You couldn’t get fiction like this published.
Republicans in Maine voted to scrap the Republican platform and write a new one — not enough unholy discrimination in the old one, too much Eisenhower, too much Lincoln, or something like that. The convention spilled out into a local middle school for some of the platform writing shenanigans.
In one 8th grade classroom, the Maine Republicans found something they objected to, something they don’t want taught to 8th graders: The U.S. Constitution.
Pharyngula has the story and comments here. ThinkProgress has more gory details here. Portland (Maine) Press-Herald story here. Bangor Daily News story here.
The Republicans were particularly incensed by a poster showing a collage used to open a project assigned to the Portland 8th graders. The 8th graders make poster collages elaborating on the Four Freedoms speech of Franklin Roosevelt, and the accompanying posters by Norman Rockwell. Norman Rockwell. You know. The guy who started his professional career as art director for the Boy Scouts of America . . .
“Brainwashing” the Republicans called U.S. history. Brainwashing.
Speaking of the children, they got into the act Tuesday after a note from “a Republican” was found in Clifford’s classroom. “A Republican was here,” it read. “What gives you the right to propagandize impressionable kids?”
Responded eighth-grader Lilly O’Leary, one of several students who sent e-mails to this newspaper decrying the behavior of their weekend guests, “I am not being brainwashed in his class under any circumstances. I am being told that I have the right to my own opinion.”
She added, “These people were adults and they were acting very immaturely.”
Remember when Republicans used to complain that we can’t jail flag-burning protesters? When did those guys get kicked out of the party, and who are these new thugs?
When did it become the Re-Poe-blican Party? When did they take up the Blackshirt tactics?
C’mon, Republicans. Come back to America. Repent now.
And — as for us Texans? This is the stuff Don McLeroy wants to see happen in Texas social studies standards — vandalism of the U.S. Constitution and American law and tradition.
As a Scouter, as a teacher, as a fan of the U.S. Constitution, I’m concerned. Should I be scared?
“I saw nothing in the room — and nobody pointed out anything in the room — that appeared to give a more balanced view,” [Knox County Republican Party Chairman William] Chapman said.
[Teacher Paul] Clifford and the school’s principal, Mike McCarthy, pointed out in media accounts that the posters were part of projects on freedom and free expression. [Bangor Daily News]
Maybe everyone should be scared.
_______________
Hmmmmm. Ken County, Maine, Republicans offer rewards to people who rat out others who vandalize campaign signs. How about they extend that to rat out the Republicans who vandalized Paul Clifford’s classroom? You know, in the interest of free speech and all . . .
More:
- Maine Public Broadcast Network coverage of the story — Republicans have apologized. The main story notes that collages from Mr. Clifford’s classes will go on display at the Portland Public Library on June 4. Watch for Tea Party protesters.
- AmericaBlog
- Joan Walsh at Salon wrote about the wacky platform and the schoolroom vandalism — and thought enough to quote from Roosevelt’s speech on the Four Freedoms (his State of the Union in 1941, a few months before Pearl Harbor)
- Portland school board to explore new policies to protect public schools from rampaging Republican convention-goers
- “Four Freedoms” in an earlier post at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub
Norman Rockwell, poster of his paintings on the Four Freedoms (Library of Congress image). This is part of what the Maine Tea Party Republicans objected to.
Exercise your right to stand up for freedom and education — spread the word:
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
No, accidentally listed first. There were two other amendments in front, but they were not approved in 1791. What is now the First Amendment was, then, the Third Amendment.
What does freedom of religion mean? Marianne, you would do well to read the words of Jefferson on the matter, here.
No one of any faith has a right to get a captive audience in any government agency, nor in any government building or facility, to preach to. Not even Franklin Graham. Especially, no one has a right to proclaim a message that can easily be perceived as hateful to other faiths, under government aegis. You may believe any fool thing you wish to (a right you obviously exercise with abandon); you have no right to get an audience for such fool beliefs, however.
Your threat to go all militantly anti-semitic isn’t exactly an endearing trait. Nor is your proposal easy to square with what Jesus preached. Weinstein appears closer to the teachings of Jesus than you. Maybe you should reconsider.
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UN-AMERICANS FIGHT FRANKLIN GRAHAM !
What kind of wine has Mikey Weinstein been drinking?
As an anti-Christian Jewish supremacist and as the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, he’s doing all he can to create an anti-Jewish backlash and help bring about the predicted endtime Holocaust of Jews that’ll be worse than Hitler’s.
Neither Falwell, Hagee nor any other Christian initiated this prediction. But Weinstein’s ancient Hebrew prophets did.
In the 13th and 14th chapters of his Old Testament book, Zechariah predicted that after Israel’s rebirth ALL nations will eventually be against Israel and that TWO-THIRDS of all Jews will be killed!
Malachi revealed the reasons: “Judah hath dealt treacherously” and “the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this.”
Haven’t evangelicals generally been the best friends of Israel and persons perceived to be Jewish? Then please explain the hate-filled back-stabbing by David Letterman (and Sandra Bernhard, Larry David, Kathy Griffin, Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman etc.) against followers of Jesus such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.
Weinstein wouldn’t dare assert that citizens on government property don’t have freedom of speech or press freedom or freedom to assemble or to petition the government.
But God-hater Weinstein maliciously wants to eliminate from government property the “free exercise” of religion – especially by evangelicals – a freedom found in the same First Amendment. Significantly, this freedom was purposely listed FIRST by America’s founders! (Not-so-subtle Weinstein has even authored a book which has “One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup” in its title!)
And Weinstein wouldn’t try to foist “separation of church and state” on strongly-Jewish Israel, but he does try to foist this non-Constitution-mentioned phrase on strongly-Christian America.
In light of Weinstein’s Jewish protectionism and violently anti-Christian obsession, Christians in these endtimes should be reminded of Jesus’ warning in Mark 13:9 (see also Luke 21:12) that “in the synagogues ye shall be beaten.”
Maybe it’s time for some modern Paul Reveres to saddle up and shout “The Yiddish are Coming!”
PS – Some, like Weinstein, are so treacherously anti-Christian they will even join hands at times with enemies, including Muslims, in order to silence evangelicals. It was Weinstein, BTW, who put pressure on the Pentagon to dis-invite Franklin Graham from speaking there on the National Day of Prayer!
PPS – Weinstein is an echo of the anti-Christian, anti-American Hollywood which for a century has dangled every known vice before young people. We seriously wonder how soon the lethal worldwide “flood of filth” (global harming!) that Hollywood has created will engulf and destroy itself and help to bring to power the endtime Antichrist (a.k.a. the Man of Sin and the Wicked One)!
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Ed and all,
Does this mean I am supposed to remove the “Four Freedom” posters I have beautifully framed in my living room? My wife and I were given “Freedom of Speech” when I started my career as a journalist. We added the others over time and they’ve made a marvelous teaching tool for our daughter.
I guess I am going to have to explain to her that we had it all wrong!
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This is posted merely in the interest of making Hattip choke:
Obama: 51% of poll respondents think he’s more concerned with the average person versus 36% who thought he is more interested in protecting corporate interests
Congressional Democrats: 35% think they’re more interested in protecting the average person versus 53% who think they’re more interested in protecting corporate interests. (so much for the claim that the people think the Democrats are socialists trying to destroy capitalism.)
Congressional Republicans: 20% of poll respondents think Republicans are more interested in protecting the average person versus 71% of poll respondents who think they’re more interested in protecting corporate interests.
The poll can be found on page 19 at this link: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbcpoll-05122010.pdf
Do bother to notice, Hattip, that the poll was conducted, in part, by the Wall Street Journal and it’s from a week ago.
So tell me..how does it feel to be a member of the most despised political organization in the country?
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Just one more example of how these people are unpatriotic haters of this country, its history, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law. How unfortunate that a band of traitors and vandals are so accepted in the mainstream of society. I have just written to a friend in Maine who unschools her daughter telling her that more than ever, I applaud her decision, because her daughter’s intellect could be in danger if this mob takes over the Maine schools.
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You mean as opposed to your fascist/Naziesque agenda, Hattip?
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I gotta repeat this just because it’s so incredible.
Hattip said:
What is it he calls “perverse,” and “wicked?” The paintings of Norman Rockwell, and these words of hope from Franklin D. Roosevelt:
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Was that all from Hattip?
Hattip, you’re a silly bollocks.
Hyperbole, rhetoric without substance.
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Because a “rightist” like you, Hattip, would throw Rockwell under the bus. Just as you’ve thrown Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower under the bus.
You claim to be a REpublican and a conservative, Hattip, yet you are one of the fakest Republicans and conservatives there is.
At every chance of making this country better..your kind has stood in the way. If your kind had prevailed in the American Revolution we would still be subjects of the British crown.
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Yeah, I know you don’t. Let me spell it out for you.
FDR defended America’s heritage and duty in what he saw as a coming war, in his State of the Union address in January 1941. Among problems he faced were how to make sure the U.S. was ready to withstand an attack from Germany, if it were to come, and how to support China’s fight against Japan’s oppression, and how to support England, the last free country in western Europe, against aggression from Nazi Germany.
Roosevelt cast the federal budget, and the state and fate of our nation in terms of four freedoms worth fighting for, four freedoms that our nation was founded to pursue — the most important four freedoms for the future of our planet and species. On January 6, 1941, Roosevelt told Congress:
Inspired by that speech, Norman Rockwell, the painter of incontrovertibly patriotic bent, painted four pictures, each portraying Americans enjoying one of the Four Freedoms. His paintings were a hit. He donated them later to the War Bonds drive, and they were used to sell War Bonds to finance our fight against terror and tyranny in World War II.
In Portland, Maine, Paul Clifford for years has used Roosevelt’s speech and Rockwell’s pictures as the starting points for students to do a collage on one of those freedoms as a project.
Those student collages are what got the TeaBaggers upset. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear and freedom from want are too far to the left for them. With regard to the structure of freedom we have had constructed for us in America by our founders and their successors, the Tea Party has left the building.
And, sadly it appears so have you. According to you, our fight against Germany and Japan in World War II was misquided, an attempt to establish socialism and slavery.
Excuse me, but I think you may have lost your mind. Call the lost and found, and for the sake of God and America, turn off Fox News.
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^For example, one certainLy haS the right to pursue one’s liberty, earn some money and pay for one’s access to health care.
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Well I have no idea what Rockwell has to do with your “argument”, though I must say it is true hilarity to see a Leftist evoke Rockwell to justify their radical assault on all that is normal, decent and traditionally American.
Looks like another one of your vile straw-men “arguments”.
The invalidity of it is compounded by the fallacy of “appealing to sentiment” (actually in this case “appealing to sentimentality”). Logically and rhetorically, your tact is as comically adolescent as it is bizarre. (though I can understand the confusion between sentiment and sentimentally–I rather doubt that you are capable of one and all too mired in the other–you are a Democrat after all.)
Clearly, Painting have little to do with the Constitution other than being an activity protected by it.
More to the point: The compliant of the Right here is clear, valid and true, and you have intentionally dodged the whole matter for yu know that they are quite correct. The “rights” they object to are of the so called “positive rights” that make up the the thievery of the left–not rights to certain freedoms but rather “rights” to what are essentially goods and services paid for at the expense of others (e.g., “Freedom form want”, which is just a demand for subsidy). They are most clearly “wants”, not “rights”. It is pure of sophistry to conflate this socialist program with either the intent or the historical actuality of the constitution. This sort of business is completely foreign to principles and language of the Constitution and only through the more perverse and dishonest rhetorical gymnastics can one claim that Constitution creates a foundation for Socialism of even the most faintest sort. Not only does the Constitution not provide these “rights”, but one has to substantially abuse, at the very least, the Constitution to supply these “rights”.
These so called “rights” are not rights at all, they are a Socialist/communist program.
For example, one certain;y have the right to pursue one’s liberty, earn some money and pay for your access to health care. One does not have the right to steal anther’s money to pay for one’s health care. This is not a “right”, it is thief. It is moral idiocy to hold it as a “right” for it requires an immoral abuse of the rights of others to uphold this “right”. More properly, it is a “prerogative” to have one’s “wants” met and paid for by others and as such it has nothing to do with “rights” in any moral sense whatsoever.
It was the perversity of the New Dealers to intentionally cast their socialist agenda as an extension of the Bill of Rights. Here FDR was being quite wicked. One senses that Rockwell here was either being woolly-headed or was perhaps duped–perhaps he was merely fulfilling a commission–but if he was a willing party to this conflation of rights and thievery, then he was being quite wicked too. In any event, this panel of panting illustrate quite well the intellectual dishonesty of the New Dealers in that time. You use of it here strongly shows your dishonesty and immorality as well.
This is, of course, what they are objecting to, and you know it</i.
You not only fail to address it, you attempt to distract (yet again) with a straw man argument, and (yet again) with ad hominem errors.
As usual, your response is fundamentally dishonest– not to mention cowardly. Shame on you.
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