Posted on 12/02/2004 3:56:16 PM PST by reportgirl73
GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. (AP) - An elementary school bus driver was fired after sharing a statistic she had read about embryonic stem cell research with students, then encouraging them to tell their parents about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Mentioning a fact of science in the hearing of children constitutes the raising of children? And here I thought I was only raising three.
Please come up with a better argument, if I'm wrong I might want to know about it.
Apparently not - you appear to be relying on the bus driver to do it for you. Let me know how things go when the bus driver decides to "educate" your kindergartner with the scientific facts of how condoms can reduce the risk of HIV during anal intercourse.
Please come up with a better counterpoint - I might start to think this is the best you can do.
Oh how weak arguments demand ridiculous genralizations to suppor them. How about the parents are primarilyy responsible and and society, the state, teachers, religious leaders, and even (gasp) bus drivers are secondarily responsible. Apparently, you believe the state should be in charge, as long as they are teaching ideas and facts that you like.
Not sure exactly what he beleives, but your need to pidgeon hole him into an absolute that you can argue against is silly.
I'd rather parents be in charge of their children.
A reasonbale choice given the two stark alternatives you present. But I'm just a dang evalgelical Christian do gooder myself. Of a matter of fact if I happen to hear some little kid using cuss words on the play ground, I will usually interfere (usually by letting their parents know). Thus I have taken partial responsibility for the moral upbringing of a stranger's child (and its not even part of my job).
The facts you described is certainly less age appropriate then the facts the bus driver discussed (it is implicit that you agree or you would not have tried to shock me with it). No one on this thread, including myself, would support such statements by a bus driver to kindergardners. Nor would someone arguing against such a bus driver need to make the ridiculous assertion that it constituted raising children.
Ridiculous assertions, and desperate attempts to shock sensibilities are often a refuge for someone who has lost an argument, but is too emotionally involved to admit it. I hope this is not the case with you. Let us see if you feel the need to strike back with even more absurdities.
More likely, he falls into the category of Freepers who believe that so long as the person in question is "one of us" espousing a viewpoint we agree with, their actions are okay.
I used the word "parents" because apparently more than one parent complained.
It's a plural noun.
If you want to assume that I meant all parents, that's your problem.
Good Hunting and Best Regards, O.C.
In case anyone needed any further proof of the triumph of situational ethics :-/
Quite a charge. Care to back it up with evidence?
See what I mean?
You can pretty much take that post for what it is - an admission of defeat. Obviously they've abandoned their tactic of lifting posts verbatim from "It Takes A Village", and are proceeding directly into personal attacks. Makes a fine white flag for them to wield, if you ask me.
Some facts are vulgar. Some facts are not. This distinction is trivially obvious to reasonable people. As is the distinction between the mentioning of any fact (vulgar or not) and the life long act of raising kids.
In order to support your argument, why did you happen to involve anal sex? Maybe a coincidence, but my suspicious nature leaped to the silly conclusion that it was for shock value.
Your wild diversion into association fallacies aside, there might be some reasonable arguments for why the bus driver was out of line. The fact that some parents objected is a good start, but to bring that one home, I assert that the parents objections must be reasonable. But the subject matter was neither vulgar, nor did it encourage any destructive behavior. And this one may be hard to see at first: but it actually didn't challenge any prominent ethical debate. Yes, that's what I said, it actually didn't.
Think about it for a minute. The only prominent ethical debate over stem cell research is whether or not it is intrinsically morally wrong to use embryos. The potential efficacy itself is not a moral debate.
Thus such an argument against her behavior appears to be at a dead end. Unless, as others desperately invested in your side of the argument have asserted, that parents have some kind of absolute right to control what their kids here in the public schools.
Sounds good, but in practice such a right is absurd. Certainly a parent should be offered some such control when reasonable, but this can not reasonably involve anything that might offend anybody--since that may very well include everything.
And no, nobody (I hope) is trying to assert that parents should not be the primary advocate and responsible party for how their children are raised. As Dianna and you have seemed to offer as the only alternative to such absolute parental control.
Like it or not, society impacts your kids. To the small extent parents can influence that impact, they ought concentrate on the most vulgar and obnoxious stuff, instead of constructing a cowardly, self-flatulating moral paradox in order to appease left wing egalitarianism
And again. Due to the redefining of tolerance in society, schizophrenics are turning up everywhere. Even in online forums like Free Republic.
Not much of an assumption. Seemed pretty clear from the context. But since you feel a need to back track, go ahead and clarify your argument--because with this adjustment it is essentialy non existant.
Thanks for the set up. Check out post 556...game, set, and match.
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Good job!
There are medications for that.
The fact that some parents objected is a good start, but to bring that one home, I assert that the parents objections must be reasonable.
And all we have to do is sign up for Andy's definition of "reasonable". How silly of me not to see that! Perhaps we can set you up with an 800 number, so that everyone can check in with you from now on to find out if some objection is "reasonable" or not. Hope you're not very busy.
Your fantasy life notwithstanding, you cannot wield that club by yourself forever. You have no grounds whatsoever - no principles, no morals - upon which to rest objections to someone imposing some other set of facts upon your children, other than the newly-invented test of "does Andy think it's reasonable?" And so when the Left does what you're ready to do, about the only thing you'll manage to squeak out is "Your turn..."
I think not. You may be in a hurry to give the Left a rope to hang your children - hell, you're offering to tie it to the nearest tree - but I am not. You may believe that the ends justify the means, but you'll be fresh out of objections when someone else finds another set of ends and means.
Unless, as others desperately invested in your side of the argument have asserted, that parents have some kind of absolute right to control what their kids here in the public schools.
Well, you sure kicked the hell out of that strawman, didn't you? Did anyone say that the right should be "absolute"? No, they didn't. Dissemble much, Andy, or is that reserved for this thread? How about if I do the same to you and assert that your position necessarily means that parents have no right to control what their children hear in school? Does that adequately capture your position, or is it just a bit disingenuous to follow the Andy Argument Method(tm)?
To the small extent parents can influence that impact, they ought concentrate on the most vulgar and obnoxious stuff, instead of constructing a cowardly, self-flatulating moral paradox in order to appease left wing egalitarianism
After all, Andy Knows Best - if only we'd all shut up and get on board the Andy Plan For A Better World. Trouble is, everyone's got one of those plans, and insofar as Andy's plan involves everyone shutting up and turning their kids over to the state, his plan is absolutely indistinguishable from that of the Left. Oh, wait - Andy is right. Of course, that's just what everyone else says, too...
Tell the nurse to up your Thorazine - the voices are obviously bleeding through again.
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