Teacher Suspended After Comparing Bush To Hitler

mrcg, the link in #153 is extremist and factually rather incorrect on many of its points. I don't think Brad Farris or I have argue that it is. Your argument lately seems to rest on the perception that because we defend what the teacher did or even the attempts at making historical comparisons, then we will ultimately end up where that article is. Ummm....no. I can differentiate between valid comparisons and totally ludicrous comparisons. That is part of being a critical thinker. I never take anything someone says for truth until I have evaluated the claims for myself. For instance, I don't buy that there hasn't been abuses by the government when it comes to the Patriot Act just because Robert Gonzales says so, or that certain provisions are necessary to combat terrorism just because Bush or Gonzales say they are. I also have never believed any claims any of my profs or teachers have made without doing some critical thinking and evaluating those claims on their own.

Those is an interesting link, emmapeel and it is a little scary to see how many of those 14 points could be compared to things going on in this country now. I don't necessarily agree and nor will I said that we are becoming a fascist government, but there certainly are some disturbing trends and we will just have to wait and see how it all turns out. I think some of the things on that list have been losing steam in the past year or so. Cronyism, for one, took a major blow during Hurricane Katrina with the whole "Brownie" mess. I would also argue that Nationalism doesn't have the fervor that it once did either. Certainly there is a strong minority that is still fiercely nationalistic, but the majority has relaxed a bit, I think. Anyway, this is a discussion for another thread somewhere so I am going to leave it at that.

mrcg, I am not worried about what my kid's teacher says in class because I believe they will have the ability to think for themselves and to critically evaluate anything that is said.

Quite frankly, the united states is in trouble anyway - due to capitalism and its foreign policy. It breeds a society of greed, immorality, and lust for power, and it acts like a terrorist towards other nations. Yes, the usa is going down.

sorry that link was this: http:// users.eastlink.ca /~scroll/ (omit the spaces after the first // and before the following /)

Curse that infernal capitalism and its ridiculous success!

Show me the way to question whether or not there is some complete bull@!$%# political agenda behind this? Hmm? Right now ill compare, Bush silences a teacher from spouting a free and definitely not ill willed opinion in the great land of America. Hitler guns the germans down who speak out against him, the fuhrer is obviously correct, so the germans and just like the americans obviously agree, lets go kill the jews, lets go kill the iraqis. Difference? Ya, the iraqis fight for their freedom. Or at least more heavily with weapons. In both cases the weaker party didnt and isnt having much of a fighting chance, but hey, if you can brainwash so many people to think that its all good to send your freaks overseas to torture and kill innocent, and the freedom fighters that are protecting their freakin kids, then good, your politicians can get their dicks sucked twice more often per week. While you, sit at home and watch the feces coming out of the tv, and then shoving more mc feces down ur throats, as long as you have that big M over your fat head, ur ok. You dont even need to be told to be lazy any more, the average population is so big they couldnt move if they wanted. Life is a laughing matter sure, but there are lots of non laughing matters. Like rockets and tanks coming through the walls of kids rooms, "just checking if youre tucked in". The soul less and senseless disgusting pigs that you call your presidents and governors dont even know their own freedom anymore either, caught in a system that even if they could feel something for the hurt people, they couldnt do much about either, theyre not smart enough. This american bull@!$%# that you have to watch something happen on a tv is the same as in reality, expected not to react to anything unless its you or ur family that getting @!$%#ed. The only difference was that hitler was in the later stages of his militancy, and probably the only reason america isnt a fully militant nation is because theres way too many fat asses, and not quite everyone is a retard. Noam chompsky is bull@!$%#? Well maybe so, but ill tell you that the new world order must be like this: Truth, Morals, Loyalty. What do you see when you see chompsky? Hes telling the truth, well what does he have to gain from lying anyway? A hatred for the US? The smart people dont hate the US, its only the bull@!$%# portrayed in these rants, people pretending they hate the US when they dont understand @!$%#, or are brainwashing further. Anyone thats not ignorant knows they dont hate the US, they hate the system, and no amount of bull@!$%# and brainwash and propaganda will get rid of truth, because truth will prevail, and those rich politician @!$%#es can suck my **** until theyre blue in the face, because the world is full of truth and there are freedom fighters from all kinds of free countries. You can look at my rant as crazy, but you may also be an idiot. Freedom fighters can be peace keepers, not neccesarily what the tube vision of the brainwashed people see. All you simple minded people can only see one idea at a time, what youve been taught by your people is to think highway, one straight unchanging road of thought that you wouldnt dare veer off of. How about accepting some thoughts once in a while? Accept everything because you never know whats right, ive you know Descartes, you cant be certain of anything, dont learn to question a view and stick with it. Just like all of history people have been shown the way of thinking in a straight line, remember one thing from my words, to keep a peoples brainwashed, all you have to teach them is to accept what theyre told and to never think otherwise. Even now were all being decieved, and its ridiculous. Im sometimes ashamed to live as a human being. Well im off to watch family guy ep9 season 5.

bonder, whoever you are, regardless of you stance on the issue.

Please break it into paragraphs and use proper spelling and punctuation, and if possible, keep most information factual instead of opinionated.
I got a headache after the second line and quit reading...

As much as I dislike Bush, this was not a "Bush did so and so" thing. In fact, I'm sure that you heard about this situation before Bush did. This was a decision made by the school at the pressuring of a student who illegally recorded a class.

Bush does enough stuff for us to be upset about without making up more things (which then weakens the good arguments we have).

1) Wire tapping. There was a system put in place for just such a thing and he bypassed it. Rationally speaking, bypassing a system that does exactly what you want to do isn't rational in and of itself. Hence the upsetedness (I love English, it's great for inventing new words).

2) Invasion of Iraq. Killing other people, for whatever purpose is not rational. I personally think that war is a fact of life and in many cases, support it. But some don't. That doesn't make them irrational (they simply want to think that humans have grown past the violent bonds of biology), it simply makes them different.

3) No Child Left Behind. New requirements were set for schools. That's great! Schools are given a fraction of the funding initially promised and needed to meet the new requirements. Not so great... people were upset.

4) Gay marriage. Strictly speaking, gays are technically people too. Yet Bush approves of them being denied rights (not just the right to marry, but the rights to adoption, inheritance, and power of attorney). Essentially, the same arguments in favor of a gay marriage ammendment are the same as those once used to restrict inter-racial marriages... which as we now know, aren't overly rational.

I'd just like to restate, that two opposing sides can differ on opinion and still both be rational. This isn't a mutually exclusive situation.

ryleeys - What communist country do you live in? Here in the US, it's not illegal to record a classroom lecture.

Can we stick to facts?

I live in China. :-D

A few months ago, there was a case of a former head of the UCLA Republican Club attempting to pay students $100 for secretly recording lectures by so-called "liberal and leftist" professors. UCLA was able to stop the payments as this was a violation of university copyright policy.

I may have been mistaken and the copyright laws may apply to each institution individually. It does appear to be legal to record a lecture for the student's own academic purposes. However, rebroadcasting that lecture is where the issue gets muddled.

I'm doing some research on the issue and I'll post here whatever I find. However, I'm reminded of certain things such as the Major League Baseball, "Any reproduction or rebroadcast of this event without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited." There are similar warnings on rented movies.

So, I will back off my statement concerning the legality until I find the appropriate copyright laws to determine one way or the other.

I will say though, that the secret recording and then redistribution of the lecture (in effect to start a witch hunt) was entirely self-serving and ethically reprehensible. Even if you view the teacher's lecture as ethically (and possibly legally) wrong, the student's actions were equally wrong in terms of ethics and morals.

I just came across this, which discusses intellectual ownership of lectures. The source is the University of Texas.

Is Your Lecture Copyrighted?

Federal copyright law only protects works that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. A lecture, in and of itself, is not fixed. In order to be protected by federal law, a lecture would have to be either a performance of an underlying work that is fixed, for example, a recitation of a written speech, or a transmission that is fixed simultaneously. This latter provision may be of significance in distance learning. If a faculty member lectures from an outline or notes, or just "wings it," federal copyright law does not protect the lecture and the faculty member will not be able to assert federal rights against anyone.

This does not mean, however that the lecture can't be protected. Fortunately, most states protect works like a lecture that are not yet fixed. "Common law copyright" used to protect all works until they were published when publication was the event that brought them within the federal law. Today, however, works are protected from the moment of their fixation, rather than from the date of publication, so there's very little left for common law copyright to protect. Thus, "unfixed" works are one of the few remaining categories of works protected by state law. So long as the faculty member can clearly establish that she is the author, most states will fully protect her lecture, calling upon concepts similar to those found in federal law to determine whether the common law copyright has been infringed.

So, if a faculty member has decided to limit what students can do with the notes they take while in class, and assuming she does not recite prepared speeches, the first step should be recording the lecture at the time she delivers it. This provides excellent proof of her authorship so that she may easily claim common law copyright protection for the unfixed work, and the recording itself will be protected by federal copyright law, though its infringement is not so likely to be an issue if the faculty member maintains control over the recording.

So, the issue does definitely appear slightly muddled. I'm guessing that the school district's policy would dictate whether or not the student recording the lecture and then rebroadcasting it is in violation of copyright standards. I certainly hope they're looking into it at the very least.

I should also point out that having checked UCLA, the University of Texas, the University of California, and the University of Maryland... all of these have copyright statements in effect to protect lectures given by their professors. At the very least, there is precedent, if not iron-clad law governing this action.

To me, that indicates that it was ethically reprehensible at the least. I hope that we can all agree that the student's actions were morally unacceptable and there are better courses of action to take for students who feel that a teacher is violating policy concerning presentation of opinions. (Such as, having his parents contact the school... contacting the school's principal... etc.)

rylees-

1 - would it surprise you that in 1996, Pres. Clinton was asking Congress for increased domestic wiretapping authority?

2 - The Dems were rudely reminded of their complicity in going to war when their taped speeches were replayed for them showing many of them claiming Iraq (Saddam) was an "imminent" threat to the US.

3 - you could be right

4 - knowing his strong and unwavering position on this issue, 62M citizens still turned out to vote for him. Recent polls show over 60% do not favor gay marriage. And since some here have added irrelevant facts to this trhead, allow me....52% of women are now pro-life.

ctm1059,

First off, I appreciate the polite response.

1 - I have no problem with domestic wiretapping within the law. Clinton asked for the authority from Congress, but did he simply do it and worry about the consequences later, or did he respect the demands of having a warrant through FISA (before or after the fact...)? And democrat or republican, any congressman who knew of Bush's program and stayed quiet is just as indictable in my opinion as the president.

2 - I have no qualms about some democrats changing their perspective on the war in Iraq. At the time, the evidence presented did seem to justify it. The question is, was the evidence manipulated in any way, or was it the honest analysis of the intelligence community? That may be a question we'll never know the answer to.

3 - Thanks! I could be wrong too, so it's all good.

4 - Kerry was probably the worst choice for the democrats. Nothing about him 'felt' presidential. This strongly contributed to Bush's victory. I also feel like Kerry's weakness was played up by Bush (which was a good strategy and I won't criticize him for that). I do feel that Bush was reelected by convincing Americans to be afraid... and I'm not in favor of governing via fear. I don't find it surprising about the 60% against gay marriage. If the survey was worded differently and asked, "Do you think homosexuals should have equal rights concerning inheritance, child-care, and taxes as heterosexuals?" would the results be the same?

The tricky thing is, how much of the gay marriage and abortion debates are grounded in religion. I don't think they are entirely religious in nature, but we also can't deny the influence of religion. But the United States is also founded on the belief that your religious beliefs should not affect my rights. It's damn tricky to say the least.

Update with the teacher: He has been reinstated. I realize this has gone a lot farther away from this but this is where I'm writing it, so there.