Good post! This line jumped out at me. “Educators have a profound obligation to the truth and to prepare students’ critical capacities for productive citizenship.” When Trump was running and governing I found it disappointing that more private school educators, especially leaders, weren’t more openly critical of a man who clearly and unquestionably has very little regard for truth. When a lot of educators had a clear, if challenging, opportunity to take a stand for truth they chose not to.
I think I may have shared this article with you before. I think it would be best - but likely not a realistic goal to do so in a short period of time (though I think immersion and cold turkey are great methods) - to adapt to the European style freedom of speech. It is far friendlier, clearer and better suitable for society with so many people living in close enough proximity.
"U.S. law, following the logic of the Constitution and American legal culture, considers religious freedom a fundamental right that shouldn’t be violated except under exceedingly rare conditions. (...)
In Europe, by contrast, the freedom to believe may be protected, but the freedom to manifest your religion publicly has much less purchase, (...)
The underlying philosophical difference here is about the right of the individual to self-expression. Americans value that classic liberal right very highly -- so highly that we tolerate speech that might make others less equal. (...)
Europeans value the democratic collective and the capacity of all citizens to participate fully in it -- so much that they are willing to limit individual rights." ..
In my opinion, legal and personal, under for instance Dutch law, a teacher having been present at this event could be terminated without a criminal conviction, just a suspicion without conviction (proof that they were present even when not prosecuted) and of course also on the basis of criminal law (and more easily so combined with a clause in their contract) all a school would need to state is irreconcilable differences. With us the basis for criminal conviction would be "You were there, so you were caught to be a part of it. You didn't remove yourself from the situation, you were part of the group" (thus poaing a therat to the victims who couldn't know you were not going to be violent and who could only see you as backing the ones trying to get in/getting in etc.). Teachers (schools) have a duty of societal care for a safe school environment, and they need a declaration of (good) behavior from their municipality to be offered a contract. Being part of a demonstration to overthrow the legal government and influence the election outcome will likely lead to exclusion from the profession for a longer period of time if not have the effect of the person never being hired again indefinitely. Teachers explicitly implementing their own political beliefs instead of presenting all views and having students develop their own views first, or even indoctrinating their students, are no longer contributing to the safe environment in the learning place.
How can speech MAKE others less equal? It can express or support ideas that are not aligned with "all men are created equal" (and women, and . . . ), but the speech can't actually make anyone less equal.
Furthermore, all that is needed to show the glaring flaw in the idea that it's fine for school districts to fire teachers (or other employees) for exercising their Constitutional rights, assuming that you view yourself as politically left, progressive, or even merely liberal, is to cite the anti-war and pro-civil rights movements of the 1950s-1970s, before the American left started going belly-up and became anyone whose political views were within hailing distance of Dick Nixon's.
Having been a teenager during the '60s, I remember vividly the attempts by various right-wing "patriotic" groups to suppress all sorts of speech they didn't care for. They didn't want Dr. Benjamin Spock to be able to speak against the war in Vietnam at my junior high school (ironically, Thomas Jefferson Junior High School) in the evening to voluntary attendees, most of whom wound up being, unsurprisingly, adults, including my parents. The VFW, in particular, didn't want anti-war groups to get a permit to demonstrate peacefully against the war in Vietnam and in support of Dr. Spock's coming to speak because such a march would be "traumatic" for and "disrespectful" to their members. That my father and other combat veterans of WW II were sponsoring, organizing, and participating in the march apparently didn't matter to the VFW, whose ideas of political free speech seem indistinguishable (to me) from sentiments being widely expressed by "the left" regarding various pro-Trump protests.
Of course, one dodge today's "liberals" are using is the two-pronged attack on both the tactics the pro-Trump folks are using ("tone policing" is part of this) and the cause for which they're demonstrating. It seems that for such liberals and others, Americans have the right to protest as long as they do it nicely and for the right causes. If the causes are not acceptable, then the tactics, tone, etc. become all-important, though the reality is that the media and those who disagree with the protesters have been attacking and ridiculing them for the past four+ years (and, in reality, longer than that if we go back to the Tea Party's activities during the Obama years).
Do I think that some of what happened at the Capitol was illegal? Sure. Do I, therefore, agree that any educator who participated or was simply THERE, should not only be fired but should be drummed out of the teaching profession? Sorry, I do not. My memory again goes back to teachers who supported our protests against the war in Vietnam, our marches for fair housing in both the county and our town and public schools (which, as it happened, had the lowest African-American population among schools and communities in our athletic league at the time. Some of those teachers were, in fact, Republicans. But in those days, liberal/moderate Republicans had in some cases political views that would put them today well to the LEFT of the mainstream leadership and membership of the Democratic Party. Among them were some of the finest teachers of my K-12 education. One of them was the head of the local teachers' union and led a school strike. And he, too, was a Republican. In the current political climate, people like him would be in serious danger of being forced out of their jobs thanks to variants of political correctness from both major parties.
I'm simply not a fan of more government/administrative power to punish people (students included) for holding or expressing "wrong" ideas. It's disheartening but no longer shocking to see today's quasi-left backing positions about political speech and action that were primarily the province of real conservatives not that long ago. To me, this is a deeply disturbing instance of prisoners falling in love with their jailers because they think that giving up their freedom buys them protection from their enemies, foreign and domestic. In fact, what it buys is imprisonment, whether physical, intellectual, political, emotional or a combination thereof. I'll never opt for that. Not at 17 and not now at 70.
By the way, the notion that the demonstrators were there to "overthrow the legal government" is a claim by our media. It may turn out to apply to some individuals. But I seriously doubt it applies to all. And the scenario described as being grounds for dismissal in Holland makes me lose a great deal of respect I've had for a long time for the Dutch. Talk about guilt by association, and coupled with presumption of guilt until proven innocent. Things are difficult enough in our legal system for various economic reasons: we don't need to make it worse by granting prosecutors their long-held wet dream.
Good post! This line jumped out at me. “Educators have a profound obligation to the truth and to prepare students’ critical capacities for productive citizenship.” When Trump was running and governing I found it disappointing that more private school educators, especially leaders, weren’t more openly critical of a man who clearly and unquestionably has very little regard for truth. When a lot of educators had a clear, if challenging, opportunity to take a stand for truth they chose not to.
I think I may have shared this article with you before. I think it would be best - but likely not a realistic goal to do so in a short period of time (though I think immersion and cold turkey are great methods) - to adapt to the European style freedom of speech. It is far friendlier, clearer and better suitable for society with so many people living in close enough proximity.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-03-19/free-speech-in-europe-isn-t-what-americans-think
Some highlights:
"U.S. law, following the logic of the Constitution and American legal culture, considers religious freedom a fundamental right that shouldn’t be violated except under exceedingly rare conditions. (...)
In Europe, by contrast, the freedom to believe may be protected, but the freedom to manifest your religion publicly has much less purchase, (...)
The underlying philosophical difference here is about the right of the individual to self-expression. Americans value that classic liberal right very highly -- so highly that we tolerate speech that might make others less equal. (...)
Europeans value the democratic collective and the capacity of all citizens to participate fully in it -- so much that they are willing to limit individual rights." ..
In my opinion, legal and personal, under for instance Dutch law, a teacher having been present at this event could be terminated without a criminal conviction, just a suspicion without conviction (proof that they were present even when not prosecuted) and of course also on the basis of criminal law (and more easily so combined with a clause in their contract) all a school would need to state is irreconcilable differences. With us the basis for criminal conviction would be "You were there, so you were caught to be a part of it. You didn't remove yourself from the situation, you were part of the group" (thus poaing a therat to the victims who couldn't know you were not going to be violent and who could only see you as backing the ones trying to get in/getting in etc.). Teachers (schools) have a duty of societal care for a safe school environment, and they need a declaration of (good) behavior from their municipality to be offered a contract. Being part of a demonstration to overthrow the legal government and influence the election outcome will likely lead to exclusion from the profession for a longer period of time if not have the effect of the person never being hired again indefinitely. Teachers explicitly implementing their own political beliefs instead of presenting all views and having students develop their own views first, or even indoctrinating their students, are no longer contributing to the safe environment in the learning place.
How can speech MAKE others less equal? It can express or support ideas that are not aligned with "all men are created equal" (and women, and . . . ), but the speech can't actually make anyone less equal.
Furthermore, all that is needed to show the glaring flaw in the idea that it's fine for school districts to fire teachers (or other employees) for exercising their Constitutional rights, assuming that you view yourself as politically left, progressive, or even merely liberal, is to cite the anti-war and pro-civil rights movements of the 1950s-1970s, before the American left started going belly-up and became anyone whose political views were within hailing distance of Dick Nixon's.
Having been a teenager during the '60s, I remember vividly the attempts by various right-wing "patriotic" groups to suppress all sorts of speech they didn't care for. They didn't want Dr. Benjamin Spock to be able to speak against the war in Vietnam at my junior high school (ironically, Thomas Jefferson Junior High School) in the evening to voluntary attendees, most of whom wound up being, unsurprisingly, adults, including my parents. The VFW, in particular, didn't want anti-war groups to get a permit to demonstrate peacefully against the war in Vietnam and in support of Dr. Spock's coming to speak because such a march would be "traumatic" for and "disrespectful" to their members. That my father and other combat veterans of WW II were sponsoring, organizing, and participating in the march apparently didn't matter to the VFW, whose ideas of political free speech seem indistinguishable (to me) from sentiments being widely expressed by "the left" regarding various pro-Trump protests.
Of course, one dodge today's "liberals" are using is the two-pronged attack on both the tactics the pro-Trump folks are using ("tone policing" is part of this) and the cause for which they're demonstrating. It seems that for such liberals and others, Americans have the right to protest as long as they do it nicely and for the right causes. If the causes are not acceptable, then the tactics, tone, etc. become all-important, though the reality is that the media and those who disagree with the protesters have been attacking and ridiculing them for the past four+ years (and, in reality, longer than that if we go back to the Tea Party's activities during the Obama years).
Do I think that some of what happened at the Capitol was illegal? Sure. Do I, therefore, agree that any educator who participated or was simply THERE, should not only be fired but should be drummed out of the teaching profession? Sorry, I do not. My memory again goes back to teachers who supported our protests against the war in Vietnam, our marches for fair housing in both the county and our town and public schools (which, as it happened, had the lowest African-American population among schools and communities in our athletic league at the time. Some of those teachers were, in fact, Republicans. But in those days, liberal/moderate Republicans had in some cases political views that would put them today well to the LEFT of the mainstream leadership and membership of the Democratic Party. Among them were some of the finest teachers of my K-12 education. One of them was the head of the local teachers' union and led a school strike. And he, too, was a Republican. In the current political climate, people like him would be in serious danger of being forced out of their jobs thanks to variants of political correctness from both major parties.
I'm simply not a fan of more government/administrative power to punish people (students included) for holding or expressing "wrong" ideas. It's disheartening but no longer shocking to see today's quasi-left backing positions about political speech and action that were primarily the province of real conservatives not that long ago. To me, this is a deeply disturbing instance of prisoners falling in love with their jailers because they think that giving up their freedom buys them protection from their enemies, foreign and domestic. In fact, what it buys is imprisonment, whether physical, intellectual, political, emotional or a combination thereof. I'll never opt for that. Not at 17 and not now at 70.
By the way, the notion that the demonstrators were there to "overthrow the legal government" is a claim by our media. It may turn out to apply to some individuals. But I seriously doubt it applies to all. And the scenario described as being grounds for dismissal in Holland makes me lose a great deal of respect I've had for a long time for the Dutch. Talk about guilt by association, and coupled with presumption of guilt until proven innocent. Things are difficult enough in our legal system for various economic reasons: we don't need to make it worse by granting prosecutors their long-held wet dream.
no way to edit but 4 language keyboards playing up, "just posing a threat"..