What has the country come to when
 

...schools and parents will not allow the students/children to hear a speech by their President...directed towards the students?

Wow - I actually agree with Pathfinder. Crazy.

Just another manufactured ploy to distract from the health care crisis, and idiot news outlets allowed it to succeed by being unable to avoid feeding the trolls and dedicate so much airtime to it.

There was a time when such a thing would have been unthinkable.

Your thread seems a little hypocritical in light of your posting in the religious thread about people having the right to think and do what they want without some asshole interfering or belittling them.

hmmmm....

:winkwink:

Although I dont understand why any parent would want to keep their child from listening to the presidents speech, I *do* understand their right to.

I understand the same with private schools. Private / Parochial (eesh, spelling) schools are about parents sending their kids somewhere that enforces their ideals - religious, political - whatever.

What I don't understand AT ALL is how a public school gets the right in any way, shape or form to make the decision to censor the presidents speech. To decide not to show the speech to their entire student body, therefore making the choice for the parent.

I think this is BULLSHIT. They are PUBLIC schools, paid for by tax dollars. (heh, insert socialist comment here) - they should not have the right to deny children en-masse access to this content.

Just my .02 anyways.

twinkley

Please point out anywhere...where I stated that they don't have the right and please point out anywhere where I am belittling them.

I asked what has the country come to?

Hey genius... point out where I said YOU said THAT in THIS thread. I was talking about the other thread, but you are questioning someone's belief, albeit in a half assed way so as not to seem too critical, just as the supposed "asshole" you pointed out in the other thread.

Your thread title somehow implies that their thoughts are wrong and the country is suffering somehow... Sounds about the same to me, but then again I am quite a bit smarter than your average bear.

hmmm....

:winkwink:

"but then again I am quite a bit smarter than your average bear."...well genius...you at the least have a consensus of one...yourself.

You are too easy... It was a slight jest at your bear story. It is no wonder everyone bashes you on this board and I highly doubt my consensus stops at such a lowly number in regards to you.

:1orglaugh

Well I am satisfied that you think you are quite the "jester" and I am equally satisfied that you are a troll...just a troll...and when I identify a troll...I will no longer respond...so you are now dismissed...thank you very much.

Well I have been here 7 years and have 1,250 posts... Yep I am a troll, but you have 15,418 posts? Hmmmm.... I troll no one, merely point out facts and enjoy debate. You obviously think a troll is anyone who disagrees with you or points out your hypocrisy. Be a child if you want, makes no difference to me.

Feel free to peruse through my meager posts and you would clearly see that I am not a troll.

:helpme

Smoke and mirrors. :2 cents:

I kind of feel like it was a play by the republicans to try to regain the base. They have lost hold of some of the religious right (about 20-25% of them voted for Obama in the last election) and I think they are starting to see the religious right begin to change in a way that will not allow them to be reliably counted in elections. So they have embraced the far right liberal haters. These are the people who are saying the Obama isn't a citizen and he saying he is trying to indoctrinate out kids into his socialist mindset and that he is going to fund abortions with tax dollars. They embrace these people because the people are now starting to make up their base.

Instead of trying to take a constructive role in the government the republicans have chosen to take the stance of "we are against it." Basically if Obama and the democrats are for it, they are against it. Then they just sit back and hope it fails so they can take back power. It worked for the democrats when the republicans held the senate house and white house. After 6 years they had become bloated, corrupt and pitiful, now the republicans are sitting back hoping the same will happen to the democrats while embracing the fringe so that when it does they will have a base electorate already in place.

the original version of his planned speech was very political. thats what pissed people off. the speech he gave was VERY watered down and they cut most of the politics out of it.

funny people jump right to arguing about right wing agendas and they don't even understand the issue to begin with.

who cares if it was political or not.
figure if the president wants to address the students of schools that are either public or recieve funding by the government, then the president should get to. no little notes from the parents, no debate on the issue. suck the shit up and deal with it. this would also go for any party when they hold the office.

When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/08/09 7:11 AM EDT


The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit. "The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush's appearance.

On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. "The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC," Ford began. "As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event."

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. "The speech itself and the use of the department's funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal," the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. "The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda."

That didn't stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it "cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers' money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. -- while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters."

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush's speech itself, like Obama's today, was entirely unremarkable. "Block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart," the president told students. "If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they're stuck in a dead end job. Don't let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

yeah.... right. of course.

sure...

and it was George Bush Jr talking to students about how they should support the president, you same fucking idiots would be making comparisons to Joseph Stalin

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

and by the way... schools receive "funding from the government" and uhmm... where does this "funding" come from?

CORRECT!!! the money comes from the same people who have strong opinions about what should be going on in their schools.

since you and most liberals don't seem to know or care... the government only has money because hardworking people go out and earn money, create business, create jobs and pay taxes so they have money. government doesn't earn money. its not "the governments money"

nope figure even that idiot should have the right. president is president. not that i really care for any of them.
i did though never said anything about how they should support the president. i just said that the president should have the right to address the students of public schools.

Have you seen the original text of the speech? I haven't and from what I understand it was never released.

As far as I knew the speech wasn't even released until yesterday.

That is the way I understand it as well, but Pleasure Pays seems to have read the "original" version of the speech and said it was very political and that it was only changed after pressure from republicans. I'm just curious how he knows that.