Patterico's Pontifications

5/18/2015

Giving Parents Yet Another Reason To Home School

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:03 pm



[guest post by Dana]

So, gender fluidity. It’s all the rage and its proponents are determined to make sure kids get indoctrinated early on, because as every good progressive knows, get ’em while they’re young!

Not content to let boys be boys and girls be girls, middle school students will be introduced to the idea that gender is not simply a male or female proposition:

One of the nation’s largest public school systems is preparing to include gender identity to its classroom curriculum, including lessons on sexual fluidity and spectrum – the idea that there’s no such thing as 100 percent boys or 100 percent girls.

Fairfax County Public Schools released a report recommending changes to their family life curriculum for grades 7 through 12. The changes, which critics call radical gender ideology, will be formally introduced next week.

The plan calls for teaching seventh graders about transgenderism and tenth graders about the concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum

The curriculum will focus on the following:

“Students will be provided definitions for sexual orientation terms heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; and the gender identity term transgender,” the district’s recommendations state. “Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination.”

Eighth graders will be taught that individual identity “occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“Individual identity will also be described as having four parts – biological gender, gender identity (includes transgender), gender role, and sexual orientation (includes heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual).”

The district will also introduce young teenagers to the “concept that sexuality is a broader spectrum.”

This is only the beginning. As students move into high school, building on the middle school foundation they will be taught that “one’s sexuality develops over a lifetime”…

Responding to the announced plan, Andrea Lafferty, president of Traditional Values Coalition, foresees a disturbing end result:

“At the end of this is the deconstruction of gender – absolutely. The majority of people pushing (this) are not saying that – but that clearly is the motivation.”

And with a straight face, School Board spokesman John Torre claimed the proposed curriculum changes have nothing to do with the board’s vote last week which made it permissible for boys who identify as girls to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.

What a coincidence…

–Dana

142 Responses to “Giving Parents Yet Another Reason To Home School”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. You know what’s fun? When a Social Justice Warrior suggests gender is a “social construct,” use their own arguments to suggest race is a social construct.

    Edoc118 (ffe670)

  3. And don’t you DARE call this “recruitment”!

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  4. Actually, I think this is a great idea. It’s not often parents get such a clear impression of their school board and educators. The next election will be fun, although the press will probably go on about how dangerous those Christians are and how they want to push their morals on everyone.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  5. And the libs say we need to spend more money on schools so we’ll be more competitive in the global market.

    That always makes me laugh.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  6. 4. …the press will probably go on about how dangerous those Christians are and how they want to push their morals on everyone.

    Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/18/2015 @ 10:14 pm

    Of course. If a gay couple comes into my restaurant and demands I cater their wedding or they’ll sue me until I go out of business and am bankrupted, clearly I’m the one trying to force my morals on them.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  7. 2. You know what’s fun? When a Social Justice Warrior suggests gender is a “social construct,” use their own arguments to suggest race is a social construct.

    Edoc118 (ffe670) — 5/18/2015 @ 10:08 pm

    Well then, this gender fluidity idea is just a social construct then.

    Who are they to tell me their social construct is better than my social construct? Especially when my social construct actually conforms to biological reality. And their social construct conforms to … nothing, nowhere, ever.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  8. If the Republic should survive another century, or even to celebrate the Tricentennial, those looking back will wonder about our time. Obama, gay marriage, “diversity” and set-asides, “transgendered restrooms,” feminism as a man-hating cult, the whole thing, and wonder what the hell was wrong with us.

    I suspect it will be attributed to some form of mass hysteria. They may even discover some alien infection that caused the complete abandonment of sanity. And, God willing, a vaccine against its recurrence.

    Estragon (ada867)

  9. is it just laziness that Starnes dials up the “Family Research Council” and the “Traditional Values Coalition” to develop his story?

    can’t he find any normal people what think this is stupid?

    happyfeet (831175)

  10. It gets worse.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/18/tammy-bruce-public-boarding-schools-would-allow-st/?page=all#pagebreak

    …Secretary of Education Secretary Arne Duncan did what leftist bureaucrats have done throughout history: announce the dream of supplanting parents with the state by taking control of children “24/7.”

    He couched it slightly differently, but not by much.

    Mr. Duncan touted the possibility of “public boarding schools.” He said to the gathered crowd of federal bureaucrats and apparatchiks, “One idea that I threw out … is the idea of public boarding schools. That’s a little bit of a different idea — a controversy (sic) idea — but the question is do we have some children where there’s not a mom, there’s not a dad, there’s not a grandma, there’s just nobody at home?”

    “There’s just certain kids we should have 24/7 to really create a safe environment and give them a chance to be successful,” he said.

    Nothing screams liberalism like a policy wonk who insists on confiscating your children because of the cultural hell the bureaucrats themselves created…

    …Yet what Mr. Duncan is proposing is nothing new to leftists. As their education and economic policies fail, unemployment, hopelessness and violence increases. Then like genuine leftists, they use the chaos they create to justify taking even more control of children’s lives.

    Liberal politicians know American families, if left unmolested, raise children with faith and values; we raise center-right children. This is not good news for big-government liberals. How best to intervene? Make sure public schools, using federally mandated curriculum, spend more time with your children than you do…

    The last part is critical. Because:

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418012/inching-toward-harrison-bergeron-kevin-d-williamson?target=author&tid=903320

    …Occasionally, a progressives makes the political mistake of being too open about where those assumptions lead, as was the case this week with the Australian philosopher Adam Swift, who noted, correctly, that being read to by one’s parents is correlated with a greater degree of subsequent economic success than is attending an elite school. The inevitable conclusion is that loving, engaged families are an important source of inequality, that good families are a good that is distributed unequally with no regard for fairness, etc. Swift — not a satirist, despite the red-flag name — then performed the essential function of the modern philosopher, i.e. retrofitting a flimsy moral argument to preexisting progressive political preferences; in this case, that meant constructing a category of privileges — “familial relationship goods” — that can be finely subdivided between the legitimate and the illegitimate as political realities necessitate.

    …“I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally,” he said.

    …Progressives are quite content to issue orders at the point of a bayonet about how and where you educate your children, and some of the more enthusiastic partisans among them desire to imprison parents for home-schooling their children or to have religious education declared an “extreme form of child abuse,” in the words of Richard Dawkins.

    There are no children the progressive left doesn’t believe their totalitarian state should have 24/7.

    There is only one parent or no parents because it’s not safe, says Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

    There are two parents at home because then you’re unfairly disadvantaging other peoples’ children, says Adam Swift.

    You might indoctrinate them to think unapproved thoughts, says Richard Dawkins.

    Give them an inch, and they’ll take your kids.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  11. If the Republic should survive another century, or even to celebrate the Tricentennial, those looking back will wonder about our time. Obama, gay marriage, “diversity” and set-asides, “transgendered restrooms,” feminism as a man-hating cult, the whole thing, and wonder what the hell was wrong with us.

    Or maybe it will be much worse that this will look like the good old days.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  12. And, God willing, a vaccine against its recurrence.

    that parents two generations later will be refusing to let their kids get, because “autism”

    stupidity is stubborn… just ask “perry”

    O:)

    redc1c4 (2b3c9e)

  13. Stooooopidest. President. EVAH!

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/05/13/obama_criticizes_children_attending_private_schools_contributes_to_less_opportunity_for_all_our_kids.html

    On Tuesday, President Obama participated in the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown University in Washington. While many topics were discussed, including the media, the president addressed the impact children attending private schools have on the “opportunity” for other children.

    Obama also said a private school education leads to “an anti-government ideology.”

    And we can’t be having any “anti-government” ideology, can we? And by that he means believe there are certain things outside the government’s grasping hands. Like free speech rights, your own kids, your money, or your business. Because it’s not really yours. It’s the collective’s. And Government is just another word for what the collective does together.

    If you can’t figure out what Obama believes about the effect sending your kids to private schools has on opportunities for other peoples’ kids, Kevin D. Williamson explains it @10.

    The mostest stooopidest part? RCP adds:

    President Obama attended private schools in Hawaii and his children currently attend the prestigious Sidwell Friends School in Washington.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  14. In one way, not responding to these things could give the impression that people are ok with it,
    but I think there is little use in spending much time in debate/discussion, as when people are fixed on believing things that are contrary to what is self-evident, there is not much to be said.

    How could one get more ridiculous than arguing against private schools when you send your kids to one?
    Though in one way it is logically coherent, some people think they know what is best for the rest of us, and their role is so important that they don’t have to live by the same rules.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  15. Is it too soon to identify public schools with child abuse? Physicians take an oath to do no harm, shouldn’t we expect the same protections for our children?

    ropelight (bd8712)

  16. Funny how public schools, with triple the per-student budget they had in 1970, cannot find time to teach students to add fractions but they have all the time to teach horseshit.

    Two solutions should be pursued in parallel:

    Turn out the school board.

    Pull the children out and home school them, collectively.

    There’s no point in arguing with SJW. They don’t have principles. Their rules for you apply only to you. There rules for themselves only apply to themselves. It’s purely will-to-power.

    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c)

  17. 15.Is it too soon to identify public schools with child abuse? Physicians take an oath to do no harm, shouldn’t we expect the same protections for our children?

    First off, public schools have been abusing children, parents and the very word “education” since the 1070’s, ropelight. So no, not only is it not too late it’s way overdue.

    Secondly, I don’t believe that oath is required any longer. And if we expect a corrupt organization, run by unions and based on leftist propaganda to protect our children it’s we who need an education.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  18. BTW, that’s what happens when free people “turn over” the education of their kids to government. Just like that Scorpion, what the hell did you expect? It’s their nature!

    *that was supposed to be the 1970’s however I’m reconsidering my dates.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  19. I will play again my broken record.
    The public schools have always played a part in socializing children along a norm of behavior. When the schools were accountable to local parents this was fine. Now that the schools are under the control of “professionals” the bigger risk is that parents who don’t tow the line will be accused of child abuse in their parenting. Like the links to articles on the post about the children’s transgender club in St. Louis. If parents actually want a professional evaluation to understand what factors contribute to a child having a gender identity conflict, the “problems” are intolerance on behalf of the parents and unprofessional conduct of the professional.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  20. A huge part of why we are at this point is that so many parents have freely abdicated their parental responsibilities and are perfectly happy having the state take control. And there then becomes an expectation of the state and would be an outcry if it didn’t step in. That’s how bad it is. Combine the abdication with a faulty moral compass and anything goes.

    Dana (f1eb7d)

  21. Is anyone surprised? Schools stopped being about the “3 R’s” a long time ago and are about socialization and molding minds to be appropriate subjects for future generations.

    NJRob (d36337)

  22. The state of schools is like the state of our national political leadership, President Obama is not so much the problem as a public willing to vote him in a second time. If there was enough moral outrage against the outrageous, the outrageous would not be so rampant.

    That does not mean being mean-spirited to those who have differing views, but to be lovingly persistent in pursuing what is good and demonstrate what is the better way.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  23. If parents actually want a professional evaluation to understand what factors contribute to a child having a gender identity conflict,

    Gender identity conflict? What the hell are you talking about? These a-holes are creating a problem where none exist. Look down. If you see putz, you’re a boy and nothing can change that. Period. No putz? You’re a girl. Nothing can change that. Period. Now, if you look down and see a putz but think you’re a girl, or a dog, or a bird, that’s a psychological problem, not a “gender” conflict. The problem is not in their bodies but in their heads.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  24. I suspect it will be attributed to some form of mass hysteria. They may even discover some alien infection that caused the complete abandonment of sanity. And, God willing, a vaccine against its recurrence.

    This really puts one in mind of the Salem Witch trials

    janetoo (501c8f)

  25. “Emphasis will be placed on recognizing that everyone is experiencing changes and the role of respectful, inclusive language in promoting an environment free of bias and discrimination.”

    – Some Radical Guy

    Outrageous! What can we do to keep all this respectful, inclusive language out of our public schools?

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  26. Anyone who sends their children to a public school (unless it’s in a small town
    in flyover country and even then maybe) are committing child abuse. They’re also
    exposing themselves to the possibility that little johnny or little susie will
    decide to become part of the fascist order and rat them out (this has actually
    happened to parents and not just for drugs) and get them put in jail.

    I’m so glad I got an actual education before all the bs took effect. In fact I
    think I have the equivalent of an associates degree because I took courses they
    don’t have anymore or the version they “teach” now are warped and/or wrong.

    jakee308 (49ccc6)

  27. I don’t get it. If you had a buddy who ran around barking like a dog and telling people he was a dog wouldn’t you try to help him? Or would you “celebrate” his K-9ness? But if the same guy runs around acting like a girl you’re supposed to accept he’s a girl? That’s insane. He’s not a dog and he’s not a girl and if he thinks he’s either he needs help.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  28. Outrageous! What can we do to keep all this respectful, inclusive language out of our public schools?

    Exactly what is so respectful about shutting down free speech, intimidating persons of other views and opinions and building walls around these poor unfortunate snowflakes that want the attention free of opinion and judgment by others?

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  29. the problem is, it is of logical necessity for there to be “bias”
    if there is no “bias”, then there is no differentiation
    if there is no differentiation, nothing has a specific meaning

    it’s like all of life is something akin to a cross between oatmeal and cream of wheat, without sugar or butter, eaten with a burned tongue, so that you can’t taste it anyway
    and everything is one shade of grey

    one can be loving or cruel in how one responds to bias
    but to deny difference is like saying milk and gasoline are equivalent,
    well, they are both liquids at room temperature
    but after that not so much similar

    but as I said already, either this is self-evident, or it’s not
    one’s biases can be blinding in the midst of claiming no biases

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  30. Leviticus,

    You are full of it. You know full well that leftist tolerance is Newspeak for submit and shut up or we will hound you till you beg for forgiveness.

    We’ve seen your type of tolerance when it comes to religious freedom in the face of government power. We are not subjects to the all-powerful state who must submit.

    I think you’d be happier with Islam than Christianity or Judiasm. You might want to change your name.

    njrob (371f61)

  31. Not sure why anyone here has any problems with this. First, it’s a local school board that made the decision, which means that the people affected can hold the members accountable if they disagree. Second, the Fairfax County schools appear to be better-than-average, so performance isn’t an issue. Isn’t this what you find to be just fine when a local school board in Kansas decides that it wants to include creation science in the curriculum?

    Jonny Scrum-half (91e87d)

  32. We don’t have a problem with a local school board being a bunch of dumbasses. And in Fairfax I would assume that’s to be expected. All the leftists on the board send their kids to private schools then screw up the lives of the public school kids in their charge. SOP for leftists. We have a problem with the idea that these a-holes think it their business to dictate “gender” to anybody’s children but their own. The be fascists, pure and simple. The very first coin minted by our government stated: “Mind Your Own Business”. I still think that’s a good idea.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  33. Second, the Fairfax County schools appear to be better-than-average, so performance isn’t an issue.

    It will be if they keep screwing around with dumbass crap like this. They should just teach the little brats to read. They don’t have a degree in morality so they should shut up.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  34. “it’s like all of life is something akin to a cross between oatmeal and cream of wheat, without sugar or butter, eaten with a burned tongue, so that you can’t taste it anyway
    and everything is one shade of grey

    one can be loving or cruel in how one responds to bias
    but to deny difference is like saying milk and gasoline are equivalent,
    well, they are both liquids at room temperature
    but after that not so much similar”

    – MD in Philly

    I understand what you’re saying, I really do. And I would add only that there is a time for everything: a time to focus on the differences between two things, and a time to focus on the similarities. The moral question, to my mind, is when to focus on difference and when to focus on similarity. It matters less to fail to distinguish oatmeal from cream of wheat than to fail to distinguish milk from gasoline.

    Leviticus (f9a067)

  35. I think when one wants to undermine the essential nature of what it means to be human, that it is a time to make distinctions.
    To not focus too much on particular sins but that we are all sinners and in need of forgiveness and mercy is a good time to focus on similarities.

    Yes, while analogies can be very helpful and useful, they only go so far and are subject to the need for clarification.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  36. girls who are boys who like boys to be girls

    always should be someone you really love

    yum hot cereal

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  37. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. There is a tiny, almost statistically insignificant portion of the population that is born with both sets of genetalia, or neither.

    I am shocked that half-sack trotted out some BS moral relativism.

    JD (5072ba)

  38. The GOP should put up some candidates who will (a) not endorse stupid things like abolishing the teaching of evolution, and (b), don’t make stupid comments like Todd Aitken. And hopefully, they’ll get some financial support and win.

    The odds, though, favor a union-backed campaign to retain the current Board, which doubtless backs union benefits. The GOP candidates will be induced into debating abortion, gay marriage, the fall of Rome whatever. The local newspaper, like the LA Times, will downplay the matter, give endless room to stories about the cost of the GOP candidate’s blouse or her maid, and the GOP will lose.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82)

  39. The curriculum will focus on the following . . .

    All curricula can be broken down into sub-categories including explicit, implicit, excluded, and extra-curricular. I suspect that this particular curriculum has even more implicit and extra-curricular material than is included in the explicit course descriptions. See Arne Duncan’s history for the details, particularly his relationship to Kevin Jennings and Fistgate.

    PPs43 (6fdef4)

  40. Interesting article from the book Galileo’s Middle Finger I read recently in Delancey Place titled “intersex – neither wholly male nor female” says that “the frequency of intersex in the human population comes to about one in a hundred…” Not sure the science is right, but there are some professional looking diagrams anyway.

    That said, I came out (as in exited, not declaring my homosexuality) of the bathroom at a local Dunkin’ Donuts recently where I was promptly scolded by an angry biddy: “That’s for women.” I looked at her and replied with a smile “I self-identify as a female.” Apparently “gender fluidity” doesn’t apply to unfunny, overweight, balding white wiseasses.

    Johnny Mustard (2182b6)

  41. # 34…
    “… a time to reap, a time to sow
    a time to live a time to die
    a time to chase ambulances
    a time to refrain from chasing ambulances…”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  42. 31. Not sure why anyone here has any problems with this. First, it’s a local school board that made the decision, which means that the people affected can hold the members accountable if they disagree. Second, the Fairfax County schools appear to be better-than-average, so performance isn’t an issue. Isn’t this what you find to be just fine when a local school board in Kansas decides that it wants to include creation science in the curriculum?

    Jonny Scrum-half (91e87d) — 5/19/2015 @ 8:23 am

    I see your understanding of the situation is, once again, nonexistent. The school board is only doing this because the Department of Education threatened to cut their federal funding if they did not. They would not have done this unless they were being strong armed by the feds.

    They are no longer accountable to the local parents. They are being held accountable to the Obama administration.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/parents-scream-boo-hiss-get-thrown-out-of-meeting-as-school-district-adds-gender-identity-policy/article/2564201

    …The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is requiring schools to add “gender identity” to their nondiscrimination policies or face a loss of federal funding, despite the fact that no Fairfax County student has complained of discrimination to OCR.

    “The Federal government is compelling us — their words — to implement this gender identity language. They’ve threatened that if we do not they will pull our federal education funds, free and reduced meal money for impoverished students,” said Fairfax County School Board member Elizabeth Schultz….

    There is no legal basis for this power grab by the feds to make local school boards agents of the state. But since when does Obama need a legal basis to do anything? This demand by the Dept. of Education is simply legislation through regulation. And the parents, and the rest of us, have a right to be angry as Obama is demonstrating that the only result of a school board election is that you are simply choosing the person who will carry our the DOE’s commands.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  43. I have come to the point where I believe violence is the only answer.

    Because even if you win in the ballot box they will pursue by any means needed their agenda elsewhere and find some sympathetic ear to push their insanity.

    Sorry but that is how I view it as a 45 year old father of 3 who has seen the promulgation of MENTAL ILLNESS by Educators in an effect to make their pathologies “not a big deal really.”

    And you need to no further evidence than the growing body of “academic” literature promoting pedophilia as “OK.”

    So get a gun and put a hole in them I say. Seriously. Because our kids are becoming their sexual playground.

    Rodney King's Spirit (b31520)

  44. Johnny Mustard – the national Intersex assocation lists the frequency around 1 out of 2000, using a pretty expansive definition.

    JD (3b5483)

  45. Steve57@42 – Modifying the curriculum as described in the article isn’t the same thing as adding “gender identity” to the district’s non-discrimination policies. Show me a threat by the federal government to remove funding unless the district implemented the curriculum changes described.

    Jonny Scrum-half (91e87d)

  46. There is a great line in the classic O’Toole movie “My Favorite Year.” Alan Swan is peeing in the ladies restroom and a biddy says to him, as he has his member out, That “This for the ladies” to which he responds “So is this, but every once in a while I must pass some water through it…”

    Gazzer (c1d25a)

  47. School Board spokesman John Torre told the Washington Times the proposed curriculum changes have nothing to do with last week’s vote to allow boys who identity as girls to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.

    He would have us believe it was purely coincidental.

    You also would have me believe they aren’t related, Jonny? Seriously?

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  48. Johnny -‘how about you explain why it is a good idea.

    JD (3b5483)

  49. Seriously. To believe the two were not related you’d have to be able to believe that the Fairfax county school board was always going to start teaching the concept of gender fluidity. On its own volition.

    But it wasn’t planning to accommodate any students who were actually influenced by that indoctrination until the Department of Education compelled them to do so.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  50. #42: Steve, you have a great point. When you look at school budgets, you will see a big slug of State and local funding and a tiny bit of Federal subsidies. But the State and local revenues are fixed, given that the school meets some very minimal requirements. The Federal money, in contrast, is linked to performance on a variety of non academic issues. I coached in inner city school for almost 30 years and I saw many examples of this. When they imposed the handicapped access rules in the early 80’s, the school district ran around surveying all their schools and came up with changes that the district’s lawyers thought would preserve their Federal subsidies. In the high school I was coaching at, that meant firing five of the seven janitors and contracting out the installation of an elevator that connected the the girls locker room entrance, which had an outside ramp, to a small gymnastics gym on a balcony overlooking a larger gym. The big gyms all had ramp access, and it was only the small balcony that handicapped would have a problem getting to, depending on their handicap. The school maintenance collapsed with the absence of the custodians, and by the first week of October, the place looked like Fort Apache, the Bronx. And the elevator? It was never used (in my experience) except by the custodians who were hired back the next year. And their use? Grabbing a smoke-break out of the rain.

    So the main function of the modern school district is to ensure that they get all the Federal subsidies they can, and there is no consideration of the effect on the students or the teachers. I had lawyers from the district explain in painful detail the proper way to handle receipts from the car washes that we were required to do over the summer to raise funds for the team. Many fall sport coaches would give up several weekends each summer for these activities, all unpaid. But still closely watched by the district. These wonderkind had never done such fund raising, but they were sure that if we did as they instructed, record amounts, license plates, and names of drivers, then no subsidies would be put at risk. Meanwhile, other coaches were doing the most outrageous things and they went undetected mainly because nobody looked. One fellow ran a successful football program at my school and moved up to AD and football coach at a neighboring school. About a year later it was learned that he was requiring his assistant coaches to give him a substantial portion of their salaries, which landed him in jail. This may have been going on for some time. But the parents liked him because his team won. I’m not sure how he was caught, but I rather doubt it was a district initiative. They have bigger fish to fry.

    This also leads to the enormous growth of District employees who do nothing useful for the students. They justify their existence by securing Federal grants and imposing foolish requirements on the teachers and staff in the schools. No consideration of the big picture. Just micro-optimization which of course is far from optimal.

    So the tail wags the dog.

    bobathome (f50725)

  51. Steve57@47 and 49 – I knew that you’d write that. Maybe they are “related,” in the sense that the district is addressing this issue all at once, but the fact (which you surely must understand) is that the change in curriculum wasn’t required by the federal government, directly contrary to your long comment @42.

    JD@48 – I don’t necessarily think that it’s a good idea. At first glance, it looks kind of silly, but (a) I don’t see it as a big deal, and (b) I don’t live in Fairfax County, so what do I care?

    Jonny Scrum-half (91e87d)

  52. #43: RKS, we had the same issue with our kids 30 years ago, and we opted out of the public system. We found a lot of options for the K-6 years, and rather fewer for the middle and high school years. A fair number of the parents we knew in the elementary school we sent our boys to were in their late 40s and one couple was in their 50s. They had unexpected late children after sending the first hatching through the public schools. They resolved not to make the same mistake twice. In our little elementary school, pretty much all the kids were performing two or three years above grade level, and these parents were much happier with the progress of their second fledge compared to their prior experiences.

    The more common response in Seattle was (and still is) to move out when the kids are about to enter Kindergarten. This exodus continues for the next three or four years as the parents lose patience with the district. This isn’t to say there aren’t a few good schools, but they are the exception.

    bobathome (f50725)

  53. failmerica is having a transgender moment

    and you know what?

    this too shall pass

    transgender moments are inherently ephemeral

    don’t blink

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  54. Thanks for tracking down that link, Steve57

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  55. Jonny Scrum-half @51, so you are capable of believing that a school board would choose of its own volition, over the objection of parents to whom they are theoretically accountable, to adopt a curriculum that teaches students there is no such thing as boys or girls.

    But it wouldn’t voluntarily adopt a policy to accommodate any student who actually believed what they were teaching.

    It wouldn’t adopt a “gender identity” non-discrimination policy unless the DOE threatened to eliminate their federal funding.

    And that this change has nothing to do with taking steps to create what the DOE OCR calls a “non-hostile environment” which the school district is required to do to comply with that “gender identity” non discrimination policy.

    Amazing.

    Aside; this is purely an Obama administration decision. And the DOE is not relying on any statute to make this regulatory change. They are relying on an EEOC decision. In other words, Obama’s appointees.

    It’s one big regulatory circle jerk.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  56. We are in our own little Maoist Cultural Revolution.

    I wonder when, and how, it will end. I wonder how many lives will be ruined.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  57. #52 My issue is the Sexualization of School Curriculum is not only making pedophilia much more common, it is in my view an open invitation for pedophiles to the teaching profession.

    I saw this first hand with the Catholic Church and Priests who where “inexplicably” drawn to teaching HS All Boys Schools. Many many many happened to “by accident” be gay and they somehow managed to be teachers. That was no accident it was purposeful as the ones most “tittilated” by the environment applied to go to that environment..

    To me this constant sexualization 1) has nothing to do with learning, 2) seems intent on making mental illness OK, and 3) magically creates lots of confusion and doubts in the mind of young people whose hormones are out of control and MAGICALLY the person doing the teaching is MAGICALLY someone engaging in sex with them on the sly.

    Shame on the Educators for being enablers to the rape of our kids. And yes, a bullet hole in the head is what is fully deserved by those who introduce this non education curriculum into the school. Cuz while they may not be guilty themselves, they create the very conditions enabling the behavior.

    Rodney King's Spirit (b31520)

  58. #57 … these complex discussions are best left in the world of adults and in environments suited for it. Not in High School or Grades Schools who are struggling to teach math but seem intent of describing 6,000 ways to shove fruit up your backside, or frontside, “responsibly” or discuss the nuances of being full gay or full straight.

    Rodney King's Spirit (b31520)

  59. 56.We are in our own little Maoist Cultural Revolution.

    Well, Patricia, the last one ended with over 40 million graves. So far they’ve just bankrupted and ruined the lives of a few radical Christians who obviously have no right to practice their religion if it flies in the face of Leftist Theology.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  60. Is this analogous to the theory that few boys are born gay but some get sucked in as teenagers ?

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  61. I don’t know Mike K, is there a gay chromosome? It’s amusing how leftists hate when boys play with trucks and girls play whith dolls because that’s “teaching them a stereotype”. Yet it’s okay to pick out a kid who’s a tad different and “explore his sexuality”, of course in the hope they can convince him he’s gay. They never, ever seem to try to convince a kid he or she is straight, do they?

    Leftists who tout teaching above all else and who claim God is taught, morality is taught, right and wrong are taught but for some reason refuse to say gay is taught. So you’re taught to be a boy cause you play with trucks and you’re taught to be a girl cause you play with dolls but somehow POW, you just pop into a gay. Nothin’ taught there.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  62. This is only the beginning. As students move into high school, building on the middle school foundation they will be taught that “one’s sexuality develops over a lifetime”…

    That is homophobic®™.

    Michael Ejercito (d9a893)

  63. #57: RKS, the problems you mentioned are certainly not limited to the Catholic Schools, although I too have knowledge of some of those problems. The lawyer for the Seattle School District in the 1970s, Gary Little, became a judge and ended up committing suicide in 1988. He had been abusing boys since the 1960s when he was a teacher in the District. The President of the Seattle Teachers Association ran for Congress in the early 1990s, and his campaign collapsed when he was arrested for molesting a boy in the bushes of a north Seattle Park. And when the AIDs epidemic swept thru the homosexual community in the 1990s, one who fell to the disease was the Principal of Seattle Prep, a Jesuit high school. Another was the director of the King County Health Department. So these maggots are attracted to situations where they have a suitably high concentration of potential victims. The “religious” affiliation of the institution is not the germane factor. I also have a suspicion that their behavior is generally known, and for some reason “decent” people look the other way. For example, a deputy prosecutor told me that public defenders knew that they could get lighter sentences for their juvenile clients if they had them visit Little for a weekend.

    I think governmental institutions are more likely to tolerate these rotten eggs since there is very little personal responsibility for any aspect public employment, and the people who enjoy this environment self-select. If we aren’t hearing more about such things today it is because the media is working from a different template, not because the fundamental situation has improved. As a coach I heard many stories about other coaches who abused their players, and when they were caught, they usually worked a deal where they left the district and often moved to another state where they got a another coaching job, often with a lukewarm recommendation that was arranged as part of the separation negotiations. There were no real consequences for the abuser, and the school district avoided some bad publicity and maybe a difficult court case.

    bobathome (f50725)

  64. bobathome, there is very rarely any punishment for any act regardless how heinous among any government union bureaucrats. They are harder to get rid of than fire ants. And they are a majority democrats and continue to vote to perpetuate their corrupt system. We’re screwed.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  65. Boathome @ 52,

    we had the same issue with our kids 30 years ago, and we opted out of the public system

    So did we. They hit middle school and we put them in private school. Just like President Obama. (And although he may disapprove of us having done that, he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on, does he?)

    Dana (86e864)

  66. #63 … I don’t mean to pick on the Catholic Church but it is the best example I know having been raised and schooled at Catholic Institutions for 17 years. Old saying in Spanish that the situation creates the thief ….. well in this case situation creates the pedophile. My point is many in power KNOWINGLY create these conditions for abuse and deserve to be treated severely.

    The above is but another attempt by Educators to increase their predatory radius on the school campus by encouraging kids to “seek special treatment” for a condition which really does not exist in any meaningful way. But they turn a spec of dirt into a sand storm because it suits to piss away more money and improve their pedophile hit rate with kids.

    Rodney King's Spirit (b31520)

  67. Poor kids. Now Boy Scouts of America bans water gun fights; ‘pointing a firearm’ is not kind.

    elissa (4322e2)

  68. Dana, as a wise person once pointed out to me, you only get to do this life once. And the same is true for our kids. Every moment is precious and should be treated as such. Parents who blindly trust their kids to the public schools really aren’t aware of these truths. They are the demographic that buys into Hope and Change! And it turns out nobody knows what that will be until they implement it. That’s a hell of gamble for your kids.

    bobathome (f50725)

  69. Well, I don’t blindly trust the public school, and I certainly don’t buy into hope and change. When is it time to encounter the world, when in high school and still at home to maybe balance/give context? When in college when they are older, but likely surrounded 24/7 by too many who are hostile? Grad school or work force after being grounded with a bachelors degree from a good school like Hillsdale?

    I went to UW-Madison, no bastion of conservative ideals or morals in anyone’s delusion, and came out a Christian after seeing the various life options before me.

    But yeah, I would love a viable option of a high school that would not be a snare waiting to happen or a shelter for frail seedlings, but a fertile field for nourishing hearty saplings.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  70. In other education and campus related news, here’s an update on Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh’s recent American Sniper tweet kerfuffle. Ha Ha Ha.

    University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh is set to meet with a contingent of Muslim students and others who are upset the coach tweeted his support of showing “American Sniper” on campus and declared he was proud of veteran Chris Kyle. The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, has been described as a “private dialogue” in an email to The College Fix by campus spokesman Rick Fitzgerald.

    When news of the meeting first spread to the campus community at large Tuesday morning via an email to several Middle Eastern, North African, Muslim and South Asian student groups, it was relayed that student organizers expected the coach to say he was sorry for offending them.

    “In light of the American Sniper screening, several students requested a private meeting with football coach Jim Harbaugh in regards to his insensitive tweet,” stated the email, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix. “Vice President Royster has met this request and scheduled a meeting in which Coach Jim Harbaugh will be issuing a private apology,” student Lamees Mekkaoui, a leader of the campus organization Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, stated in the email. “I would really love to have anyone falling into these identities who felt impacted by Coach Harbaugh’s tweets present for support, especially because this meeting was requested by students.”

    A few hours after Mekkaoui sent the email, it was retracted and replaced with a different message.

    “I would like to make a correction in my email,” her second email stated. “I made the mistake of assuming that an apology would be issued. However, Coach Jim Harbaugh was simply invited to a private meeting with us in order to talk about the screening of American Sniper and get a dialogue going about how a university leader’s social media can impact campus climate. I take full responsibility for this assumption and I am very sorry for any confusion I may have caused.”

    Oops. Ha Ha Ha.
    http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/22538/

    elissa (4322e2)

  71. #69: Doc, you really need to see what’s going on in our inner city schools. The PC stories we read about are outrageous, but they don’t capture the reality that exists for the students trapped in these institutions. At one school I coached at I was meeting in early September with the AD over my team’s budget during lunch hour. I looked out the window and saw nine boys kicking another who was on the ground in the middle of the group. The AD rushed out and stopped the assault, but he did not restrain any of the attackers. Every one just went on with their lunch like nothing had happened except for the student who was kicked but not visibly bleeding. He got to go to the school nurse. I asked him why he’d handled the situation that way, and he said that this event wasn’t enough to get the kickers booted from school, and he’d just have to wait for something more serious. He noted that usually by the second month of school, say late October, the really violent ones would have committed a felony involving the police that would place the offender in another school automatically. By waiting for that to happen, the AD would spare the school the trouble and embarrassment of expelling a minority student. This meant that 60% of the student population was basically undisciplined, a fact that they surely understood.

    I now believe that it was all about managing their discipline statistics, which related to Federal subsidies. He also noted that the kickers were ninth graders and the victim was a tenth grader, and the attack was retribution for events that happened a year earlier. He also said with some satisfaction that once the police remove the really violent ninth graders, every thing would settle down. Settle down until next September when the whole thing would be played out once again.

    bobathome (77a327)

  72. I can say without malice or irony that I hope every son of a Democrat is homosexual, transgender boychick. Why not be all you can be and aim for the best?

    ErisGuy (76f8a7)

  73. how they want to push their morals on everyone

    Remember in ’60s and ’70s when many said you can’t legislate morality?. Good times.

    ErisGuy (76f8a7)

  74. What can we do to keep all this respectful, inclusive language out of our public schools?

    We can start by firing every one and stripping licenses from anyone whose used the hurtful, disrespectful, excluding terms “racist,” “sexist,” or “homophobe.” When that’s done, let me know.

    ErisGuy (76f8a7)

  75. bob, thanks for the concern, but I am well aware of the situation. In our case, our daughter will be going to a magnet school, one that requires application and an admission process, where a very high number not only graduate but go to college.
    But yes, the average local high school in Philly is not a promising place to be, though I know teachers who work in them and do their best to educate those who want it.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  76. are determined to make sure kids get indoctrinated early on, because as every good progressive knows, get ’em while they’re young!

    That is truly appalling! If only these educators would wait until the children were old enough to make their own decisions about reality. Just like how religious people approach it.

    Oh.
    Wait….

    Gil (febf10)

  77. Fuggin’ Johnny-One-Note…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  78. Gil is a parody of a comedy.

    JD (20411e)

  79. Gil’s riding a giant Squirrel, always, the refusal to admit that man is flawed, ‘that no man is
    without sin, no not one’ is at the heart of this,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  80. Gil – do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea to teach children this anti-science nonsense?

    JD (3b5483)

  81. in other hisruptcy news:

    http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=356828

    narciso (ee1f88)

  82. Yes Gil, because raising your children to love their neighbors and honor their parents is exactly the same as teaching them America is bad and that killing their babies is good. I firmly believe if it weren’t for Christian values your throat would have been slit a long time ago by the immoral barbarians who wouldn’t tolerate your nonsense.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  83. That is truly appalling! If only these educators would wait until the children were old enough to make their own decisions about reality. Just like how religious people approach it.

    Oh.
    Wait….
    Gil (febf10) — 5/20/2015 @ 12:10 pm

    Gil likes his apples and oranges together.

    Gerald A (9d7d51)

  84. Gil @76, in which he reveals that he is at heart a totalitarian. As are all liberals.

    The premise his comment is based upon is that the state has at least as much right to raise a child and teach the child values as the child’s parents.

    How far we’ve come. And I say “at least” because it’s only a couple of steps away until Gil will be commenting that the state has more right to raise the child than the parents. There are already progressive leftists revealing that’s exactly what they think. It’s always been the wet dream of the progressive left/socialists/communists.

    Please see my comment @10, in which Secretary of Education Arne Duncan floats the idea of public boarding schools because “there are just some children we should have 24/7.” And of course by we he means the government. Also included is a link to an article by Kevin D. Williamson in which he observes how the progressive leftists have concluded a loving, two parent family “unfairly disadvantages” other people’s children in various ways. And that’s just wrong. And some progressive leftists think it’s not just wrong but should be criminalized (read the original article in its entirety for the embedded links).

    Speaking of letting the mask slip, also see my comment @13 in which Barack Obama speaks at a gathering of Catholics and Evangelicals and scolds them for privately educating their children (says the privately educated hypocrite who is privately educating his children) because:

    “What’s happened in our economy is that those who are doing better and better… are withdrawing from sort of the commons,” Obama said. “Kids start going to private schools; kids start working out at private clubs instead of the public parks. An anti-government ideology then disinvests from those common goods and those things that draw us together. And that, in part, contributes to the fact that there’s less opportunity for our kids, all of our kids.”

    I love how he no doubt thinks he’s making a sensible economic case for forcing your children into the collective. He is, as always, an idealogue and therefore an economic ignoramus. The Smartest Man In The Room (TM) is of course too stupid to realize people can see that. It is just that he knows better how to raise your child than you do (the same rules don’t apply to him as apply to his inferiors). Note the ideologue knows what ideology your child should or shouldn’t have. And with a government education from universal preschool through free college he can ensure all children are indoctrinated into proper groupthink.

    I love it when people like Gil come along and make my point.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  85. Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

    Vladimir Lenin

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  86. Gerald A @83, I didn’t think Gil would grasp your point. So I thought I’d spell it out.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  87. That is truly appalling! If only these educators would wait until the children were old enough to make their own decisions about reality. Just like how religious people approach it.

    Gil you need to equate “educators” indoctrinating other people’s kids to parents raising their own in their own beliefs. These so called educators have no right to my kids.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  88. Hoagie, the important and revealing thing is that it didn’t occur to Gil that there’s difference.

    Also, the real problem is those educators do think they have a right to your kids.

    All progressive leftists believe it “takes a village” to raise your kid.

    http://www.examiner.com/article/hillary-clinton-says-religious-beliefs-need-to-change-to-support-abortion

    …At a “Women in the World” summit in New York, Clinton openly said “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced.” “Rights have to exist in practice—not just on paper.”

    “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she continued. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”…

    See, you’re doing it wrong. That’s why your kids need to spend more time with the government than they do with you. You’re a bad influence.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  89. is there any wonder why so many are joining Zarquawi’s startup,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  90. Is it really a puzzle why gays and lesbians want control of other people’s kids?

    And you don’t need to invoke some selfish sexual motivation to solve the puzzle.

    bobathome (77a327)

  91. Steve, notice that the “responsibility” for educating everybody is not placed on the teachers or the educational system. Instead it is asserted that the children of functional families must participate in order to provide peer group pressure that will “discipline” the unruly who disrupt education.

    The fact of the matter is that the unruly will dominate classrooms even if they are 2 out of 20. Especially if the teacher is unable to send them to the Principal’s Office.

    Our kids went to Catholic schools for grades 7 thru 12, and I will be forever grateful for the discipline the nuns and teachers provided. When our kids would be at practice or a game on Saturdays, they would see the “unruly” gardening and cleaning up the place under the supervision of a faculty member. No further lectures were needed. Basketball, football and track were more fun than working as an unpaid custodian. This could never happen in a public school. For one thing, the custodians would strike. For another, the parents of the thugs would complain. At our boys’ school, thugs, even thugs with professional athlete skills, got thrown out in the first three weeks. They weren’t allowed to ruin everyone else’s education.

    bobathome (77a327)

  92. Mr. athome, I won’t bore you with tales of school districts who have banned detention or suspension for defiant behavior. By that I mean disrupting the classroom, talking on cell phones, threatening or cursing at the teacher, sleeping in class, etc. Because of, guess?

    That’s right. Disparate impact.

    You’ve probably heard of the 10 teachers in Atlanta who’ve been sent to prison for altering student grades (because they had a financial stake in school performance per standardized tests). They didn’t have to go to prison, some for pretty long stretches. They were offered plea deals that would have spared them that. One took the deal.

    They refused because they wouldn’t apologize and accept responsibility. They didn’t think they did anything wrong.

    But you may not have heard of this.

    http://www.examiner.com/article/professor-accused-of-racism-for-correcting-grammar-capitalization

    Some 25 students participated in a sit-in at the University of California at Los Angeles after a professor corrected the capitalization, grammar and punctuation of a minority student’s paper, the Daily Caller reported Tuesday.

    Members of the group “Call 2 Action: Graduate Students of Color” organized the sit-in and said the mere act of correcting a black student’s paper was “micro-aggression.”…

    But you know what? I know of teachers at the elementary school and high school level who won’t correct the grammar of their black students. And their reasoning is that insisting they use proper grammar would be making them act white. And that’s raaaacist.

    No wonder in Baltimore and Ferguson people think rioting, burning, and looting is a way to demand jobs.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  93. +1

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  94. Yes Gil, because raising your children to love their neighbors and honor their parents is exactly the same as teaching them America is bad and that killing their babies is good. I firmly believe if it weren’t for Christian values your throat would have been slit a long time ago by the immoral barbarians who wouldn’t tolerate your nonsense.

    I teach my children to love their neighbors and honor their parents based on empathy and the desire to make this world a better place. You dont have to teach them about hell, being saved, or make unknowable claims about the origin of the universe, virgin births and a single human/god sacrafice to do so.

    Gil (27c98f)

  95. You really are a totalitarian, Gil.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  96. The premise his comment is based upon is that the state has at least as much right to raise a child and teach the child values as the child’s parents.

    Hi Steve
    No, it is more simple than that.

    The OP takes issue with indoctrinating young children with (paraphrasing) gender fluidity nonsense. It wouldnt be indoctrination if it were taught to older children because as children get older they are not apt to accept everything older people tell them as automatically true.
    I simply point out that the same thing is done when religions are passed on to children.

    Gil (27c98f)

  97. Raise your hand if it in any way surprises you that Gil is yet again trying to pull a squirrel and distract from a secular progressive action by venting his hatred for Christianity.

    JD (3b5483)

  98. I teach my children to love their neighbors and honor their parents based on empathy and the desire to make this world a better place.

    Good for you Gil. And I guess you feel that makes you somehow superior to those of us who do the same based on or religious beliefs. So you don’t object to people behaving in a moral, responsible way just as long as God has nothing to do with it, right?

    BTW, exactly where and from whom did your desire to teach neighborly love and parental respect originate? The Nazi’s, commies, druids, Aztecs? Oh wait. I believe they are Judeo/Christian foundations.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  99. @Gil:I teach my children to love their neighbors and honor their parents based on empathy and the desire to make this world a better place.

    Why not wait until they are older so they can choose their own values? Why are you indoctrinating your kids?

    Seriously, though, it is your right to teach your children what you think is important, even wrong things, because the only cure for parents who teach children wrong things is worse than the disease, which is have state force decide who is teaching their children wrong things.

    I was raised in a religious household, and nonetheless am non-religious as an adult. And there are no doubt atheist parents whose children become religious adults.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  100. #93: Steve, I had the opportunity to tutor a number of minority students who were in the 9th and 10th grades. I was not a “certified” teacher, but my PhD from a trade school in Cambridge gave me some credibility, in addition to my weekly monitoring of study hall (a head coach assignment,) and so I was allowed to help the kids with Algebra I. I got the impression from working with the students that no one had ever spent even an hour working with them on simple fundamentals in all their years in public school. Addition and multiplication that involved positive and negative numbers were things to be memorized, not understood, and when you jumble multiplication rules with addition rules, you end up with (-1) + (-2) = (+3), “because minus and minus” …. sigh …

    These were all kids who wanted to graduate from high school (or at least participate in sports) so they took the tutoring seriously. We were using an online testing program, and their goal was to get a “D” in the final which would allow them to move on. I rather doubt the kids ever really understood what I was trying to teach them, but they were appreciative that someone cared enough to work with them. And they all reached their goal … a “D” and a few better than that. My hope was that by showing them how to think about the problem without memorizing dumb rules, they would come back to the subject at a latter date, and maybe discover that thinking about stuff could be fun.

    Sadly, the kids who managed to memorize everything correctly were the ones who blew thru the curriculum with As and Bs, but few could derive any of the fundamental geometric and trigonometric equations, and so they too had not learned about the fun of thinking about stuff. Worse yet, I had many honor student athletes and one year I noticed that one of their early “Honors English” assignments was to neatly complete a coloring book! But the text books were all printed in full color featuring kids of every imaginable hue, so the Feds were happy. These books only lacked in explanations of fundamentals and the hundreds of problems that the students needed to exercise their knowledge and make it a part of their thinking process.

    bobathome (77a327)

  101. Named for an arch angel, Gabriel, your non-religiousness is amusing. My problem with Gil is not that he doesn’t believe, it’s that he seems to want to deny others the right to believe. Or at the very least hold them in contempt or some second class status because they do.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  102. So you don’t object to people behaving in a moral, responsible way just as long as God has nothing to do with it, right?
    BTW, exactly where and from whom did your desire to teach neighborly love and parental respect originate? The Nazi’s, commies, druids, Aztecs? Oh wait. I believe they are Judeo/Christian foundations.

    I never have a problem with people behaving in a moral responsible way no matter what reason they do it for.

    Actually, I think empathy and being a social, thinking human is enough to get the values we are talking about. No need to appeal to the divine. For example Confucius wrote about the “Golden Rule” and I dont think he was Jewish or Christian.

    My problem with Gil is not that he doesn’t believe, it’s that he seems to want to deny others the right to believe. Or at the very least hold them in contempt or some second class status because they do.

    Hoagie come now, where have I ever written that anyone should not have the right to believe what they want to? Of course everyone should have that right. Why do you get this impression?

    Gil (febf10)

  103. Your sneering condescension and totalitarian impulses are never far from the surface, Gil.

    JD (3b5483)

  104. Why not wait until they are older so they can choose their own values? Why are you indoctrinating your kids?

    Seriously, though, it is your right to teach your children what you think is important, even wrong things, because the only cure for parents who teach children wrong things is worse than the disease, which is have state force decide who is teaching their children wrong things.

    I agree, there should be no state involvement or determination of what you can or cant teach your kids. But my comments here are not intended to enter into this arena. The thing that piqued my interest in this thread was seeing the general disdain for teaching what is regarded as not demonstrably true to young children and I saw an obvious parallel there.

    Regarding your joke – I suppose there is some level of indoctrination in all teaching. But when I teach my kids values (to share, be respectful, and follow the golden rule) i make no unsubstantiated claims about reality.

    By the way is it so wrong to teach kids about what is really out there in the world? Hey 7th grader guess what: some men think they are actually women. Hey 8th graders there’s more out there than just heterosexuals. Dont know who you are yet? Thats ok it can take a lifetime to get that. Some adults dont even know. Its the real world! Lets fill them in at the appropriate time.

    Pish Posh says the “Traditional Values Coalition” we have this method of thinking and a values system passed down to us from the iron age that says that’s W. R. O. N. G. WRONG!

    Gil (febf10)

  105. kids coming out of school, don’t know how to read, write, or count to any level of success, but they are proud of the feelings of adequacy, which seems to teach them that everything will be alright, they are taught to despise the institutions that built this country, and the people that protect them.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  106. Actually, I think empathy and being a social, thinking human is enough to get the values we are talking about.

    I’m sorry Gil but history and society are full of people who had/have empathy and are social, thinking human beings and were/are monsters. Are we not a society of persons with empathy? Then how much empathy is shown for the unborn child? There are people who make a career out of killing babies. Is that the attribute of a social, thinking human?

    Confucius most likely said many good things and Hitler loved his dog. So what? We’re not talking the broken clock model where some heathen is moral and right twice a day. We’re talking a moral belief system which attempts to instill in a person the knowledge of what is right and wrong all the time. Whether or not he follows that knowledge is another thing but it should be a way of life, not a happenstance.

    Hoagie come now, where have I ever written that anyone should not have the right to believe what they want to?

    To my recollection Gil, no you have not. What I meant was you look upon those who do with condescension and distain. At least it seems so to me. And sometimes they way you write it seems if you had the power to stop them, you would. Just my perception.

    I’m not trying to pick a fight with you Gil. I’m like you, anyone has the right to believe whatever he wants. It’s one of the good things about America, no? As a matter of fact I think you are a model of steadfast faith. To believe all the trillions and trillions of things occurring in the universe are happening by accident or spontaneity takes ton of faith. Perhaps blind faith. I find it much easier to credit God and move on. ‘Corse, I’m lazy.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  107. in the new man, the state is the family, children are state property

    http://babalublog.com/2015/05/21/i-consider-fidel-castro-my-father-elian-gonzalez-rosemarys-baby-alive-and-well/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  108. 98. The OP takes issue with indoctrinating young children with (paraphrasing) gender fluidity nonsense. It wouldnt be indoctrination if it were taught to older children because as children get older they are not apt to accept everything older people tell them as automatically true.
    I simply point out that the same thing is done when religions are passed on to children.

    Gil (27c98f) — 5/21/2015 @ 12:56 am

    Gil, you’re a hoot.

    1) No, still wrong Gil. Because that’s not what the OP is taking objection to. If you were honest you’d be able to admit that what the OP is taking objection to, at least what the parents in the article are taking objection to, is that the government thinks they have the right to do this to their children. And that the parents have no say in the matter.

    2) When you’re Kim Jong-Un you can decide how old children must be before parents get to take them to church. But of course once you’re Kim Jong-un you’ll just destroy the churches.

    3) Gender fluidity “education” isn’t why parents send their children to school no matter how old they are.

    4) How many years did you let your kids run around wild and naked in the street? After all, you have to wait until they’re older so they can weigh the arguments you make and decide for themselves whether or not nudity is acceptable in all situations. And sleeping in a room instead of the park with all the nice homeless guys is a good idea. And he shouldn’t have hit the other kid with a baseball bat. We wouldn’t want them to automatically put on clothes or go to their room, and stop hitting people, just because some older person told them to. That’d be indoctrination, and that’s bad according to Gil.

    5)It isn’t that you can’t tell the difference between an apple and an orange. You can’t tell the difference between an apple and a pumpkin.

    Here’s a thought, Gil. When we don’t indoctrinate our children when they’re young, too young to decide for themselves if they agree with us about right and wrong, child protective services will show up with as many cops as they will need and take them from us. When the schools decide they want to indoctrinate our children, it’s time to take them back from the schools.

    Like I said, I love it when you show up and make my point, Gil. You can’t see the difference between parents making decisions for their children and the government making decisions for some other people’s children.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  109. But when I teach my kids values (to share, be respectful, and follow the golden rule) i make no unsubstantiated claims about reality.

    Do you tell them that you have chemical reactions in your brain that compels you to bond with them?

    Or do you tell them you love them?

    If you do the latter, you are making an unsubstantiated claim about reality, Gil.

    Also, do you tell them the truth. That since you can’t substantiate that your opinion about values are any better or worse than anyone else’s there really are no such thing as values.

    What is the golden rule, and where does it come from?

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  110. http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation/dp/031632406X

    Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

    You are teaching your child about values, Gil. So you tell your daughter to imagine she is with four friends moving to an objective in the mountains of Afghanistan. She comes across a man and his child. If she lets them go they will betray her and her friends to a crowd of men with guns who want to kill all of them. And probably will. If they tie them up and gag them they’ll probably die. Or she and her pals could just kill them now and nobody will ever know her group passed that way for days or weeks.

    Since you have never made any unsubstantiated claims about reality she knows their is no God, no such thing as sin, and this is the only life she’ll ever have. What should she do and why?

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  111. Forget the middle option. It’s just kill them or let them go. Those are the only two choices.

    It provides better moral clarity.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  112. It is not the least bit surprising that Gil thinks teaching this to young middle school kids is fine and dandy. Granted, he is too much of a twatwaffle to come out and say it outright. How about they teach reading, writing, and arithmetic instead of abnormal psych.

    JD (3b5483)

  113. 114.
    It is permissible to kill a crying baby so a group hiding from the Amalekites would not be found.
    And unlike your hypo, that answer was given, after the fact, to a real life situation.

    kishnevi (adea75)

  114. @Hoagie:Named for an arch angel, Gabriel, your non-religiousness is amusing.

    You will probably find it hilarious that I named my son “Samuel”.

    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c)

  115. kishnevi, my hypothetical wasn’t quite so hypothetical. Anyway, different covenant.

    But let’s go with it. If you’ve never made any unsubstantiated claims about reality, know there is no God, no such thing as sin, and like everyone else this is the only life you’ll ever have life, why worry about what’s permissible? Who is there to permit?

    All of a sudden there are a bunch of reasons why it becomes permissible to kill a crying baby. And there is no higher authority than you.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  116. @gil:The thing that piqued my interest in this thread was seeing the general disdain for teaching what is regarded as not demonstrably true to young children and I saw an obvious parallel there.

    What it is that this school district is teaching is on par with 2 + 2 = 5. I would see little to object to if schools are inculcating a general tolerance for people who are different, provided they could manage to find time for fractions as well. This goes much farther than that, and it goes much farther than asking them to believe in things for which there is no hard evidence. They are being taught things that are empirically false, and using my tax dollars to do so.

    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c)

  117. @Steve57:All of a sudden there are a bunch of reasons why it becomes permissible to kill a crying baby. And there is no higher authority than you.

    Which is of course totally different from when God commands you to kill crying babies.

    And of there is no higher authority than you in deciding which God, holy book, and interpretation of the same is definitive. That’s all referring moral questions to God does for you.

    The God you believe in only rarely orders the death of babies, but other people’s Gods do so more frequently. How did you decide which was the real one?

    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c)

  118. Steve, parting thought for the evening.

    If saying God exists is an unsubstantiated claim about reality, so is saying God does not exist.

    Second parting thought.

    Every cliche began its existence as an original idea.

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  119. Gabriel, that is easy.
    The One Who manifested Itself in view of about 2 million people and proclaimed the foundational code of all societies and established the Community of Israel. Which holiday the Church reformulated as the establishment of the Christian community.

    kishnevi (adea75)

  120. @kishnevi:If saying God exists is an unsubstantiated claim about reality, so is saying God does not exist.

    If saying flying pink unicorns exist is an unsubstantiated claim about reality, so is saying that they don’t exist. And yet we do not treat these claims as of equal status.

    The One Who manifested Itself in view of about 2 million people…

    ..according to the holy book you accept. You and Steve have a great deal of disagreements about the implications of that book, even though you both accept it, and that hasn’t even got into the issue of the people with completely different holy books.

    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c)

  121. What it is that this school district is teaching is on par with 2 + 2 = 5. I would see little to object to if schools are inculcating a general tolerance for people who are different, provided they could manage to find time for fractions as well. This goes much farther than that, and it goes much farther than asking them to believe in things for which there is no hard evidence. They are being taught things that are empirically false, and using my tax dollars to do so.

    I dont think its as bad as this post makes it seem. If there are false things in there I support taking them out. But most of it is awareness and explaining that sexuality is a spectrum of things that isnt locked into only heterosexuality. Read the source article from Fox News. Is any of the stuff really that bad? Defining homo, hetero, and bisexuality? Teaching that ones sexuality develops over a lifetime? That individual identity develops over a lifetime? Yeah some of it is borderline fluff especially when they talk about what identity is made up of, but empirically false? Im not so sure.

    Gil (27c98f)

  122. It is empirically false to call a boy a girl.

    JD (3b5483)

  123. As a matter of fact I think you are a model of steadfast faith. To believe all the trillions and trillions of things occurring in the universe are happening by accident or spontaneity takes ton of faith. Perhaps blind faith. I find it much easier to credit God and move on. ‘Corse, I’m lazy.

    Thanks for the clarification Hoagie. I too am not trying to pick a fight, were just talking here. People use to credit God(s) with many things. But as they learned those things went away and natural processes are credited with no divine intervention needed. I dont believe anything about how the universe was created. That it happened, sure. But how? I dont know. Youre right though it is easier to attribute it to God and move on, but that’s not a good way to get to the truth is it?

    Gil (27c98f)

  124. Which is of course totally different from when God commands you to kill crying babies.

    Which of course God wouldn’t command me to do. I guess you missed the part about never sacrificing children to Moloch.

    And of there is no higher authority than you in deciding which God, holy book, and interpretation of the same is definitive. That’s all referring moral questions to God does for you.

    The God you believe in only rarely orders the death of babies, but other people’s Gods do so more frequently. How did you decide which was the real one?
    Gabriel Hanna (ed733c) — 5/21/2015 @ 8:53 pm

    Oh, OK. Let’s all just defer to moral authority of the school board then.

    Steve57 (fb1453)

  125. Which of course God wouldn’t command me to do.

    Why not? He commanded Abraham to do so. Also are you claiming to know God’s plan right now? What if he makes an exception?

    Oh, OK. Let’s all just defer to moral authority of the school board then.

    Nah lets defer to the moral authority of a timeless, invisible, all powerful, omnipotent god who floods the world to facilitate a do-over killing innocent babies in the process. Lets also make sure he acts in ways that contradict his all knowningness and all goodness, but make sure we can explain that away using the “mysterious ways” methodology.

    Done and done!

    Gil (27c98f)

  126. To clarify above, he commanded Abraham to kill his son, not a baby at the time. I dont think there is a significant distinction between a child and a baby when it comes to commanding their murder.

    Gil (27c98f)

  127. Gil, you can be as anti-theist as you want. Won’t change the fact that you’re a sub-standard, under-educated soso without any gatas.

    John Hitchcock (dd5671)

  128. I never get tired of Gil’s bigotry and hatred.

    JD (3b5483)

  129. @Steve57:Which of course God wouldn’t command me to do.

    You didn’t follow my link to the Book of Joshua did you? Your holy book states that God at one time commanded his faithful to kill many, many babies. So why are you so confident that you will never receive such an order, or that no one in your faith ever will?

    Let’s all just defer to moral authority of the school board then.

    You’ve certainly offered nothing better. You pointed to your holy book, and said do those things. I said, how do you know your holy book is true, and you have no answer, just snark.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  130. @JD:I never get tired of Gil’s bigotry and hatred.

    He hasn’t expressed any such thing; he’s expressed disagreement, and it’s troubling that you can’t tell the difference.

    @John Hitchcock:Gil, you can be as anti-theist as you want. Won’t change the fact that you’re a sub-standard, under-educated soso without any gatas.

    Don’t hide your light under a bushel.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  131. I never get tired of Gil’s bigotry and hatred.

    When people are called bigots or islamaphobes for criticizing islam you are outraged, but then out comes this each time Christianity is criticized. How does that work?

    Gil (febf10)

  132. throwing salt in christian sugars won’t make yours any sweeter and pissing in their yard ain’t gonna make yours any greener

    that said we’re going through an uncomfortable period where christianity is getting a lil nutty and fetishistic to where it’s increasingly out of step with the real whirl

    and healthy dialogues like we find here at the pontifications can really only help bring people together

    but it’s a pick your battles thing I think

    the whole thing with Abraham doesn’t really need to be re-litigated

    here is a musics apropos to springtime

    happyfeet (831175)

  133. Gil, is disdainful of Christianity which has been around for 2,000 years, is imbedded in the culture of the West,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  134. 2,000 years is a long time

    entropy becomes a very real factor over that span of time

    and now the pope is a communist sympathizer

    my brow furrows with worry

    happyfeet (831175)

  135. it’s stood the test of time, pikachu, now Pope Francis does seem to latch on to every fad, sky dragon worship, his experience in Argentina, seems to inform his view of capitalism,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  136. i got my eye on you mister pope

    you’re on my list buddy

    happyfeet (831175)

  137. Youre right though it is easier to attribute it to God and move on, but that’s not a good way to get to the truth is it?

    I guess it’s to each his own. But attributing things to God might just be the sure way to get to the truth. Jesus said he was the truth and the Light. I am not one who takes every word of the bible literally. I think many stories are parables and such. Like your example of Abraham and his son. The object was that God wanted to test whether Abraham loved God even more than his son. Abraham passed the test. He got off easy, just look what God did to poor old Job. I think you’ll notice all this wrath and fire and brimstone is based in the Old Testament. Jesus brought a “kinder, gentler” faith, Christianity. After all, Christianity is the religion that brought us away from barbarism through the centuries of growth as humankind to civilization of today. If you don’t agree just look how “civilized” the non Christians are. Like moslems and tribal Africans etc. Some of these folks didn’t even invent the wheel in their culture while we enjoy the highest standard of living in history and more comfort than kings only 80 years ago.

    All in all Gil, I don’t see any other religion nor absence of religion that could have provided the moral, social, political and cultural guide to bring men from Rome to Washington. We’ve seen what the kings and emperors did and we’ve seen what the Nazis and commies and fascists did. Even today, the nations which espouse atheism like Cuba, China or North Korea are the worst countries in the world to live in….unless you’re a commie boss that is.

    Hoagie (f4eb27)

  138. this is hilarious

    happyfeet (831175)

  139. well either his promise or not, that was his message,

    narciso (ee1f88)


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