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Thursday, March 24, 2005

Let's Call a Spade a Spade

Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner. The question of whether to rename the school has been debated for more than two years -- since several teachers, including an African American mother of three former Jefferson students, said Jefferson's moniker offended them and suggested a name change. On Monday, Principal Betty Delaney released a list of potential new names -- one nominated by a student, the rest by adults. Parents, students and teachers must first vote on a new name, then take a second vote on whether to replace Jefferson with the new name. The school board must officially approve any name change. [read more]

I completely agree with this! Thomas Jefferson stood for too many great ideals and is too good a name to be defiled on government schools. Instead, we should re-name all government schools to accurately portray them for what they really are: government indoctrination facilities. Why sugarcoat it with human-sounding names? Schools should have names such as "Government Indoctrination Facility #666." The only distinction among the various GIFs would be their registration number. So at highschool sports events, it would be the 666ers vs. the 1029ers, and so on. Go team!

And the PC Brownshirts go marching on!

Samurai Appliance Repair Man cast these pearls at 06:19 ET.  [permalink]

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7 Comments:

It is sad and typical, that the comment box is empty. It is an indicator of the reason such things can happen. We have been asleep at the switch for a long time now, concerning ourselves instead with such important things as Britney Spears, Joe Camel, The Game...etc ad nauseum...that the clowns have run away with the circus, taken off their masks, and now parade openly being who they are. Swine. It is frequently said "in a democracy, we get the leaders we deserve" (btw, sniff the fatalism in that remark] ...but no, NO ONE deserves "leaders" like this. ...and also, lest we have forgotten, we dont elect "leaders". we elect servants. SERVANTS is anyone listening? they are not our bosses, we are their bosses.

By  Anonymous, at March 30, 2005 4:27 PM  

I can't believe such nonsense would take place in Berkley California. What is this world coming to when old fashioned racist white men can not longer have schools named form them in right wing enclaves like Berkley Ca.!

To overcome the obvious right wing conspiracy in the Berkley School system I would support Chavez, MacDonald... why not even Mao Elementary? K. Marx Elementary has a nice ring to it. I think the best solution would be to use the common nomenclature of the PRC (China, not California) and call it Peoples #1 Elementary School.

Thanks for the dryer tips. Great Site.

By  Anonymous, at April 02, 2005 9:55 AM  

I think there is always room for new ideas. Our history IS clogged with fat old white guys who, upon closer inspection, had more flaws than a face full of acne. And these people are our "heros!"

The first move is the name change on the outside of the school. The next one is to change the history books.

Cant wait to see what happens.

By  old white chick, at April 02, 2005 2:07 PM  

The American Revolution was unprecedented in that it resulted in MORE freedom for its citizenry, not less. (Think French, Russian, Chinese revolutions, for example.) The men and women who were a part of it deserve much respect and praise. They did an amazing thing that we benefit from today.

Judging someone like Jefferson for being a slave owner, for example, when slave ownership was the norm for his time is just silly. The teachers who feel offended should be fired for being so intellectually shallow that they would dismiss any historical figure who did not meet their politically correct criteria.

By  Mrs. Samurai, at April 02, 2005 7:33 PM  

This is only the entirely predictable result of the hegemony of multiculturalism. The whole idea is to destroy a national sense of identity, and certainly any sens of racial identity on the part of Whites.
Teach contempt for a nation's history, contempt for the founders of that nation, contempt for the race that built that nation, and you destroy that nation.
The people who trample Jefferson's name are not fit to carry his boots; nevertheless, such swine frame the cultural and academic trends today.

By  Jim Baker, at April 03, 2005 5:15 PM  

The desire to force ones beliefs on others is running rampant through this country today. If the whackos on the far left aren't upset that Jefferson owned slaves, then the whackos on the far right would be upset at his anti-Christian views.
Jefferson did want to free his slaves, but the laws of the day made it near impossible.
The slave owner had to put up a bond to pay for any transgressions the slave commited on society while free. Also, slaves being considered property, they were subject to debt and property laws. If a owner of slaves was in massive debt, as was Thomas Jefferson to the tune of $100,000.00, freeing them was impossible.
Thomas Jefferson also knew that his own fellow Viginians were not ready nor willing to support emancipation. Jefferson's many attempts at emancipating slaves in the state failed. Also he knew that it would not be humane to free a people into a society that did not want them. Many of his fellow Virginians felt he was a dangerous radical on slavery.
I'm surprised the push to remove his name didn't come from the religious right, seeing as how he trashed Christianity at every given opportunity, saying things like;
"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was part of the common law."

So, obviously, Jefferson was a man of strong opinion, some of which would be considered extrememly politically incorrect today. With any amount of research, either side can find things he said/did that they don't like.
It does not change the fact Thomas Jefferson was a great man.

If being perfect is the criterea for having your name on public buildings, then we have an extremely small pool of names to choose from.....

By  Rob Hillyer, at April 05, 2005 1:30 PM  

I once saw the defefiniion of Political Correctness as :

"The art of not offending people who are trying to manipulate you by being creatively thin-skinned."

If this "test" is applied to any situation of this type, it tends to bring to light the _real_ motives of the those complaining.

By  Anonymous, at April 16, 2005 11:41 AM  

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