— from a few years ago.<\/p>\n
Controversy has followed a scheduled “back-to-school” speech U.S. President George W. Bush is set to deliver on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A small group of protesters gathered outside Wakefield High School in the Washington suburb of Arlington as the president’s motorcade was arriving for his midday speech.<\/p>\n
One sign read, “Mr. President, stay away from our kids.”<\/p>\n
The seemingly innocuous speech welcoming children back after the summer break has been overshadowed by the politics surrounding the “No Child Left Behind” debate that has gripped the country’s attention.<\/p>\n
In the speech, scheduled to begin a little after noon ET, the president will speak directly to children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school, the White House says. An advance copy of the speech suggests he will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.<\/p>\n
When plans for the speech were first unveiled, it was accompanied by a set of directives to schools opting to broadcast the speech. The directives concerned ways to get students to write essays about how to help the president do his job.<\/p>\n
Critics saw that as political interference, even as the administration dismissed it as a harmless way of helping schools in their civics curricula.<\/p>\n
His opponents further suggested the address to schoolchildren was part of his strategy to overhaul the education system in the United States. That divisive debate has dominated the nation’s attention all summer.<\/p>\n
“President Bush has turned to American’s children to spread his conservative lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves,” said the Florida Democrat chair, adding, “It’s inappropriate to use taxpayer dollars to broadcast White House politics into the nation’s school system.”<\/p>\n
The White House attempted to put cold water on the controversy by releasing the speech without any such directives on Monday.<\/p>\n
But based on the presence of protestors, that may not have been enough to quell outrage.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
No, this never happened. But I wonder if it had, if the people now opposed to having this speech in schools would instead have been accepting of its arrival. Similarly, would they have brushed off the protests as “typical liberal soft-hearted nonsense?” It seems to me, this issue has nothing to do with any policy or rational belief against indoctrination. After all, I do not remember hearing a “liberal” agenda telling children to think like them or they are somehow unpatriotic, weak Americans.<\/p>\n
Rather, I have heard an emphasis on individuality, even on sedition, if one were to take after Thomas Jefferson. Would such encouragement be responsible, or “better?” I am in no position to say. But I can say that \u00e2\u20ac\u201d empirically, based on evidence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d one group is more noted for their ability and willingness to indoctrinate. And the other is not.<\/p>\n
I suppose which is which changes based on your individual perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
— from a few years ago. Controversy has followed a scheduled “back-to-school” speech U.S. President George W. Bush is set to deliver on Tuesday. A small group of protesters gathered outside Wakefield High School in the Washington suburb of Arlington as the president’s motorcade was arriving for his midday speech. One sign read, “Mr. President, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73iP8-ht","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":182,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=182","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":0},"title":"See? Even (some) conservatives see the evils.","date":"9\/8\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"From Andrew Sullivan, a thinking conservative, the only type I can respect anymore (link stolen from tremble and proliferated here): A SUPERB SPEECH: It was the second best speech I have ever heard George W. Bush give - intelligently packaged, deftly structured, strong and yet also revealing of the president's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":928,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=928","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":1},"title":"McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: A Letter to Prince Regarding the Crying of Doves and the Fiasco That Resulted From the Presentation of a Speech on That Topic.","date":"1\/13\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A Letter to Prince Regarding the Crying of Doves and the Fiasco That Resulted From the Presentation of a Speech on That Topic.. I suppose I should type something here, but really, just read it. All the way through.","rel":"","context":"In "Found Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":181,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=181","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":2},"title":"Vigilante justice.","date":"9\/8\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it punk or is it puritanical? On my walk into work from my car this morning, I passed a pickup truck parked near MIAD. It had two bumper stickers: \"Marriage: One Man, One Woman\" and (another that I will paraphrase because my memory is failing me) \"Abortion: Two patients\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":733,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=733","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":3},"title":"Obama speaks well, have you heard?","date":"3\/18\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoyed this speech.","rel":"","context":"In "Found Art"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":943,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=943","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":4},"title":"Elizabeth Gilbert on genius | Video on TED.com","date":"2\/9\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Not surprising that TED is still awesome. EDIT: I don't know her other work. This was still a good speech.","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":660,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=660","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":5},"title":"Women, Where We Are Going","date":"6\/25\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw a performance of this in Chicago over the weekend. This monologue was particularly well done and made me think of some of the things Most-Honoured Girlfriend has intimated in moments of weakness that became moments of strength. Women, Where We Are Going from The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}