Posted on 10/26/2006 11:25:28 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
I just sat in the teacher's lounge of my middle school and listened to my fellow teachers hold forth about President Bush, the war in Iraq, and politics in general. Naturally they all agree that Bush is evil, the anti-christ, a religious fanatic, well not really a true religious fanatic, but a phony pretending to be one, actually an evil schemer who started the war to allow Halliburton to steal the oil, but really a simpleton who thought he could bring democracy to a culture that is incompatible with democracy, well they are but it will take a long time and he obviously thought he could do it overnight because he's naive and really just schemed to do it for Halliburton anyway....
In other words, they leap from one cliche to the next, never noticing that the cliches and conspiracies are mutually exclusive, and they talk and talk without listening to anything but their own voices.
But this is what really got me: Several of them said that we should release Saddam Hussein, put him back in charge of Iraq, declare defeat, pull out, impeach Bush and try him for crimes against humanity. These are your kids' teachers. And they really believe this. As far as they can tell, there was no sectarian violence under Saddam because "He knew how to handle them." (The fact that Iraq didn't have a free press and they wouldn't have been reading the Iraqi papers back in the 1990s anyway seems to escape them.) They believe that we haven't helped Afghanistan rebuild, that we should have invaded North Korea instead but we didn't because there's no oil there, that we should have invaded Iran (despite the fact that there is oil there - presumably - and we would have no justification to present the sacred UN for that.)
In other words, these people are limitlessly arrogant, uninformed, and LOUD. I sat quietly until someone asked me a direct question and I told them that I think we did the right thing and that they are wrong to think that Bush had no idea it would take a long time to bring stability to Iraq, as he had said from the beginning it would be a long, hard haul. Let me tell you, once they realized I wasn't part of the chorus they started talking at me a mile a minute. They would just spout accusation after accusation and not let me say a full sentence back. Occasionally I'd ask a question, like, "Are you aware that the Johns Hopkins study that claims an Iraqi death toll of 655,000 used only 47 cluster samples, which is an abnormally low sample?" But for the most part, I couldn't get a word in. They just talk and talk like a monkey jumping from tree to tree. Welcome to publik skool.
Well the good thing is that kids usually don't listen to teachers much either. ;-)
You should move...
I don't think there's very much I'd call nice about such abject (willful) ignorance.
Next time they try to include you in one of their diatribes just smile at them and say "My mother always taught be that is was crude and tacky to discuss politics in public."
Did you read what she wrote? Yes, she responded to them, but they were a bunch of magpies and talked over her.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:22
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
Proverbs 1:32
For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
Proverbs 3:35
The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.
Proverbs 12:23
A prudent man concealeth knowledge: but the heart of fools
proclaimeth foolishness.
Keep up the good fight. Don't let them get you down!
Obviously you missed post 17. Did you read it?
My kids will NEVER set foot in a public school short of College.
Thank you for my daily decision validation.
Well since you didn't tow their party line, you are now shunned...
Tolerance, ain't it grand!
"four legs good, two legs bad"
I try not to talk to most of my friends about politics. It's better that way.
When I am Emperor of Humanity, political discussion will be outlawed anyway.
But you got yours in...
I was watching the man show the other day, and they asked lesbians at the gay and lesbian parade if they would have sex with rosie o donnell........not a one of them (even the ugly ones) would so much as touch her........
I am shocked that they advocated the reinstallation of Saddam. Usually the liberals won't admit to it.
Let me quess, they other teachers also think W/Rove/CIA pulled off 911 and made the Islamos the scapegoats. You seem to be a very sweet lady but what youre saying doesnt surprise me.
Yes, she says she did. But have you ever tried to teach a pig to sing?
I did the same with my son -- private Christian schools. He did have to go to a public school for a while when I was ill, but he had Christian teachers even then. I am so grateful for private schools.
Most of the time he was in school, it was much less expensive than the traditional types because the schools used ACE: the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. It still hurt my budget but I wouldn't have been able to afford the pricy schools and ACE did a tremendous job of getting the youth educated. The average student was two grade levels ahead of the national average.
"Comrade Griswold is always right."
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