SWATTING DOWN A RIGHT-WING MORON
Guest Blogger Miles and Real Art Ron Together at Last!

Not that I think all right-wingers are morons. Take my older brother, for instance, or William F. Buckley--they're pretty smart. And liberals certainly have their fair share of morons as well. No, I'm talking about a specific right-wing moron named Kirk.

Here's the comment he left on yesterday's post about O'Reilly calling on Al Qaeda to blow up San Francisco:

So you would allow anti-war protestors at these schools? Or allow all those left wing liberals flood the minds of our school children, but you won't let a recruiter in there so they can make up their own mind?

As long as it agrees with your point of view. I get it.

Kirk

Not really knowing where to start sifting through these weird assumptions about where I'm coming from, or his misunderstanding of what caused O'Reilly to freak out, my response was simple:

Well, yeah.

Ron

But my young sidekick Miles was willing to sift through the BS:

Well, Kirk, I can't remember a situation in which "anti-war protestors" were given federal aide the way recruiters are. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, anti-war protestors at educational institutions are almost always students themselves.

Ron may have been fine with just dismissing your ignorance with, "Well, yeah" but I'm tired of reading things like this. What "left wing liberals" are "flood(ing) the minds of our school children"? I'm a product of public education, and I assure you, there's no left wing bias in the public school system. Every facet of the system is set up to discourage intellectual discourse, including politics.

You say these recruiters are there to help students make up their own mind. If what's important to you is students making up their own mind, what use are the recruiters, then, anyway? I've had to field phone calls and mail sent to me daily by recruiters who want nothing more than for me to take a bullet in Iraq.

If anything, left-wing speech in public education would allow students a look at the hidden half of the equation, thus giving them a chance to really chose for themselves. When students are made to believe that the best thing for them is military service, regardless of their personal beliefs, that discourages free thought and lowers their sense of self-worth.

Miles

Well said, Miles. I would only add two points. First, as the Mayor of San Francisco has recently observed, the resolution about discouraging high schools from allowing recruiters on campus is in response to documented cases of hard sell recruiting, often involving straight-up lies and fraud. Given the hopelessness of the quagmire in Iraq, and the ever mounting death toll for US service personnel there, it seems very sensible to me for the voters of a concerned city to issue such a statement. Second, the main point of my original post is that O'Reilly was waaaay over the top in calling for Al Qaeda attacks on an American city, anti-recruiting resolution or not. Obviously, I support freedom of speech; O'Reilly can say whatever he wants. But so can I, and if I didn't condemn his remarks, I wouldn't be much of an American, would I?

Needless to say, O'Reilly has now completely revealed himself to be not much of an American.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$