Stalin Tried this Too....
Has anyone heard about what's going on in what I'll have to assume is Cupertino, California???
Check out this link....and then come back for a spell....I think I just might have an opinion on this. Anyone surprised at that?
School Bars Declaration Of Independence
At the risk of all my Google AdSense advertisements going back to hawking religious paraphenalia (not that there's anything wrong with any of it at all) I guess that we have to go back to the issue of religion just one more time.There is NOTHING in the Constitution that specifically speaks to the issue of separation of church and state. In our previous discourse about the Muslim instruction/orientation/whatever you may call it...I think that we agreed that in the study of humanity...we need to address religions. But I also seem to think that I predicted this sort of rash, one-sided, heavy handed kind of action.
The teacher in question is a history instructor!!! He teaches about what happened. Not what we would have liked to have happened. Not make up things that are more in line with what today's "modern" educators would like to see taught...he is supposed to teach the kids about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the other dead white guys that founded this country. Those same heros just happened to be devout Christians that wove quite a bit of reference to the Almighty into the foundation documents that this nation was built on. Just because the word "God" seems to strike fear into liberals like holy water to a vampire...doesn't mean that you can simply take these phrases out of history's curriculum.
There have been countries that have tried to re-write their histories....the former Soviet Union comes to mind. My college Russian professor served as the deputy Army attache in Moscow under Nixon. He told us stories about going into Russian libraries and pulling the volumes of the encyclopedia off the shelves and looking for the "changed pages." This is where a former citizen of note became a non-person....their entry being replaced with some other person or entry. Just like in the book 1984 they would simply paste a revision right over your entry.
Are we headed down that path again? And is it Mr. Bush...who's been called everything lately except a Christian by the left that's leading the charge?
No, it's the politically correct, over zealous academics (or alleged academics) trying to protect children from even the utterance of the word "God."
Folks...there are many worse words floating around the hallways of our public AND private schools these days. "God, help me pass this exam....or God let me get into UT at Austin" seem to come to mind. As long as the word "God" isn't followed by the word "damn it" I don't seem to have a problem with it.
Okay...now that you've had some time to digest this contribution from "The Smoking Gun" and what I had to say.... what do you think?
posted by MajorDad @ 11/24/2004 08:32:00 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Major:
As someone who is on "the left" and who actually planned to be a social studies teacher at one point, let me first say that I agree that keeping historic documents out of our classrooms because they contain the word "God" or other religious concepts is just plain silly. It's a fact that our founders were religious, and trying to avoid historic references to that fact would hurt your ability to understand the full scope of American history.
Now for what I disagree with...I am moderately annoyed with your characterization that this type of ban is what "the left" and "the politically correct, over zealous academics (or alleged academics)" are in favor of. Sure, there are obviously few people out there that are trying to get it banned, since it happened. But from my experience with "the left" (which is a decent amount as I used to work in a state Senate office), the majority of liberals are fine with references to religion. It's when schools try to indoctrinate students into certain religious beliefs that we raise our opposition. For example, reading the Declaration of Independence in class would be acceptable. Saying "The founders believed in God, so you should to" and using the Declaration to support that statement is questionable in a public school setting (but doesn't warrant removing the Declaration from the classroom, just preventing its use in this type of situation).
Maybe you already realize this and your generalization was unintended, I don't know. But I think it's important that we realize that there are people who are way out there on either end of the political spectrum. Therefore, it's important that both sides of the aisle refrain from characterizing those extreme minority beliefs, rulings, or what have you as the agenda of "the left" or "the right."
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