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Is it possible that in the distant future, President George W. Bush, the 43rd president, might be viewed as one of the greatest American Presidents?

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Get Some Priorities

Comment comment by Anonymous on 23 August 2006

I understand that you've got to teach kids about freedom of speech, but why is everyone so obsessed with it right now, especially to the point that it's detrimental to a very important issue - patriotism. The U.S. is in a war, a huge global war, against terrorists who absolutely hate America. Freedom of speech may be important, but there are some even larger issues right now and it seems like it would be better to instruct kids about that right without attacking the symbol of that right. Kids need to learn to respect that flag, and while they might have the right to burn it, it doesn't mean you should. It's also pretty damn irresponsible for a teacher to be goading his kids into activities like this when there are perfectly acceptable alternatives. You don't have to burn the flag to teach freedom of speech! Kids need to learn that America, as represented by that flag, is a great place that guarantees their freedom of speech, not that they have a right to piss all over a symbol that's been the hope of milllions of people all over this world. What happened to everybody's sense of decency?

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RE: Get Some Priorities by gheorghe :: NR5

I think it depends on the class dynamics. It could be that the teacher is trying to capture the attention of the class, and in many ways it probably did, sparking a wider discussion in the process.

Be careful with patriotismOne cannot hijack this concept. For some, burning the flag (outside the classroom context) might be the patriotic thing to do - protesting - say - the War in Vietnam (which all history books, to include the military ones, deemed a mistake and a rather black mark for the United States). At the time, I am certain they were painted as unpatriotic by those in power, for whom patriotism was the equivalent of blindly trusting authority and elites. Because they were right, weren't they?

Same discussion would apply today and at any point in the history. Keeping in mind that politicians would pretty much do anything for votes, we should be careful before falling in the ideological wars on both sides of the spectrum sparked solely for the politican's own benefit.

Posted 23 August 2006, Hide, Parent, Reply