Colo. Teacher Defends Bush-Hitler Remarks

NewsMax ^ | 8 March 2006 | Carl Limbacher

[Aussie Dasher]

A high school social studies teacher who was put on leave after comparing President Bush's State of the Union address to speeches made by Adolf Hitler defended his lecture on Tuesday, saying he was trying to encourage students to think.

"My job as a teacher is to challenge students to think critically about issues that are affecting our world and our society," Jay Bennish said on NBC's "Today Show."

Bennish is on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora, Colo., while Cherry Creek School District investigates whether his Feb. 1 lecture violated a policy requiring that balancing viewpoints be presented in classes.

A student recorded at least part of the lecture in Bennish's world geography class and took it to a Denver radio station, which played parts of it on a talk show.

Bennish told "Today" the excerpts broadcast weren't representative of the full lecture.

"This is 20 minutes out of a 50-minute class. The rest of the class provides the balance," he said.

On the recording, Bennish told the students that some of Bush's speech "sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say. We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and our job is to conquer the world and make sure that they all live just like we want them to."

Later in the recording, Bennish said he was not claiming Bush and Hitler were the same, "but there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use."

Bennish said no parents - including the family of the student who recorded the lecture - have complained to him. He said all the students' parents had seen his syllabus and that school officials had approved it.

"My job as a social studies teacher is to argue alternative perspectives and viewpoints so that students are aware of those point of views. They do not necessarily reflect my own views. They are simply thrown out there to encourage critical thought," he told "Today."

[tcrlaf]

Bunping this quote for future moonbat bashing...

[Lazamataz]

I have a Final Solution.

I say we round this guy up and send him to one of the many death camps.

[KC Burke]

The overdone reliance upon "right" logic has its own draw backs. As we have seen, it leads to the general public's acceptance of fictitous rights such as group rights and the like. Failing to understand that rights groups, the public will buy issues on "caring" and reasonableness".

Additionally, Thomas Sowell warns that if we rely to much on rights-logic, the right held by many individuals begins to trump a right held by one -- a utilitarian trap.

There is a concept that we don't hear spoken of much that Kirk specifies and speaks of in his description of conservative principles. He calls it a conservative belief in Prescription -- issues beyond rights such as Property that actually predate governments and their guantees. These were the son called "Rights of Englishmen" that the colonists understood were theirs through inheritance and history, seperate from government, logic, natural law and all the arguement of any political view.