Posted on 08/13/2013 1:29:27 PM PDT by spacejunkie2001
I need help/ammo. My kids go to a small Seventh Day Adventist school in Orlando. There's a new humanities teacher and the information that's in the pamphlet about him says the 'big subject' for 8th grade is "social justice".
I know what we conservatives consider SJ, and I agree with it but there are varying definitions on line. When I meet with this guy and the head of curriculum I want to be armed with as much accurate information as possible.
I'm trying not to be really pissed off that this is going on. I am arming my daughter with as much as possible but she's only 13.
It’s a euphemism for communism. Makes the dolts who parrot the term feel good while concealing from them the reality of their handlers’ motives. Keeping an ear out for people who use the term is an easy way to screen for useful idiots.
Nice.
When I get tagged to teach Catholic Social theory I begin with a true incident:
I’m driving in Charlottesville. The car ahead of me swerves but then keeps moving ahead. Naturally, because of the swerve, my head is on a swivel.
And what I see in a side-street is a toddler,n maybe 20 months old, in diapers ambling down the middle of the street.
So I ...
(1) Wrote my Congresscritter.
(2) Wrote to my delegate and senator in the VA legislature.
(or wrote to the Charlottesville City Council or the neighborhood committee or whatever)
(3) Drove to the next phone booth (this was a while back) and called the cops.
(4) Parked, got out of my car, and retrieved the baby.
(5) Drove on and forgot about it.
Which is “just”? After all, what has that kid or his parents done for me? What do ->I<- owe that kid or his parents?
But Aristotle (and therefore the Angelic Doctor) says justice is to render to each his due. And, in my view, this finds a resonance in the OT concept of righteousness. By this reckoning, the Good Samaritan of the parable is thick with tzedekah, dikaiosune.
He does not petition the Emperor or the local muckety-muck. He sees a man in need of mercy and he provides it.
In my view, ONE reason we have socialists and commies is that we have not understood the “duty” of each of us to show mercy. When individuals, neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties, states do not show mercy, then “the emperor” will provide a counterfeit mercy.
Social justice is really just an argument for left-wing policies designed to aid the losers that arise when people interact freely, and some are too incapable to function. It is based on a premise that anyone who fails to navigate an environment of freedom successfully has experienced an injustice at the hands of an unfair system (which unfairly discriminates against idiots, imbeciles, and layabouts who refuse to contribute anything of value to the nation or their community). There, justice is the state reapportioning success from someone else to the losers.
I have written a huge site, in my tag, on the evolutionary reasons that we have two psychologies in our species, one which seeks the freedom to do their own thing without governmental support, and one which feels the only “fair” “justice” is everyone given free resource availability. If you understand that, you understand why you are facing this, though I probably wouldn’t make this argument to a leftwing administration, lest your daughter be suspended, or just discriminated against by the teacher and admin.
You might be well served to first, find statistics on the support for the Tea Party, and demand their inclusion on the basis of giving students a fair and balanced curriculum on political activism. Second, structure your argument to subtly threaten to turn the group against them – out-grouping arguments are particularly effective against Liberals. Find how many vote republican in your area, how many religious individuals are republican, and if the numbers indicate you could create a sizable movement against the administration from parents, make an out-grouping argument. Tell them with all these people who support limited government, it is only appropriate to also include Tea Party, limited government arguments, or parents will get upset, and it could lead to acrimony between parents and administration which would detract from the student’s experience at the school, and cause headaches for the administration.
Liberals don’t respond to reason or morality, but rather to emotion. You have to couch your argument not as what is right, but as what will cost the Liberal personally, in terms of status, social respect and attachment, security, membership in the group, and threats from others. You present the argument you want to make as right, but include the out-grouping, to motivate them to do what is right. ie, this is right and moral, and if you don’t do it, you may find yourself looking for a new job, because there are enough people who want this, to get your ass fired. But say it nicely.
Good luck.
Social Justice is a nice sounding phrase that basically means taking from the hard working and prosperous and giving to the not-so-hard working and therefore less prosperous. Plain and simple, wealth redistribution, a.k.a. socialism.
Real social justice is some pie-in-the-sky jargon. I guess real “social justice” is when people all follow the same laws and when someone breaks the law, they pay the price.
The only example I can think of true social justice would be caring for those who truly cannot care for themselves, and have no family to care for them either. Not meaning those able-bodied without jobs, but truly handicapped, ill, etc.
It’s one of those wonderful sounding phrases that if you’re against it, you’re a greedy, hateful conservative.
“My kids go to a small Seventh Day Adventist school in Orlando.”
Seventh Day Adventist - that’s a 19th century sect started by a woman with delusions of grandeur. Take your kids out now.
Social Justice = Lynching... Mob Rule by mobsters.. Wild West Law..
costumed in marxist agitprop.. and psycho dribble..
I first heard the term in the early 1980s.
This article in the WSJ, today should give you most of the ammunition that you need. Zinn is the father of the concept of social justice in America. Read these links and you should be well prepared.
David J. Bobb: Howard Zinn and the Art of Anti-Americanism
Hollywood and the academic left have made the late Marxist historian more influential than ever.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324769704579008453713889352.html?mod=hp_opinion
Here’s another from Discover the Networks -http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=715
and from the Eagle Forum -http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2009/mar09/social-justice.html
For better or for worse it’s been part of the Catholic lexicon since 1891 and “Rerum Novarum.”
What, exactly, do you plan to accomplish?
If you sent your kids to a Catholic school, would you meet with the teachers before the school year and try to convince them to teach that divorce should be acceptable and abortion should be legal? It’s their school, their beliefs, and I would think you’d send your children there because you want them instructed in that faith.
It sounds like social justice, as defined by the Adventists, is important to their faith and is taught in their schools. I can’t imagine that one discussion with you is going to cause them to change the Adventists’ beliefs or alter that course plan. So have a discussion with the instructor before school begins to find out what will be taught. Based on that, either remove your children from that school, or monitor the teaching during the year and have a discussion with your children on why you disagree with certain aspects of what they are learning.
By the way, according to the Adventist’s site: “Seventh-day Adventist concern for social justice is expressed through the support and promotion of religious liberty, and through organizations and departments of the Church which work to relieve poverty and conditions of marginalization.”
****You might ask the teacher to clarify what they mean by “social justice”, just to make sure it’s what it sounds like.***
I have. Twice. He’s not responded yet. I copied the woman that is in charge of curriculum late this afternoon and am awaiting their response. This time I requested a meeting in addition to their definition of ‘social justice’.
That’s a keeper !!!
Thanks
Since all justice is social, what of significance is added by using the modifier?
____________________________________________________________
Your are correct.
The significance is for effect or marketing.
Very similar to “racial equality”, I consider the constitution, at this stage, to be “color blind”. Like sitting at a poker table and if you can ante up, you can play. Everyone is equal and are left to their own devices.
Social Justice and Racial Equality seek to skew the results by suggesting some players are “less qualified” and try to change the rules.
Why minorities don’t find this insulting and actually “racist” is beyond me.
Perhaps the revival of the term was spurred on by JPII's crackdown on liberation theology priests (mostly in South America, iirc).
The Creation of the Religious Left
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2958373/replies?c=33
“Faith and Social Justice”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2958765/posts?page=11#11
Remarks at the Launch of the Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Shaun Casey
Special Advisor
Melissa Rogers, Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Washington, DC
August 7, 2013
MR. CASEY: “I’m reminded today of Reinhold Niebuhr, ....”
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/08/212781.htm
Keep it simple.
You and your Daughter could simply ask “wouldn’t it be Racist to consider some people less capable than others?”
show her tbe dedication page in Rules For Radicals.
that was enough for me.
dedicating a book to lucifer was a bit of a shocker.
I’d suggest one way to frame the discussion is:
1. Under the American system of government, the function of government, as defined in the Declaration of Independence, is to “secure our liberties, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed”.
2. Since I cannot legitimately put a knife to someone else’s ribs and demand they furnish me with goods and/or services, I cannot “consent” to have agents of the government do that for me on my behalf.
3. Any form of government that takes from one person to give to another person, except in direct compensation for services rendered in the protection of liberties, can legitimately be destroyed.
Then ask them “How does social justice protect my liberties?”.
Anyone who feels they have been left out of the successes of others, first needs to be asked (in front of a crowd) how much did they contribute to their own failure. That is my definition of Social Justice.
Social justice, social media, social skills, social studies -- all of these terms are essentially neutered due to qualification with the word "social."
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