Mike Rosen
Posted on 09/08/2006 2:39:46 AM PDT by ajolympian2004
Liberals fly their colors, by Mike Rosen
It was two years ago that North High School was the center of controversy over a foreign flag. A Mexican flag was given equal prominence with an American flag in a permanent wall display in the school lobby and in a social studies classroom. The teacher who hung the Mexican flag in his classroom said he wanted his students to feel welcome. This was a nice sentiment, but a direct violation of Colorado law.
Although North High is almost 85 percent Hispanic, this is still an American school in the United States, funded by U.S. taxpayers. It's not a joint venture of the U.S. and Mexican governments; nor is this corner of Denver a Mexican colony.
Just recently, there was another flag flap, this time at Carmody Middle School in Jefferson County. Eric Hamlin, a geography teacher, gave equal prominence in his classroom to the flags of the United States, Mexico, China and the United Nations. Understandably more sensitive to Colorado law in the wake of the North High incident, administrators at Carmody instructed Hamlin to remove the foreign flags. He refused and was suspended for insubordination. After a few days, a compromise was reached, all was forgiven and permission was granted to display the foreign flags on a "temporary" basis as a learning tool, consistent with a specified exception in the state statute.
Although he was invited to return, Hamlin has since asked to be reassigned to another school. The controversy quickly faded, but there's much to be learned from this episode, which raises some bigger policy questions.
It's not about banning foreign flags. Under the law they can be conditionally displayed. But Hamlin is a microcosm, the product of an educratic mind-set with a decidedly liberal political and social agenda that pervades our public schools.
He said he was concerned that by giving special treatment to the U.S. flag, "we're sending the message that America is No. 1, everything else is below that." Of course we are! Hamlin might disapprove, but I suspect most Americans want precisely that message to be sent in our government schools.
Hamlin said displaying the flags of other nations promotes "tolerance," one of the themes of his course. "The flags should be able to celebrate diversity," he added. This is a fashionable term in educratic circles these days, a first cousin to "cultural relativism" and "moral equivalence."
Perhaps you remember a recent controversy involving another geography teacher, Jay Bennish, who subjected his Overland High School students to a tirade attacking President Bush, America's sordid past and our capitalist economic system. All this in a geography class, mind you. Toleration - and nonjudgmentalism, apparently - is reserved only for other nations. It's impolite to speak harshly of brutal regimes like North Korea, Cuba and Iran, but America is fair game.
We've had this debate before over the treatment of patriotism in our schools. Patriotism: love of country - our country. That doesn't mean blind obeisance. You can teach about our misdeeds without obsessing about them. The point is: Americans have so much more about which to be proud than ashamed. And that's exactly how it ought to be presented in our schools.
Years ago, I remember taking a world geography test in school. The teacher gave us a blank map, and we had to fill in the names of the countries. It was only part of the test, but it was a way of learning geographical context. It's a good start. Too many Americans today are geographically illiterate. We learn world geography by crisis. When a natural disaster strikes or war breaks out in some trouble spot, we only then discover its whereabouts on the globe - especially if U.S. troops are involved.
The trouble with the teaching of world geography in schools today is that the discipline is too full of itself. It's overreaching. And in trying to do too much, it does too little. It's unreasonable to expect Hamlin's delightful but callow seventh-graders to digest geopolitics, world history, religion, culture and comparative political and economic systems in a short, middle-school semester - and make any sense of it. How many teachers are qualified to present all this? If at the end of the school year, the kids can't at least fill in the names on that blank map, the course has failed.
Hamlin believed he was standing on principle. He disapproves of the Colorado law that subordinates foreign flags to ours. That's his opinion. And it was his prerogative to disobey the law and his superiors as long as he's willing to take the consequences. But he's only one government employee, and these kinds of policy decisions are made above his pay grade by administrators, superintendents and school boards ultimately responsible to the people whose elected representatives made these laws.
*** Related mp3 audio links below ***
Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.
Mike Rosen's page at 850am KOA -
http://www.850koa.com/pages/shows_rosen.html
Mike Rosen
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Rosen Replay 8/25/06 9-10AM Eric Hamlin, Carmody Middle School geography teacher, is reinstated after flag controversy.
Click here for interview with geography teacher Eric Hamlin
(mp3, 45 minutes)
Somehow I get the feeling that these people don't actually understand the implications of their actions.
Yes, they know what they are doing, but they think it is for a positive reason and have a hard time understanding the overall ramifications. It is a tunnel vision of sorts.
I don't think theys wake up every morning and think "what can I do to destroy America". Rather they think it is good for America.
I tend to beleive that generally good people can be taught to see the error of their thinking if given enough time and one speaks to them in the correct manner. That, naturally is in contradiction to those whose goals are really about power and they pursue them regardless of the consequences.
"funded by the USD"
Ahh, but that is the point of hispanic immigration, is it not? To be funded by the US taxpayer, but remain an hispanic people all to themselves?
Well said!
I dont think its very helpful to "demonise" the enemy. Most liberals are not evil. Wrong certainly, bad perhaps, but not EVIL.
.....but they think it is for a positive reason"
NONSENSE!! They are, pure and simple, scared of America, what it represents, the obligation, bureden and privelege that comes with being an American. They trade in "selling out" rather than "holding up".....
The Path to National Suicide by Lawrence Auster (1990)
An essay on multi-culturalism and immigration.
How can we account for this remarkable silence? The answer, as I will try to show, is that when the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 was being considered in Congress, the demographic impact of the bill was misunderstood and downplayed by its sponsors. As a result, the subject of population change was never seriously examined. The lawmakers’ stated intention was that the Act should not radically transform America’s ethnic character; indeed, it was taken for granted by liberals such as Robert Kennedy that it was in the nation’s interest to avoid such a change. But the dramatic ethnic transformation that has actually occurred as a result of the 1965 Act has insensibly led to acceptance of that transformation in the form of a new, multicultural vision of American society. Dominating the media and the schools, ritualistically echoed by every politician, enforced in every public institution, this orthodoxy now forbids public criticism of the new path the country has taken. “We are a nation of immigrants,” we tell ourselves— and the subject is closed. The consequences of this code of silence are bizarre. One can listen to statesmen and philosophers agonize over the multitudinous causes of our decline, and not hear a single word about the massive immigration from the Third World and the resulting social divisions. Opponents of population growth, whose crusade began in the 1960s out of a concern about the growth rate among resident Americans and its effects on the environment and the quality of life, now studiously ignore the question of immigration, which accounts for fully half of our population growth.
This curious inhibition stems, of course, from a paralyzing fear of the charge of “racism.” The very manner in which the issue is framed—as a matter of equal rights and the blessings of diversity on one side, versus “racism” on the other—tends to cut off all rational discourse on the subject. One can only wonder what would happen if the proponents of open immigration allowed the issue to be discussed, not as a moralistic dichotomy, but in terms of its real consequences. Instead of saying: “We believe in the equal and unlimited right of all people to immigrate to the U.S. and enrich our land with their diversity,” what if they said: “We believe in an immigration policy which must result in a staggering increase in our population, a revolution in our culture and way of life, and the gradual submergence of our current population by Hispanic and Caribbean and Asian peoples.” Such frankness would open up an honest debate between those who favor a radical change in America’s ethnic and cultural identity and those who think this nation should preserve its way of life and its predominant, European-American character. That is the actual choice—as distinct from the theoretical choice between “equality” and “racism”—that our nation faces. But the tyranny of silence has prevented the American people from freely making that choice.
If it's 85 percent Mexican, then for all practical purposes it's become a part of Mexico. Just as when a pond floods and expands, what was once land is now part of the pond. It's an invasion plan that is working quite well for them.
That's why this unchecked immigration, along with massive ILLEGAL immigration, amounts to an invasion by Mexico. They are winning over our lands by committing a kind of cultural genocide through mass-populating our border states without assimilation, and bringing their Mexican flags along with them to fly beside, (and eventually above), the U.S. flag.
The White House is totally deceived if it really believes that accepting 20 million of Mexico's worst citizens, (the unemployed, gang members, drug smugglers and scofflaws), into our border states is benefitting Americans. I believe Bush is using this Mexican invasion to prop up the economy and plug some holes in the Social Security system the politicians have bankrupted through misusing its funds.
I think they think they are morally superior, that if they can only reach the next generation and teach them a new way, that the world will be a better place. Utopian thinking. PLUS, how terribly arrogant to think they know BETTER than the parents and taxpayers who pay their salaries.
I think it is also rebellion, teenage rebellion, dragged into adulthood. "Them vs. Us." "The Man" if you will vs "The Enlightened Ones." I give them NO pass, that they do not understand what they are doing. I believe it is done as a revolutionary act, a defiant stand against 'The Man.'
I fully agree with you on this point, however it is a bit contradictory with the first paragraph you wrote about being more enlightened. Juvenile rebellion does appear to play a considerable role, however I beleive in many cases when you are dealing with essentially good people, it is possible to educate them if you take the time and energy to do it in language they can understand.
As I wrote, those who are interested in "power" as would be indicated by your term "revolution" are different.
Essentially we are talking about the difference between the leaders who are to be taken seriously, feared and countered at every step. And their followers who should be treated with respect for their passion and views and educated to learn the error of their ways.
It doesn't always work, but not to try is to abandon far more people than is necessary considering how great the challenges we face currently are.
The greatest nation of the world seized overwhelmingly and not a shot fired.
We have bent over and surrendered without any protest.
The great and brave forefathers and those who dreamed the dream; those who shed blood for our safekeeping - must be weeping.
You don't think that young people in rebellion consider themselves more enlightened than those they are rebelling against/ their parents? I think it is part and parcel of the same thing.
If you support an evil agenda, you are evil no matter how pristine and benign you consider your motivations to be.
Yes, I do. But for me, the difference between juvenile rebellion and "revolution" is that those who are rebelling are doing so with a "don't tell me what to do" mentality. Those who are revolutionaries are acting with a "I will tell you what to do mentality."
To me this is the difference between the leaders (who want power) and the followers who are fooled into thinking they are doing the right thing.
Some or maybe even many young folks in today's society that are in that rebellion stage are like free radicals in one's body. They are highly charged and emotional. These are the type of kids who can be attracted to teachers as decribed in Mike Rosen's column. And the damage done through indoctination by these radical leftist teachers can take years of good conservative talk radio and access to forums like Free Republic to undo.
There honestly isn't a lot of "good conservative radio talk" out there.
I tend to believe only give and take can help people figure stuff out. Otherwise it comes across as preaching and is easily dismissed.
Rush, Hannity and the others distort things a bit too much for my taste. Their first job is to entertain, not to inform. They aren't news programs.
FR is outstanding because it is so interactive with a variety of opinions. Some people are here for entertainment, but the vast information resource provided by Freepers is so outstanding that it really helps to learn about an issue. It has made more more conservative.
Some kids need to start with a young adult who can be their friend. If they are bright enough to be into reading and thikning on their own about politics, there is no harm in just putting a different point of view in their hands.
I am a huge advocate of airing as many legitimate differing points of view as possible when it comes to subjective matters. It is when people start to obscure established facts for poltical (or religious) purposes that they give up the right to a fair hearing of their opinion.
I just want to bury the left as I detest them with every fiber of my being.
Thank you for the wisdom.
I however live in California - which might as well be Zimbabwe as it concerns patriotism and the demostration of love for the nation.
Patriotism is viewed as racist and fear-mongering here.
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