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Constitutional Question for Legal Freepers
Free Republic
| June 30, 2002
| The Raven
Posted on 06/30/2002 5:25:11 AM PDT by The Raven
Question is this:
Why not challenge the basis that schools are an arm of the government? It seems that each court takes for granted that the government (in the form of public schools) can't force kids to recite the pledge, pray, etc) - but these are local/State community based schools. What right does the court have in directing actions and behaviors? Teachers aren't Congressmen.
Or better yet, if the government is caught between a rock and a hard place --- why not challenge the Constitutionality of public schools period. A school receiving ANY instructions whatsoever from the Federal/State government - whether for or against religions, or text books touting the political agendas or fad of the moment - coupled with the States forcing children into schools - is collectivism, not individual freedom.
If Congress must interfere with freedom to worship in schools so that Congress is not forcing religion in the schools, it's a rock and a hard place - since "Congress shall make no law".....[either way]
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Free Republic; Government; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: churchstate; schoolchoice
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To: KC Burke
bump....
To: rwfromkansas
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE RULING:
- George Bush, President of the United States: "This landmark ruling is a victory for parents and children throughout America. ... the Supreme Court has offered the hope of an excellent education to parents and children throughout our country."
- Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education: "Giving parents greater choices and kids better chances does not hurt public education. In fact it is my view that it will strengthen it because when public education responds with its best it will be the best." Link to webcast and full transcript of press briefing. See also Secretary Paige's op-ed in the June 28 Washington Post: "[The Court's decision] recasts the education debates in this country, encouraging a new civil rights revolution and ushering in a 'new birth of freedom' for parents and their children everywhere in America."
- Lisa Graham Keegan, CEO, Education Leaders Council: "The Supreme Court instinctively understood what opponents of the Cleveland program do not that education in America is not about particular systems or structures, but students. True educational choice puts the system to work for students, rather than students at the mercy of the system."
- Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, co-director of Empower America: "The decision could not have come at a better time.... Most of [Cleveland's] failing 67 percent of children who do not graduate are poor and minority students. They are trapped in a system that continually fails them. The choice program there, begun in 1995, has helped thousands of students to break the bonds of failing schools."
- Libby Sternberg, Executive Director, Vermonters for Better Education: "While our happiness for Cleveland's children is boundless, it is tempered by the fact that Vermonters will not be able to access vouchers to religious schools because of our state Supreme Court's extremely narrow - and we believe faulty - interpretation of the 'compelled support' clause of the Vermont Constitution."
- John McClaughry, President, Ethan Allen Institute: "Government may properly leave it to parents to choose the kind of education that they believe will best help their children grow up into educated, morally strong, and productive citizens of our country, and provide the funds to make those choices effective."
- Institute for Justice Press Release: "This was the Super Bowl for school choice and the kids won. This decision makes good on the promise made nearly 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education."
- The American Legislative Council Press Release: "Todays landmark ruling is a clarion call to Americas state legislatures. Choice in education is now as much a civil right as voting.
- Floridians for School Choice Press Release: "Florida is leading the nation with school choice programs and the Supreme Court just banished the only meaningful objection to them.... The voucher moms just got the backing of the Founding Fathers."
- Black Alliance for Educational Options press release: "This victory is bigger than Cleveland. This is a victory, and a gigantic step, toward giving parents and children a choice--and a chance."
- Howard Fuller, Chairman of BAEO Board: "Supreme Court has helped level the playing field... [but] BAEO is under no illusions that the struggle is over. Those who oppose school choice programs are tenacious."
- Fritz Steiger, President, Children First America: "The Supreme Court decision clearly shows that a program allowing parents to choose between public, private and religious schools is just as constitutional as the GI Bill, which allows soldiers to choose between public, private and religious universities."
- Citizens for Educational Freedom press release: "We finally have a definitive legal statement allowing school voucher programs. There has never been any doubt that they work, but there have been many legal roadblocks. This decision removes most of them."
- Evergreen Freedom Foundation press release: "The Supreme Court decision acknowledges that the right of children to get an excellent education trumps the right of education bureaucrats to protect their turf. The adults running the current monopoly system will just have to move over and make room for kids and their parents."
- Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation press release: "The floodgates are open, and states across the union can introduce voucher programs secure in the knowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court is on their side.
- CATO Institute daily dispatch: "The decision, which upholds the constitutionality of private school scholarships for low-income families, begins to break down the barriers that exist between children and access to high quality schools."
- Excellent Education for Everyone press release: "With the support of the Court's decision, our organization is determined to improve public education in New Jersey's urban districts by empowering parents with school choice.... Empowered parents, who may choose to move their children if they are not satisfied with their education, are the catalyst for public school reform."
- Commonwealth Foundation press release: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Education Emancipation Proclamation and told the National Education Association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association to Let Our Children Go!
- Heritage Foundation press release: "The victory for choice supporters will have a striking legal, practical, and psychological impact. The likely legal effect of the ruling will be a shift in the type of challenges that are brought, from desperate arguments to despicable ones."
- REACH Foundation, Pennsylvania's Grassroots Coalition for School Choice: "It is now incumbent on state legislatures - especially Pennsylvania's -- to enact voucher programs that will allow children to realize their dreams of living productive and fulfilling lives."
- North Carolina Education Alliance statement: "Educational freedom is the new civil right, and now the nation's highest court has opened the door for state initiatives to achieve it."
- Citizens for a Sound Economy press release: "The battle for equal opportunity, freedom and quality education took a step forward, but the war has not been won. Teachers Unions will continue to apply organized pressure on legislatures and school boards all across America to deny parents the choices they want for their children."
- Matt Moore, National Center for Policy Analysis: "With this decision, government bureaucrats can no longer claim constitutional protection when they prevent those with the humblest of means from exercising the same choices most middle and upper-income families make."
- Robert Alt, Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, Ashland University, Ohio: "Today's decision will create a shockwave of activity in legislatures, as parents who have been forced to both fund and send their children to substandard schools demand the newly deemed constitutionally appropriate choice."
- The Heartland Institute press release: "This decision is one of several recent developments, among them Floridas first state-wide voucher plan and Secretary of Education Rod Paiges advocacy of vouchers, showing the growing momentum for the school choice movement.... Change is coming, and not even teacher unions will be able to block the door much longer."
- Mackinac Center for Public Policy's Michigan Education Digest: "This decision is a great victory for the children in our country. It will open the door for more choice programs, allowing parents to choose the best and safest schools for their children." See also commentary by Samuel Walker of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy: "The whole reason there is a Cleveland voucher program is the politically correct intellectual ghetto to which the U.S. government has forced Americans to abandon their children."
- Links to news stories at www.schoolchoiceinfo.org
To: Free the USA
Why not use the liberals court decisions against them?
To: Roscoe
Roscoe, - most of you religious fundmentalists & authoritarian socialists would be happy to see the power of central government used to impose a politicaly correct pro-God agenda on our local school systems.
-- Sorry, - it's just not constitutional.
64
posted on
06/30/2002 2:27:04 PM PDT
by
tpaine
To: tpaine
I disagree.
But, I would be perfectly happy to see public education abolished and that would fix the issue anyway.
To: rwfromkansas
By acknowledging that the liberal court decisions are correct you allow that the Constitution is a living-breathing document that says what ever are leaders momentarily want to pretend. Read the current Chinese Constitution or the old Soviet Union's Constitution, they both grant all of the rights acknowledged by our own Constitution but because the interpretation was flexible and up to those in power their Constitutions provided no protection for individuals. I don't know about you but I want to live in a country where the limits placed on Government by the Constitution mean something.
To: Common Tator
Changing this nation involves 4 steps. Your steps ignore the chicken-and-egg/hole-in-the-bucket aspect of this problem.
None of your steps can be implemented unless the public is re-educated on a very deep level, one that changes thier whole social-political philosophy. A philosophy that is seeded and reinforced by the schools and the tyranny-of-conformity aspect.
I believe that this link must be forcefully broken first, it must be a 'young persons' movement, opposite but simular to that of the 60's.
Secondly, the media must be transformed, especially television. An eradication through humiliation of PC thought followed by a resurrection of the principles of liberty and individual responsibility.
We must STOP wallowing in the low-class abandonment of dignity that pervades the popular culture I term as 'pig-worship'. The value-system must be re-inverted, the insistance on upholding decency must be disengaged from the slanderous depictions as fascism and religious tyranny.
People need to see they are being made into the subhuman, into rutting, mindless, careless unprincipled worms. Worms for the cold machine.
The young people sense this, but they cannot make sense of it. To them the world is in a contest to see who is most crass and vulgar, while at the same time all are contending for the righteousness to judge, the license to hate.
It is a war of 'in-your-face' an orgy of disruption, contention, hate and confusion.
It is the 'cutting-edge' of communism: balkinization through radicalization.
To: Dogrobber
A Constitutional convention now would most likely result in the Liberals ramming through all of their pet "rights" and the removal of the 2nd Amendment.That would start a civil war, without a doubt.
68
posted on
06/30/2002 3:23:27 PM PDT
by
Timesink
To: mindprism.com
None of your steps can be implemented unless the public is re-educated on a very deep level, one that changes thier whole social-political philosophy. You are assuming that people have to be educated to vote the way we want. Nothing could be further from the truth. The nation was very far to the right when the left took over.
In 1932 FDR ran on a reducing the federal budget, cuting taxes, paying down the natinal debt, and cutting the size of the federal government. That is how he got in office.
By 1938 FDR had the congress in his hip pocket and by 1940 he had the supreme court. He tried to pack it but failed. But as they right retired FDR replaces them with good leftists. Which then proceeded to rule as FDR wished.
Education had nothing to do with it and the issues upon which people voted had nothing to do with it.
The only thing new under the son is the history you don't know.
The Democrats got control of the media and the schools as a result of doing my four steps... not before.. Where the hell do you think I got the steps. It is how the Left did it.
You want to do it a%% backwards. Look at the media FDR faced. It was very very very anti Democrat. NBC and ABC were owned by solid Republicans as were over 3/4 of the newspapers in the USA. . Time Inc. was a huge media company. It is Time Warner today. It was owned back then by Henry Luce. Luce a rock ribbed Republican and trashed every demorat that ever lived. His wife Clare was a Republican Congressman. Get a friggin clue. Look at how conservative eduation was when the left took over. Nothing could have been more right wing than education in 1932.
That is what the left faced and they did what I suggested our side do.
You need to study the real world. Not your preconceived notions.
You do the four steps. THAT is how you get to control the media, and education.
To: max61
Why should local school systems be used as indoctrination centers for theological beliefs at all of any kind?. allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights? Why should the Libertarians and Liberals be allowed to initiate force to violate those rights?
70
posted on
06/30/2002 9:59:53 PM PDT
by
Roscoe
To: Roscoe
Why should local school systems be allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights? Local school systems do not have rights. Rights are enjoyed by individuals, not systems. Why should Christian control freaks be allowed to use force to violate rights?. Please explain your point as to why any theologic system should be advocated by government.
---max
71
posted on
07/01/2002 6:26:16 AM PDT
by
max61
To: Roscoe
Why should the Libertarians and Liberals be allowed to initiate force to violate those rights?
Why do you delude yourself that anyone is violating those rights?
72
posted on
07/01/2002 8:41:57 AM PDT
by
tpaine
To: max61
Local school systems do not have rights. Under a Libertarian hegemony, our historic American rights of local self-government would repressed by force. Fortunately for our country, the members of that anarchist cult lack the intelligence and competence to accomplish its loathsome goals.
73
posted on
07/01/2002 9:21:31 AM PDT
by
Roscoe
To: Dogrobber
Very good post. You summed it up quite nicely.
To: tpaine
"According to information, the man who filed the legal suit in June did so against the wishes of his daughter and her mother, both of which identify themselves as Christians and attend a Calvary Chapel."
Libertarians are cheering the use of force to silence the children of the school. The stench of their actual agenda is made clear.
75
posted on
07/01/2002 9:28:01 AM PDT
by
Roscoe
To: Roscoe
Roscoe says:
"Why should the Libertarians and Liberals be allowed to initiate force to violate those rights?"
Why do you delude yourself that anyone is violating those rights?
72 posted on 7/1/02 8:41 AM Pacific by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
To: tpaine
"According to information, the man who filed the legal suit in June did so against the wishes of his daughter and her mother, both of which identify themselves as Christians and attend a Calvary Chapel."
Libertarians are cheering the use of force to silence the children of the school. The stench of their actual agenda is made clear.
75 - roscoe
No, your claim above is delusional.
-- Libertarians support the constitutional separation of church & state, as outlined in the 1st amendment.
76
posted on
07/01/2002 11:08:55 AM PDT
by
tpaine
To: tpaine
Libertarians support the constitutional separation of church & state, as outlined in the 1st amendment. Misquoting and misrepresenting the First Amendment again?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Why should the Libertarians and Liberals be allowed to initiate force to violate those rights?"
77
posted on
07/01/2002 1:17:01 PM PDT
by
Roscoe
To: Common Tator
In 1932 FDR ran on a reducing the federal budget, cuting taxes, paying down the natinal debt, and cutting the size of the federal government. That is how he got in office. I suggest that in 70 years the parties have become sufficiently -- as Dick Morris puts it - 'calcified' -- bonded thoroughly to their 'super-constituencies' -- the unions [not the workers] and big business [not the American economy] for your proposed strategy to work.
A stealth candidate like you depict FDR is no longer a practical possibility. (the media will attack)
Also, part of what I am forced to assume if I concur with you is that democracy in its implementation is largely a snake oil pitch -- while this is true to a degree, it begs the question: 'who is at fault then?'
Who is failing to make the sale? The salesman. The party. And the voter apathy is simply the affirmation that we are 'full up' on the snake oil, thank you very much.
This is why I conclude that the circus must collapse, and people have to return to principle, but you want to go on selling 'black boxes'. Seems Bush has turned out to be quite a black box for many people on this forum.
Not a good way to maintain party loyalty.
To: Roscoe
Libertarians are cheering the use of force to silence the children of the school. The stench of their actual agenda is made clear.
75 - roscoe
No, your claim above is delusional.
-- Libertarians support the constitutional separation of church & state, as outlined in the 1st amendment.
76 posted on 7/1/02 11:08 AM Pacific by tpaine
Misquoting and misrepresenting the First Amendment again?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Why should the Libertarians and Liberals be allowed to initiate force to violate those rights?"
77 - roscoe
They aren't 'violating rights'. This is a figment of your delusionary imaginings, roscoe.
-- You even imagine I 'misquoted
the 1st. -- I didn't, - never have.
But do rave on, ---- please.
79
posted on
07/01/2002 8:01:36 PM PDT
by
tpaine
To: tpaine
They aren't 'violating rights'. No, they're just cheering on their leftist comrades as they silence the voluntary recitation of our nation's Pledge in our public schools. Their Marxist roots are showing.
80
posted on
07/02/2002 12:29:11 AM PDT
by
Roscoe
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