Secular Right

For what it’s worth one of the only positive attributes Obama brings to the presidency is his example as a minority who achieved something via education. I’d be glad to see him talking to students every day on the chance that would result in more of them getting some basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

As to perspective, the man has no experience in the real world to provide context for perspective. Better talking to children than making mischief with adults in DC.

Don’t rag on critical thinking skills. They are becoming more and more important every year.

I think this post might be mistaking a case of mere pandering for suspected preaching. Polls show that large numbers of young people want taxpayer dollars spent on green energy regimes, and it is general consensus among educators that rote memorization is secondary to critical thinking skills (disclaimer: I think they’re right on this issue). Though he does bring up the usual liberal laundry list of social ills, he at least had the good sense to use language at least implicit of the fact that the market is probably whence their solutions will arise.

As we all know, Obama’s rhetorical skill lies in his ability to be everything to everyone, and to me his speech was merely predictable, not “pompous” and especially not “ridiculously long.” Your final point also struck me as a little desperate: “Who, exactly, are you to be saying these things to children?” Are we now demanding that the President of the United States have no right to encourage young people to do the right thing?

I didn’t see or read the speech, but it seems to me that critical thinking skiils would be very useful to, say, a teenage girl being pressured by her 5-years-older boyfried to forgo the condom. That and a little sex ed. And it would have the bonus of helping prevent single motherhood and thus poverty.

It still beats My Pet Goat.

Gee, I thought the speech was pretty harmless, and possibly helpful to some students.

>>Isn’t it the role of teachers and parents to encourage hard work and a love of learning?

Seems to me the more folks you have sending that message, the better. Some students have bad teachers and/or parents.

I thought his advice on not falling for the easy path that TV images seem to claim is out there, was very good and appropriate. “Find something you’re good at, and stick to it” was one of the sentiments he expressed. What’s wrong with that?

Derek Scruggs — It was “The Pet Goat.”

Oh please, Heather, don’t be so disingenuous. When everybody got wind of Obama’s plan to target the nation’s elementary school students with a bunch of his patented lib-speak propaganda, they had to scrap the original script!!! This is the best lame b.s. they could apparently come up with on short notice.

Barack Obama is Hugo Chavez-lite. His sole concern is his own personal power. This little speech to kids was all about trying to become more powerful through the influence of children. All the rest is details.

Take away the tele-prompter and BO critical thinking skills go away.

Critical thinking skills would’ve led most voters to disbelieve the media-fueled canard that an inexperienced lightweight one-half term senator from Illinois should be President of the United States. Obama owes his current job to American’s lack of critical thinking skills.

To be sincere (and though I love the man) I expected better.

Hey, the proper context of the criticisms of President Obama’s speaking to the schoolchildren was NOT the fact that he was going to do so.

The speech itself as ultimately posted is within the zone of innocuous, but that is not what was presented for inspection when President Obama (or one of his minions) first announced that he would address America’s schoolchildren. By the way, one would think that a president lampooned as “The One” would be more sensitive, or perhaps he really wants to be “The One” and, but for the initial reaction, would have proceeded with what some viewed as a “personality cult indoctrination.”

In any event, his minions over at the Department of Education (with or without “The One’s” direct input or review) originally put out educational materials which encouraged the little ones to study Obama’s life and to write essays about what they could do to help “President Obama.” To its credit, the Department of Education reacted to the criticism and revised the educational materials to be less concentrated on “The One.”

A noted disciple of Saul Alinsky decides to give a few words of advice to our children, but there is nothing about it that should concern us. Got it.

Sully, we know very little about what the POTUS achieved through his own education, as opposed to, say, affirmative action. His academic records are almost completely unknown to us, despite the fact that other elected officials’ educational records have been picked apart endlessly. I’m guessing his educational records would reveal a mediocre performance at best; why else does he not make them public?

Check out this hyper-creepy celebrity plug video, which ends with a borg-like pledge “to be a servant to our President and to all mankind. Because together we can… together we are… and together we will be the change that we seek.”

This was apparently shown in more than one school in conjunction with Dear Leader’s address. Now, I’m not a parent, but if I were I would certainly want the (unquestioned) ability to make sure that my children aren’t exposed to this sort of extracurricular claptrap at school.

I liked the part of finding “something you are good at and stick to it”. He should have followed his own advice and remained a community organizer.

I cannot emphasize enough that a huge reason for the intensity of the “paranoid and overheated opposition” to this speech was the ridiculous “study guide” that was released no less than six days prior to any release of the speech itself.

I need not repeat the details of that “guide” (other than the “write letters as to how you can help the President” line which pretty much describes its tenor), to point out how this was tailor made to prompt reactions of suspicion, nausea, anger, or mockery, depending on one’s deportment.

It has been posited that this was even done purposely, to make the right wing crazy and thus discredit them, but that’s a tad too through-the-looking-glass for me. (It is also proposed, much more plausibly, that the original speech may have been very different than the one eventually given, having been significantly changed based on that very reaction, but who is to know.) I am perfectly prepared to believe that it was all meant somewhat harmlessly, but the process showed total oblivion as to how power mad and indoctrinally minded this adminsitration is (rightly or not) perceived, at least, and is also symptomatic of terrible and repeated compulsion on the left, and that is the inability to simply leave well enough alone, and let school receive the Presidents message, and respond to it all on their own! But no, the White House has to make everything just so, to make sure they “get it right”.

So one can blame the right for getting overwrought here, but to pretend they did not have legitimate reasons for concern is to, yet again, lose sight entirely of where vast numbers of Americans are coming from when looking at this administration and how it does business.

Critical thinking skills ARE not a dominant skill taught in school..What is actually meant is “critical theory”, the Marxist product of infiltration, indoctrination and distabilisation. The only goal of critical theory is to criticise into nihilist negation of all empirical and moral values. Like PCism and multicultism etc, the entire purpose is to make it impossible for people to think rationally. Education today is often a series of logical fallacies andcognitive dissonances. drsanity blogspot com zombietime com thepeoplescube com, lookingattheleft com, dissectleft blogspot com, P.J O’Rourke etc. See Yuri Bezmenov at Colonel Robert Neville blogspot com.

Just like the Armageddon that would befall us in the year 2000, the speech that was suppose to indoctrinate our youth. Now who was spreading the baseless lies…..hmm…..oh ya, “Fake News”. Is anyone real surprised? Too funny.

@Derek Scruggs

Critical Thinking? What’s to think about? She needs it drummed into to her head from puberty that the only correct answer is “NO,” until they are mentally and financially ready to be parents–no ifs, ands, or buts. The girl needs three things: vigilant parents who won’t let her date older boys (my parent’s rule), parents who teach sexual responsibility, and a society that supports the parents and reenforces personal self-control (sociology 101: norms, roles, social control, and hierarchical structure). These problems are as old as sex, which is why the tradition of watchful mothers, chaperones, and shotguns developed. Nothing to think about here. Her answer is one to be memorized, and it is the adults’ responsibility to keep the wolves away.

I think it’s “silly season” when the President of the United States won’t put school vouchers on the table for the very students he is addressing. The poverty stricken portions of our society cannot and will not get the education he’s “doing his part” to make available if he keeps bowing to the teachers unions! Give the students the choice of where to go to school and watch the schools fix their problems.
In addition, perhaps the man who is doing everything in his power to suck the life out of the corporations (which do the grow the economy, conduct medical research, invest in the newly hired, mentor and train the smart and educated and put them to work in this CAPITALIST society) should stop his manic takeover of our economy.

Missing the point of the anger here, too, it seems. The controversy wasn’t really about the speech. Even Obama’s left-most handlers understood that there are strict limits to what you can say to people’s kids, president of the USA or not, and very few people were worried about his content. What did have people up in arms, and, I think, understandably so, was the “lesson plan” that was initially supposed to accompany it. It smacked of personality cultism. Additionally, the concept of a child being instructed to write a letter to oneself about about how they can “help the president” ignores the most fundamental freedom of our nation. Dissent.

What if that child disagrees with the president? Being forced by an authority figure to behave in a manner contrary to their own beliefs is not harmless.

But we can’t talk about that 500lb donkey in the living room. Or, now, I guess, the classroom.

Ellsworth Monkton Toohey.

So dull, too. I was sort of forced into sitting through the inauguration. Afterward I felt I had been barked at for an hour.

@Paul

and more and more rare…

As with most of the right-leaning intellectuals, MacDonald is halfway there. She now has the objective knowledge that Obama is a clownishly self-centered and unhinged ego, with no apparently constructive purpose to his blathering.

It should only be a short step for her to join the rest of the right in our understanding of this douchebag. Yes, his ego knows no bounds, but no, his blathering is not without purpose. She simply needs to observe his background and the people he surrounds himself with.

Just like the Armageddon that would befall us in the year 2000, the speech that was suppose to indoctrinate our youth. Now who was spreading the baseless lies…..hmm…..oh ya, “Fake News”. Is anyone real surprised? Too funny.

Well, Ms. Mac Donald, I guess you get what you vote for, huh?

Unfortunately, the rest of us got what you voted for, too. Thanks for that.

Remember back in May when Obama was so concerned for America’s schoolchildren that he turned away a whole busload of kindergarteners from Conway Elementary in Fredericksburg, VA, because they had the audacity to hope he’d forgive them for being tardy due to heavy traffic?

If he cares so much about education, why did he kill the DC voucher program? The students posted higher grades, they got out of an unsafe environment (the rotten-to-the-core DC public school system), and all for about half the cost of educating a child in public schools. He should have explained to the kids why his loyalty to the teachers unions outweighs his desire to see kids get a good, safe education.

Letter to our district superintendent:

I wanted to make you aware of my opposition to next week’s broadcast by the President of the United States to my elementary and junior high children. While no one knows the exact text of the speech, this unprecedented presentation gives me serious cause for concern. Here are a few of my issues.

First, if the President is simply delivering an innocent “stay in school” message, he is requiring Katy ISD and all other districts nationwide to use precious time and other resources just to deliver a message they hear frequently from people closer to them. Hearing such a message means more from parents, family, and teachers locally. This address is, at best, a waste of time and money.

Second, few people on either side of the political spectrum would argue the fact that our current President excels at campaigning and persuasion. And given the massive programs implemented, pending implementation, and proposed by this administration, it is logical that the President has been using any and all avenues to reach the American public to convince them of his programs. As an staunch opponent of higher taxes, larger federal deficits, unfunded mandates, and expanding entitlement programs, I would be extremely upset if Katy ISD was the vehicle for the President to advance his economic agenda.

Third, some of the teacher tools that are on the Department of Education website contain talking points that I find patently offensive and contrary to our basic form of government. Questions such as: “Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials” and “What is the president asking me to do?” imply that we, as citizens, should look to those in power for answers and guidance. Quite the opposite is true; this nation is run by men and women who were chosen by the citizens to serve them for short periods of time. During that limited tenure, these elected officials represent the people of the United States. It is the President and other elected officials who should be listening to the citizenry, not the other way around.

Finally, I know that the President’s supporters will argue that a message about “persisting and staying in school” is a noble message and one that our children should hear from many sources, and I agree. But I am uncomfortable with any politician, regardless of office or political party, that would use the public school system and my children as an opportunity to stay in the public eye. There is a reason that this event is unprecedented; every President until now has seen it as inappropriate to start their next election campaign by aiming at high school students who will be eligible to vote in 2012. I think this event is narcissistic and improper.

Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot allow my children to attend school on September 8th. Unless the district makes the decision to forgo the President’s address entirely, I cannot subject my children to either (a) the address itself or (b) the possible classroom or teacher stigma of being excluded from the event during the day. I would suggest that Katy ISD recommend parents and caregivers allow their children to watch the address at home via the replay link already detailed at the Department of Education website.

Thank you for your consideration and time,

Regards,

“No, Obama is not trying to enlist troops for the socialist takeover of the economy; his speech is no more radical than the thousands of commencement speeches that froth out from college greens every year.”

Perhaps you might change your mind after you see the Get Schooled campaign complete with a smug mug of Obama on the home page underneath a headline that screams, “I WANT”

Here’s the link and more info…
http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/09/get-homeschooled.html

P.S. I came from HotAir. Nice blog, I’m going to bookmark it.

The idea of Obama encouraging kids to develop critical thinking skills would be wholly commendable were it not for the fact that the left’s idea of “critical thinking” is not commendable in the slightest.

The public school system – and indeed most of our institutions of learning – are dominated by the left and have been for decades. And ever since their “progressive” teaching methods replaced the traditional system of learning, kids have been leaving school without the ability to read properly, write properly or think objectively. I see it in the college age kids I hire on a casual basis. It really is quite shocking. They are unable to string a coherent sentence together, have a disturbing lack of the kind of general knowledge that those over the age of 35 take for granted (one of my employees – a college graduate – recently admitted that he thought WWII was fought in the 60’s) and worst of all, they seem completely unable to follow an argument or to formulate their own arguments using objective reason and empirical facts.

The reason is that the left has gradually phased out the supremacy of objective reason and replaced it with a wishy-washy maze of fuzzy logic, political correctness and emotion. Kids are taught that whatever they feel is valid, for the sole reason that they feel it. And worse, they’re taught that political correctness is a superior justification for opinion than objective reason or empirical evidence.

The focus has also shifted from the individual to the group. I am 36 years old and of the first generation to experience the modern style of “group learning” in which tables were pushed together in circles and individual study was abandoned in favor of team work. Cooperation is of course an integral part of life and very important, but we are first and foremost individuals. I saw exactly what happened in this groups. The quiet, lazy and slow kids would quickly learn to depend on the smarter, quicker, motivated kids to answer all the questions and do the bulk of the work. The teacher cared less about how we were doing as individuals and more about how the group was functioning as a whole. This is the left’s ideology of collectivism as manifest in the classroom.

Ayn Rand described the disaster of modern teaching methods in her superb essay “The Comprachicos” which was published in “The New Left.” Kids need to be taught the fundamentals of rational thought from a very early age – instead they’re being taught to blindly follow their emotions and the nearest group. The result – groupthink, which is the intellectually lazy tendency to subscribe to consensus to avoid the effort of real critical thinking. This is the end result and intentional goal of the left’s teaching methods. They call it “critical thinking” to disguise the fact that what they really want is for a select few (the “intellectual elite”) to do all of the thinking and for the proletariat masses to listen and obey.

Obama’s speech would have been fine if it were not for the reality of this context.

The 9 year old went to school looking forward to the speech, because all her peers love Obama (Mommy and Daddy are not cool, so our not trusting him normal). “He talked way too long, it was boring”.

We will try to inspire her to the great things she is called to do by the president, but first we really want her to understand fractions.

Couldn’t agree with you more, which begs the question; Why is the media not interested in his records? Are they afraid of what they might find? Is it too much to ask Obama to release them. Something tells me that when he’s out of office, his Library will not have much in the way of content.

What a power this Obama has on so many minds, even self-identifying, conservative ones, even more undefined minds like Bernie Goldberg or Bill Oreilly. Can they not see that he has moderate liberals around only to give an air of legitimacy to his true outlook? Do you think he hung out at Rev Wright’s church for 20 years, even with his kids (child abuse) as he spun out such anti-white hatred? Do you think he is so stupid or ignorant in the right way that he doesn’t know who Bill Ayers is or what he is really about — or Father Phleger or Van Jones? Why are people so stuck in the old political paradigm that they cannot imagine Obama as the true liberal fascist he is? He is the new megalomaniacal leader (over 50 self references — and he even wants to chair the Security Council). He cannot not think of his greatness and power over people. Just look at how many so called rational people rationalize all of the radical things he does and people he has around him. So much effort for such a radical fool affirmatively actioned into the presidency but the MSM enablers who did no vetting of him and in fact helped hide his radicalness because he says all of the right liberal things. So many fools; so little time before he and the radical left democrats destroy so much of the good fabric of our nation. Please America, wake up to this trojan horse.

Think about it…who will be the first time voters in 2012 and who’s face will they have already seen?

Duh. It’s all vote pandering to the max. It’s all Democrats do, pimp themselves for votes, values be damned.

Amen, Mr./Ms. Babbitt, some of us saw it from the first day but then we are racist. Darn, I hate that word almost as much as the word diversity. Diversity has bred disunity. This isn’t the United States of America, this a just a conglomeration of people who want their own cultures, speech, dress, etc and have no need to be Americans except to collect our generosity and largess. Disgusting. Remember, Hitler went to the children first.

Obama is hardly qualified to be considered a good parent to his own children much less qualified to lecture other peoples children about education. He took his 2 young daughters to Rev. (G*d Da*n America) Wrights racist anti-Semitic Trinty church for several years. I consider that child abuse.
Obama is not an example of education giving a person a leg up, he is simply an example of affirmative action combined with a con mans smooth sales pitch. He has some obvious talent as a fiction writer but had no other accomplishments to speak of prior to being elected to the Senate.

He was an average student at every scholastic level, he never played organized sports nor did he excel at any of his private sector jobs. In short he is the definition of an empty suit.

I also noticed the backdrop MY EDUCATION / MY FUTURE and thought that was speaking volumes about Obama himself with his affirmative action education and the one and a half million dollars already used to seal all his school and uni. records and most important of all, his long version BIRTH CERTIFICATE. That is the key to ending his traitorous and illegal presidency. Go to Obama File and BastardObama and study the details ! How did he get into Columbia and then Harvard ? He admitted in Dreams from My Father ( ghost written by Ayers )that he wasted the last two years of high school getting drunk , partying and doing cocaine.

The section full of lies is where he talks of Indonesia. Pretends his mother was too poor to send him to a school with Americans. She was an anti American atheist married to a second muslim ( there is no record of a first marriage to BHO 1 ) . The step father Soetoro was a well paid engineer , a Muslim who adopted little Barry and enrolled him in a madrassa. Barry willingly and regularly attended the mosque with the stepfather and is on record as saying the Call to Prayer is the most beautiful sound ! He should have been honest and at the end of this putrid speech and invoked Allah the Moon god. The suggestion the mother was home schooling him at 4.30 in the morning is laughable. He is a compulsive liar who just keeps on elaborating a ridiculous fantasy narrative.

Well done Colonel Neville! I concur 100 %

” Critical thinking skills ARE not a dominant skill taught in school..What is actually meant is “critical theory”, the Marxist product of infiltration, indoctrination and distabilisation. The only goal of critical theory is to criticise into nihilist negation of all empirical and moral values. Like PC ism and multiculturalism etc, the entire purpose is to make it impossible for people to think rationally. Education today is often a series of logical fallacies and cognitive dissonances. ”

Critical thinking is often used as a code for deconstructionalism , Critical in the sense of ripping things apart and doubting that there are any ultimate truths. This is why Christianity is always in the firing line. Christianity is based on the Truth , not just truth claims, ( Jesus said ; He is the Way the Truth and the Life ) and the verification historically of the event of the Resurrection. Obama’s boilerplate, ( Boilerplate is any text that is or can be reused in new contexts or applications without being changed much from the original ) which he must have modified somewhat , is still fantasy Leftist rubbish. ‘ Protecting the environment ‘ indeed , just AGW hoax and cap and tax that will be a final nail in the coffin of America.

As an English teacher I am appalled by his sentence construction and banal use of ‘got’ etc. and all the 50 + ‘I ’s ‘ of this chronic narcissist ( see a great article at FaithFreedom .org ) who believes everything is all about him. Me myself and I. He craves attention and a captive audience like an insecure 3 year old ! He is like a younger version of Jerry ,’ GD America ‘ Wright. So many conservatives are taken in by him and don’t see this speech was little short of the first of many propaganda efforts. That is the essence of the man Barack Hussein Obama.

I haven’t seen your site before but well done ! I wonder if you will allow my comment as it contains a mention of Christianity ? Why Secular Right ? Even atheism is a faith position or a religion per se ?

Your Doofus POTUS then went on to tell the pre-kinder children what “critical” meant, what “analytical” meant, what “skills” meant, and promised he was coming round to teach each, individually and personally, what “A” means, what “B” means etc. He also promised to bring Michele around to help but ONLY after SHE learned what “A” is what “B” is and etc.
To compound the absolute horlicks Barry-boy made of his speech to people of his own intellectual stature–yes, Virginia, he’s still a babe in arms!–Barry then proceeded to tell a rather older and far more impressionable group of pre-teens and teens that HE PERSONALLY had been a screw-up and a goof-off at their age….but that hadn’t stopped him from becoming a Community Organiser, a Senator and a POTUS….conveying the impermeable message to these young minds that GOOFING OFF and BEING A SCREW-UP were probably essential on-the-job training for being a POTUS. What a nincompoop thing to say…but ever so typical of our Hamlet…who continues to believe and act as though movement were progress…
Finally, and here I claim exclusivity, if Barry-boy had something substantive to say to children, why during school hours? And why on the erstwhile “first-day”? Why not ask parents, teachers and children to stay on for an extra half hour after school to hear that rich baritone and those sloped cadenzas saying “yadder yadder, yadder blah blah blah”?
Teacher, Teacher, I know the answer that rhetorical question!

Did anyone else have trouble with Obama’s sharing of his personal family dysfunction – almost like he was unloading his shit onto kids that would have been better left as his therapist’s office? My kids’ teachers didn’t show the video, but I can just imagine my inquisitive 5 and 7 year-old questions:

- Mommy, why did President Obama’s daddy leave him when he was 2 years old? Is my Daddy going to leave me?

- Mommy, what’s a single mom? Why did she not buy President Obama the toys he wanted?

- Mommy, President Obama said he got into trouble in school, so what did he do?

- Mommy, why was President Obama lonely?

EEEEEK! Why didn’t he just tell the young kids to study hard on their spelling test, and work on their math tables. This trying to win the sympathy of children by dumping your problems on them is GROSS.

Sorry, just my point of view as a mom.

Ahh…yes..”critical thinking skills”…

…once upon a time – before words were abused to submit to Leftist ideology – it was called “analytical skills”: learning how to learn.

***Irony Alert***
I apologize for making my first post to one of Heather’s threads with the intent to kick her around a bit. She is someone whom I have greatly admired over the years.

Nonetheless…I am dumbstruck at the irony of her now ragging on “critical thinking skills” when contrasted with what she said in a pre-election interview with Laura Ingraham criticizing the Palin candidacy.

Heather was so stressed at the Palin selection that she was on the fence as to whom to vote for. Laura repeatedly pressed her to name a single policy area in which she was closer to Obama than to Palin. All Heather could say was, “I feel that Obama has the capacity to think through issues that makes me have confidence that he’s going to be able to take on the hard issues of the economy and possibly foreign policy.”

So last fall “critical thinking skills” were not only important, they trumped actual policy positions in picking a candidate. They were, in fact, so important that it didn’t seem to matter that the candidate was came down on the wrong side of every issue. Intellectuals…you gotta lov’em.

Audio at http://www.lauraingraham.com/pg/jsp/charts/streamingAudioMaster.jsp?dispid=302&headerDest=L3BnL2pzcC9tZWRpYS9mbGFzaHdlbGNvbWUuanNwP3BpZD02MjU1

Latvian Jennifer :
Christianity is based on the Truth , not just truth claims, ( Jesus said ; He is the Way the Truth and the Life ) and the verification historically of the event of the Resurrection.

May be you should read some of this blog archives before ridiculing yourself.

Why Secular Right ? Even atheism is a faith position or a religion per se ?

Yeah!
Just as well as I have a hobby of NOT collecting post stamps.

Afterthought…
Bad day, I am getting too nice, I am actually furious to have to live in the world amidst a huge crowd of demented monkeys.

Why is there still a need for education when big government will take care of you? It’s clear that the unwashed liberals are fighting to make everyone just like they are – parasites.

Can’t fix education without a reality check.

The US needs more “diversity” of curriculum. There is little in the high school curriculum that will help students on the left side of the bell curve to become productive, self respecting citizens, so they drop out.

As a good example to the students, Obama could have released his college grades and class list, his SAT scores and his LSAT (Law School Admittance Test) score to get into Harvard Law School. Plus told everyone how he paid for his Harvard tuition plus room and board. Obama has never released any of the information about his education.

The speech yesterday obfuscates development of critical thinking skills. There aren’t many liberals that really want you to think about what they are doing to this country because then people would realize we are headed right over the edge. It would have been more to the point if the President and told the little darlings that they had better work hard, set goals and get good jobs because they are the ones that are going to have to pay off the bills for all the largesse being bestowed on their parents by an Administration and a duplicitous Congress that thinks the way out of the hole that they have largely put us in is to keep spending. Now that would have been a teachable moment.

What we heard was the sanitized, politically correct version after conservatives pointed out that the President wanted to use and brainwash the innocent, gullible, and politically unaware schoolchildren to “help” the President implement his partisan programs. Don’t give him credit for changing his plans once the political storm began. Any dummy would have done that.

Critical thinking skills are needed. It was the lack of critical thinking skills that led so many to vote for Obama, like pod people who had been visited by the body snatchers while they slept, and dutifully marched mindlessly to the polls.

“something you are good at”

Uh, sorry to break it to ya, but Barack Obama was NOT even good at this as he quit that nearly 15 years ago despite the fantasy spouted by his MSM.

You’re nit picking a pretty decent speech. I thought it was a great speech based on the audience. I’m just relieved he didn’t throw in unnecessary political bullet points. Plus, look at most of the audience of that speech.. he had to talk on a lesser level so they would understand. If you have kids, don’t waste your time here nitpicking Obama’s speech, instead go and reinforce healthy growth and intelligence in your child.

He is a Marxist. Van Jones and the rest of the cast of characters is proof. That, and the fact that he won’t reveal is own educational history is reason enough for me as parent to want to keep him the hell away from my kids. Besides, I already made that speech to them before the term started. If other parents need the government to do that for them too, let them watch it outside the classroom.

@John Ray
John,

Lets take one fact here. You say that most young people want us to focus on green energy which I really have no problem with but let’s face facts. Young people have no real experience on how to accomplish that and on the other side most of that most tax revenue is generated by people over 30 so I ask do you really think it’s a good idea to open the tax piggy bank to a bunch of 20 year olds who have no life experience?

They may accomplish something but they will spend us into slavery if we let them. Free enterprise and free markets would do wonders for green job and green energy. We don’t need the government or our tax dollars wasted on this. You also have to balance other things like jobs and unemployment. You can’t create 10,000 green jobs that will put 1,000,000 people out of work. All you will accomplish is a country with record unemployment with no end in sight. One of the contributing factors to home forclosures today is the high unemployment. You think unemployent and the housing crisis is bad now wait until unemployment is 20% which is very possible with the out of control spending, “cap and trade” and obamacare. You can’t keep spending money you don’t have. If I can’t buy a new car because I haven’t saved enough shouldn’t OUR government do the same.

Brian

the speach to the children was done to boost his image with parents. This was done to make people like him and bring back his messiah image. It was an inpromptu speach. It was as if he woke up one morning and said , “let’s go to the public schools,(occult institutions for Obama) and the teachers will convince the students that I truly am the messiah and everyone will love my healthcare plan” I think the teleprompter let him down. OOps! I used a little h for the word him.

As I have been saying for two years now. This is the most inadequate, unaccomplished, lightweight president in the history of our great(Obama say’s, “not so great”) country. John McCain was more accomplished after he finished flight school at 23 yrs old than Obama will ever be. sorry, I am speaking the truth. I do nmot hate the man , but his socialist agenda will destroy our country. Let’s remove the spell and bring our country back to greatness.

Heather, you have a long way to go but it’s nice to see you have started the trip. Seven months into this repulsive administration, two years of campaigning and, bless you, you are starting, just starting, to see what Obama, his staff, and the Democrats, are about.
And you thought the opposition was insane?
Good luck Heather

Another point here, imho, send your kids to private or christian schools. This will help to clean up the politically correct democrat institutions, otherwise known as our public schools. parents do not want to admit that the public schools today are social institutions designed to make your kids think a certain way. As long as that way is politically correct. your kids are being fed the lie of global warming. scientifically, this is a hoax. The liberal crowd is in it so deep, they can’t pull out. have you noticed they are starting to call it, “climate change” instead of global warming. This way , no matter what happens, they are covered. Are you kidding me. You send your kids off every day to hear these lies!!!

Critical Thinking Skills = To consider in a thoughtful way, exactly what kind of BS you can pull on the person you are talking to, so as that person will consider you smart and wise. A solution to a way around the problem, not a solution to the problem.

The President has become an intrusion, rather than a statesman or leader.

>achieved something via education.

If you think Barack Obama got where he is because of getting an education, you don’t know Chicago politics…

>Obama’s sharing of his personal family dysfunction

Like all good “liberals,” he lives in the depths of emotional neediness. They meddle in our lives because of an obsession with somehow filling that emotional void.

Heather MacDonald did some “critical thinking” herself and came away with the right criticism. Facts matter. Substance matters. Obama’s speech certainly could have used the “MacDonald touch”.

I’m just glad my daughters started school the day AFTER Chairman Hussein’s speech so they didn’t have to listen to it. A lying, affirmative-action coddled, loony-left, elitist nincompoop like Obama is the LAST person my children need advice from.

But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush’s speech — they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html

I keep hearing the same words from opposite lips every time a shoe is found fitting on the other foot. Can I be helped. Reeducated maybe?
I always liked camping.

Hello muddah, hello faddah
Here I am at…Camp Piñata.

Just taking a humorous whack at it.

As a recovering college professor, I can tell you that Colonel Neville and JasonS are dead-on accurate in their comments about what constitutes “critical thinking skills.” A “critical thinker” is someone who believes that the only valid interpretation of anything is the Marxist one.

I responded to Obama’s speech at my blog:

Response to Obama’s school speech

It was a great speech, now the wingnuts are floating their version of what they feared the speech would be. Always good for a laugh.

Even though I did not vote for Obama and don’t really agree with him on anything, I thought the speech writers did a good job at trying to address the children. In regards to the comment about “Isn’t it the role of teachers and parents to encourage hard work and a love of learning”. The answer to that question is YES!. But the problem is that parents and teachers AREN’T doing that and maybe the children need to hear that they need to want a better education for themselves. The problem in public schools is that parents don’t care and they basically send their kids to school as a babysitter and expect the teachers to raise their children for them because the parent is too busy working or trying to take care of a single parent household. Many teachers nowadays are tired of this mentality by parents and so the teachers are taking an approach of basically just getting through the day and they don’t really care about their teaching jobs anymore. They are sick of the unruly, disrespectful and mouthy kids that they try to teach and trying to get the parents to step in an intervene is useless. That’s why many public schools are disasters. Teachers just want the benefits and the pensions and they can’t wait till they get enough years to retire. How many young people today really want to be teachers to better the community. Not many where I live. If the teachers are failing and the parents are failing, why not let the kids hear a speech from our Presidnet whom they might actually listen to.

From an outsider (Canadian): One of the most alarming things I see when observing American politics over the last decade-plus is how every partisan demonizes the opposite party’s leader– especially when they are in power. Has it always been this over-the-top? I became aware of it first with Clinton, whom the Repubs thought was the devil. Then W, whom the Dems thought was the devil. Now Obama, and the Repubs think he is the devil.

If the leader is really that utterly evil, calculating, vicious, cruel, filled with lies, exploitative, etc etc etc, and if you _really_ believe that, how can you be satisfied with merely sounding off? Both W and Obama seem to be viewed by their opponents as being as bad as Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Amin or [insert legendarily depraved figure here.]

I can’t perceive any use of the toxic ‘debate’ that goes on in American politics except to possibly swing an insignificant few back and forth every few years. Each side (Left and Right) seems so viciously opposed and filled with hate for the other.

Speaking of critical thinking skills… I’m seeing 8:17 Eastern Standard Time on 9/9/09 on my PC right now and yet the two previous comments were posted (supposedly) at 9:29 and 11:03 respectively.

A primer on American “politics” for Canadian poster, Wondering:

The expression “culture wars” is not just a cute buzz phrase. We are in a war in America. The ground of consensus has shrunk dramatically and alarmingly for several decades. We are multiple nations occupying the same land. Politics has broken completely out of it’s box. Everything is political and all politics is fought as unlimited warfare. Nothing is ever settled; ground is merely lost and won. And very little that is ever spoken publicly in politics is honest; motives are hidden and the rhetoric is as cynical as advertising copy. It is the propaganda front of the war. And the media in the U.S., which used to make at least some effort to stand objectively aside, has completely thrown in with one side. They enrage conservatives with their partisan distortions. Conservatives answer back with some radio commentary that is pretty raw.

You might be thinking that I am about to say how senseless this all us, as you seem to feel. Actually, I want to kill the b@stards on the other side. It was ~the Left~ that decided to bring every grievance that anyone had about anything into the political arena and fight it out in unlimited warfare. I mark the effort to destroy Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork as the most important landmark in this history. Liberals made the calculated decision to assault the character of a perfectly honorable man as an act of political warfare. It has been back and forth ever since. Now I feel the bitterness of the two sides in Northern Ireland. I sort of regret that the idea of civil war is such an anachronism. The feelings are just that deep and angry and widespread.

Here’s some critical thinking, “You lie!” — Representative Joe Wilson

Actually, I was a bit disappointed that Wilson didn’t go into full-bore eighteenth-century South Carolina cavalier mode and cry, “You lie, you rogue!” And then throw down his gauntlet and challenge Obama to a duel.

Susan…I’d have thought it a hoot if Wilson had gone all Preston Brooks on Obama’s lying butt.

Heather, the reason you and other reasonable people found the “knee jerk opposition to the speech” as “another depressing sign of how paranoid and overheated the opposition to Obama had become” had nothing to do with whether you were ever going to like the speech.

Of course you and plenty other people could and would find the speech to be something other than inspiring. The knee jerk opposition was never based on the content of the speech but rather on the sentiment that “this guy’s got no right to talk to my kids and you have no right to force them to listen; He’s not MY president”.

But he is; He’s the President of the United States. Bush supporters rightly criticized some Bush critics for the lack of respect they showed for their president, but now those same Bush supporters are doing the same thing.

Go ahead and critique the content of the speech, but don’t get all offended that he has the gall to presume to address the kids of America on their first day of school. Its perfectly normal for the president to do such things.

Begock, good sir. How couldst I have forgotten Preston Brooks? You have indeed a pretty wit.

Nonetheless, my scenario would involve the spectacle of Joe Biden (as second) trying to load a dueling pistol.

“I’m not ready to buy into the entire right-wing critique of Obama as a dangerous threat to liberty or as the very embodiment of ‘The Left.’”

Love your writing and mental style, but I have to wonder what evidence you’d have to observe in order to “buy into” that. If it isn’t clear by now that Obama is a committed Progressive – and hence the very embodiment of ‘The Left’, and therefore a threat to liberty – one wonders what you would have to observe to reach that conclusion. I know you’re far too perspicacious to require actual Black Shirts on display.

Susan :

Susan

Nonetheless, my scenario would involve the spectacle of Joe Biden (as second) trying to load a dueling pistol.

Obama wouldn’t choose Biden as second for fear he’d shoot his mouth off.

Tony :

Tony

Susan :
Susan
Nonetheless, my scenario would involve the spectacle of Joe Biden (as second) trying to load a dueling pistol.

Obama wouldn’t choose Biden as second for fear he’d shoot his mouth off.

Oh, wait. That didn’t deter him previously.

and make our nation more fair and more free.”

Isn’t it idiomatic English to say “fairer and more free”? Just asking. With the education thing and all.

Heck, I’m an idiot too. S/B fairer and freer. Tell me I’m wrong.

Does anyone see the irony, the hypocrisy in the president?
He has such faith/confidence in Public Institutions but he didn’t even “risk” attending a public university, college or law school. No when it came to his education he trusted only the private sector to his mind. He even taught at a private law school. Where is his public-mindedness when it comes to his own education?

Obama had to encourage the kiddies to work hard and become financially successful, because he has already spent all their salaries.

His speech was not pompous, he had an agenda… Get ‘em young… http://www.puma08.com/2009/09/02/sept-8th-here-are-two-of-the-books-on-obama-your-kids-are-expected-to-read/

My 16 year old had the displeasure of listening to his speech during school (and why exactly are my tax dollars paying for that, or the publication of his propoganda?) He said that the speech was rediculous and came off accusingly about how students aren’t doing their job in learning so that they can take care of others. I’m glad atleast my son is independant enough to have seen the socialist agenda behind the Obamantion’s dialogue. Courtesy of their agenda and their policy, I’ve switched parties…

Obama would like to be all things to all people, and he may be educated, but he is truly not that bright as a free thinker. If he were he would not have interrupted his national address on the health care issued to make comments about the Boston police arresting a Professor. He admitted that he didn’t know the facts of the case, but still stated that the police acted ’stupidly’. In my opinion, not the verbiage chosen by someone who professes to be well educated.

Everyone seems to see the individual things he’s done and raises questions, but it all needs to be looked as a whole… mandatory volunteerism? I fear for where this nation will be when the youth of today grow up. My ancestors fought for the freedom of our country, freedom of democracy, and I see a strong attempt to have many of our freedoms taken away!

@Someone who knows

You are absolutely correct and it is unclear if he is so much lite as he is early. I think he would outdo Chavez in time if he gets the time he wants. Kill the bill and change congress. impeachment is the best solution to the problem that is a Trojan Horse president.

“How about for the love of learning and beauty? How about because facts matter? ”

Only those with high intelligence can benefit from such study. Most everyone else will be bored by such intellectual rumination.