Student walkouts and adult hypocrisy
I think it's great that all those kids are exercising their First Amendment rights by staging a walkout from school. We did the same thing when I was president of the City Colleges of Chicago umbrella group for student governments back in the days of Socrates about a different issue which vitally concerned us at the time. What better civics lesson can the kids get than an actual experience of what the Bill of Rights is all about?
Of course, anybody who thinks the walkout wasn't engineered by adults is rather naive. But still, it's a valid gesture. We have an obligation to keep those kids safe in school from the inevitable consequences of having so many guns floating around in a society with no shortage of crazy people, either. And they have a right to let us know how they feel about our failure to meet that obligation.
But somehow, I can't help but wonder what would happen if it was a conservative cause they were advocating. What if they were to walk out to protest the degree to which schools have ceased to be places which exist to teach them about the world and be train them in life skills, and instead been transformed into places hell bent on indoctrinating them in left-wing political beliefs and social attitudes?
Yeah, I'm irritated at those conservatives who grumble about how those kids ought to be flunked or expelled or hanged, drawn, and quartered, or something for walking out of their classes. Yet I can't help but ask myself what would happen if instead of protesting gun violence and the unwillingness of our leaders to act decisively against it, they were protesting abortion, or perhaps their being made a captive audience for all that nonsense about multiple genders and Heather having five mommies and seven daddies and how their parents' religious beliefs are nonsense and so forth.
You can bet that the same people who are praising the students now would be coming down on them like a ton of bricks. They would be instantly expelled.
The other day yet another survey of college students found that the overwhelming majority believed in free speech- for everybody of whose speech they approve, but for no one else. And it's no wonder; they've been well-trained in a selective subscription to the First Amendment and blatant hypocrisy in their upholding of basic American values like free speech.
So on one hand, good for the kids. Not that anybody is listening, but it's good that they're receiving this hands-on civics lesson. But the occasion shouldn't pass without also reflecting on the hypocrisy of the leftist educational establishment, teachers and administrators alike, and of the left generally.
But God help any student who walks out of class in support of a cause about which their teachers and school administrators disagree with them.
Of course, anybody who thinks the walkout wasn't engineered by adults is rather naive. But still, it's a valid gesture. We have an obligation to keep those kids safe in school from the inevitable consequences of having so many guns floating around in a society with no shortage of crazy people, either. And they have a right to let us know how they feel about our failure to meet that obligation.
But somehow, I can't help but wonder what would happen if it was a conservative cause they were advocating. What if they were to walk out to protest the degree to which schools have ceased to be places which exist to teach them about the world and be train them in life skills, and instead been transformed into places hell bent on indoctrinating them in left-wing political beliefs and social attitudes?
Yeah, I'm irritated at those conservatives who grumble about how those kids ought to be flunked or expelled or hanged, drawn, and quartered, or something for walking out of their classes. Yet I can't help but ask myself what would happen if instead of protesting gun violence and the unwillingness of our leaders to act decisively against it, they were protesting abortion, or perhaps their being made a captive audience for all that nonsense about multiple genders and Heather having five mommies and seven daddies and how their parents' religious beliefs are nonsense and so forth.
You can bet that the same people who are praising the students now would be coming down on them like a ton of bricks. They would be instantly expelled.
The other day yet another survey of college students found that the overwhelming majority believed in free speech- for everybody of whose speech they approve, but for no one else. And it's no wonder; they've been well-trained in a selective subscription to the First Amendment and blatant hypocrisy in their upholding of basic American values like free speech.
So on one hand, good for the kids. Not that anybody is listening, but it's good that they're receiving this hands-on civics lesson. But the occasion shouldn't pass without also reflecting on the hypocrisy of the leftist educational establishment, teachers and administrators alike, and of the left generally.
But God help any student who walks out of class in support of a cause about which their teachers and school administrators disagree with them.
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