"At one Minneapolis high school, two students stood apart from the throng calling for more gun control. One of them carried a sign that said “Blame the Culture, Not Guns.” The other carried a Donald Trump banner. He was cursed, pursued, knocked down and beaten up by “pro-school safety” demonstrators. School officials, who purport to be so concerned with the safety of their students, did nothing to intervene. It is fair to say that school administrators and teachers organized children’s demonstrations on behalf of the Democratic Party. Today, the Democratic National Committee sent out an email fundraising on the students’ gun control protests...."
Writes John Hinderaker at Powerline in "ON TODAY’S DESPICABLE MISUSE OF CHILDREN."
When I heard that the children in my school district were cutting school in my city to attend a demonstration, my reaction was as one of the school district taxpayers, who pay for this expensive benefit to children that they were just throwing out one day's worth of. I imagined their answer. Actually, I performed it out loud (we were in the car): This demonstration is a real-world education that is more valuable than one another routine day in the classroom, and if you don't believe that, you ought to ban all field trips. To which Taxpayer Me said: I do want to ban all field trips. Go places on your own time!
But now that I'm reading John Hinderaker, I'm thinking: This is a campaign finance violation!
I loathe the use of children in politics (and if you click that link, you'll see all the past posts with this theme). I really love and feel a strong urge to protect children, so I'm not going to display the image of 3 sweet teenage girls holding up a sign that reads, "@Donald Trump/If your place of work is a gun-free zone, then why isn't mine?" I wonder whether it ever occurred to them how wrong those words are. But if I were in real-world space with them, circulating the way I did during the Wisconsin protests, I would have approached them and nicely engaged them: Excuse me, can I ask you, what does your sign mean?
And if benevolent pedantic adults would engage protesting children in conversations like that, then the public square would be a better free-speech forum, and I'd think better of the value of vamoosing the classroom.
९२ टिप्पण्या:
Rather than "Ironically", the headline should read "Unsurprisingly".
Would this kind of protest have happened if Hillary was President? I think not.
I saw the picture in the paper of all the kids and just thought It worked so well when Act 10 was passed. Students cut class and went and protested then too.
"I really love and feel a strong urge to protect children"
If they can make it out of the womb.
"Vamoosing"? Excellent word invention and cultural appropriation of language all in one useful sentence. Althouse gets a gold star on her essay from this retited teacher of refugees and immigrants.
That kid should sue too.
But this reminds me of a truism. If I disagree to the left of my right leaning friends, the worst I'm considered is naive or a bit stupid. Disagree too far to the right of left leaning people, and I venture into unperson territory.
What else does anyone expect? Soros's Brownshirts are a mob paid to beat down other American's right to own and carry arms for defense of themselves from the very system designed by power mad George, the Nazi, Soros, of course.
The only question is why has Trump not arrested Soros yet.
They’d have called you a Rethuglican Trump bitch. You know that right?
"MadisonMan said...
I saw the picture in the paper of all the kids and just thought It worked so well when Act 10 was passed. Students cut class and went and protested then too."
They didn't cut class. They walked out en masse and were not marked "absent" by most teachers.
The teachers are just creating more Dem voters in order to pay for the failed and expensive public schools. Self-preservation.
The lobbyist for the Omaha Public Schools sent his kids to private schools. He knew how horrible OPS is. And he's a Democrat!
This is a reminder that children are, indeed, children and need adult supervision. Perhaps we should push the ‘age of responsibility’ to 21 or above....
It is also an indicator that our education system is failing.
Post of the month, Althouse! Kudos.
I really love and feel a strong urge to protect children
It's a women's hot button. Women are the very audience for childrens' demonstrations.
So you get a contradiction. What is really best for the children.
Who cares. That turns the whole political act off. Take the guys' point of view on politics.
Field trips were the best (or most memorable) part of elementary school.
Loaves of bread on conveyor belts, lead typesetting at the newspaper, the Hawaiian Punch factory.
You see it all the time, they are the fascists.
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
Well, they did use child actors in the movie to make a point about using the children to further fascism. Some kids enjoy the violence, and guess which side they are going to join? The side where the violence doesn’t get them in trouble,
They think that if they call themselves “anti-fascists” it covers for it.
BTW, Hitler was no respecter of borders either, his vision for the future was far more important than simple borders. So when you hear the person who, I guess, is the front runner for President on the Democrat side telling you that California is the future, remember Tomorrow Belongs to Me.
2 weeks ago a woman in my office told about what happened when her daughter and daughter's boyfriend declined the opportunity to take part in the anti-gun demonstration at a local high school. Someone took their photograph and posted it on social media with a note saying "here they are, shall we jump them?" The mother was angry but took no action about it, and neither did the school. I would have gone ballistic in the principal's if my kids were publicly threatened for thought crimes like that.
...principal's office...
The most interesting part of this, beyond the Astroturfing effort, was how this protest stepped all over the BIG win Pennsylvania 18. Without the protest, the news would have been wall to wall about how this Democrat winning signaled the coming blue wave. Now with the close call it will be mired down in legal challenges for weeks. Conversely, this protest will serve to swell the membership of the NRA and wake up people about Democrat plans.
Mandatory participation in public protests and marches is a classic Soviet communist type of activity. Insufficient enthusiasm is also subject to penalty. The future these people have in mind for the country is laughably obvious.
These student protests involve a bunch of student gathered together, often in public. I'm actually a little amazed that some deranged individual didn't decide this was a target rich environment and see how many they could take out.
Insty comes through with the quote:
“The freedom of Speech may be taken away—and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” - George Washington
What they seem to be learning in school today is that it is good and right to take away people’s freedom of speech.
Wilbur said...
Rather than "Ironically", the headline should read "Unsurprisingly".
Quite likely, the word "ironically" was being used ironically.
Someone took their photograph and posted it on social media with a note saying "here they are, shall we jump them?"
I would've called the police on that person for making terroristic threats. Punch back twice as hard.
"The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution." -- SDS radical.
And the revolution needs us right-wingers disarmed.
And if benevolent pedantic adults would engage protesting children in conversations like that, then the public square would be a better free-speech forum, and I'd think better of the value of vamoosing the classroom.
You keep talking about free speech in writing about these kinds of demonstrations. I do not think these kinds of demonstrations mean what you think they mean.
"I loathe the use of children in politics."
Even when it's for the children?
I'm telling you, Althouse, you are completely out of step with today's Democratic Party, which is always for the children, all the time, and our children's future depends on them because they are always right and they never lie.
I missed the school walk-outs protesting the non-stop shooting gallery on Chicago's south and west sides and demanding stop and frisk.
Some day in the future when three tourists are shot in Water Tower Place by gun-toting teenagers who should have been in school, the folks in power will say there is nothing they could do because nobody saw anything, and it was illegal to bring guns into the mall.
I don't think these protesters really want to fix the problem. I don't think the mayor and the police superintendant ("Special Ed" Johnson) really want to fix the problem.
There are bigger problems here than a bunch of kids turning into little thugs who batter their peers who disagree with them.
@surfed
Check out the next post.
The only thing that my teenager commented on was that only one teacher at his Catholic school went out of his way to say that no one should feel compelled to participate in the walkout. My son said he really respected that because he definitely felt the other teachers were pushing it. My son stayed behind and did his homework -- and no one bothered him.
"Field trips were the best (or most memorable) part of elementary school. Loaves of bread on conveyor belts, lead typesetting at the newspaper, the Hawaiian Punch factory."
Where I went to elementary school, the field trip was always (as I remember) to a dairy farm.
The high point was the time a cow peed.
I assume the White House is quite the opposite of gun free zone based on all the heavily armed security
"Even when it's for the children? I'm telling you, Althouse, you are completely out of step with today's Democratic Party, which is always for the children, all the time, and our children's future depends on them because they are always right and they never lie."
When your for children, you don't just do what children demand. Children demand candy. Children demand to stay up late until they're bouncing off the walls. From all that candy.
What kind of adult takes advice from children about how to take proper care of children?
Children have feelings that they can express, but their policy proposals are either ill-informed or passed along from adults who are using children as their mouthpiece. Adults shouldn't be doing that, and if they think they are showing they care for children by doing that, they are wrong.
The kids in my neighborhood were spared by a storm that brought us 2 ft of snow and closed school for the day. One of the young men was graciously helping me shovel my front steps for which he adamantly refused payment. We were talking about the walkout as we worked together. I live up on a hill and have a lot of stairs. He asked me if I had a counter argument. I suggested to him that he propose a ban on cell phone use by teens since exponentially more kids are killed and injured texting while driving than in school shootings. If kids are really worried about their own safety, they should willingly surrender their phones. As a teacher I would have happily encouraged and supported any measures kids wanted to do themselves to make them safe. We need to learn when something is important to us, we start by changing what is directly under our own control. He's going to report back to me on how it goes.
Matthew Sablan said...
But this reminds me of a truism. If I disagree to the left of my right leaning friends, the worst I'm considered is naive or a bit stupid. Disagree too far to the right of left leaning people, and I venture into unperson territory.
'I hope it's a trap and y'all get shot': Sister, 18, of Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof is arrested for threatening students during gun walkout, having a knife on school grounds and singling out 'black' protesters
"Ralph L said...
Field trips were the best (or most memorable) part of elementary school."
We went to Hostess factory. Free Cherry Pies!
These poor students obviously have no self determined agency and to think that in a few years they will be voting against NRA candidates, it’s enough to make me want to cancel all field trips and keep them locked in harden schools with armed guards.
I take the protesters at their word. In order for them to feel safe, all firearms of any kind and description must be confiscated.
At one Minneapolis high school, two students stood apart from the throng calling for more gun control. One of them carried a sign that said “Blame the Culture, Not Guns.”
Anybody confirm this? There is no link to the incident and a web search turns up only this reference. Not that I didn't expect this to to happen, but I'd like a source.
We went to Radio City to see The Sound of Music.
Pretty good field trip.
Field trip to Ybor city to see old Cuban men hand roll cigars.
Field trip to a fire tower in rural central FL where we could see part of the everglades burning. (this was TOP)
Field trip to the port to see boats unloading bananas.
These were late 60's field trips.
-XC
It's spring break all across Texas so we were spared this nonsense, thank God.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
'I hope it's a trap and y'all get shot': Sister, 18, of Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof is arrested for threatening students during gun walkout,
Nope.
having a knife on school grounds and singling out 'black' protesters
Nope.
She was arrested for making non-threatening but "inappropriate" comments, and saying that mostly black students wanted to walk out.
They found the knife and such - supposedly - after she was arrested for inappropriateness of commenting.
Bonus! The page had a nice video of sadistic asshole cops torturing a raccoon.
We went on a field trip to the city sewer plant in grade school.
It was winter and much of the plant was under a roof, but open to the air so we all had our coats and hats on and I had new pair of "ski gloves" I really liked. I remember our tour came to a wide moving belt that carried what they called sludge. I was a little too short so I put my hands on the edge rail and tip-toed up to see the sludge going by. It smelled awful, of course.
Later that day I rubbed my face with a gloved hand and it stunk. I thought, what is that awful smell I keep smelling? It smells like the sewer plant. Gross...oh.
Nothing would take the smell out and I had to throw those gloves away.
The lobbyist for the Omaha Public Schools sent his kids to private schools.
Yeah about half the teachers I worked with in gang-infested Fontana, CA sent their kids to private schools. I always thought that was a very telling metric, akin to insiders who divest in their own company. The better the teacher, the more likely they were to send their own children to parochial or Christian schools.
"roesch/voltaire said...
These poor students obviously have no self determined agency and to think that in a few years they will be voting against NRA candidates, it’s enough to make me want to cancel all field trips and keep them locked in harden schools with armed guards."
So short of voting for Democrats, you're fine with the gun free zones and the resulting slaughter.
A Kinsley Gaffe, but we already knew it had nothing to do with the kids. Every shooting you think "good for us!"
@Donald Trump/If your place of work is a gun-free zone, then why isn't mine?
Yes, Althouse. Do these foolish children have any ability to imagine how far (as in "not very") Nikolas Cruz would have gotten trying to smuggle a gun of any sort -- much less a long gun -- into the White House? The place is crawling with guns, and people who know how to use them. That number may include Trump himself. Back in February 2016 Donald Trump said in an interview that he personally carries a gun. Moreover, Secret Service agents do not ignore threats to the President, nor will they cower outside if someone does start shooting the way the Coward County Sheriff Deputies did.
These poor students obviously have no self determined agency and to think that in a few years they will be voting against NRA candidates,
Now it’s r/v singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me
@Donald Trump/If your place of work is a gun-free zone, then why isn’t mine?
I never saw so many obviously automatic weapons in my life as I saw in “gun free” England when Tony Blair’s motorcade had just passed by a potential ambush point. I am sure some of them were trained on me as I was innocently walking on the sidewalk through and underpass as his motorcade drove by, but I didn’t see any of them until he had passed, and suddenly, everybody in the parked cars I hadn’t even noticed started moving around, putting the weapons away, I guess.
Surely “vamoose” is intransitive?
"I wonder whether it ever occurred to them" Oh, no, not that trope again.
"And if benevolent pedantic adults would engage protesting children in conversations like that, then the public square would be a better free-speech forum" If.
Of course, progs despise your kind of benevolence. They don't need no "free-speech forum." They want what they want. They want the power to get it. They'll use any means available, including kids. Particularly kids.
They think they can wait out the moderate midwestern retirees and finally turn the U.S. into a prog paradise where no one will ever be shot again, because guns will have been outlawed.
Statism: it's all about the kids!
My favorite field trip, in 4th grade I think, was to the Armour Packing Company slaughter house.
The cows would come into the slaughter house hung by one leg on big hooks.
A man was standing just inside who would cut their throats with a big knife so they bled out into a basin.
Armour's motto was "We use everything but the squeal." Of course, that referred to the pigs.
Good times.
My wife still does not believe that happened but it did.
At the walkout at our local regional high school, the town registrars were available to register the 18 year olds to vote. I've never heard that they were similarly available at any other high school event.
"What kind of adult takes advice from children about how to take proper care of children?"
I suspect this is a rhetorical question, but will answer it anyway: a negligent one.
Do you remember the story from 20+ years ago back about the 7 year old girl (Jessica Dubroff) who wanted to set the record as the youngest to pilot a plane across the United States? She died in a crash while flying in bad weather that her parents allowed her to take off in. Her father and a flight instructor died too. She was lauded for heroism and pursuing her dream. I wanted to know why her parents weren't jailed.
-sw
they didn't let you see them get bonked on the head first?
I mean, were they mooing when they slit them?
'cause nowadays (at least), they bonk them on the head before they hook them up.
(i think in the olden days they used sledge hammers, now they use air powered bonkers)
Justice Kennedy promoted a program, Dialogues on Freedom, for annual discussion of bill of rights in HS classrooms. Too bad the syllabus for this year already set because this would be a good subject. Instead have to go with Vietnam War Era precedents.
Michael k
My 3rd grade class went to a slaughterhouse too. Similar experience. 1953 or so.
Maybe it traumatized me but I don't think so.
The school was in Alexandria va literally in sight of the Washington Monument.
Also ha rifle and archery ranges and classes.
John Henry
There have been more school shootings and deaths in Australia since their gun ban than in the US for the same period.
On a per capita basis
John Henry
Using the logic that the White House is a gun free zone; you could claim the same of any prison, such as Dachua or a Soviet Gulag.
Its never too early for R/V and pals to build their Red Guards.
My child did not participate in the walk out yesterday. She said about half left, mostly because they wanted to get out of class for a little while. Instruction continued without them.
I understand the pull to get out of class, but I'm really a little disappointed in this generation of teenagers. If my teachers and administrators were promoting something, I would have not participated out of the age old principle of rebellion. Why do so many kids today want a pat on the head from their Authority Figures? Weird.
Its never too early for R/V and pals to build their Red Guards.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution came to my mind, as well. They'll be arming these little bastards next.
Children have feelings that they can express, but their policy proposals are either ill-informed or passed along from adults who are using children as their mouthpiece.
Women have ill-informed opinions that are from their way of thinking about the world. Everything is local and with complex details.
Well-informed would instead take into account what can be made to work on a large scale. That takes abstracting away from details to get to the nub. Like guys do.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"When you're for children, you don't just do what children demand. Children demand candy. Children demand to stay up late until they're bouncing off the walls. From all that candy."
Actually, my home-schooled kids don't particularly care for candy. They usually stay up reading after I go to bed. When children spend most of their time around competent adults, what they really, really want is to become competent adults. When they spend their time in school, they want to kill someone. Anyone! Huh.
John Henry, which school was that?
I can't think of anywhere off the river where you can see the Monument, but I'm hazy about where Arlington begins.
I went to Polk in Seminary Valley in the early 70's and lived on Seminary Hill & Masonic Temple hill until '92.
Donald Trump's place of work is NOT a gun-free zone (see "Secret Service").
Hinderaker provided no link to his story about the counter protesters being beaten up. I can't find anything remotely like it. And you are adding to what is apparently fake news by repeating it.
You really should be more careful.
Does not the very concept of "protest" implies that one is speaking out against a consensus, that a protest by a majoritarian protest in a democracy makes little sense (except, perhaps, as a show of force)?
Yet here we have "rebels" who are not only remarkably conformist rebels, but who sense that they have such overwhelming support that they can punish those who refuse to conform without consequence.
Perhaps this is something only an "educator" could understand.
"Does not the very concept of "protest" implies that one is speaking out against a consensus, that a protest by a majoritarian protest in a democracy makes little sense (except, perhaps, as a show of force)?"
i think word is: Two Minute Hate
The world need more benevolent pedantic adults.
Blogger Caligula said...
"Does not the very concept of "protest" implies that one is speaking out against a consensus"
"Demonstration" might be a better term, but "protest" has the meaning, "to assert emphatically". As in, the lady doth protest too much. He protested his innocence.
Armour's motto was "We use everything but the squeal." Of course, that referred to the pigs.
I had a college buddy who worked for a competitor. He said, "We used to use everything but the squeal and the assholes. Now we turn the squeals into salesmen and the assholes into managers".
Odd to me, some on the left are promoting 21 as the age for long guns while simultaneously 16 as the age to vote.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-flag-walkout-day-southwest-high-school-minneapolis-moment-silence-846631
Newsweek has this, about the assault ... Misleading link words
Organized or approved expeditions off school property require written parental permission. Did the school obtain them for each student participating?
The concept of "in loco parentis" doesn't eliminate the need for parental approval. I think the school's insurer also requires it.
"I would have approached them and nicely engaged them: Excuse me, can I ask you, what does your sign mean?"
If I were organizing such a demonstration, I'd have made sure there are handlers onsite (e.g. off-putting or intimidating fiery semi-professional activists, both men and women) ready to intercept any interlopers.
Then these Red Guards would intervene and argue with you in a loud voice, shout slogans to drown you out or swear at you, surround you, maybe push you a bit. Anything to make you lose temper and lose face (by making you appear ridiculous) and prevent you from having a person-to-person conversation with the ordinary protesters. Since in this case the protesters are children, they could just claim to be adults concerned about protecting children from big bad you.
I'm pretty sure the goal of these events is to instill an us-vs.-them mentality and to denormalize the opponents' politics, not to have a Socratic dialogue. To me, this is just common sense.
Still, I'm curious if dialogue ever works in these situations. Is there a way to get beyond the programming?
Field Marshall Freder: "I can't find anything remotely like it."
Teachers operating in Freder's preferred Maoist education system aren't even allowed to address possible double standards or DoublePlusUngood Ideas:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/378584-california-high-school-teacher-on-leave-after-questioning
It appears that in Freder-World, as in the entirety of Lefty-World, Free Speech for the Right Ideas is always in vogue.
WrongThink however, well, thats quite different now, isn't it?
A friend of mine posted the flyer his middle schoolers brought home.
Emblazened at the top was the RESIST! clenched fist.
Fucking, leftist ghouls using 12-year-olds to push their agenda.
NS: "http://www.newsweek.com/trump-flag-walkout-day-southwest-high-school-minneapolis-moment-silence-846631"
You don't understand NS. Your link was quite easy to find. If one really cared to look.
However, like the little islamist in Florida who murdered a another kid and attacked several others with a knife which led to ANOTHER almost 100% embargoed story by the LLR Chuck approved MSM, it never happened.
If Freder doesn't know about it, what further proof does one need that something never happened?
Jim at: "Fucking, leftist ghouls using 12-year-olds to push their agenda."
Not at all.
Just friendly and loving leftists "educating" our kids.
I wonder if they'll be issuing the Little Red Books and Che t-shirts next week?
Would this kind of protest have happened if Hillary was President? I think not.
Of course not. Did the little shits and their enablers do any such thing after school shootings during the Obama years?
No.
It's simply another temper tantrum aimed at Trump.
Bravo Althouse, well done.
Why is it surprising that Dems use kids as their tools? All Dems think like children, ie all emotion, no rational thought.
More Winning!
Field trips were the best (or most memorable) part of elementary school.
As a kid, I remember going on a field trip to the local radio station. Years later, I worked in radio and smiled as kids came to see us on field trips of their own.
Now, there are no more field trips, and not many radio stations. And I'm growing old.
Freder Frederson said...
Hinderaker provided no link to his story about the counter protesters being beaten up. I can't find anything remotely like it. And you are adding to what is apparently fake news by repeating it.
You really should be more careful.
The explanation is that it occurred in Minneapolis. Hinderaker is in suburban Minneapolis. Hinderaker knew one of the kids. The story was picked up belatedly on the local Minneapolis CBS outlet. There were no links, because Hinderaker was ahead of the story online.
Minneapolis PD is investigating.
One kid (not two, as Hinderaker mistakenly reported) was injured.
Here is a link:
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/03/14/trump-flag-assault/
Back in the day, like 11 years ago. Students would do research and write papers with actual solutions.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
Harvard Law Journal 2007 "Would Banning Fire Arms Reduce Murder and Suicide?"
Interesting read, I would be for gun control if it address the underlying causes why people murder. Great article with some 'terrifying' stats that the people who want to kill is really small and there are enough objective red flags to identify them and 1. remove guns from those specific small group of people and 2. Get then any needed help, so they don't want to murder people.
We all want less murder right? It seems people actually have some good ideas, but no one wants to read anymore. Unless it fits on a poster or a meme I guess.
We really don't nee a cross the board ban.
There's also this one:
https://www.facebook.com/kenny.macdonald.9619/posts/1824240220983443
" Students held signs that said, “Arm our teachers” they had two signs. A student walked out without saying a word peacefully put up his sign which said “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” he was escorted off the property by our principal and threatened to be put into a police car."
I wonder why these picked kids’ parents are such sheep?
Make that “picked on kids’”
Ralph L-- I remember a field trip to a bread factory too. I wonder if the bread making companies 'bought' those somehow, in the early 60s. Bread baking at home must have ceased, in large part, by then, I guess.
I wish the organizers of the 'Repeal the 26th' movement every success.
and, of course:
"A high school student in Hilliard, Ohio, didn’t want to pick sides in the contentious gun debate surrounding Wednesday’s “National Walkout,” so he stayed in class instead of joining the largely anti-gun protest or an alternative “study hall.”
Hilliard Davidson High School senior Jacob Shoemaker was then reportedly slapped with a suspension."
These voluntary demonstrations were, Of Course MANDATORY
This was never about school safety, "common sense gun control"or anything but firing up the Democrat base and getting them out for the election in November.They could care less how many kids die or else they would be protesting this coming weekend in any big city, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.. with a Democrat mayor.
Sebastian, I think you nailed it. The anti-gunners really believe that there's a way to make all guns disappear (like cigarettes, dontcha know) and then all will be peaceful forever. I've found that repeating that statement back to them and then asking, "ok, outline all the steps on how we get there from here," produces hilarious results.
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