A passing snippet from the radio: “We, as Christian parents, have to become counter-cultural.”
There is a difference between being counter-cultural and 
having oppositional-defiant disorder, and the right, with so many Christians among them, has the two thoroughly confused. Here are a couple of suggestions that would make life easier for all of us.
Everyone knows that you think you have the one, true path to God. Enjoy that path. Live joyously on that path, and for heaven’s sake, acknowledge your own doctrine of free will. Give the rest of us the right to be wrong. No one says you have to do anything you find morally reprehensible, but try to understand that you are not the only people inhabiting this country. You are in control of what you read, watch, and hear. You do not have the right to dictate to everyone else what they read, watch, and hear.
The founders, Jefferson chief among them wanted the church and state separate (1). They understood the fall of the Holy Roman Empire to be a direct result of mixing the two. They believed that religion was a private thing, and many of us agree with them. Your religion is none of my business, and my religion is none of yours. Please respect that.
Please stop screaming. It is not the loudest party who wins, but the one with the largest number of supporters. Civil debate is not what you hear on conservative talk radio. Civil debate works best when kept civil. Those of us who support policies like health care reform worry that your plan is to abolish Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It has amazed and terrified us to hear you say that you wanted to do so. It makes you sound like saboteurs. Do you really want to take the country back to the Wild West?
We “loony lefties” think that government should protect the weak from the strong. It is a very bad idea to allow corporations to operate without accountability to anyone besides the stockholders. Someday you may be among the weak. Wouldn’t it be better if there was a government on your side in a pinch? Yet you continue to oppose ideas like carbon limits. You believe that the free market will fix everything. You forget things like Love Canal (2), and Unsafe at Any Speed.
Please, ignore science all you want, but allow our country to join the rest of the world in trying to prevent the destruction of our planet. Even if you plan for the messiah to come along in the nick of time to save you, your Bible story about the talents suggests that he will be unhappy with us for sitting still and doing nothing.
Please understand that other people do not need you to act as their conscience; they have their own. It is well and good for you to oppose abortion, and to prevent your tax dollars from funding abortion. It is unconscionable for you to prevent more than 150 million women from having the choice available to them. Along the same lines, please spend some time examining your stance on abortion in the light of your willingness to go to war. Some of us believe that a fetus is not more important than an 18-year-old soldier.
Many of our ancestors came to this country to escape the tyranny of a church that ruled the state. Please honor that heritage and allow the United States of America to continue to be a secular state. The people who cry that this is a “Christian nation” are the same ones who abhor places like Saudi Arabia, where atheism is against the law.
And finally, stop the straw man arguments. No one is going to tax business out of existence, force women to have abortions, or give social security to illegal immigrants. This country has some real problems, and we must all pull together. Just as the president must spend political capital to accomplish things, you are spending political capital when you fight against all things Obama. It would be a bad thing for you to lose all your influence and become marginalized as the party of “No,” but that is just exactly where you are headed.
It is an offense to all Americans to sabotage the progress of the country because the elected leader does not pander to your particular ideology. More than that, it is stupidity.
(1) ‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.’ Jefferson, Thomas. “Letter to the Danbury Baptists.”
(2) Beck, Eckhardt C. “The Love Canal Tragedy”
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Comments: 336
Please understand that other people do not need you to act as their conscience; they have their own.
Yeah, I saw she said that, but I also saw, she didn't hear it ; )
I'm rather sure the old "tongue in cheek" saying, decrying hypocrisy, goes; Do as I say, not as I do.
It seems that you are doing this moral/ethical oversight of others, but at the same time, decrying those who might do as you are here doing. I, on the other hand, have never told people they ought not speak up when they feel wrong is being done around them, and believe that is what our Founders wanted all the people to do, so as to keep folks from getting overly self righteous, isolated from the views of their fellows, and such unsociable sorts of things.
I suggest others do as I say, and do ; )
"Obama still won't admit to being a Muslim."
My family actually drove a Corvair Monza, and yes, it flipped.
I remember Love Canal.
Yep, you need to watch those folks south of the Mason Dixon line. They are all like that. And not a single soul above that cornfounded line would proclaim something similar! Good on you for pointing out where all this nonsense beings!
So to say that corporations have a heart or a conscience flies in the face of reason. It's wishful thinking raised to the level of an intelligent and dispassionate search for the truth.
Good post, and wouldn't it be grand if some of the "Christians" would take heed.
How would a person feel who's right-leaning? Right-leaning is no more correct or wrong than left-leaning. Words and phrases such as "pander" and "well and good for you to oppose.." are weighted with their own bias.
Just because the U.S. created the Taliban in Afghanistan to break the governments that was allied with the Soviet Union, doesn't mean that the people should allow the creation of one in the U.S. -- it might be catching.
I agree with a lot of what Ann had to say in this post. Given recent events, it seems that more than a few of us need a quick lesson in "live and let live".
Where I disagree is in the perception that the "do it my way" attitude is only held by "Christians". Way too often, a group's reaction to a book they don't like is to ban it. Instead of saying, "I don't believe in what is being said, so I'm going to avoid it", these folks say, "That book is contrary to my beliefs, so I think you should not be allowed read it". Thus, they are attempting to take away my right to make my own decisions. The same holds for laws they find unreflective of their belief system.
I am an adult; I don't need a nanny. I can decide for myself what is best for me and my children. I would never tell you that you must act against your personal beliefs; why would you not afford me the same courtesy? I think that is what Ann is trying to say.
My gripe, the one you didn't read, was about this comment above:
Excellent article, Ann. But a very difficult thing to change. Having just come from south of the Mason Dixon line, we sat in the breakfast room of the Days Inn and over heard the following conversation between two men as they watched TV:
"Obama still won't admit to being a Muslim."
And this comment:
Susan, I understand your POV, but having just returned from the South, there is no rationality at all to what they believe. It is beyond the Moon, another planet.
And this comment:
Kathryn, you are so correct. As Rachel Maddow said last night, it is like two different universes.
I've already commented to Ann that I don't agree with everything she has said but have enjoyed the discussion in the thread. One of the things I don't agree with is the same as you have stated, "the perception that the "do it my way" attitude is only held by "Christians."" The same can be said about these comments regarding the south.
The Mason-Dixon line is not a defined line where the intelligent are separated from the nonintelligent. This is a diverse country both north and south. Why should crossing the Mason-Dixon line suddenly be considered another planet? Or two different universes? That's incredibly offensive and not the least bit silly. An entire swathe of people? Isn't that a bit of an over generalization?
Out of curiosity, where did I suggest you shouldn't act according to your own beliefs? Where did I suggest you weren't an adult and that you needed a nanny?
Ann the Mason Dixson line ended at the Mississippi. At least it does on the map I just looked at.
First they are trying to take the moral high ground by claiming to be more religious, more moral, and more patriotic ... easily done for them by surrounding themselves with words and symbol.
Secondly, as in my last article "Be Aware of TeaBag Lies they are using disinformation to try to make it seem like they are bigger, meaner and know more than everyone else by lying and having those lies passed around to their various media orifices and pelting the blogs with their propaganda.
They also jump in and accuse the Democrats of whatever they are doing in order to throw suspicion on their opposition, when it is they in fact that LIE.
I was always intrigued that the second story in the Bible is the Story of Cain and Abel. "Am I my brother's keeper?"And God not smiting Cain, but instead protecting him. I often saw the story as a re-affirmation of God standing by his decision to give man free choice. It is also interesting that Cain gains a type of redemption by becoming a builder and becoming the creator of the first civilization. I am also more intrigued that the third story is Noah and the Ark. I'm fed up with what is going on. I must do something. I'll start over. Here is some good folks! Not all a loss. I'll spare them and a few animals. Let the rain begin. I often saw Noah and the Ark as God seeing that the cure was worst then the disease, with God making a promise that he would never do this again.
Man has been given free will to use for good, bad or indifferent. But I still see God sitting there and asking are you your brother's keeper?
We as individual must all answer this question. We as individuals must learn to control our free will. We as individuals have the right to exercise our free wills, but laws, governments and religion (not only in Christian but other) have taboos and controls for the extreme expression of that free will. That this is part of being a civilized culture! If we don’t not learn from God trying to control free will by ending it, but God realizes that we have free will and that He must focus on. Getting us to see that we are our brother’s keeper! Well written essay Ms. Anne W. Good tflow of logic and good use of Quotes and referrences. I rate this a Ten.
B) If you believe that calling for the overthrow of the United States government and praying that President Obama dies (as the phony preacher in California asked his "flock" to do) is "law abiding", you are seriously deluded!
I was a teenager/young adult during the Viet Nam war, so the term "counter culture" brings to mind demonstrations, draft card burning, flower children and Woodstock. My comment above is merely an observation of change.
Chill out, guys, and don't jump to conclusions or read into a simple comment.
I have been a supporter of abortion for years much to the dismay of some of my family members. When faced with the option for myself my answer was "I support it politically but morally, for me, I don't." I received a smile and a nod of approval from my doctor. We need to be allowed our own beliefs, whatever they are.
I need to learn to proof what I write. This will be attempt #3 to post my opinion.
What difference does it make what the reason is?
You can demand what ever you want from Ann, I know you don't care that
it is rude, bullyng, and in the right circumstances can be considered assualt.
She does not have to answer.
Uhhh. I'm not sure what to say.
I guess I'll let the Colonel speak for me:
"The purpose of Gather is to express and discuss ideas. It helps to know what others are thinking"
Col. George W.
Human life begins at birth, for many people, not when a couple cells merge. The idea that two cells or even a whole lot more can hold a soul is ludicrous to me, and I suspect a lot of others.
I'm a Buddhist. I believe we only understand a principle if we can practice it. I see one shining example of civil behavior in the midst of a heated national discussion involving do-or-die issues for my country. That's President Obama. I'm appalled that there were parents who preferred to model absenteeism out of fear of exposing their children to his rare and shining example.
Stupid people are just that, they have no desire for improvement (probably already think they are great) and thus no capacity for it.
IMnsHO.
How is it we knew more in the '30's? Does it take hunger and deprivation to spread the wisdom around?
Question. If you see some coming to a fork int he road, and down one road lies death and no escape, and the other road is safe travel, and no harm at the end
Would you try to show him/her which road was the safe road?
Therefore, I would appreciate a smile and a kind word from you, but not a sanctimonious lecture about my ultimate damnation. Live your own life - be the best human being you can be on earth and, believe me, people will want to follow your example. You don't need words, or quotes, or anything else.
I hear more hate and prejudice spewed (though they try to word it nicely) from the folks who don't seem to be able to live by the RED words in their own book.
I really don't care to hear about anyone's religion. To me, that's like listening to 45 minutes of "why I picked these particular dish towels at the grocery store."
You are welcome to your religion. Practice it, live it, adopt a few unwanted pregnancies and teach it to the kids, but DO NOT shove it in my face every 4th time I answer my own door, or log into a website.
Thanks for listening to this rant. I'm full up on uber-righteousness, and I can't stands no' mo'.
Wilka
But you might have to first come to the conclusion that you do not yet hold it ... doubtful that will happen soon based upon what you write here.
Now about the Corvair. I had one. One of the best little cars I ever owned and held the road as well as any. Nadar tested that at high speed and of course it flipped. If you drive like a maniac expect trouble.
Remember the problem was an inability to steer it out of a swerve.
So if you had to swerve, say to avoid a pot hole in the road.
That was the end of your drive if there was an obstacle in the path of your swerve.
The safety you are insisting on must be why GM did loose lawsuits.
And why not remember,
The front was very light,
The engine was in the rear.
Of course your personal experience is more important than all the tests & evaluations.
God, I loved my little 'vertible car.
And Geo? I didn't drive like a fool either, and had no problems with the ride.
Wilka
Your comment assumes everyone has a regular physician. The problem is that many don't because the can not afford the higher rates that many physicians and health-care providers charge those who are uninsured. If health-providers can still make money with the lower rates that insurance companies pay, why do they charge the uninsured more for their services?
(It's tangential, Ann, but you did mention health care...)
I want THAT on a teeshirt, a coffee mug, a bumper sticker, a letterhead, an auto sig and my Voter Registration Card!
AWH......................Well said and can't be said often enough!
“Counterculture (also written counter-culture) is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day,[1] the cultural equivalent of political opposition.” Wikipedia. This seems to suggest their counter culture criteria would be a fair description if say you represent the mainstream culture.
“No one says you have to do anything you find morally reprehensible, but try to understand that you are not the only people inhabiting this country.” What if the Christians see others doing things to those unable to defend themselves? Should they stand and watch using your logic noting that they are the only ones inhabiting this country. Would you stand and simply watch as some religions practices did damage to their young girls?
“The founders, Jefferson chief among them wanted the church and state separate (1).”“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” Rather than a separation it seems the Founding Fathers were said that the state shouldn’t pick a particular church.
“It is not the loudest party who wins, but the one with the largest number of supporters.” It seem over 230 years ago it was the fewer with a better idea and a willingness to sacrifice for it is how our country was formed.
“It has amazed and terrified us to hear you say that you wanted to do so.” that describes the feelings To some of us who are concerned that indiscriminate spending will ruin the country so it won’t be able to provide all of those programs you so strongly support. Realize that each of the programs have grown with the expectations that will be paid for by the ones that don’t need the programs moneys yet. Wasn’t that how Madoff paid for his scheme, a pyramid scheme?
“We “loony lefties” think that government should protect the weak from the strong.” How do you define weak and strong?
“You forget things like Love Canal (2)” I am not a fan of Hooker Chemical, but you should do some research to understand who cause the tragedy. I believe that Hooker had capped the toxic waste and donated it to the local school board with the stipulation to be used as a park and never to dig into the ground, and the Board decided they could get more money if the sold it to a developed (without telling them what was buried there). Guess what when you construct houses with basements.
“No one is going to tax business out of existence, force women to have abortions, or give social security to illegal immigrants.” If there is no perceived potential sufficient reward for the risk a business owner must take to start and run a business then why start a business?
“It is an offense to all Americans to sabotage the progress of the country because the elected leader does not pander to your particular ideology. More than that, it is stupidity.” It is offensive to Americans to have the principles that built this country so we could have programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid sabotaged.
No one said Christians (or anyone else) should stand by and watch while someone was harmed. But isn't making life harder for the poorest and most vulnerable harming them? This is what the religious right supports. Slash all programs that help people--education, health care, etc., and give tax breaks to those who don't need them. There's some harm perpetrated by the right.
"There's some harm perpetrated by the right. " I agree there are people on the "rigth" that harm, it may surprise you that there are some people on the left and even in the middle that do harm to the broader population trying to make their politcal position the controlling one.
I agree that the realtionship between a person and their God is personal. However, the moral values and ethics they learn from their religion our their won and how they apply them (as long as their actions are within the law) is protected by our Constitution.
Jefferson's letter was a personal note, the 1st Amendment is part of the law of the land.
A story I heard wehn I was little, give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to fish and he will feed himself for a lifetime.
"Give the rest of us the right to be wrong." Does that also mean you believe people should be allowed to reap conseqeunces of their choices?
You mention protecting the weak from the strong. When and how do we become the weak or the strong?
You compared the fetus with the 18 year old. Does the fetus have a choice, does the 18 year old have as choice?
Which of my spiritual principles do you think I ma not living?
There are many who question the premise that forcing kids to jump through hoops is education. For kids who loathe school, the answer is to make it even more loathsome? Other than for the ultra-basics, such as the alphabet, the times tables, musical scales, coerced studying merely for passing arbitrary tests is a shallow and extrinsic form of motivation that produces only temporary results. Once the pressure is off, the learning fades fast. Think back on your own education. Which subjects do you remember the most about even to this day, and which subjects did you forget as soon as the semester was finished?
Bravo, Jim. What we need now in this complex world are critical problem solvers, not people who can spit back facts that are forgotten soon thereafter. Creative writing, group problem solving, cross-subject classes, less focus on standardized testing and more focus on real learning and thinking. That's what my kids had - a good school system, then a private prep school that focused on the classics and critical thinking. Unfortunately, schools are NOT equal and are still very segregated in this country. We need to create good schools in ALL neighborhoods, not just the towns that can afford them with property taxes.
I am not sure what jumping through hoops means. I do believe that the schools are there to help kids develop a minimum level of knowledge and skills. The current approach doesn’t seem to be achieving that. In my community our school cost continues to rise with a declining performance.
With all the uproar over “No Kid Left Behind” at least we now are getting some information about the schools performance.
If testing is so disruptive to education, why have teachers been testing kids on the subjects they are studying for longer than I can remember?
AS for the subjects I remember, it is what I used. The memorization information (except multiplication tables) has disappeared. However, I had a 5th grade teacher that focused no putting history in context rather than on dates. To this day that history lesson is probably my most frustrating because our media cannot not grasp the concept of keeping things context.
I disagree on why people forget. My understanding is that people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, and 80% of what they do. If they are only being taught to memorize then the y will forget. If they are forced to use such as in doing math problems they are much more likely to remember. It isn’t the test that is so disruptive it is how they prepare for the test. I have always found that pressure such as with tests is self inflicted, the ones I better prepared for was less of a concern than the ones I had delay studying for.
The other thing I have found is that what you track is what you will improve. The simplest example is sports, the performance is measured giving feedback to the players so they can adjust their efforts to influence that performance.
As I mentioned teachers have been testing and tracking kids performance longer than any of us have been around, why should we apply that same approach to the schools and those that administer them?
All I got in my K-12 was the basics skills of reading, writing, math, and science which proved sufficient. My kids got nothing more than that (and at least one teacher was so bad she apologized the next day for correction that had to be made in what she taught). With those basic skills both girls graduated college, one with an MBA and the other an Engineering degree. My daughters went to two different public school systems. If anything I would say it has to do with the expectation that were established for the kids and how they were supported. In one district the biggest celebration was completing (graduating from) middle school. My daughters had friends that didn’t plan to graduate high school. The school system didn’t influence that the parents did.
I learned by problem solving in math and science classes.
How do we create good schools if we aren’t measuring their performances?
Granted, there will always be the need for testing -- my daughter is now suffering through the national Medical Licensing Exams, Stages 1, 2 , and 3, for example, so that she can be granted an MD degree and the license to practice medicine. Certainly no rational person would advocate giving up exams to test a medical student's knowledge. But there is a world of difference between the need for professional licensing exams and the rationale behind the standardized testing of elementary-junior high-senior high students.
What difference does it make if the national average math score of Japan is one point ahead of Korea or Finland -- yet the Ministry of Education here went into anaphylactic shock at the latest round of international testing, and whatever gains liberal arts ed made in Japan over the last two decades are going right out the window now.
The super-basics get retained not because of stringent testing but because they are fundamental to everything else and you use them every single day of your life. I can balance my checkbook -- sometimes on the first try even! -- but I couldn't solve higher math problems now if my life depended on it. Yet I was in my high school's most advanced math class. That's all gone now, atrophied from disuse.
In short, if you need it in your life, you'll learn it and retain it, but if you don't need it, it'll fade from your memory along a predictable trajectory of forgetting, the Ebbinghaus curve -- no matter how well you did on your tests in school. Teachers should be judged on a wider range of qualities than their mere fact-delivering capabilities. If that were the case, I'm sure the ratings of which teachers are the "effective" ones would get quite turned around.
I concur that a parent can influence a child regarding his/her willingness to study. I concur that being involved in and aware of (not smothering) your child's education is critical. However, that being said, I also believe that the costs that have risen in education are a far cry from what costs have risen regarding darned near every other product on the market today.
No child left behind is regurgitation education. Learn it for the test. That certainly gets a kid to pass tests--but it does NOT teach him/her how to think...how to do research, and / or how to apply knowledge.
Wilka
I don’t know what humanistic teaching means. Arithmetic seems straight forward, add, subtract, multiple, divided; how would that be better taught humanistically?
You seem preoccupied with teacher efficiency; my preoccupation is in schools being effective.
If testing for professional is justified based on a need to demonstrate knowledge and skills why shouldn’t be use to determine the knowledge and skills for others?
If teachers of K-12 have been using testing to determine the knowledge and skills of students to better focus where the students need more attention. What is so wrong with testing and other metrics to determine the effectiveness of schools and where they may need more assistance?
“In short, if you need it in your life, you'll learn it and retain it, but if you don't need it,” I would think that reading and basic arithmetic are needed in life today and yet I am not so sure that all of those coming out of schools today remember how to do those basic skills.
“Teachers should be judged on a wider range of qualities than their mere fact-delivering capabilities.” You keep coming back to only tracking the teacher so I will narrow my focus to match yours. What criteria than the knowledge and skills of the students would you want to measure to demonstrate the effectiveness of teachers?
“Then, by how to critically research and think for themselves.” I am not sure schools can teach how to think, They can help students understand how to apply the knowledge and skills they acquire, but think is a bit more difficult to teach. Thinking has a great deal to do with personal values and desired outcomes.
Frequency I hear the phrase “common sense” use when people mean think like “I” do. My view is that schools are there to help the students gain knowledge and skills. It is up to the students to decide if and how they will utilize them.
“I also believe that the costs that have risen in education are a far cry from what costs have risen regarding darned near every other product on the market today.” I agree the raw materials such as oil, minerals, and such have gone up in price and the don’t doing anything different. However, I believe that the costs of most other things have gone up and they provide more value than ever before. Medical care as an example is rising faster than K-12 education. It also provides treatments today that were never heard less than a generation ago. I know the graduation rate and the skills rate of the high school in my community is poor than when I was in school while the medical care is providing treatments today that have save the lives of my family members that did not exist at that time.
The tests are not meant to teach and they do not determine how the subjects are taught. The tests identify what knowledge the students are to have; it is the schools that decide on how to teach that information.
Thinking doesn't have anything to do with personal values. Teaching values is a whole other realm. That usually comes from the household the students live in. And no, in a perfect world, it might be up to the students