Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader? Well, if the fifth grader in question is ten year old Will Phillips of Arkansas, and the “you” is me, then I’m not. Because he focused on an objection to the Pledge of Allegiance that I had not thought about and really should have. Even better, he did something about it.
My annoyance with the Pledge has always centered on the insertion of “God” during the 1950s, a relic of a time when we needed to show how much better we were than the Godless commies. But young Master Phillips decided that in a country where states actively discriminate against gays (including, it should be noted, Arkansas, by a vote ratio of 3-1 in 2004 that restricted marriage to straight couples) it is fundamentally hypocritical to state that the flag represents liberty and justice for all. To that end, he decided to remain seated and silent during the ritual recital of the pledge. He did this for three days in a row before it wound up offending the sensibilities of the substitute teacher running the class.
She proceeded to berate him and pressure him and tell him that his mother and grandmother would want him to fall in line–no doubt in front of his peers. She pushed him so much that he finally invited her to jump off a bridge, whereupon she packed him off to the principal. His mother was summoned, she Twittered, and nationwide hilarity ensued.
Now a couple of things occur to me. First, I suspect that for the sub, it was less about fealty to the flag and more about that she just wanted the boy to do as he was told. She felt it was a challenge to her authority and it became a contest of wills.
Second, should he have told her to jump off a bridge? (A suggestion that was preceded by my favorite four words that you say before insulting someone: “With all due respect.”) Well, no. Of course not. But she had his figurative back against the wall, probably with the other kids looking on; he lashed out verbally as a result.
As far as I’m concerned, the far greater lapse was on her part. She’s the adult. She’s the teacher. She could have used it as a teachable moment to talk with the kids that what the flag represents is a country where people have the right to do exactly what Master Phillips was doing: express himself. I don’t expect a sub teacher to be up on all the latest legal developments, but this isn’t exactly news. A student’s right to refuse to say the Pledge or honor the flag has been the law of the land since the Supreme Court said so in 1943. She had zero cause to back the kid into a corner until he had no choice but to verbally lash out at her.
He was in the right and she was in the wrong. Part of being a patriot is challenging the country you love to do better; to put into effect by actions those philosophies that it espouses, such as liberty and justice for all. Because if you don’t do that, then the words are just words. The truth is that when it comes to gay rights, America talks the talk but does not walk the walk.
Details can be found here.
The Pledge
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Jerry Chandler,
We’ll agree to disagree for now. The only thing I flat-out feel I have to make a distinction on is that “anti-health care” should not automatically be interpreted to mean “anti-Obama”. Most of those people arecprotesting the ploicies, not the person.
Anyway, enough of that for now.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
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First – Happy Thanksgiving back atcha, Jerome.
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“The only thing I flat-out feel I have to make a distinction on is that “anti-health care” should not automatically be interpreted to mean “anti-Obama”. Most of those people [are protesting] the [policies], not the person.”
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I would tend to agree on principle, but I saw one of the DC rallies up close as a passer by and I’ve worked a lot of the smaller rallies, protests (health care, Tea Party, etc) and open to the public local government meetings in my area since Obama took office. In each case I saw a huge chunk of protesters, and at least once that was the majority, who were simply anti-Obama and not simply anti-health care reform. In one rally in particular I saw a lot of people who were, whether intentionally or by stupidity, downright racist in their appearance.
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The simple fact is that the loony fringe of Obama haters in America is a little more active and vocal than we saw with the Bush haters and they actually seem to have slightly greater numbers. This is unfortunate because they are often rushing in and hijacking other groups events. The other unfortunate truth is that a number of the Fox News personalities, including the ones you cite, are the ones feeding that fringe’s hatred and misinformation.
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You have to know that I’m not going to say that you cannot protest a sitting president or an administrations policies. I just spent the better part of the Bush years doing just that and doing some of it right here. You should remember that I’m also one of the ones who disliked the shrill rhetoric of the fringe left who often claimed that Bush was Hitler and made equally foolish arguments based on equally shrill and extreme comparisons to history’s most vile figures. I also remember that you took issue with those things as well.
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Well, we now have Obama as POTUS and we have a number of Fox News personalities doing the same thing here. And one of the shrillest, if not the most shrill, and fringe-like is Glenn Beck. It truly seems that nothing said out there by the fringe is to loony or pathetic for him to regurgitate on his show.
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He has peddled the death panel nonsense, he has spent entire segments comparing Obama to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini and Obama’s administration to their governments (and then thrown in a one liner about how he’s not doing what he just spent five minutes doing) and claimed that if Americans don’t stand up and fight back against Obama’s fascism that we will be under a cast system like India’s that will be Obama’s design.
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Real thoughtful, same and rational stuff there.
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He’s claimed that Obama is a racist, he’s claimed that Obama thinks it;s fine to pull the babies out of their mothers and put a spike in the baby’s head or simply abandon them to die and claimed that Obama’s appointees favor the idea of forced abortions for American citizens.
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Seriously, Jerome, this is a guy you call level headed and talk about as someone people are turning to for “the full story” these days? This guy is batshit crazy at best and a manipulative opportunist at worst. You and I both agreed here on this blog that Cindy Sheehan’s anti-Bush rhetoric was over the top and ridiculous and Beck makes her fringe rhetoric look like rational debate. You and I both agreed that the odd “Bush was behind 9/11” crank who showed up here from time to time was a wackadoo conspiracy idiot. Beck routinely goes into full blown televangelist mode and prattles on about his own demented fantasies and conspiracies that are every bit a stupid.
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And even when he’s not getting that batshit crazy he’s ripping out of context stuff like Obama appointee Anita Dunn’s remarks to distort reality for his viewers and claim that Mao is her hero and that she and Obama are radical communists with an agenda to destroy this country.
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Please… You made fun of the batshit crazy Leftists when Bush was in office and rightly so. Do you really want to be those guys now? Do you really want to spend the next 3/7 years being the batshit crazy Righty on the board or the guy who claims that the batshit crazy Righty is really an honest commentator who’s making sense?
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Lastly –
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To everyone here…
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HAPPY TURKEY DAY DUDES AND DUDETTES!
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Enjoy the family time and the day off if you’ve got it.
I of course meant to type “are protesting” and “policies” above.
Tom,
I’ll look at what you’ve said over the weekend re CCSP.
I don’t know the other panel members. I’ve not heard any
more about it since agreeing a week ago.
As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University. I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well.Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people,so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.
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Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better
this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is
trawling
them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear
there
is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than
send
to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within
20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.
We also
have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried
email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He
has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant
here,
but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere
to it !
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1. Think I’ve managed to persuade UEA to ignore all further FOIA
requests if the people have anything to do with Climate Audit.
2. Had an email from David Jones of BMRC, Melbourne. He said
they are ignoring anybody who has dealings with CA, as there are
threads on it about Australian sites.
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“When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions – one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA [Climate Audit] was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I’ve got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian – who deals with appeals.”
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Keith/Tim still getting FOI requests as well as MOHC and Reading. All our
FOI officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions
not to respond – advice they got from the Information Commissioner. As an
aside and just between us, it seems that Brian Hoskins has withdrawn himself
from the WG1 Lead nominations. It seems he doesn’t want to have to deal with
this hassle.
The FOI line we’re all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI – the
skeptics
have been told this. Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant info
the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t
have an obligation to pass it on.
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Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
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More from George Monbiot (who will probably be called a denier if he keeps up this fidelity to truth kick he’s on)
I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
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Jesus…
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Okay… That’s some seriously shady garbage. Any and every person associated with those emails needs to have their access to grants revoked for a good long while and be required to turn over every shred of their climate research data.
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The ignorant part of this is that if they were just after grants there’s legitimate data out there shows that there is a change taking place, but the cause isn’t as narrowed down as some would like. They could have been doing honest work and getting whatever grants that were out there. Now they’ve not only placed their work in question but they’ve handed the critics ammo to propagandize the hëll out of legitimate work that isn’t tainted by this kind of crap.
Yeah, this is looking bad and the worst may not be over–now the New Zealand version of this group is being accused of cooking data. Of course, it could just be that now everyone is looking for a scandal but it would not shock me–science needs to take place in a certain atmosphere or it becomes as corrupt as any other political endeavor, no better no worse. I don’t think the global warming crew had that atmosphere, which does not change the good work done by so many, though they will be tarred by this along with the guilty.
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Yes, this will give critics a good weapon. That’s the price one pays for bad science and why everyone should be on the lookout for it, even–especially!–when it seems to validate one’s positions.