• Trouble logging in? Send us a message with your username and/or email address for help.

Principal Obama

New posts
TooFarTampa said:
One of the guys from Politico was on CNN and very bluntly stated that a public option is not going to happen, that a compromise is the only way to get enough votes, and that no one wants reconciliation because it will make an already poisonous environment even worse. Let's hope they can strike a decent deal and move on. I still think Obama has a good chance of pulling this one off.
Click to expand...

I think so too. He is much more the shrewd politico than the deft socialist!
 
They should have the kids go before Congress and give a speech now. After watching some of these shrewd children being interviewed after Obama's speech, I think they probably will get more accomplished in reaching a settlement. :floor:
 
Mango said:
They should have the kids go before Congress and give a speech now. After watching some of these shrewd children being interviewed after Obama's speech, I think they probably will get more accomplished in reaching a settlement. :floor:
Click to expand...

I agree. I think the children of this country and the young adults could teach many of the older generation a thing or two about tolerance, acceptance, compromise, negotiation, importance, relevance, inclusion, and common courtesy.:yikes:
 
Miss Kitty said:
Trey Garrison: No, you can't, Mr. President
05:56 PM CDT on Thursday, September 3, 2009

There's no doubt the presidential address directed to the captive audience of the nation's schoolchildren Tuesday will be nonpartisan and positive. Chock full of "study hard and stay in school."

The problem? It's not his place to deliver it.

That's why my first-grader won't have any part in this.

I know some people will say that we live in a democracy, he's the national leader and the people voted for him.

Those people are wrong on all three counts. We're a republic. He's the president of a federation of states. And a majority of the members of the electoral college voted for him.

What could further cement this fundamental, dangerous misperception of the proper, limited role and power of the president's office than to have him beamed into every classroom speaking virtually ex cathedra? I got nothing.

By the way, see how I haven't mentioned the president's name? That's intentional. It wouldn't matter to me who the president is. This could be Bush, Clinton, Reagan or zombie Milton Friedman ? it wouldn't matter. I don't want a president of any stripe presenting himself as the All Powerful Oz until my kid has the wherewithal to look behind the curtain.

The study materials dictated by the White House to accompany the address make the hairs on my neck stand up:

Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress and the governor? Why is what they say important?

What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?

They're not even trying to hide it: What elected officials say is important, and they are different ? more important ? than you. We should do what they ask. It's our role. Listen. Serve. Obey.

This is anathema to everything good in the American spirit. Government is supposed to serve us, not the other way around.

(And why should kids be taught to value the words and wants of officeholders who've tanked the economy and taken out a mortgage on their grandkids' future for nondefensive wars and failed bailouts? But I digress with these criticisms in a way I bet few teachers will.)

Look, watching a president's speech in a middle or high school civics class? No problem. In a few years, I want my kid to be confronted by challenging ideas, informed debate and opposing values. That's how a kid learns, evolves and strengthens her own ideas and beliefs.

That's not what this is.

These are grade school kids. You know, the ones who giggle over the word booger and do their financial planning based on the tooth fairy's visits. Critical thinking and nuance? Not their strong suits yet.

What this is, though, is imprinting on them the idea that one person is their leader.

And if he's the leader, what does that make them?

This didn't start with Obama and ? shocker ? it's not about him.

In his book The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy examines the decades' long drift away from the vision the Founding Fathers had for the limited role of the president, and at the disturbing trend of both liberals and conservatives to think of the office as a limitless "combination of guardian angel, shaman and supreme warlord."

This Tuesday's address will only make it worse.

Execute the federal laws, Mr. President.

You do your job (don't you have a deficit to grow or something?), and we parents and teachers will worry about the kids.

Trey Garrison is a contributing editor for D Magazine and free-lance writer. He can be reached through treygarrison.com.
Click to expand...

I think a Texas-sized aluminum foil hat is in order.
 
goodwitch58 said:
and one of the ones blowing the hardest:


Scott Maxwell: Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer slams Obama -- but touts GOP views at schools -- OrlandoSentinel.com
Click to expand...
.
There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."

This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.

That man is Jim Greer ? the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination." ...........................

:blink:

.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
New posts


Sign Up for SoWal Newsletter









Share this page




                               
Back
Top