The religious book-banners are coming out in force:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34489884 (which links to) https://popular.info/p/florida-teachers-told-to-remove-books
This might make it a felony for a teacher to participate in the ARI’s books for teachers program.
I assume it will not stand once it goes up the court system. Is there a reasonable danger that it will remain in place and spread?
Does the law apply to private schools or only public schools?
In a mixed economy State run education system, should there be no standards or monitoring of what is being made available to students of any age?
Do you have children?
34 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:
In a mixed economy State run education system, should there be no standards or monitoring of what is being made available to students of any age?
The question is monitoring by whom? Children should be monitored. Certainly a parent should monitor, but someone else with “prevailing” agendas is threatening. When and how does this other source of monitoring get its authority … legitimately/rightfully so?
57 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:
Do you have children?
Sounds like you’re trying to set up an ad hominem.
This isn’t about me.
2 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
The question is monitoring by whom? Children should be monitored. Certainly a parent should monitor, but someone else with “prevailing” agendas is threatening. When and how does this other source of monitoring get its authority … legitimately/rightfully so?
First, I would say that a public education system is ab initio invalid. Any proper education is voluntary and hence not part of any State or Government system. Like so many other things there should be separation of State and education.
Now in a mixed system we find ourselves in, IF one could truly opt out, i.e. get a 100% refund on any and all taxes/fees the public systems takes, one could enroll one’s own children in a private school or otherwise educate one’s child independent of any State intervention. In a private arrangement the parent has the right to remove the child from any school/tutor and schools/tutors offering services would have standards about what they would expose the child to, and there would have to be agreement. Voluntary systems would have free reign politically and religiously and in every respect as long as they do not violate the individual rights of the child or parents.
SINCE most jurisdictions do not allow this, parents are chained… restricted to either use the public system or pay twice (once in taxes for the system and once again for actual education).
IF a parent uses the system, in which they cannot (generally) voluntarily shop around for different teachers, or different schools (geography is limited), that parent MUST rely on the powers that be to ensure proper and appropriate education of the child. A State body must be held accountable to the parents, and if individual agents of the State are abusing or misusing their position to indoctrinate or groom children, with Marxist or oversexualizing/inappropriate materials for a children of a certain age, then those parents are owed a duty to remove those materials and those teachers and ensure it does not happen again.
If you think “teachers” on average as individuals who have gone through teachers college would be best to provide whatever education they deem fit to your kids I would think again… and do some research about what is accepted at most teachers colleges and licensing bodies, politically, morally, and epistemologically…
In a State run system there are generally laws and regulations to ensure the system works as intended, and if the unions, licensing bodies, and colleges and individual teachers are getting out of hand… something has to be done.
EDIT: Again, much of this comes down to whether the law purports to restrict the actions of private entities or whether it is enacted to apply to State Institutions i.e. Public Schools funded by taxpayer money. Update: From what I can tell the law only applies to public schools. This is not bad news, but an attempt to hold government accountable and responsible.
1 hour ago, necrovore said:
Sounds like you’re trying to set up an ad hominem.
This isn’t about me.
I agree.
If it were about you, you would be a parent with a child in school.
Individuals acting as agents of the state are not free agents able to do whatever their fancy tells them.. nor in the presence of naive impressionable children should they be allowed to. Dereliction of their duty which causes harm violates your rights as a parent and your child’s rights.
If you want to protect kids, you want to protect them from the initiation of force, threats, and fraud, same as for an adult. (It also makes sense to protect kids from dangers they may not be able to understand; this is why you don’t allow a baby to play with razor blades. In some cases, it makes sense to protect adults in this way, too, such as by requiring hard hats on a construction site, although adults can usually understand that, but I digress…)
All the Marxist indoctrination and the sexual grooming and so forth depends on force or fraud or both, and the reason it is infesting the schools is precisely because the schools provide the ability to do both to children (and, to some extent, parents).
A separation of state and education is the correct solution, and it would also entail separating education from the legal use of force.
However, the main reason we don’t already have a separation of state and education is religion, because religious people have always believed that morality (and culture) cannot be reached by means of reason (or “reason alone”), but has to be imposed by initiating force – especially upon children. “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” So it is natural to them to impose education by force as well. The problem for them is, the Constitution doesn’t allow it to be specified which religion(s) may be used, so the power of force that was given to public schools can be used for any religion, anything not based on reality, anything that has to be imposed by initiating force or fraud, such as Marxism, or sexual exploitation of the naïve. Religionists respond to this problem by attacking the First Amendment, rather than attacking force and fraud, which they know they need for themselves.
So their argument amounts to saying, “Instead of allowing schools to infringe rights, we should let parents do it!” I disagree. The solution is not to hand the instruments of force back to religionists, even if they happen to be in the majority. I don’t think the solution is to say that religious parents, rather than schools, should have the power to initiate force – which they will do, not only against their own children, but against anybody who might “influence” their children such as by providing a 15-year-old with access to a stack of books that includes The Fountainhead.
Nobody should have the power to initiate force like that.
I’ve recommended reading the novel, given copies of The Fountainhead the novel and lent out a VHS copy of the movie to several people over the years and I’m not a teacher.
The evils of public/state schools notwithstanding, the notion that the presentation of worthwhile ideas should or only does ‘happen’ at school is a cultural artifact that should be removed.
6 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:
. . .
A State body must be held accountable to the parents, and if individual agents of the State are abusing or misusing their position to indoctrinate or groom children, with Marxist or oversexualizing/inappropriate materials for a children of a certain age, then those parents are owed a duty to remove those materials and those teachers and ensure it does not happen again.
. . .
There is no monolithic “the parents”. When I was in grade school and high school, overwhelmingly, parents of children at my public schools would not have wanted the students exposed to the theory of evolution in the classroom. My own parents included. Some parents would have disagreed with the majority. And there were wise educators who would favor teaching objective science to the students, rather than bolstering the dogma of religion (majority, power-wielding religion) in public schools.
My parents certainly would not have wanted students in public schools being exposed to the idea in class that there was something wrong with the position White Supremacy. When I was in high school, and a young practice-teacher selected the recent novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” for our literature class, that was a controversial selection. Tax payers in the Deep South wanted it banned from public school, and there were politicians ready to make hay by cozying up to those bigots. Today, there are some parents, taxpayers and voters, and some politicians who want it kept under wraps that the USA is populated with millions of bigots still committed to White Supremacy (with respect to Black Americans). I grew up in Oklahoma. It was maybe a dozen years ago, thanks to the internet, that I first learned of the White torching of a prospering Black district of commerce in Tulsa, now known as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. More recently, some of my white high school classmates learned of this atrocity, and some, the decent ones, were livid over never hearing of it in our Oklahoma State History class, which the State required for all public high schools. Many of we students were dedicated in the 1960’s to the cause of racial equality under the law and to racial desegregation, notwithstanding the racism of our parents. From my neighborhood outside the city limits, you could go to the nearest city high school, which was being integrated, or you could apply for an exception to attend some unintegrated city high school on account of wanting to take something like German or swimming, which were not offered at the nearer school. Some of the students in our all-white neighborhood insisted, to our parents’ chagrin, on going to the integrated school precisely because it was integrated.
One fortunate situation of students today is the internet for getting information. Even if the schools went back to the way it was in my childhood and youth, where gayness was never mentioned, the young folks could learn what they want to know about it from online information. I could only go to a dictionary or encyclopedia entry, which were really quite opaque. As far as sex and school goes nowadays, whether public or religious, I gather that things are more iron-fisted puritanical threatening due to the meddling from the adults in the society. It is now criminal (fines or imprisonment) for students in high school to have consensual sexual intercourse with each other. That is not at all how it was back in the day. Dating (heterosexual) and steadies were about sexual relations, and adults not your parents could just pound sand.
necrovore had written in response to a post by SL:
Quote
Sounds like you’re trying to set up an ad hominem.
This isn’t about me.
To which SL responded:
Quote
I agree.
If it were about you, you would be a parent with a child in school.
SL, that response indicates you are going with the informal fallacy of relevance that is known as the Circumstantial ad hominem, specifically: because your interlocutor is not a parent with a child in school, his position is false. That does not logically follow.
There are about 16,800 school districts in the USA. Cases of "inappropriate" books in school no doubt get outsized political media attention in comparison to what is mainly underway each day at school in those districts. I doubt the incidence of "inappropriate" books in schools warrants the criminal statute adopted by the Florida county. Sounds more like using one's criminalization powers to make the problem look big enough for outraging voters and getting certain politicians elected on the basis of the hyped issue.
I came to a juncture in life at which I considered becoming a high school teacher, getting qualified for that in physics/chemistry/mathematics. But my life-partner dissuaded me, because of the hot issue at the time of legally barring gay people to be public school teachers. (Gov. Reagan's opposition to that initiative in CA in those years was one shining moment for him in my book.) Criminal penalties for selecting wrong books in teaching sounds like a pretty big discouragement for entering teaching.10 hours ago, Boydstun said:
SL, that response indicates you are going with the informal fallacy of relevance that is known as the Circumstantial ad hominem, specifically: because your interlocutor is not a parent with a child in school, his position is false. That does not logically follow.
Respectfully I disagree.
Necrove made an assertion that something was “bad” news.
In all contexts the “good” must be carefully considered, and especially in the complexities of the context of a quasi-enforced State regime.
Where everyone involved is enslaved to an institution it’s already bad, when changes are made to that system it can get better or worse (still bad). To whom in the context is some change in a thing “good” or “bad”?
I submit it depends on how one’s individual rights are affected.
Properly:
No one has a right to education, or a proper education.
No one has a right to anyone else and certainly not complete strangers, having an education, or a proper education.
No one has a right to teach a captive audience in a State run context whatever you want, in fact no one has a right to teach whatever you want in any privately run context (unless you own the institution yourself)… your boss (if it is not you) will quickly let you know that.
Parents and their children, however, have a right not to be harmed, not to be subjected to indoctrination, or sexualization (at an inappropriate age), not to be misled with extremely dangerous concepts beyond their ability to truly grasp, not to be turned into little Marxists, not to undergo permanent life altering surgery until they have the conceptual capacity and responsibility to make that decision which only comes in adulthood… etc.
Now, parents and children are effectively forced to play in a State regime of education, but they are the one’s whose rights are potentially and in some cases actually violated. Unfortunately, sometimes people who are not in the position to experience the violation of those rights do not fully understand the situation. This you no doubt have experienced throughout your life as well.
My question “Are you a parent” is precisely on point. Particularly given the complexity of the issue and the sheer under-reporting by mainstream media of just how bad schools and teachers colleges have become … they are rife with Marxist and socialist ideology. Parents experience these trends on their children first hand.
As for "Circumstantial ad hominem", in some contexts I can see how that would apply, I am certainly not saying that any non-parent’s reasons are incorrect because they are non-parents, AND I am not stating non-parents could not form logical positions had they the full information parents do, I am of the belief that in many cases, non-parents do not have the information that many parents do.
The technicalities of the law may be awkward, and possibly could be disproportionate, but I think the current reports by progressive media are overstated, and/or some school boards are over-reacting.
Overall, as a first step this is good news. Children CANNOT be subject to the whim of every possible kind of teacher, who more and more might include radically Marxist or sexual-activist views… we can only hope in an invalid mixed enforced State system, semi-sane guidelines are provided within that system to educate (not indoctrinate) children appropriately.
11 hours ago, Boydstun said:
There is no monolithic “the parents”. When I was in grade school and high school, overwhelmingly, parents of children at my public schools would not have wanted the students exposed to the theory of evolution in the classroom. My own parents included. Some parents would have disagreed with the majority. And there were wise educators who would favor teaching objective science to the students, rather than bolstering the dogma of religion (majority, power-wielding religion) in public schools.
My parents certainly would not have wanted students in public schools being exposed to the idea in class that there was something wrong with the position White Supremacy. When I was in high school, and a young practice-teacher selected the recent novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” for our literature class, that was a controversial selection. Tax payers in the Deep South wanted it banned from public school, and there were politicians ready to make hay by cozying up to those bigots. Today, there are some parents, taxpayers and voters, and some politicians who want it kept under wraps that the USA is populated with millions of bigots still committed to White Supremacy (with respect to Black Americans). I grew up in Oklahoma. It was maybe a dozen years ago, thanks to the internet, that I first learned of the White torching of a prospering Black district of commerce in Tulsa, now known as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. More recently, some of my white high school classmates learned of this atrocity, and some, the decent ones, were livid over never hearing of it in our Oklahoma State History class, which the State required for all public high schools. Many of we students were dedicated in the 1960’s to the cause of racial equality under the law and to racial desegregation, notwithstanding the racism of our parents. From my neighborhood outside the city limits, you could go to the nearest city high school, which was being integrated, or you could apply for an exception to attend some unintegrated city high school on account of wanting to take something like German or swimming, which were not offered at the nearer school. Some of the students in our all-white neighborhood insisted, to our parents’ chagrin, on going to the integrated school precisely because it was integrated.
One fortunate situation of students today is the internet for getting information. Even if the schools went back to the way it was in my childhood and youth, where gayness was never mentioned, the young folks could learn what they want to know about it from online information. I could only go to a dictionary or encyclopedia entry, which were really quite opaque. As far as sex and school goes nowadays, whether public or religious, I gather that things are more iron-fisted puritanical threatening due to the meddling from the adults in the society. It is now criminal (fines or imprisonment) for students in high school to have consensual sexual intercourse with each other. That is not at all how it was back in the day. Dating (heterosexual) and steadies were about sexual relations, and adults not your parents could just pound sand.
Quasi-enforced State Education is wrong. All who are trapped by the system have to deal with the fact of its existence.
The main problem with the Socialist Progressives, is that they cannot differentiate between cultural and societal injustice and the political violation of individual rights. Lying is an injustice, prejudice is an injustice, racism, sexism, sexual orientationism, generally otherisms are injustices… and in a free society some people would not be able to shop in certain places or be able to buy any cake one wishes from every baker.
Whether or not force can lead to an acceleration of the correction of these cultural “inadequacies”, violation of rights is never right, no matter how impatient the progressive activists are. In a proper society, we pay for freedom with the realization such things may never wholly disappear.
Schools are progressively teaching socialist and progressively flawed ideas… churning out little leftists like never before across all western democracies.
So here, we have in Florida, like so many other places, a State run propaganda and indoctrination machine, with radical elements running about. Not everyone agrees what should be taught because everyone has a different poison… like every religion is different. The first step is to reduce indoctrination and concentrate on education… and if too much poison is found in any particular area… stick to teaching the unpoisoned ones. The State should be giving up power not taking more power… and so parents might have to address some areas themselves as they see fit… but that is the ideal case anyway. The State has no role to play in raising children, or pushing culture “forward”, no more than they would in a proper society without a State education system.
2 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:
I submit it depends on how one’s individual rights are affected.
That’s like saying you have no right to object to state-sanctioned murder, unless you’re the one being murdered.
If rights are being infringed, the solution is not to infringe rights “in the other direction.” It’s to stop the infringement.
Giving the State the power to make lists of “approved” books – and to enforce that list with the threat of felony charges – is a very bad idea. (If the list is allowed to stand, the Left may themselves take control of it someday… and what then?)
21 minutes ago, necrovore said:
the Left may themselves take control of it someday… and what then?)
Hopefully this back and forth will become untenable after a while and the same thing will happen as what hopefully happens throughout government, they get out of areas the left and right disagree on… and leave people alone. The best anyone can hope for a State run system everyone participates in without choice, is that anything taught there consists of what both sides agree should be taught there. If that breaks down hopefully sanity will prevail and the education system will be set free of any government involvement.
5 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:
Hopefully this back and forth will become untenable after a while and the same thing will happen as what hopefully happens throughout government, they get out of areas the left and right disagree on…
It looks like, over the past few decades, we have been moving in the opposite direction and polarizing more and more.
Also, the argument of “Do you have kids? Because if you don’t, you aren’t arguing from a love of your kids the way I am arguing from the love of mine” is ultimately an emotionalist argument, not just an ad hominem. Such arguments are favored by people of faith but are not acceptable as motivations for government policy.
5 minutes ago, necrovore said:
It looks like, over the past few decades, we have been moving in the opposite direction and polarizing more and more.
Also, the argument of “Do you have kids? Because if you don’t, you aren’t arguing from a love of your kids the way I am arguing from the love of mine” is ultimately an emotionalist argument, not just an ad hominem. Such arguments are favored by people of faith but are not acceptable as motivations for government policy.
You missed, or are completely ignoring my comments above. That is your choice.
Invoking religious people repeatedly and exclusively as though this issue spontaneously arose from that corner’s general desire to control what people get to read, as though there is no other relevant background, nothing that came before and that explains and lead to this, is also a fallacy.
18 hours ago, Boydstun said:
I doubt the incidence of “inappropriate” books in schools warrants the criminal statute adopted by the Florida county.
Having looked into it, lived it with my daughters in school and discussed it with many parents, I do not share your doubt.