Really? I recited the Pledge every day at school until I reached Junior High. And after I graduated from high school in 1988 it was mandated that the Pledge be recited in all schools be they elementary, junior high, or high school, and the practice continues to this day. I asked myfriend who used to teach in that school system what he thought of it and he said it was a waste of time, as it does nothing to affirm one’s patriotism and it is simply ludicrous to think otherwise.
That is one of the greatest things I have ever read. Bravo to you, sir.
That IS a very good one.
As religion has been deemed inappropriate for the public school curriculum, such “social issues” as the normalizing of homosexuality by the public school system is equally inappropriate. They are both issues related to one’s personal beliefs.
Furthermore, evidently “social issues” are taking too much time away from actual learning. Forty years ago, virtually every high school graduate, from the valedictorian to the student at the bottom of the class could read. Today, it is not uncommon to hear of high school graduates that cannot read or are functionally illiterate.
The normalization of homosexuality is also part and parcel of the curriculum of brainwashing society into acceptance of the liberal ideology.
Remember Ryan White, the teenager who contracted the HIV virus from blood products used to treat his hemophilia? He was used as a pawn to portray that AIDS was not just a behavioral affliction limited to homosexual men, but a concern of mainstream society as well.
But, when you peel away the veneer and recognize that Ryan White contracted the virus through donated blood, it illustrates the fact that behavior, that societies worldwide naturally abhor, does have the capability to affect society’s innocent.
*“to the republic for which it stands”, contradicts the notion of democracy that government education has been brainwashing our children with for the better part of the past century…" *
See what I mean about brainwashing?
Razorsharp
“Today, it is not uncommon to hear of high school graduates that cannot read or are functionally illiterate.”
Yeah…but they sure feel good about themselves.
My step-daughter-to-be is 17 years old, and for all intents and purposes is a pretty-well adjusted younbg lady. But she can’t figure out 15% of $10 in her head to save her soul. This is something I learned by -what?- the fourth grade?
Come on, people…if there is ANY legitimate functions of schools at all, it is to prepare their charges to be equipped to function in society. And when I read, time and time again, about how crappy the students in the US are in regards to BASICS such as geography, math, ENGLISH f’crissakes…I weep for this nation.
As much as some conservatives don’t like it[1], the 1st Amendment prohibits institutionalizing religion in the public schools. Seems to me that the latter is appropriately managed at the non-federal level.
Irrelevant.
Best,
Dev
[1] I’m trying to come up with a equally inane counter to the “America-hating liberal” I hear so much on daytime talk radio. Maybe “constitution-hating conservative” would work.
I’m with ya, Razorsharp. Let’s round up all the commies, pinkos, atheists, coloreds, and queers and put 'em in camps. After all, this county was founded by God-fearing, Christian, white men. Time for the good 'ol boys to take America back.:rolleyes:
Damn, I can never cut these eyeholes straight on my white sheet.
Homosexuality is nothing to be normalized or not normalized. It is part of the physical world in which we live. Teaching kids about the real world doesn’t take time away from ‘actual learning’. It is learning.
I happen to think there’s a world of difference between naming a school after a great man who happened to be a slaveowner- or even a champion of the Confederacy- and naming one after a man whose greatest- or ONLY- claim to fame was being a champion of the Confederacy.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, to pick just two Founders, were slaveowners, but that’s NOT the reason they’re still admired and revered today. Their accomplishments were many, and when we build a memorial to Washington or Jefferson, or name a building after them, we’re honoring them for THOSE accomplishments, NOT for being slaveowners.
But a school named after Jefferson Davis is a very different thing, as is a monument dedicated to Robert E. Lee. When Southerners pay tribute to Davis or Lee (or J.E.B. Stuart or Stonewall Jackson), they’re honoring those men BECAUSE of their racism and support of slavery.
A school that erects a statue of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson is not deliberately thumbing its nose at black students. And even black Americans recognize that the freedoms they owe the freedoms they enjoy today, in some part, to Washington and Jefferson. However, a school that erects a statue of Jefferson Davis IS thumbing its nose at black students, who have absolutely NO reason to respect Davis.
Am I saying that ALL tributes to Confederate heroes are inherently racist and/or evil? No. Many Confederate heroes had a host of admirable accomplishments unrelated to slavery or the Confederacy, and it’s perfectly fine to honor those men for those accomplishments.
Example? It would be wrong to force Washington & Lee University to drop the name of Robert E. Lee. He WAS president of that university, after all. It’s perfectly valid for a college to honor one of its past leaders. But if a latter-day school district in, say, South Carolina, chose to name a new high school after Nathan Bedford Forrest, black Americans would be outraged, and rightly so.
Are you trying to imply that AIDS is “just a behavioral affliction limited to homosexual men” and/or not “a concern of mainstream society”?
Perhaps at the same time you’d like to dismiss SARS as “a behavioral affliction limited to the Chinese”. I mean, obviously those people don’t know how to keep potentially fatal diseases from infecting the rest of the world.
I agree
Yea, but teaching kids about ANYTHING is learning. The “real world” is WAY too broad a curriculum for thet feeble public school sytem. The ability able to read and write and the basics of mathmatics would be a more realistic goal than the many facets of human sexuality. They have a hard enough time with spelling.
…as evidence by my typo’s…
:smack: Doh!
Actually it says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…"
How is it that enacting law, that forbids local communities from deciding whether or not prayer is appropriate for their local school system, is not prohibiting the free exercise therof?
If it was one or the other I’d say keep the math and english, but first I’d have to see evidence that deficiencies in those areas were a result of time wasted on sexual anomalies.
Either way, I don’t think that justifies Razorsharp’s initial premise, that teaching about homosexuality while not allowing the Lord’s Prayer is an example of PC run amok.
Nitpick on the Lee reference in astorian’s otherwise great post:
“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any Country.” Robert E. Lee, 1856
Lee later inherited some slaves, and freed them before the war started. He opposed seccession. He opposed slavery. He opposed inclusion in a nation at the point of a bayonet.
US Grant only freed his slaves in 1866 because he was forced to by, IIRC, the 13th amendment. Unknown if the flippant quote as to the reason is true: “Good help is hard to come by.”
Let’s not judge either of these men through the lense of 150 years of enlighened thought.
Best,
Dev
Actually, it is being delt with in a liberal manner.
The government is advising against travel to the far East, yet there is no restriction on those coming into the country from the far East unless they are exhibiting signs of illness.
How insane is that?
It’s “liberally” insane, that’s how insane it is.
I’m not sure I completely agree. Of course your examples are more likely to be touchy, but I don’t really see it. Now, I’m not from the South (well, I was born in Virginia and both my parents were raised in South Carolina, but that’s different) and I’ve never quite understood some of the hostility that can still be there. On the other hand, I also believe that symbols are what you make of them. Obviously, a powerful symbol to one culture can mean nothing in another.
Now, I don’t quite see your point about Lee, Jackson, Davis, etc. I’m not sure you can argue that they were supporting racism and slavery. Besides, there are other reason to look at the men. Lee and Jackson were damn good generals–heck, the North was basically floundering until it got Grant and Sherman. People can easily argue that Grant, while not that bad a general, was a drunk, an awful president, and helped turn Reconstruction into a disaster (not that Johnson helped and man, have I heard lots of venom on both sides about Reconstruction.) Sherman, after all, is a wonderful example of the use of scorched-earth tactics.
Anyway, I’m more comfortable with the argument that the people a hundred years later were far worse than the people during the Civil War. Note that I am not trying to pull one of those “everything in its proper context means that moral equivalency reigns supreme” (well, maybe I am), but it still seems to me that there does indeed reach a point–perhaps the end of living memory–where value judgements can be less easily made because there is no longer a good way to get representations of how people thought other than the already recorded primary source material.
Well, I think I botched that argument.
Anyway, on to my next point.
The world is full of memorials to groups and persons of small interest to most of the world. If I remember correctly, you (astorian) live in Texas. This means that you have a chance (though probably not as good as if you live in California) of having heard of Cesar Chavez. (Quick rundown for anyone else who might be reading and doesn’t know: Cesar Chavez is basically the man who helped migrant workers (mostly Mexican) unionize and such in the Southwest–notably California, for obvious reasons, but other states as well.) Anyway, my town has several very long street names and other names for various people. True, a street name is just a street name, but it can be about the same as a small statue or monument to somebody tucked away in a park somewhere. These street names include: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., Avenida Cesar Chavez, Unser Blvd., several generals from various wars, and so on. Now, I will admit that MLK isn’t that much of a surprise (and honestly, it’s been that for as long as I can remember), but Avenida Cesar Chavez used to be, and I believe still is in some places, Stadium Blvd. Heck, I still call it Stadium, as do a lot of other people I know, not because we have anything against Chavez but because we’re lazy, we all know where we’re talking about, and the name was Stadium for a much longer time than it has been Avenida Cesar Chavez and habits die hard. Unser is probably known to race fans, but who else?
Other things? I went to an elementary school named after Dennis Chavez. I’m still not sure who Dennis Chavez is (politican of some sort, governor or Congressman I believe) and that a statue of him is New Mexico’s contribution to the statuary in the Capitol. Somehow I doubt many other people have heard of the man.
True, none of these are examples of people who have the cultural impact today of your examples. I guess I’m just questioning your idea that Lee, Jackson, and such were one-trick ponies.
School is federally mandatory requirement for children of a certain age. Thus, no school system, being an arm of the government, has the right to decide for kids what, when, how, or if they’ll pray. If people want to pray, they are free to pray all they want: that’s what free exercise means. Anyone who thinks that the government should be leading religious observances is more of an enemy to the free exercise of religion than an ally.
This may be true of some Federal officers. It it not true of Grant.
Grant’s wife owned four slaves* (much to the chagrin of Grant’s father who was an abolitionist). Grant’s father-in-law gave Grant a slave in 1858. In the next year, Grant was in financial difficulties and was having trouble feeding his family and his wife’s slaves. Rather than selling his slave for the expected price of around $1,000, Grant simply freed him. (And in his letters, Grant always spoke highly of William Jones’s intelligence and industry.)
Grant’s wife’s slaves were in Missouri in 1863 and were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. (Grant noted on a visit home that they had “scattered.”) His wife mentioned, one time, that the 13th Amendment had freed her slaves, but the reality is that they were long gone by that time.
- Records are unclear as to whether she held title to them or whether her father held title and assigned them to her as servants.