Posted on 07/25/2014 9:57:56 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Florida GOP state senator Alan Hays said he’ll propose a bill mandating that students in the 1,700 Florida public high schools and middle schools are to be shown the film unless their parents object.
A Florida state senator plans to introduce a bill that would make Dinesh D'Souza's docudrama, America, required viewing for most teenagers in the state, The Hollywood Reporter learned on Friday.
Republican Alan Hays said he’ll introduce in November his one-page bill that simply states that students in the 1,700 Florida public high schools and middle schools are to be shown the film unless their parents object.
The plan is sure to draw fire from liberals not only because D’Souza is a prominent conservative but because he is also behind the movie, 2016: Obama’s America, which is a profoundly negative take on Democratic U.S. president Barack Obama.
America, the movie, espouses a conservative point of view toward telling history. D'Souza takes on leftist arguments that portray the U.S. in a negative light, and he specifically attacks Howard Zinn, author of the book A People’s History of the United States, often considered the most widely used history book in U.S. academia. The movie shows actors Matt Damon and Woody Harrelson praising the book.
Hays said the purpose of his proposal is to introduce more balance into Florida schools.
“I saw the movie and walked out of the theater and said, ‘Wow, our students need to see this.’ And it’s my plan to show it to my colleagues in the legislature, too, before they’re asked to vote on the bill,” Hays said.
Those who oppose the plan are also likely to point out that D’Souza could be headed to prison after he pleaded guilty to illegally promising to reimburse some people who donated to a friend’s Senate campaign. D’Souza faces up to two years for that transgression and he will be sentenced in September.
Nevertheless, the bill could pass, given that Republicans hold a substantial majority in Florida’s Senate and House of Representatives, and Gov. Rick Scott is also a Republican.
“I’ve looked at history books and talked to history teachers and the message the students are getting is very different from what is in the movie,” Hays said. “It’s dishonest and insulting. The students need to see the truth without political favoritism.”
To that end, Hays said he wouldn’t object if teachers paired America with a liberal film to show the political differences. Indeed, many schools already show Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and some of Michael Moore’s left-leaning films, though it’s certainly more unusual to actually require the viewing of a particular movie, as Hays intends with his bill.
“The most dreaded disease in America today is political correctness. We need to inform our students of our whole history, and teach them how to think, not what to think,” Hays said. “Let them talk with their teachers, their peers and their parents, then draw their own conclusions. But they need both sides, and this movie shows a side they just aren’t seeing.”
Hays said his intent is to reach out to charitable groups that would supply schools with the necessary copies of the movie so as not to burden Florida taxpayers.
This would be cool, but somehow I don’t see it happening.
what a crap position that is. the schools are rife with liberal leadership so you just want to crawl up in a ball and suck your thumb instead of trying to balance the education our kids are getting??? My kids are 13 & 15 and it’s slavery and civil rights, every day all day. Nothing else.
...and if the patents object, deport them to the nation of their choice free of charge.
...and if the parents object, deport them to the nation of their choice free of charge.
No. Politicians should NOT micromanage education. What’s next, the Satanist’s Bible? Because the MOMENT you go down that path, the other side is coming with you.
Ridiculous idea.
It would be very novel to have the truth promoted instead of vile, mentally diseased, amoral, atheistic garbage mandated in the schools!
Judging by some of the responses I got, I can see that. :-)
You want to balance the education, there are other ways to do it. Like showing America to your kids in your own home. Using legislation to force schools to show things like this can and will backfire on you once the liberals get a hold of power.
Hey, look! It’s leftwardho. Always chiming in on the wrong side of the equation.
This needs to be part of the school curriculum to offset the radical leftist garbage that YOU were clearly brought up in.
Fraudster.
So, objecting to politicians seeking to REQUIRE schools to show a particular movie is a "leftist" position now?
“I saw the movie and walked out of the theater and said, ‘Wow, our students need to see this.’
Excuse me, but who the h*ll is this guy to decide what "our students need to see"?
Were already dealing with liberals and homosexuals pushing their propaganda on the kids. I dont care how truthful america may be. It sets a bad precedent for lawmakers to require school kids to see this stuff.
D'Souza takes on leftist arguments that portray the U.S. in a negative light, and he specifically attacks Howard Zinn, author of the book A People’s History of the United States, often considered the most widely used history book in U.S. academia. The movie shows actors Matt Damon and Woody Harrelson praising the book.Showing our youth “America” is the least we can do to balance Zinn’s propaganda. Let alone “Inconvenient Truth.”I stand in favor. (pinging Larry Schweikart, co-author of A Patriot’s History of the United States, a book specifically written in rebuttal of Zinn.
The movie may or may not be something young people should see, but state legislators ordering them to see it (or mandating that the movie be shown in every school) is not a good idea.
Sure beat Bambi a film about Forrest preservation.
or The animated Robin hood a film about wealth redistribution.
Or the “The Grapes of Wrath” a film and/or book about FDR’s Great Depression being commingled with the dust-bowl to permute FDR’s “New Deal” welfare.
All of theses we were forced to watch or read in school, what Conservative free market ideas do we get?
Schools are like the press, their beurcacy and teachers are dominated by liberals.
If left to their own devices they will do very much as they have been doing with ever more ridicules sums of our money, and that isn’t generally so much educating our kids as trying to indoctrinate them to liberal thinking.
There is a good reason many if not most melinilals don’t understand capitalism(The economic freedom their fathers and forefathers fought and died for), or most anything else about our history, the simple text of our Constitution, or even Geography. Our public schools simply aren’t teaching it anymore.
No amount of money is going to solve the rot which is inherit in the ideological biases of its leaders. If we hope to be a free people and are to be expected to pay for schools we must insist upon results with tests.
The reality is we have to force schools to not only teach it but teach it successfully by testing for this essencal knowledge of citizenship in a free country.
he’s a lefty from the get go; on every subject.
“Showing our youth “America” is the least we can do to balance Zinn’s propaganda. Let alone “Inconvenient Truth.””
I agree. Just find a way to show it to the “yutes” without resorting to ramming it down their throats via legislation.
I agree. Just find a way to show it to the “yutes” without resorting to ramming it down their throats via legislation.“Showing our youth “America” is the least we can do to balance Zinn’s propaganda. Let alone “Inconvenient Truth.””
. . . as opposed to ramming Zinn down their throats without legislation?It is the nature of the government school. At least if the legislature explicitly selects something (and, be it noted, offers an opt-out provision) the legislators face the voters in the next election. The people foisting Zinn on our grandchildren are not politically accountable - and you seem to like that.
Truth will win out. The Soviets controlled education for 40 years and all they got for it was a democratic revolt. We can break through without gubment rules, cause once the gubment is involved, it can dictate to publishers what can, and cannot, be in a film or book.
This isn't even a "slippery slope" situation. The problem with this proposal is not that it may lead to bad things happening (though it may - as others have said, once you open this door, wait until you see what the left will require in schools). The problem with this proposal is that the proposal itself is a bad thing. Just look at the proponent's quote:Save it, we’re terminally blinded to recognizing a slippery slope.
“I saw the movie and walked out of the theater and said, ‘Wow, our students need to see this.’Excuse me, but who the h*ll is this guy to decide what "our students need to see"?
He is an elected official in the State of Florida - who are you?I don’t mean the question to you personally, but to those who have been packing “social studies” with propaganda for years, while you presume to reject the idea that the people, through their elected representatives, should have anything to say about that. This state senator will face the voters, and even if his proposal isn’t enacted into law he will answer questions about it.
But Wolfie is right about the existence of a slippery slope - he just doesn’t recognize that it isn’t in front of him and down, it is behind him and up.
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