Hitler is America’s Schoolmarm: Tea Party’s Kim Simac Rings the Warning Bell
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| Credit: Vasto- |
Wisconsin tea party organizer and children’s book author Kim Simac blogged last October:
I am done raising my kids but if I was a young parent today I would take my kids out of the public school system today. At what point will we stop talking about the comparisons to what is occurring today and what actually happened by the regime of the Nazi’s in the past?
Taking God out of the schools has been objective #1 for decades now. Of note will be that one of the first decisions this new session of the Supreme Court decided on was to NOT hear a case of the right of a school to sing “Silent Night: during the holidays.
Already decided at a lower court to be omitted from further concerts at the public schools of the said district, our newest slate of almighty rulers of our law have decided to agree and keep our children from singing the most beautiful words that give a glimpse of that beautiful night that our Saviour was born.
Which I will remind us all is a Federal Holiday (though I suppose that will be on the slate for ax next). Take the commercial that Glenn Beck showed from British Progressives that explains to little children that if they do not listen to their teachers recommendations on subjects such as carbon emissions, they could have their heads blown off.
Add to that Kindergarten Sex Ed classes and I really wonder how it is American parents smile and kiss their children good bye every morning and in good conscience hand their most precious resource over to the hands of such questionable people. Now I know there are wonderful, lovely teachers, but it would be encouraging if at least a few of them would speak up at this point.
It’s almost too obvious to point out, but Simac’s little rant about America’s children being “indoctrinated” by the public schooling system is hypocritical at best. Simac, upset that America’s youth are being taught about sex and carbon emissions and the separation of church and state, would rather have our youth “indoctrinated” with her own Christian values about when and where the Saviour was born, and that beautiful Silent Night.
What’s closer to Nazism (although I wouldn’t compare most things with that kind of global cancer) is teaching children that Christianity is the only true religion. Why would the public school system bolster the beliefs of Christian children by honoring the Christian Saviour, and by doing that simultaneously downgrade the beliefs of other students and their religious / cultural backgrounds?
Simac’s worldview sounds more Hiter-like than the one she describes. If I’m a parent, I can teach my children about the religious values I think they should have, and not hope those values are re-supported when I kiss them goodbye and put them on the school bus.
America is not about ramming Christian ideology down the throats of its citizens, America is about respecting all religious beliefs held by its people, as long as those religious beliefs are not actively encroaching upon others’ religious beliefs.
I think another element many people who make this ‘Christ back into schools’ argument forget (or maybe don’t even realize) is that there’s a whole gamut of subtleties and nuances to individual Christian belief; is a teacher proposing Calvinism to otherwise Baptist children? Does Christ the Son come through the Father, or both the Father and Holy Spirit? Are Catholics actually Christians, and is it okay to hear their thoughts on intercession of the saints? And what of Mormons?
Minor threads though they may seem, they get brought up often enough at parochial school PTA meetings (in fits of rage, no less; totally a personal anecdote, there) give one pause and wonder why, in fact, religious nuance was taken out of schools to begin with. And then the home-school and (marginally practiced) un-schooling trends have their own substantial drawbacks for the ‘most precious resource,’ as children develop into educated, socially-functional adults (or not).
Public school is a system ostensibly set up for the purpose of providing a free, universally standardized educational foundation for young Americans. That certain elements have been removed from it over time reflect a process of trial and error. Christian supremacy and indoctrination in schools is one of those errors.