Posted on 04/24/2002 9:28:29 AM PDT by Spiff
Saturday, April 20, 2002
'Freedom' banned in school?
By Joel Miller
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
A music teacher in an inner-city Michigan grade school is getting an earful from the higher-ups about the type of songs she can use in her classroom.
According to the April 17 issue of the Rutherford Institute's Insider, the teacher isn't in trouble for having the children sing lines from the latest Snoop Dogg rap album or even getting the tykes to trot out with something as strictly verboten as "Jesus Loves Me."
No, said the Insider, "school administrators informed her that she could not use any songs in class that contain the words 'freedom' or 'liberty.'" Why not, you might wonder. Simple: "Because some children in the school are not U.S. citizens."
I won't bother raising my hand before asking the following questions:
As imperfectly as we protect and defend our liberties, Americans should be proud of them. We should exult in the providence that took Hebraic legal tradition, hundreds of years of English common law, the guts, wits and wisdom of a few pasty, colonial landholders and distilled it into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
While Rutherford is looking to take a whack at the offending educrats in Michigan, we should use this example as a temperature reading of how chilling the atmosphere is to traditional American values the nation over.
Beyond that, we need to reflect upon the fact that as traditionally American as those values may be, they are not exclusively American. Championing freedom around the globe is just as important as it is in the classrooms – which also provides a nice comparison with which to judge the public-school establishment:
The people most opposed to the propagation of freedom abroad are typically the dictators and strongmen who stand everything to lose if liberty should prevail in their countries. They value their power and pelf more than others' freedom.
So, dispensing with the hypersensitive hogwash, it's clear that the reason teachers are being forbidden to utter the words "freedom" and "liberty" has little to do with offending foreigners, as was suggested, and a lot more to do with the fact that educrats simply don't put a high value on freedom and liberty.
For these mini dictators, freedom and liberty are all well and good so far as they go, but they're not so important that we can't shut up about them if a few kids and their parents get flustered over the fact.
Back to reality for a moment: Even if people are so sensitive they break out in rashes over use of the words, gagging a pedagogue in this manner is hardly defensible.
This isn't as simple as some misguided separation-of-church-and-state argument, where folks quickly concede to a position at which the founders would have laughed out loud. This is like separating government from government:
Governments are instituted to secure liberty. So keeping a public school teacher from using the word "liberty" in a song is tantamount to the separation of the government and its very purpose for existing. As the founders were well-aware, this is precisely the junction at which tyranny arises in a society.
When the government values other things above the life, liberty and property of its citizens, the citizens had better watch out – you can read the rest of the Declaration to see what happens next.
Forbidding a teacher from chirping choruses with "freedom" won't roll us into a dictatorship tomorrow. But when public school officials – the people entrusted with your children's education – don't value freedom and traditional American liberties, you can rest assured that plenty of kids coming out of those propaganda mills won't either, and creating a few generations of children that don't respect basic liberties is the surest way to lose them.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
I agree that action needs to be taken. What needs to happen is that whomever is responsible for this idiotic policy be fired and publically humiliated. And we should be instrumental in making sure that happens.
I disagree. This is what you get after decades under socialists in the White House and the Congress. This is also what you get from a socialistic system of education. We are reaping what the generation before us has sown.
Are you done?
Back to reality for a moment: Even if people are so sensitive they break out in rashes over use of the words, gagging a pedagogue in this manner is hardly defensible.
You gotta love that.
"Freedom" and "Liberty": Dirty Words
By April Shenandoah
April 25, 2002
Please indulge me by carefully reading the words of the Star Spangled Banner:
Oh, - say! Can you see - by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh - say, does the Star-Spangled Banner - yet - wave - O'ver the land - of the free and the home of the brave.
(Third Stanza)
Oh - thus be it ever, when - free men shall stand, Between their lov'd homes and war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land, Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation! And conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." Oh - say, does the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave O'ver the land - of the free and the home of the brave.
Francis Scott Key, who fought in the War of 1812 and penned the three stanzas of the Star-Spangled Banner understood the fight for America's "freedom." Can you imagine if after he wrote our national anthem (officially designated by Congress in 1931) he was told he could not refer to "freedom" or use the word free? Unthinkable! Well -- it's now 2002 and the unthinkable has happened!
According to the Rutherford Institute's Insider, an inner-city music teacher, in Michigan, was informed that she could not use any songs in class that contains the words "freedom" or "liberty." School administrators proclaim they do not want to offend any children that may not be U.S. citizens. Excuse me! The last time I looked we were still flying the American flag. Yes, America is a melting pot; however, "freedom is exactly the reason that millions of people risk their lives, escaping their dictators, to come here. The truth of the matter is that our educational system has been infiltrated by persuasions that have disdain for "freedom."
Sadly, these Michigan children are practically being taught that "freedom" and "liberty" are dirty words. They will have no concept of what "freedom" means. We as a society can be as vulgar as we want, including protecting virtual-child-pornography. But don't mention God or sing about freedom, because that is a No-No!
Remember the Red Cross event, held in California March, 10, 2002, where children were banned from singing the "Heroes Trilogy" consisting of America the Beautiful, Prayer of the Children and God Bless the USA? The Red Cross (Red Crescent in some countries) also said the Declaration of Independence, that was to be part of the program, was also inappropriate as it had the potential of offending as well. The Red Cross and the United Nations are two of the culprits distributing their own textbooks to our schools.
They have prepared a study guide on "global topics" and "International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions." It is designed for teachers of grades 7 to 12. The 28-page study guide contains background materials, classroom activities, research projects and a glossary of terms. It serves as a primer on International Humanitarian Law (Indoctrination in to Humanism). No American patriotism here! They believe they have a duty to remain all-inclusive at all times -- raising little Communist robots.
Let's refresh our memory...
The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States:
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal (in God's eyes - not in the Communistic sense of distributing the wealth), that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
America -- the wool has been successfully pulled over our eyes and the Socialist Shepherd will soon come to round up his Sheep! May God have mercy!
...liberty and justice for all (hope that doesn't offend anyone)!
Let Freedom Ring! (Hannity, keep playing that theme song)
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