What would be the long-term effect that generation after generation of children grow up with the notion that armed personnel guarding a school is a natural circumstance? Well, for one thing it would create a national lowest common denominator of fear (not security) and adjust the common sense indicator to think, well, if schools, why not armed guards everywhere, until the entire country resembles an occupied nation.
It also fosters the idea, already sadly prevalent in the America of today, of "me and us" and "the rest —the Other" as it were, making it easy to foment hatred for and fear of specific groups. Tim might be a pretty good shot when he is sneaking up on partridges or hanging out at the shooting range, but I'll wager that as a pensioner he has neither the reflexes nor the eyesight that would allow him to outdraw and outshoot a younger, practiced, cocked-and-primed perpetrator, who has the advantage of surprise and plan. His talk is macho bullshit. The county is overfull of self-deluded macho bullshitters. In an article in Time Magazine (Dec. 3), Joel Klein made a point that had completely bypassed me. What do we talk about when we talk about socialism? Quote:
I looked in my on line Encarta dictionary. Yep, it says: Quote:
That is as antiquated as defining Christianity as what it was before the First Council of Nicaea. I daresay that though the dictionaries (most of them) now include the long-banned word "fuck", none of them would dare to update the definition of socialism to its modern meaning and risk a nation-wide boycott of purchase by school boards. The Oxford (GB) has essentially the same definition, but with an explanatory note: Quote:
Well, I sez to myself. Now I understand where Skip is coming from. He's been reading the dictionary. Put that money earmarked for the armed guards in public schools (American definition of public schools) into pay scales for teachers that does not insult their vocational choice and raises the teaching profession to a respected line of work. Equip those schools with good educational aids, nourishing meals, and textbooks that are not sponsored by business (that's a whole new thread, folks) in buildings with good ventilation, heating/air conditioning, and made of safe materials . Teach children critical thinking rather than providing indoctrination and inculcation. Prohibit sectarian schools of all colors and brands. Freedom of religion has nothing to do with shutting a child off from reality. I could go on and on about that, but I won't. Gun control is only part of a much-needed clean-up. But it is as good a place as any to start thinking about what the authors of the Constitution intended. What they did and did not foresee. And consider how to infuse, or reinfuse, the idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people. The alternative is a nutter country, over-confident, ill-informed, and prone to see the simplistic solution to violence as being more violence. |
A PM from a friendly indicates that it would be wise to have a footnote to the remark
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Basically that is my standpoint. It has nothing to do with the quality of the education and I did not mean to suggest that. My ideal is the French school system which dares to ban the burkas, and also bans jewelry such as the cross and the star of David. With respect to all who think differently, that's my lodestar. School is (should be) a place where children learn mutual respect. Religion inculcation belongs belongs to the clerical sphere. Quote:
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"critical thinking" will stop dead in its tracks, I bet, when it comes to the bios of the founders of world religions. Fear will see to that by political correctness, which should be capable of maintaining hypocrisies to keep you safe.
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Critical thinking is a type of reasonable, reflective thinking that is aimed at deciding what to believe or what to do. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is always true, sometimes true, partly true, or false.
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A deep education of sorts, this thread. |
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