9/04/2009

New Fox News Op-ed: Serious White House Puts Parents In an Awkward Position

My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

Six, seven, and eight-year-old kids shouldn't be put in a position where they have to say that a particular president is inspiring and such a wonderful person. Next Tuesday, the opening day for many schools across the country, President Obama will give a speech to elementary and secondary students across the country. There is a reason why no president has commanded the time of America's school children in the past to make them listen to the president as part of their school day.

Could you imagine the outrage if the president requested time to address adults during their work day even if it were simply to encourage them to work hard and be productive for the good of the nation? But why would they be upset? The very act of listening to a politician is a political act. It is no more appropriate than requiring that Americans to listen to a political ad. Some adults simply don't want to waste their time listening to a politician or they might simply dislike that person. Others might not be political and not care enough to watch such an address the politician. But this is less objectionable for adults than kids – kids are much more impressionable. . . . .


UPDATE: A copy of his speech is here.

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2 Comments:

Blogger zach said...

This is what we get for having government "schools". They are inculcated in statism. And if this were Bush giving a speech, some people protesting now would be happy to have their child sit through it, as long as that R is in front of the Dear Leader's name.

9/04/2009 11:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was just reading about the Pledge of Allegiance at Wikipedia. I was surprised to learn that the original version was written by a Christian socialist by the name of Edward Bellamy. He thought the involvement of children across the country would be a fine show of national solidarity. He also invented a salute to go along with the Pledge. However FDR had to ditch this salute during World War 2 because it was too much like the Nazi salute. FDR instead promoted the hand-over-the-heart gesture that we know today.

9/04/2009 1:05 PM  

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