While going over the President's State of the Union Address this morning, I came across a side story that at first glance I thought would be utterly ridiculous, and after reading it, just had to say something about it. A woman in Akron, Ohio was convicted and sentenced to jail time for breaking school district boundaries and sending her kids to the more affluent, and higher quality school nearby.
Okay, so I'm not fully informed of all of the details, but here's a few things that I know. First, in a vast majority of public schools; unless you're lucky enough to be born to middle or middle upper-class parents that live in a successful suburban school district, you're probably not going to get the greatest K-12 education out there. This woman lives in Akron, Ohio - For those of you unfamiliar with medium sized cities in the Midwest like Akron, here's a few little tidbits for you: the amount of residents living under the poverty line in Akron is over 25%, since 2000 the city has lost nearly a quarter million residents, average incomes have remained stagnant over the last decade, and much like cities its size and in its condition in the Midwest, crime has gone up. Okay, so now we have a little background on the conditions this woman and her children are dealing with. In dealing with the poor conditions in her own neighborhood, and after her house was broken into, she began (with her children) living part time with her father who lived in the next school district over. In doing so, she began to send her children to the better school district in which her father lived. The school district officials were alerted of what was going on (how they found out, or why they were suspicious of her in the first place is not mentioned in the news article) They hired a private investigator to follow her, and record videos of her leaving her house in her neighborhood and bringing her children to the school. The school kicked her children out and demanded $30,000 in tuition, when she refused, they pressed criminal charges, and the woman was convicted, will be serving jail time and three years probation, as well as serving community service.
This makes me sick. First of all, I thought that as Americans we are encouraged to take initiative to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and make something of ourselves. This woman was doing just that. She was finding ways to ensure that her children would not suffer the fate of many of the youth of Akron, and actually have a chance at life with a better education. "Well why couldn't she just move into the district?" you might ask? I don't know this for sure, but I imagine the ability to afford moving from one district to another may have played a small factor. Turns out poor people can't afford to do many of the things that more affluent people can - go figure.
So what does this mean? What significance does this have? Well clearly it says to anyone who is less affluent with any initiative or ingenuity to watch out. If you dare to make any progress in getting out of your poverty, and getting a piece of the middle/upper class pie we will make sure to make an example of you, and kick you back down to where you belong. The school board that carried out this ridiculous lynching should be barred from public office and forced to spend at least a year in a neighborhood like this woman's. Lets see how well they fare in a rougher neighborhood, and how creative they might be to get out.
Sean
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Civility, Sensationalism, or Ignorance?
I've had about enough of this. A FB friend posted a CNN article this morning criticizing a religious leader for nixing a civility campaign due to lack of interest. Now, I see no problem with putting a stop to a program that has gotten little to no traction. Seems like it makes sense to me. Of course the secular community see it as a way to criticize religious leaders yet once more. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to criticize religious leaders about; hypocrisy, racism, hate-mongering, and the list goes on. Does this action really deserve any scrutiny? Simply, no. In fact, the people in this situation that deserve a swift verbal kick in the ass are the members of the secular community trying to make a big deal out of this.
So two weeks ago in Arizona, some crazy kid shoots up a political rally, killed six people and wounded a dozen more. This is a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the people that it has immediately affected. The 24 hour political brainwashing machine has gone into full effect to try to make this into a political issue, and I fear that it may be leading toward a further limiting of freedom. We'll get to that later though... What they've been talking about is the tone of the political discourse in America, and how it led to this tragedy.
Well, lets take a look at this. I've heard people say that the political tone now is worse than it's ever been. Machiavelli wrote in The Prince and The Discourses about the tendency that we have as people to idealize the past, to look back at the 'good ol days' where things were better than they are now, and how to then politically capitalize on that natural tendency. Realizing this tendency, we should consider political rhetoric of the past, and see if it's really better, worse, or the same as what it used to be.
Here's something from the first truly contested election in America's history from Thomas Jefferson's people: "John Adams is a blind, bald, toothless old man who wants to start a war with France... while he's not busy importing mistresses from Europe, he's trying to marry one of his sons to a daughter of King George." The Adams campaign responded that the election of Jefferson would result in mass rape, murder, incest, and so on. Our third vice president shot and killed our first treasury secretary in a duel. Stephen Douglas called Abe Lincoln a "hatchet faced nutmeg dealer." Of course that election was the ugliest election in our nation's history, before Lincoln was inaugurated Southern states began to secede from the Union, and the Civil War had begun. Could you imagine a presidential election leading to an all out war between two parts of America today?
So Sarah Palin put cross-hairs on Giffords' district, Obama said we should bring a gun to a knife fight, and other ugly rhetoric has been thrown about on both sides. Critics are correct in their assertion that it is ugly. They are correct that civility is nice. They may be correct in their claim that our country could be better if the rhetoric is a bit nicer. But they are wrong to say that it is worse now than it has ever been. They are wrong to desire some sort of legislation to assure civility. And they are wrong to want to piss all over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to make the political system a little more rosy.
Here's the deal people, democratic politics is an ugly game. It always has been, and it always will be. For what it's worth, it's more tame now than at any point in history. Is it annoying when a moderately informed citizen tries to peel through the nonsense to get to some real truth and real solutions? Yeah it is! But in no way does this mean that we should take actions to limit our own freedom because the people in power can't talk nicely to each other. What makes America great is not the niceness of our politics, it is not the civility in our newspapers or political campaigns or rallies. What makes America great is our freedom to speak out against the things we disagree with. What makes America great is that only once in over two hundred years of our spiteful and ugly version of political discourse has it come to blows between two factions. Lets hope that it doesn't happen again. My fear is that once we voluntarily limit our own freedom of speech in terms of political discourse, the lid on that pressure cooker will not hold long, and when it boils to the point of bursting things will be ugly.
Thanks,
Sean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI&feature=player_embedded
http://history1800s.about.com/od/leaders/a/electionof1828.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/burr.html
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/11/leading-evangelical-halts-effort-to-increase-political-civility/
So two weeks ago in Arizona, some crazy kid shoots up a political rally, killed six people and wounded a dozen more. This is a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the people that it has immediately affected. The 24 hour political brainwashing machine has gone into full effect to try to make this into a political issue, and I fear that it may be leading toward a further limiting of freedom. We'll get to that later though... What they've been talking about is the tone of the political discourse in America, and how it led to this tragedy.
Well, lets take a look at this. I've heard people say that the political tone now is worse than it's ever been. Machiavelli wrote in The Prince and The Discourses about the tendency that we have as people to idealize the past, to look back at the 'good ol days' where things were better than they are now, and how to then politically capitalize on that natural tendency. Realizing this tendency, we should consider political rhetoric of the past, and see if it's really better, worse, or the same as what it used to be.
Here's something from the first truly contested election in America's history from Thomas Jefferson's people: "John Adams is a blind, bald, toothless old man who wants to start a war with France... while he's not busy importing mistresses from Europe, he's trying to marry one of his sons to a daughter of King George." The Adams campaign responded that the election of Jefferson would result in mass rape, murder, incest, and so on. Our third vice president shot and killed our first treasury secretary in a duel. Stephen Douglas called Abe Lincoln a "hatchet faced nutmeg dealer." Of course that election was the ugliest election in our nation's history, before Lincoln was inaugurated Southern states began to secede from the Union, and the Civil War had begun. Could you imagine a presidential election leading to an all out war between two parts of America today?
So Sarah Palin put cross-hairs on Giffords' district, Obama said we should bring a gun to a knife fight, and other ugly rhetoric has been thrown about on both sides. Critics are correct in their assertion that it is ugly. They are correct that civility is nice. They may be correct in their claim that our country could be better if the rhetoric is a bit nicer. But they are wrong to say that it is worse now than it has ever been. They are wrong to desire some sort of legislation to assure civility. And they are wrong to want to piss all over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to make the political system a little more rosy.
Here's the deal people, democratic politics is an ugly game. It always has been, and it always will be. For what it's worth, it's more tame now than at any point in history. Is it annoying when a moderately informed citizen tries to peel through the nonsense to get to some real truth and real solutions? Yeah it is! But in no way does this mean that we should take actions to limit our own freedom because the people in power can't talk nicely to each other. What makes America great is not the niceness of our politics, it is not the civility in our newspapers or political campaigns or rallies. What makes America great is our freedom to speak out against the things we disagree with. What makes America great is that only once in over two hundred years of our spiteful and ugly version of political discourse has it come to blows between two factions. Lets hope that it doesn't happen again. My fear is that once we voluntarily limit our own freedom of speech in terms of political discourse, the lid on that pressure cooker will not hold long, and when it boils to the point of bursting things will be ugly.
Thanks,
Sean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI&feature=player_embedded
http://history1800s.about.com/od/leaders/a/electionof1828.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/burr.html
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/11/leading-evangelical-halts-effort-to-increase-political-civility/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
