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Land of the free?
ChadTower:
Whether or not he had a point, I admire is articulation and writing skills, assuming he wrote this. I know professional writers who cannot write like this.
RetroJames:
--- Quote from: 1hookedspacecadet on March 02, 2005, 03:31:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: fredster on March 02, 2005, 01:35:12 pm ---http://hq.protestwarrior.com/?page=/featured/PHS/PHS.php
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Smart kid to be sure, but what was his point?
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I though about these two cases last night and came to the realization that they are very much the same.
In each, one or more kids decided to act out against what they felt were oppressive environments.
In one it was a possibly overbearing and dictatorial teacher, in the other it another teacher who apparently makes her political beliefs known to the class, let's say for the sake of argument she is overbearing in her assertions.
Both groups of students essentially setup the teachers.
In one, a student refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance knowing this would get a rise out of the teacher. They also filmed the fun.
In another, the students posted flyers containing content they knew they would most likely get a rise out of their teacher. They took photos of the fun.
My contention is that each of these has very little to do with issues, i.e. freedom of speech, religion, or oppresive political diatribe. This has very much to do with the basic human, and especially teenage, desire NOT to be told what to do.
Teenagers also have a great penchant for being jerky and I would tend to throw both of these groups of students in the same bucket.
Neither actually addressed thier specific concerns appropriately IMHO. The students in the pledge video could have (assuming they didn't) talk to the teacher, parents, prinicple, etc). The students with the flyers might have confronted the alleged "left-leaning" teacher and voiced thier opinion that her opinion was too prevalent in class.
Another similarity is that each were kind of spitting on those who have paid dearly for protesting truly unreasonable opression.
I tend not to believe the guy in the video really has a concrete opinion one way or the other about reciting the pledge, and the kid with the protest warrior flyers was not trying to say something specific with the content of those flyers. He was just putting them up to cause a stir, and probably impress his friends in school or online.
</$0.02>
crashwg:
--- Quote from: 1hookedspacecadet on March 03, 2005, 01:56:47 pm ---I tend not to believe the guy in the video really has a concrete opinion one way or the other about reciting the pledge, and the kid with the protest warrior flyers was not trying to say something specific with the content of those flyers. He was just putting them up to cause a stir, and probably impress his friends in school or online.
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I am not aware of any laws that state one has to prove their reasons for protest. The only thing that matters in these cases are constitutional rights.
The student has the RIGHT not to stand for the pledge.
According to the US Suppreme Court, students have the RIGHT to voice their political opinions in school. [Tinker vs. Des Moines]
And most importantly of all, a teacher has NO RIGHT to pull a chair from under someone! Anywhere other than a school and nobody would even be questioning it... Imagine for one second that someone where to pull a chair from bellow a police officer or the president of the United States, I guarantee you that that person would be thrown to the ground, arrested, tried and convicted of assault! A student of a public highschool has all the same rights as them and should be treated just as respectfully.
mr.Curmudgeon:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on March 02, 2005, 03:45:19 pm ---Whether or not he had a point, I admire is articulation and writing skills, assuming he wrote this.
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The Protest Warriors are a large group of Conservative holligans. It's more than likely this kid didn't write this stuff, nor plan his "operation" without the help of numerous highly skilled, right-wing politicos. It seems to me to be a staged event meant to further the organizations claims about "liberal bias" in school.
I also wonder why you'd claim that the teacher in the video was "set up", since the kids provoked him in order to get it on video, yet you won't bat an eyelash at these Protest Warriors, who've obviously staged an event, and provoked the school in order to get photos and post it all over the web? Would you agree that this seems like a setup as well?
--- Quote ---I know professional writers who cannot write like this.
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Even some that are in the WH press corp, moonlighting as male escorts!!
mrC
RetroJames:
--- Quote from: mr.Curmudgeon on March 03, 2005, 09:08:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: ChadTower on March 02, 2005, 03:45:19 pm ---Whether or not he had a point, I admire is articulation and writing skills, assuming he wrote this.
--- End quote ---
The Protest Warriors are a large group of Conservative holligans. It's more than likely this kid didn't write this stuff, nor plan his "operation" without the help of numerous highly skilled, right-wing politicos. It seems to me to be a staged event meant to further the organizations claims about "liberal bias" in school.
I also wonder why you'd claim that the teacher in the video was "set up", since the kids provoked him in order to get it on video, yet you won't bat an eyelash at these Protest Warriors, who've obviously staged an event, and provoked the school in order to get photos and post it all over the web? Would you agree that this seems like a setup as well?
--- Quote ---I know professional writers who cannot write like this.
--- End quote ---
Even some that are in the WH press corp, moonlighting as male escorts!!
mrC
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Who me?