virulent anti-Communist’ would be freed from the chains of Socialist servitude.

The hilarious thing is that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with Obama, but he’s pissed as hell that he can’t go to the party. ‘I would rather dine in Hell with Satan than to be at the appearance!’ ‘OK, you’re not going.’ 'What? :eek: :mad: ’ :stuck_out_tongue:

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At the very least, he shouldn’t be teaching Social Studies with that crappy understanding of the Constitution.

Oh, and he’s a douchebag.

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They should make him take a remedial social studies course.

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Stories like this are why Fark has a “Florida” tag.

But wow, that guy is a dumbass.

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See, that teacher is a True Patriot fighting for his God-given Constitutional right to call the President a Marxist Socialist Fascist Kenyan Nogoodnik in person, whereas this teacher is a leftist sponger and corrupter of youth who wrote a “vitriolic” email daring to suggest that Congressional Republicans just might have been responsible for the government shutdown.

Because liberals are hypocrites like that.

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Checking the Constitution…Nope, there’s no right to be an asshole…Sorry, Randy.

I am intrigued by this quote: “His “I hate Obama mood” extends to First Lady Michelle Obama, who he blames for taking away his Pop Tarts.”

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‘The Revolution was fought to prove Man’s right to his own conscience.’

Daniel Boone, ‘The Patriot’, 1968

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I’ve just noticed I wrote ‘teachers’ in the title. The word should have been singular, as I meant only the one teacher and not all of the teachers in Florida.

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When I first saw this story, it was also pointed out that the event was in a location too small to fit most of the people from the school, and thus there were many, many people excluded.

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Fixed.

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This article claims that it was the Secret Service who banned him from attending, or so the teacher claims he was told (presumably by a school official) as he was heading to the auditorium with his students.

Who knows if he’s telling the truth, or if the school was telling him the truth. But now he can blame Obama directly for taking away his rights, which must be exciting.

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Yes, but most of them wanted to go!

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Your overall point is absolutely correct: the teacher does not have a constitutional leg to stand on.

But in the interests of fighting ignorance – and since your OP excoriates the teacher for his failure to understand Constitutional law – it’s perhaps worthwhile to note that the sentence above is suggestive of a basic misunderstanding on your part.

School administrators, even though they are state actors (as opposed to federal actors) are still bound by the First Amendment.

It’s true that the text of the First Amendment applies only to Congress – that is, only to the federal government. But the doctrine of incorporation, grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, makes its guarantees applicable to the states as well.

Your mistake is understandable. Even the Supreme Court, back in 1876 (after the passage of the Fourteenth, in other words) held in a case called U.S. v. Cruikshank that only the federal government, and not the states, were bound by the Bill of Rights.

But starting at the turn of the century, the Court began finding that the various rights in the Bill of Rights were applicable to the states, under a couple of different theories that sort of converged into the framework that the “due process” required by the Fourteenth Amendment mandated state recognition of the Bill of Rights rights – not in one fell swoop, mind you, but bit by bit.

The First Amendment’s various guarantees are all incorporated, although by different cases. Freedom of assembly – presumably the specific First Amendment right implicated by Mr. Crazypants, the Florida teacher, was held to apply to the states in DeJonge v. Oregon, a 1937 Supreme Court case that, ironically enough, affirmed the right of one Dirk De Jonge to organize a Communist Party by recruiting, meet with his recruited members, and speak at those meetings, even though such actions violated Oregon’s then-law against “criminal syndicalism.”

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But the main point is that this isn’t really a speech issue. What the teacher is really claiming is that he has a right to be part of a school delegation.

Scott is free to call Obama a Communist. But the school is free to decide he doesn’t get to represent the school at an appearance. They could equally well have decided to exclude Scott because he doesn’t shower on a regular basis.

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Look, I have absolutely no use for Obama, but if I were a high school history teacher, I would NEVER insult the President in class. I might express my opinions of his policies, but I’d make sure to do it respectfully AND to welcome contrary opinions in class from my students. And obscene tweets about the President are just childish and stupid.

And IF, by some chance, President Obama were coming to my school, I’d be THRILLED by the chance to meet him. I’d shake his hand, I’d smile for a photo with him, and I wouldn’t try to make any kind of serious conversation with him (much less argue politics with him).

And the great majority of liberals I know (including my wife mand most of her family) would behave in exactly the same way if a conservative Republican president were visiting their workplaces.

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Once Gov. McDonnell showed up outside of my office door, right out of the blue. This was before he became disgraced, and he was just another Republican with too-perfect hair.

He knocked on my office door and called out my name, having read my name plate. I let out a girlish squeal because I couldn’t believe my eyes. Just two weeks before I had shaken presidentia candidate Obama’s hand, and here I was with the governor! Who knew my name!

It didn’t matter that he as a Republican and that I despised his politics. In that moment, he was just another celebrity and I felt honored to meet him.

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To be sure, there are others like him.

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Absolutely. I am not a fan of the majority of President Obama’s policies, but he is a fine and decent man, and he’s the freakin’ PRESIDENT. I’d shake his hand, get a photo, and feel honored at the encounter.

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What rights would those be that were denied to him? His First Amendment rights were not violated; nobody has silenced him. They just said “we don’t want you at our function”. There’s no Constitutional amendment, nor is there an other law, that guarantees “the right to meet the President”.

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Yeah, let me fix the thread title:
Florida [del]Social Studies teacher[/del] needs remedial lessons [del]in how the society works[/del] :smiley:

Ahh, don’t give the wingnuts ammo and use a very “technical” definition of socialism. Reserve the name for the actual socialism, which often isn’t even part of social democracy.

If he hates the President thaaaat much, he missed out on a great opportunity to meet the man, greet him, and stinkpalm him. But I guess he dodged the Muslim germs.