The reaction to President Obama’s speech to America’s schoolchildren has sparked a bizarre level of concern. Parental outrage over the address seems to be inversely proportional to the actual threat that his banal speech will produce socialist automatons. Perhaps conservative Americans have hit the faux-outrage button so many times now that we can’t tell the difference anymore between real threats and imaginary ones.
If so, then we might want to look to our neighbors to the north so see what real indoctrination of children looks like. According to Lydia McGrew:
In Quebec, all children from 1st grade up have to be put through a relativistic “religion” curriculum that teaches that homosexuality is normal and that treats all religions, including atheism, as equal.
I said “all children.” I meant “all children.” I mean children in Catholic private schools, children in all private schools, home schoolers, everyone. Parents have marched in protest to no effect. Over 1,700 applications for exemptions have been denied. A Catholic school has been refused the opportunity to substitute a world religions course more in line with its Catholic identity. No. No. No. We are all relativists now, or we will be by the time Big Brother is done with us. (Perhaps I should learn to say “Big Brother” in French, since this is Quebec.)
And thanks for nothin’ to Bishop Martin Veillette who wrote a letter to the Minister of Education undermining Catholics’ attempts to get an exemption.
That’s not just heated rhetoric either: According to the Christian Telegraph, “In making his decision, the judge, Justice Jean-Guy Dubois, relied heavily on two Catholic sources: (1) the testimony of a Catholic theologian who emphasized that the Catholic Church values instruction in other religions, and (2) the position of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops, who did not support “a priori” exemptions based on religion.”
Justice Dubois even states in his decision that the student’s freedom is not violated because the curriculum does not require the children to believe that which it teaches. What sort of soft despotism is this? And if believing is not required, why not just exempt them from having to be exposed to it?
The reason is that educators know that the young are particularly susceptible to social pressure. Expose them to a belief and then hint that they are evil/wicked/stupid for not believing it and they are likely to surrender their own conscience in order to earn the esteem of their teachers and peers. The indoctrinators know very well that the relentless exposure to the propaganda is the only way to subvert their young consciences.
September 8th, 2009 | 8:14 am
This brings to mind the story of Humpty Dumpty: Once an entity is separated into its component parts, it cannot be brought back to real life. One trusts that this is not permanently true in the case of the Catholic faith, all the while fearing the terrible suffering that this “scientific dissection” under the guise of “education” will cause. As in the case of biologists explaining love, we will “have the form but miss the meaning” – and thereby become less human. God help us.
September 8th, 2009 | 8:48 am
Does this not warrant the outrage over President Obama’s speech here in America? After all, Canada didn’t begin where it is now. It’s easier to stand against such positions before they are established and codified.
September 8th, 2009 | 9:26 am
Actually, we’re much closer to the Canadian model than we think…only less overtly so.This may be why conservatives get so frothed up over seemingly nothing…the walls of every public school, every state university, are papered with posters extolling the virtues of Secularism, from diversity to transgender to “safe sex.” History classes already serve as “White Oppression 101.” At school club fairs, “awareness” events and the like, nothing but liberal causes are represented. And although I put my children in Catholic schools k-12, I found the liberal bonafides of the faculty and religious to be prominently on display. Just last year, the sister who gave the opening prayer at a mother-daughter school luncheon invoked Mother Earth 11 times, Jesus once. If conservatives seem to be going off the deep end, maybe we’re just trying to catch up with all the outrage we should have been demonstrating for years!!
September 8th, 2009 | 10:53 am
I can envision the President, in this case, Barak Hussein Obama, being seen as Big Brother by students and teachers across the country. Remember the novel 1984? B.B. appeared on a screen to “instruct” the people in what to do and what to think.
BHO is the first manifestation of B.B., and expect to see more of this tactic.
September 8th, 2009 | 11:23 am
“bizarre level of concern”?
Sorry. That description of O’s speech is not historically accurate. This was THE DEFINITION of bizarre level of concern if there every was any.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
September 8th, 2009 | 11:49 am
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
September 8th, 2009 | 11:56 am
The issue I have is with the way all the exercises for “critical thinking” were designed around the speech. It’s a method I’ve seen used in China. Once the process is accepted in the U.S., indoctrination can take place without anyone noticing.
Though in the end, I have to wonder why anyone concerned about this has their child in a public school at all. They’re getting worse lessons every single day of the year.
September 8th, 2009 | 12:27 pm
My daughter was in a private catholic girl’s high school. The day she came home from school talking about “a woman’s choice” absolutely blew my stack. Fortunately, I was able to divert that indoctrination from the choice of abortion to “yes, and a woman makes that choice when she goes to bed with a man” that she then adopted. If you can’t get Catholic instruction in a private Catholic school, where _can_ you get it?
I feel like our priests and nuns have abandoned us – which means the Church, to a certain extent – has abandoned us, and left us on our own to seek truth.
September 8th, 2009 | 12:41 pm
While I agree (mostly — there MAY be a camel’s nose under the tent element to the speech) with the sentiment that some of the reaction has been over the top, I found myself puzzled, and frankly a little angered by this remark: “Perhaps conservative Americans have hit the faux-outrage button so many times now…”
Conservatives as habitual pushers of the “faux outrage” button? Not in my experience. In fact, the opposite seems to be closer to my experience. Most conservatives tend to have jobs, be busy with family stuff, and inclined to not get terribly riled up about much. This stems in my view form a general (conservative) understanding of the universal “brokenness” of the human condition (while not always explicitly theological, most conservatives would agree with the statement “human beings are sinful”). Yes there are exceptions, but most of the outrage when it comes from the right is generally principled and hardly “faux”.
The sort of manufactured outrage that you seem to believe is common on the right is primarily a creature of the political left and has been for at least a generation.
September 8th, 2009 | 1:03 pm
“the curriculum does not require the children to believe that which it teaches”
What in the world does that mean? How can anyone be required to believe something? No one on earth has the power to enforce that, absent brain surgery or psychotropic drugs. Is that what the judge seeks in order to claim students’ freedoms are violated? Rationality has gone missing.
The true pain, though, is the statement of the bishops. When Catholics pray the St. Michael we don’t expect to need protection from our own leaders. Why are they helping the devil set his snares?
September 8th, 2009 | 1:25 pm
The judge in this case either did not recognize or found it convenient to forget that those in power have special responsibilities toward those placed in their charge. Their position of authority carries with it influence and power similar to that of settled law. Freedom requires that we recognize the necessity of safeguarding the young from undue state influence, thereby preserving the local institutions that protect us from tyranny. By teaching that homosexuality is normal or that all religions are equal, these teachers will place upon the students a burden that very few have the resources to resist. Children need a cultural frame of reference in order to make sense of their lives. If relativism is the order of the day, most will not be able to endure the loneliness that is inherent in a minority position. The result will be the result that is intended: Weakening of religious and familial bonds; strengthening of the state. The requirement that families can no longer hand down their faith through the last resort of homeschooling; that churches must teach what they believe to be untrue – this is a catastrophe.
September 8th, 2009 | 2:14 pm
We all feel deeply in our bones the urgency of this with regard to our children, families and our country. How many of us are praying? Really praying? Not just five second prayers, but also calling together friends, church members and stopping by church for five, ten, or thirty minutes. We know what to do; let’s do it!!
September 8th, 2009 | 4:35 pm
At the risk of simply repeating what other responders have said–the problem is not with just the one speech, but with a whole pattern of “leadership” whereby the new USA Dear Leader is happy to flood us with mendacious commentary about our recent history, about his own programs, about the benefits of socialism and the evils of capitalism, etc etc.
If the Dear Leader starts making these direct appeals to our students, political indoctrination will either be part of it or will follow soon. We’re right and prudent to be opposed, not bizarre.
September 8th, 2009 | 9:56 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Teri Smallwood, Londiniensis and Katolsk infotjeneste. Teri Smallwood said: Well, it has to start somewhere: http://bit.ly/2gedpZ [...]
September 8th, 2009 | 10:08 pm
My children went to Catholic grade school and high school, but the history textbooks were all models of liberal indoctrination. The reactions to the president’s speech weren’t “faux outrage” at all but merely the cup overflowing after so many other drops filled it to the rim!
September 9th, 2009 | 3:59 pm
On a similar theme: Christian Girls, Interrupted from WSJ. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574398963953876266.html
September 10th, 2009 | 10:31 am
In French versions of Orwell’s famous book “1984″, “Big Brother” is left untranslated. So McGrew need not say “Grand Frère” — the Québécois will know what she means!
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