me

The Lovefest Continues

Calvin Freiburger Bush, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Iran, liberalism, me, moonbats, reporter, War on Terror
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Ah, yes, dear Mr. Freiburger and his little neocon fantasies. What do you have to say about the fact that Iran curtailed its nuclear weapons program in 2003, yet King George just recently acknowledged the same fact?
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The “fact” our lib-of-the-day refers to is actually a National Intelligence Estimate—which, according to Alan Dershowitz, “falls hook, line and sinker for a transparent bait and switch tactic employed not only by Iran, but by several other nuclear powers in the past.” This, by the by, would be the same Iran that’s still doing this. And this. And this. Yeah, I really feel good about giving these guys a clean bill of health.
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President Bush has been caught in a lie. Or is it a situation for people like you, Calvin, that you think the president’s own intelligence “cooked” the intelligence?
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First, no he hasn’t. Second, what does “you think the president’s own intelligence cooked the intelligence” even mean? Is it a vain attempt at wit?
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Maybe this quote by Herman Goering (he was a Nazi, in case you don’t know, since you supposedly received such a poor education at Fond du Lac High School) at the Nuremberg Trials can explain it better for you:
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Such a poor education? I never said anything of the sort. Shouldn’t we expect a college professor to read a little more carefully, and get the basic facts right when he attacks someone?
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“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding to the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country.”
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Predictably, our friend sees Nazis around every corner. Never mind that the attack, and the continuing threat, are all too real. It figures.
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On second thought, I’m trying to talk logically to a neocon.
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“Trying” being the operative word…

Is This the Best You Can Do?

Calvin Freiburger Church of Liberalism, dishonesty, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, letters, me, public schools, reporter
And another vain attempt to demonstrate the error of my ways, this time courtesy of Brent Schmitz:
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Mixed metaphors aside, Mr. Calvin Freiburger seems to think that Fond du Lac High School is full of evil liberal educators that are out to indoctrinate your children in their evil liberal ways.
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It’s never a good sign when the falsehoods start in the first sentence. I wrote: “I was blessed to have many outstanding teachers. But I also encountered some teachers who were precisely the kind of liberal fanatics Rob Hynek warns us about.” Does that sound like I’m claiming FHS is “full of” them?
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My own experience at the same school paints a far different picture. As an AP political science student, I was a witness to several informal issue debates in which the participants were two teachers. One of them I would describe as liberal, and the other was a conservative Gulf War veteran. Both were excellent teachers and great friends.
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Their discussions were always polite and focused on the merits of a particular position; the debate never became personal. These exchanges taught me that through debate and argument that the best ideas are found. It is through discussion that we develop and reinforce our own thoughts and philosophies. It is also in these exchanges that our minds can be changed.
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Good for him. However, just because he had certain experience with certain teachers doesn’t disprove the fact that I had different experiences with different teachers.
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Mr. Freiburger seems to devalue debate and disagreement within the American political sphere. Evidently, only conservative teachers are worthy of community support and funding, as per the veiled threat he makes at the end of his letter.
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This is an absurd mischaracterization of what I wrote, and I challenge Mr. Schmitz to back it up with a single one of my words. Only teachers who do their jobs—liberal & conservative alike—are worthy of community support & funding. Teachers who use their authority to advance any personal agenda—liberal & conservative alike—are not.
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In a few months, I am going to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (yes, that liberal bastion) with a degree in political science. It is clear to me, as a student of politics, that oftentimes in the political debate we are so busy hurling partisan insults that we lose sight of what is at stake.
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If Brent really cared about the integrity of debate, he would debate my actual words, not mischaracterizations.
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In this case, the education of more than 2,000 students at Fond du Lac High School is in the hands of many teachers, some liberal, and some conservative. Just like America. And that’s the way it should be.
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If that were the case, there’d be no problem. But that’s not what we’re talking about, Brent. Read a little closer next time.

Back to School

Calvin Freiburger Church of Liberalism, education, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, letters, me, public schools, reporter
My latest letter has another challenger. Today Daniel Sitter writes:
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Calvin Freiburger, the recent graduate from Fond du Lac High School, wrote a lucid, impressively worded diatribe about liberal teachers still in our schools.
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The majority of teachers Calvin learned from in his own words were “outstanding,” but there were some liberals among them that felt the Iraq war was a big mistake.
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I didn’t say that having liberals among my teachers was the problem. Indeed, I’ll be the first to say that among the good teachers, I knew a number to be liberal, and I never learned the ideology of most of the rest (I do know of a few who were conservative—but they never abused their positions by pushing a right-wing agenda in class). Nor do I object to considering the Iraq War a mistake. Political opinions become an issue in the classroom when a teacher uses his authority to try to persuade his students to adopt a political belief, and when he presents disputable (or flat-out false) political propositions as facts, and when he does so at the expense of the actual class subject—all of which happened at Fond du Lac High School.
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I’m sure the majority of the other teachers, whatever their political affiliation, made up for any liberal bias that Calvin may have encountered.
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It’s true that, on balance, I got a good education at FHS. And while teacher indoctrination may not have harmed me personally, since I had a solid grounding in political values & independent thinking, many students can’t say the same—they simply hear these things from an authority figure they’re supposed to be able to trust, and understandably assume what they hear is on the level. Moreover, any class time spent ranting about George Bush is time spent not discussing a class’s actual subject. Indeed, at times my senior year Western Literature course would get derailed by as much as a full week because our resident lefty had ideological grudges he preferred to indulge in.
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In any organization, there are going to be people who abuse their posts. That’s understandable. However, it’s the duty of those who run the organization to deal with such people. If they don’t, then we have a problem that demands scrutiny. I’ve seen no evidence that the powers-that-be in the FdL School District have any interest in holding partisan teachers accountable.
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As a teacher in Fond du Lac, I’m very proud that Calvin is involved in these discussions and has passion for his beliefs. I’m also impressed with his writing and willingness to take a firm stand. He must have had good teachers who helped him examine his ideas and develop his opinions.
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Of all the things for which I owe my public education, rest assured that my political & philosophical development are not on that list. Isn’t it remarkable how arrogant Mr. Sitter seems to be, that one of his first instincts is to claim credit for something his profession had nothing to do with?
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What makes me afraid is his self-righteousness and implied superiority in his writing.
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Again, I think our friend has self-righteousness issues of his own. But for the record, I don’t consider myself inherently superior to anyone. What I will admit to is this: when I see people abuse the trust a community places within them—entrusting them with the community’s very children—I believe they, along with their apologists, should be stood up to by all the concerned, responsible members of the community.
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He is already dismissing those he disagrees with as “all wet” and feels he is “beating a dead horse” when addressing legitimate concerns millions of citizens have in the great United States. I think his narrow world view has something to do with age, but perhaps the reason goes deeper than that.
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No, I dismiss those who spout bumper-sticker-caliber left-wing talking points as “all wet.” And as I originally explained, this dead horse has been beat and beat. The argument has been amply waged on the Reporter’s opinion page, and I’ve contributed my share (for example, here and here). I opted not to rehash Iraq in detail because I wanted to focus on the education angle, which is also important and gets nowhere near as much attention. It has nothing to do with narrow-mindedness, and everything to do with staying on topic.
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With radio hosts spewing hate across the airwaves and television shows polarizing viewers in an us-against-them culture, perhaps we should have something to fear from the schools.
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I should have guessed: hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh are the real problem! If you actually listen to Rush and his radio brethren, you know Dan is utterly mischaracterizing them (though I will admit that Michael Savage is too much of a loose cannon to be a good representative of the industry. Still, he is the exception to an otherwise-impressive rule).
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Maybe we don’t do enough to make sure our students have an open mind and understand that although opinions differ, insulting and condescending opposing viewpoints do not further the discussion at all.
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Open minds? My whole point has been that the teachers I’m talking about don’t care a whit about cultivating open minds; they want to churn out new liberals. As for the tone of debate, I think the opposition’s moral authority in that area has been, shall we say, diminished of late. Politics is a rowdy arena, and people should know better than to get worked up over a little blunt talk & ribbing every now & then (I think most do). What is appropriate? Calm debate is always the ideal, if it’s possible, and I’ve done that when I can. Sometimes, though, there are offenses that need to be condemned, and sometimes reasoned debate is flat-out impossible.
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Calvin missed that point, and I for one am hoping we don’t let another student miss the point either, no matter what the politics may be.
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Au contraire; your point has been well-taken…and rebutted.

What I’m Reading Right Now

Calvin Freiburger books, Christianity, conservatism, Da Vinci Code, Horowitz, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, liberalism, me, Reagan, religion, Stossel
Currently I’m juggling the following:
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I’ve finally started The Da Vinci Code, and I’ve got to give Dan Brown this much: he knows how to write suspense. The mystery and the distinct characters surrounding it do have quite an allure. Which is why all the falsehoods (Wikipedia’s article on ‘em is surprisingly long, but be careful—it is Wikipedia, after all) within are so inexcusable, especially considering Brown’s “Fact” preface in the front. And occasionally Brown wanders into displays of sheer idiocy like this line: “Langdon was always surprised how few Christians who gazed upon ‘the crucifix’ realized their symbol’s violent history was reflected in its very name: ‘cross’ and ‘crucifix’ came from the Latin word cruciare—to torture.” Uh, note to Dan: the torture Christ endured for our sins isn’t exactly an obscure part of Christianity…Bottom line: if Brown had instead prefaced the book with something along the lines of, “The following story takes creative license with several elements of history, religion and art,” I could probably give The Da Vinci Code a thumbs-up (at least so far; we’ll see how things go when I’m finished).
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Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know Is Wrong by John Stossel and The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Radicals in America by David Horowitz. These gems—the former on various falsehoods in all walks of life, the latter on demented college professors—are nice because they’re broken down into bite-sized passages that can be read & set aside without forgetting some important context that came before. Highly recommended.
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At a thrift shop tonight I found Reagan: The Political Chameleon. It’s a book written before the Gipper’s presidency by ex-California Governor Pat Brown. Once I finish the above, I look forward to reading how spectacularly wrong Brown, in retrospect, is with his assertion that “there is no need to qualify this view in the slightest: Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency would be a national disaster.” Also, this passage from the jacket got me thinking:
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“What sort of man is Ronald Reagan? His philosophy has ranged the political spectrum—from left-wing Democrat during the McCarthy era, to capitalist spokesman for General Electric, to Goldwater conservative—changing colors as the chameleon does, constantly camouflaging himself to match his environment. Do Reagan’s beliefs truly reflect the man, or are they merely a method of matching the views of his current circle, with no more depth or profundity that the varying hues of the chameleon?”
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Hmm…who does the Left level that charge against these days? (Now, I don’t want to jinx anything, or prematurely make him into another Reagan…but we can hope…)