Cancelling Dr. Seuss

[Wahoo Redux]

If I wanted to go ahead and lose my lunch, I might read the homosexualist propaganda books in question.

So the mask just slips.

Dude, get help.

But the question remaineth-- do parents, via their elected representatives and the educators hired thereby, have the right to prevent indoctrinative material fundamentally hostile to the values of said parents from appearing in their children's school library, or do they not?  Why or why not?

About the same proportion that parents have the right to remove books about Emmet Till or Martin Luther King.  About the same as we value the values of the KKK or Storm Front.

The librarians have a job.  We should respect their professional opinions as we hope people will respect ours in our own fields of expertise.  For some reason, certain people seem to think their own personal prejudices and religious values should dictate what other people think and do and then are hypocritically furious when their values are challenged.

About the same level of authority that any parent can break the law just because they don't like something.

About equal to the parents who actually DO WANT said material about same-parent households in the school library because it reflects their values and the lessons they want to inculcate in their children.

So no, your whackjob bigot parents cannot dictate what is in the school library.

As to lying in polls, one would just have to be a dunce to disbelieve that such actions occur. 

Prove it.  One would have to be a dunce to believe anything you say at this point.

Hell, I read several articles in objective news sources just around this fall's elections, lamenting this problem, something which has apparently become increasingly problematic to pollsters, who do not know what if anything they could do about it.   

Cite them.

And even if this is true, so what?  Why should we care what weak-minded, cowardly people think?

If I knew the solution, I would share it... but perhaps the better solution is to eliminate polls altogether, which on a whole host of issues and political races really do not seem to do much good, to have anything worthwhile to offer.

In other words, eliminate anything that tells you what you don't want to hear.  Typical.

It's time to go take a nap on your My Pillow.  You've lost this particular battle, kay.  You will have to find some other pathological hatred now.

[Wahoo Redux]

If I wanted to go ahead and lose my lunch, I might read the homosexualist propaganda books in question.

Heather has Two Mommies will do that to you?

I think the bigger, and more important, issue is the casting of parents who don't have the same ideology as the educational decision-makers as hostile bigots.

You may call them whatever you like.  I call them hostile bigots.  That's a good way of putting it, actually.

A decade or two back, there was a push to deal with school bullying, which was long overdue. It is appropriate for students to learn to treat everyone with respect.  This does not require any specific ideological view about all kinds of matters of personal identity. The change since then has been to try to root out wrongthink, rather than to regulate behaviour. This is not only worrying, but it is extremely arrogant to suggest that educators or administrators, who don't necessarily even have children of their own, know more about what is in childrens' best interests than their own parents.

BTW, your parents and admin who are removing Queer, There and Everywhere-----that's not an attempt by Orwellian Ministers of Propaganda to remove "wrongthink?" 

Furthermore, given the less--than-stellar educational outcomes in schools, students need much more focus on academic skills as it is; time spent on political indoctrination is only going to make their academic development suffer.

We're talking four books, Marshy, in the library.  Kids should know about the world.  Keep your "political indoctrination" out of their lives.

[Wahoo Redux]

Please. It is a book. In the library. Not a curriculum, not required reading.

If teachers ever read to their classes, and anything in the library is fair game, then being in the library does, in effect, make it "required reading" or "curriculum".

No.

Now you are just looking for straws to justify your prejudice.

Imagine how people viewed interracial marriage seventy or even fifty years ago...or even now.  I am betting their are a number of people in Texas who view your marriage as illegitimate.  I know there would be everywhere I've ever lived, and that's a fair number of places by now.

Your head could also be on the chopping block, Marshy and Mrs. Marshy.

[kaysixteen]

I am not sure that this is useful, but what the heck.

1) Not for the first time, Wahoo here has exhorted me to 'get help'.  Unless I greatly misinterpret his meaning, he is suggesting that my opposition to homosexuality is indicative of some sort of mental illness, for which the potential solution is some sort of psychotherapy.   Obviously if I have erred in so interpreting, I ask forgiveness and for an explanation correcting my error.   But assuming that I am not misinterpreting  here, I ask him to tell me a) what mental illness do I need help for, an b) what psychotherapeutic practices might provide such assistance?

2) Librarians working in schools are indeed school employees, and are not hired to simply be given carte blanche to choose (and to NOT choose) whatever books they do and do not want to choose.   So on what proper criteria, and by who/ what authority, can and should the selection decisions of such librarians be limited/ overseen/ controlled?   I again hearken back to the analogy of the Latin teacher, who does not get carte blanche to select whatever textbooks suit his fancy-- I have actually had to use *bad textbooks*, operating under bad pedagogical principles, and just have had to make do.

3) Unless Wahoo really is a dunce, he has to acknowledge that people can and do lie on polls, and, more importantly perhaps, that it is indeed impossible for any pollster or subsequent scholarly researcher, to demonstrate that any given pollee has actually lied in any given circumstance.   And, well, pollsters do recognize this difficulty but really cannot do anything about it.  And, as the 'Yes Prime Minister' snippet I referenced pointed out, polls can indeed be manipulated by the way one phrases the question, and/or, by the way one selects the pollees.   And, of course, even the best and most impartial polls that also reveal a clear polling preference for any particular viewpoint on any particular issue should not necessarily be used as a cudgel by any politicians to simply do in accordance with the majority viewpoint in said poll, but rather real statesmanship requires political leaders to act in accordance with best practices, regardless of the popularity of said actions.

[Wahoo Redux]

I am not sure that this is useful, but what the heck.

Unless I greatly misinterpret his meaning, he is suggesting that my opposition to homosexuality is indicative of some sort of mental illness, for which the potential solution is some sort of psychotherapy....But assuming that I am not misinterpreting  here, I ask him to tell me a) what mental illness do I need help for, an b) what psychotherapeutic practices might provide such assistance?

Rage.  Obsession.  Repression perhaps?  Not sure.  You just come across as very unbalanced.

2) Librarians working in schools are indeed school employees, and are not hired to simply be given carte blanche to choose (and to NOT choose) whatever books they do and do not want to choose.   

None of us have carte blanche----even pornographers have to obey the law----but this is particularly  true for those of us in education.

But we are talking four books written for children and adolescents about important issues facing their world.  That is within school librarians' purview.  They were doing their jobs as they saw fit.

Unless Wahoo really is a dunce, he has to acknowledge that people can and do lie on polls,

You've tried the stupid "dunce" shtick once already.  It does not work.

A dunce comes to a message board, makes a claim, claims to have read evidence for the claim in  "objective" publications, cannot cite said publications, and then admits there is no way to prove hu's claim.

[marshwiggle]

I think the bigger, and more important, issue is the casting of parents who don't have the same ideology as the educational decision-makers as hostile bigots.

You may call them whatever you like.  I call them hostile bigots.  That's a good way of putting it, actually.

It seems to me that higher ed is really failing on many fronts, the adjunct army in particular.  And, as Big-D points out, there is no real fix for it.  America has the wealth (look at how much the new B-21 stealth bomber costs), it just wants to lowball education and then blame colleges for the rising costs of doing business. 

Is it possible there's some correlation between the support people have for funding of post-secondary education and their being identified as hostile bigots for their questions about public school?

A decade or two back, there was a push to deal with school bullying, which was long overdue. It is appropriate for students to learn to treat everyone with respect.  This does not require any specific ideological view about all kinds of matters of personal identity. The change since then has been to try to root out wrongthink, rather than to regulate behaviour. This is not only worrying, but it is extremely arrogant to suggest that educators or administrators, who don't necessarily even have children of their own, know more about what is in childrens' best interests than their own parents.

BTW, your parents and admin who are removing Queer, There and Everywhere-----that's not an attempt by Orwellian Ministers of Propaganda to remove "wrongthink?" 

Just to be clear; I never considered putting my kids in Christian school, since I had no interest in that kind of indoctrination from that side of the political spectrum either.

Busybodies who feel the need to try to tell children what to believe are dangerous, regardless of what specific ideology they espouse, because once they feel justified in doing it for some cause or other the bar is vastly lowered for the next "cause". Whatever hobby horse they have becomes something to pass on.

Furthermore, given the less--than-stellar educational outcomes in schools, students need much more focus on academic skills as it is; time spent on political indoctrination is only going to make their academic development suffer.

We're talking four books, Marshy, in the library.  Kids should know about the world.  Keep your "political indoctrination" out of their lives.

As I indicated earlier, I'm not too concerned about books being "in the library"; I'm much more concerned about books teachers read to their kids or require the kids to read.

[jimbogumbo]

Almost all the books in the Texas Superintendent case were in the middle and high school collections. Kay keeps moving the goal post from what happened to the "sexual images" to elementary kids, and now his weak stomach for anything gay.

Kay: this was also one of the books that were removed. No sex at all, just good old fashioned bigotry: https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-Political-Alternator-Books/dp/1541597079

[Wahoo Redux]

Is it possible there's some correlation between the support people have for funding of post-secondary education and their being identified as hostile bigots for their questions about public school?

Ha!  Nice try.  Not.

We're just talking about prejudice here, plain and simple.

Busybodies who feel the need to try to tell children what to believe are dangerous, regardless of what specific ideology they espouse, because once they feel justified in doing it for some cause or other the bar is vastly lowered for the next "cause". Whatever hobby horse they have becomes something to pass on.

Been saying that all along.

Sure you want people weeding school libraries for wrongthink, Marshy?

As I indicated earlier, I'm not too concerned about books being "in the library"; I'm much more concerned about books teachers read to their kids or require the kids to read.

Okay.  So why are you posting on this thread?

What books are kids being forced to read that you object to?

[ciao_yall]

Busybodies who feel the need to try to tell children what to believe are dangerous, regardless of what specific ideology they espouse, because once they feel justified in doing it for some cause or other the bar is vastly lowered for the next "cause". Whatever hobby horse they have becomes something to pass on.

Nobody is telling these kids to agree or disagree with what they are reading. They are just telling the stories of people whose experiences and lives vary from one another.

How is this a problem?

[ciao_yall]

I am not sure that this is useful, but what the heck.

1) Not for the first time, Wahoo here has exhorted me to 'get help'.  Unless I greatly misinterpret his meaning, he is suggesting that my opposition to homosexuality is indicative of some sort of mental illness, for which the potential solution is some sort of psychotherapy.   Obviously if I have erred in so interpreting, I ask forgiveness and for an explanation correcting my error.   But assuming that I am not misinterpreting  here, I ask him to tell me a) what mental illness do I need help for, an b) what psychotherapeutic practices might provide such assistance?

Unless you plan on having sex with the person in question, what business of yours is their sexual orientation?

[kaysixteen]

What?   I have asked this, ahem, individual, who continues to avoid my arguments, and who has made the hideous claim that I am mentally ill, because I am evincing opposition to homosexuality.  I am opposed to homosexuality.   Just like most Americans, although these days many have largely been browbeaten into toleration for alternative marriage relationship schemes (just not ones liberals do not like, such as polygamy), and do not want to let anyone know that they still hold to views that folks like wahoo disapprove of.   Look what he has accused me of, mental illness resulting from my views here... it is no slippery slope argument to recognize that the potential misuse of mental health diagnoses to police what marshy rightly calls wrongthink is, beyond just being bad in and of itself, fraught with loads of potential extremely doubleplusungood outcomes.

Now I just have to reiterate that it is absolutely within the purview of educational admins and school boards to reflect the broad mores of their communities and prevent exposure of children to literature that those parents disapprove of on moral grounds, esp since those same librarians are almost without any question whatsover not stocking those school libraries with literature that actually, ahem, does advocate the sexual views of the parents in question.

The reluctance of this individual to acknowledge the obvious (but empirically unprovable) reality that people can and do lie on polls is just lame.

[Wahoo Redux]

What?   I have asked this, ahem, individual, who continues to avoid my arguments, and who has made the hideous claim that I am mentally ill, because I am evincing opposition to homosexuality.

What arguments have I "avoided?"  I've actually quoted and responded to your posts point-by-point as I am now.

You're the one who ignored the articles I posted about children raised by same-sex parents who are as well-adjusted as children raised by traditional families. 

You ignored my challenge to you to post your reams of scholarship indicating that children raised by same-sex couples have social problems.

You are the one who pretended the excerpts I posted from the Bible were not there. 

You will ignore them again after I am done posting tonight.   Ignored all these.

Pretend you did not.

I told you why I suspect you are at least unhinged.

If you don't like something, you just pretend it is not there, huh?

I am opposed to homosexuality.   

You've got a screw loose about LGBTQ people.

Just like most Americans, although these days many have largely been browbeaten into toleration for alternative marriage relationship schemes

Prove it.

Cite your sources.

(just not ones liberals do not like, such as polygamy), and do not want to let anyone know that they still hold to views that folks like wahoo disapprove of.   

So conservatives are okay with polygamy? 

Personally, I'm not opposed to polygamy.  It's not for me, but as long as there are consenting adults, that is their business.

Homosexuality and polygamy are nothing new to humanity.  There is a fair amount of polygamy in the Bible.  And somehow the species has continued----no one is marrying llamas or basketballs or whatever. 

Look what he has accused me of, mental illness resulting from my views here...

Feeling victimized?  Don't like it when you are accused of being weird, outside the norm, or mentally ill?  Feel that I have "misused a mental health diagnosis?"  Taste of your own medicine bitter in your mouth?

Gosh, imagine who LGBTQ people feel when they listen to someone like you.

I sure touched a nerve with that one, didn't I?

it is no slippery slope argument to recognize that the potential misuse of mental health diagnoses to police what marshy rightly calls wrongthink is, beyond just being bad in and of itself, fraught with loads of potential extremely doubleplusungood outcomes.

So?  Stop trying to change the way people think.  I DO see a slippery slope. 

Now I just have to reiterate that it is absolutely within the purview of educational admins and school boards to reflect the broad mores of their communities and prevent exposure of children to literature that those parents disapprove of on moral grounds, esp since those same librarians are almost without any question whatsover not stocking those school libraries with literature that actually, ahem, does advocate the sexual views of the parents in question.

Now I just have to reiterate that the law applies to all communities in the United States no matter how narrow-minded the parents might be.  I also have to reiterate that the parents who WANT those books on the shelves have a right to have them on the selves, and I have to reiterate that it was the professional decision of the librarians, vested with the responsibility to stock the school library, to stock those books.

Go ahead and pretend I did not answer your arguments.

And, ahem, why are you so hung up on sex?  In your world, is that the only think that defines people?  Do you think that this is a normal, healthy, sane hang-up you've got here?

The reluctance of this individual to acknowledge the obvious (but empirically unprovable) reality that people can and do lie on polls is just lame.

And THIS is weird too.

Prove it.  I see nothing "obvious" about your very lame claim.  (This, BTW, clearly proves that I answered your arguments----I just don't buy that you've actually made any "arguments."  For instance, how can something be "obvious" but not "empirically provable?"  Think about it for just a second...and then admit that you made that up because you don't want to accept the changes in society.)

I think I am wasting my time on you.  You've already lost.  It will take a generation or so, but your prejudice is dying in the world.  Cling to your bigotry----it's not unhealthy.

[marshwiggle]

Is it possible there's some correlation between the support people have for funding of post-secondary education and their being identified as hostile bigots for their questions about public school?

Ha!  Nice try.  Not.

Any commentary I've ever seen about controversy about things like CRT, gender theory, etc. in elementary schools ties those things back to humanities at universities, where the school teachers learned them. Nobody ever claims these were just ideas they picked up on Tik Tok.

The public (whether they agree with these ideas or not) understand where they came from.

Busybodies who feel the need to try to tell children what to believe are dangerous, regardless of what specific ideology they espouse, because once they feel justified in doing it for some cause or other the bar is vastly lowered for the next "cause". Whatever hobby horse they have becomes something to pass on.

Been saying that all along.

Sure you want people weeding school libraries for wrongthink, Marshy?

As I indicated earlier, I'm not too concerned about books being "in the library"; I'm much more concerned about books teachers read to their kids or require the kids to read.

Okay.  So why are you posting on this thread?

Because it is unlikely that many books will stay "in the library". There is a circular argument:
"Having books in the library isn't a problem because they're not being forced on children"
"Reading this book to children is OK because it's been approved for the library."

Busybodies who feel the need to try to tell children what to believe are dangerous, regardless of what specific ideology they espouse, because once they feel justified in doing it for some cause or other the bar is vastly lowered for the next "cause". Whatever hobby horse they have becomes something to pass on.

Nobody is telling these kids to agree or disagree with what they are reading. They are just telling the stories of people whose experiences and lives vary from one another.

How is this a problem?

People who talk about things like "power imbalances" should be consistent, especially when talking about the education of children. A school teacher has a level of authority comparable to that of parents. Kids are not expected, and certainly not invited, to disagree with their teachers on anything. Any kid knows that challenging an authority figure is likely to have consequences. (And this is without even mentioning the huge imbalance in experience, background information, etc. which would give a teacher a ridiculous advantage in any debate with a child, even if the adult were to argue for something like the earth being flat.)

[Wahoo Redux]

i]Any[/i] commentary I've ever seen about controversy about things like CRT, gender theory, etc. in elementary schools ties those things back to humanities at universities, where the school teachers learned them. Nobody ever claims these were just ideas they picked up on Tik Tok.

The public (whether they agree with these ideas or not) understand where they came from.

What have you seen?  Post them, please.  Let's see where this commentary comes from.

Does "the public understand where they came from," or do indoctrinated rightwingnuts think they know where these ideas come from? 

Remember that CRT has been around for decades but it only recently became an agitprop for rightwing media----so I would be hesitant to put too much stock on commentary at this point.

I would have thought you were smarter and better than to fall into the cliche 'they-are-indoctinating-our-children' ploy.  Liberal ideas about gender and sexuality have been gaining ground in all quarters of society for decades.

As I indicated earlier, I'm not too concerned about books being "in the library"; I'm much more concerned about books teachers read to their kids or require the kids to read.

Okay.  So why are you posting on this thread?

Because it is unlikely that many books will stay "in the library". There is a circular argument:
"Having books in the library isn't a problem because they're not being forced on children"
"Reading this book to children is OK because it's been approved for the library."

I hate to keep asking for evidence of these slippery slope arguments, but so often, as with this one, your rationale seems improvised.

Do you have examples of these books being taught in classrooms?

What is the problem with these books being taught in classrooms unless one has prejudicial pathologies?

As the husband in an interracial marriage, how would you feel if, say, Sean Hannity or a Texas school board decided it was immoral to be married to someone outside your race?  I see you want to ignore that question.

[ciao_yall]

What?   I have asked this, ahem, individual, who continues to avoid my arguments, and who has made the hideous claim that I am mentally ill, because I am evincing opposition to homosexuality.  I am opposed to homosexuality. 

Again... why do you care? Unless you would like to have sex with a specific person, and they with you, how is it any of your business with which gender(s) they conduct such activities?