That’s the wet dream of the NRA and the gun lovers. More guns out there? Buy more guns to protect yourself. Too many guns and too many deaths by gun in the civilized world. Our peer countries are not even close.

BLSS: You keep harping on what you see as hypocrisy on one side of the aisle in Congress. In some cases the examples you cite don't actually show that. To not want third graders taught that they might be some gender other than their actual gender seems compassionate and caring to me. That's an age where kids are becoming aware of normal gender differences, to teach them about "transgenderism" at that tender age only leads to confusion not to advancing any societal good. How this is a sign of hypocrisy on the part of the GOP is beyond my ability to comprehend. BTW, polls have shown that a fairly wide majority of Americans of both parties think this kind of instruction (indoctrination) is not healthy in a grade school setting.

Here's an example, on a related issue, police reform, of how your party plays the game of politics:

https://tinyurl.com/44cu8rud

Also, you trivialize the issue when you say it's just a matter of not saying the word "gay." Perhaps, this article will give you a broader look at the issues involved:

https://tinyurl.com/554rpnce

Incorrect. I do not think the modern GOP are hypocrites. Their views are out in the open, and increasingly lack any philosophical underpinning. They're frank about both the what and the how. No hypocrisy there.

On the other hand, I do think you, OhioCatFan, are a hypocrite. And a very blatant one at that. You post Oliver Wendell Holmes quotes and lecture others about your free speech absolutism and then line up behind the state policing speech anytime it happens to align with your personal views.

And here, you go complaining to the mods about posters you don't like looking to get them banned for ideas you find objectionable.


When did we have a conversation about the correct age to teach children about "transgenderism"? The only conversation we've had about the Florida bill is one about the actual language in the bill being overly broad. I brought receipts, linked to and quoted the actual bill.

We once started to have a conversation about that. Your view was that the law is "quite limited in it's scope" which is a hilariously incorrect reading. There's simply no way to support that, which is likely why you -- as usual -- slinked off and left the conversation, only to pick it up weeks later, in a different thread, by attributing a whole bunch of things to me that I didn't say, and re-framing the conversation as if it was about the correct age to teach children about transgenderism.

Feel free to quote where in the bill that's covered. The bill you think is "limited in scope" doesn't define either "age appropriate" or "developmentally appropriate" and the first view applications of said law demonstrate the vagueness of it's writing quite well.

Here's an example: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/26/nation/florida-stu... /.

The law's writing is so vague that people are interpreting it to mean a valedictorian -- an 18 year old adult -- can't talk about being gay. Quite limited in it's scope, indeed.

A similar law about Critical Race Theory passed in 2021 ended up with textbooks banned because they cited the gender pay gap and stated that the "United States hadn't eradicated racism."

Here's a link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/09/flori... /


As I said in the other thread, a true free speech absolutist wouldn't be lining up to defend such overly broad, undefined legislative restrictions on a local school board and teachers. If the law was reversed, and stated that a local school boards HAD to teach sexuality and gender, you wouldn't support it.

That's why I think you're a blatant hypocrite. Because you there's no world in which you can be a free speech absolutist and line up to support such things, but you do so, and continue to come here and quote Oliver Wendell Holmes like he wouldn't be embarrassed to hear you do it.

In the conversation where you said I "slinked away" my major point was that the Florida law was aimed at protecting young children in grade school from being exposed to sexual issues inappropriate for their age group. I actually posted the complete text of the law. My reading of it, which you and your sources disagree with, is that it is fairly well-focused on that issue. I suppose, ultimately, a court will decide just how focused it is, but if you listen to the sponsors of the bill and particularly, Governor Desantis, it's clear that that was the intent of the law. If a court rules it's overly broad, I'm sure they'll craft one that's better worded. But, I'm not at all sure at this point that that will be necessary.

OCF, the Florida law is encompassing to all grade levels, and their movement to dictate what can be taught is a blatant violation of rights that you so often seem to be in love with. And more sad, is that Florida legislators will not trust a Florida social studies teacher to teach what they are trained in, yet think they can be given guns and that will provide a safe learning environment.

You mean this is a bill about parental rights for parents who believe very particular things. What about the rights of parents of gay children? Who want them raised in an environment that doesn't insist that certain sexual orientations are "age appropriate"? Are those parents' rights being considered? And where is the line drawn? What happens when parents start to question basic historical and scientific truths because it doesn't align with their politics, or they don't like the way it makes their kids feel?

The irony here is that a decade ago the Right was rightly critical of college campuses and the notion of safe spaces, where policies were enacted to give students a way to avoid ideas they found unsettling. Now, the Right is legislating that at K-12 levels, and doing so around ideas like gender and race specifically.

Now, they're banning books. Books like an illustrated kids book about Wilma Rudolph, because it states she faces racism in 1940s Tennessee. And a book about 9/11 because it depicts US soldiers in Afghanistan in a way a parent doesn't like. Books like Slaughterhouse 5. These aren't even books on the curriculum. These are just books that parents don't want children to have access to in a school library.

Again, very hard for me to see anything but hypocrisy in anybody who supports that and claims free speech absolutism.

Most of the party has admitted they just don't like the ideas themselves and want to legislate them away at this point. It's just the same culture war nonsense. There's no shame in admitting it.

+1

OCF, I do not see how you can interpret this legislation as being narrow in focus, because it is not.

But hey, here in OHIO, the Senate is about to pass a bill to arm teachers! Heaven forbid they trust teachers to do what they are trained to do, but now they can carry a gun.

Hard to debate you when we totally disagree on the premise. Parents are responsible to raising children not the state, IMHO. You disagree. We'll just have to leave it at that.

As a parent I always thought of my children's teachers as the most influential adults in their lives with the exception of me and my wife. And, with very few exceptions, I believe my trust in them was rewarded without the new push in red states for more restrictions (censorship) on teachers.

As a teacher of 29 years, I trust my co-teachers do not fail their students in a way OCF is concerned about or in a way that requires our legislators in Columbus to limit what we can and cannot teach concerning race and gender.

Where I don't feel comfortable, however, is arming my co-teachers with guns as a first line of defense against an active shooter. Not sure I want the teacher across the hall brandishing a loaded gun with a hallway full of panicked sixth graders.

Just my 2 cents.

I've received a couple of DMs on this site to that effect. Maybe that's not true, who knows. But I've heard it a couple of times.

If one of those people was a mod, please PM me his name. I need to talk with him, because it’s not true, unless someone hacked my account or I PMed them from the Twilight Zone.

The context of this conversation is that you are currently arguing in favor of the state dictating what can be taught in schools. The level of cognitive bias necessary to position that as less state control over schools is truly baffling.


No, not at all. Parents have always had a say in school curriculums through locally elected school boards which typically consist of parents. Historically, that's who sets the curriculum at the district level. What you're currently in support of is a bill that circumvents that and replaces a democratic process with legal challenges.


You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding how how curriculum's are developed and approved. Those are local (district) level decisions.

You are -- right now -- arguing in favor of a law that creates more power for the state in determining what a teacher can and cannot say. I apologize for calling you a hypocrite. It's clear now you're just not following the obvious logic here. The law you're supporting does the opposite of what you suggest as the best course of action.

You're arguing for more bureaucracy, not less. It's truly baffling to me that you still think otherwise. This entire conversation is about a vaguely written law in which state level legislators dictate what teachers at an individual level can and cannot say, and then empowers special interest groups with legal recourse which can find individual school districts financially liable if they're in violation. Interesting definition of "less bureaucracy."

And yet, you support this legislation doing the exact opposite. You get why it's very hard not to see hypocrisy here, right?


If this is what you think is best, why would you support legislation that gives parents legal recourse with a lawsuit? What you say you want and what you support are two wildly different things.


Not even sure what to say, except that, again, this is the exact opposite of what the law you're supporting does.


Truthfully, man, I think you're just lost right now. You think the GOP is the party of small government and believe in those ideals, and are willing to defend GOP legislation on those grounds even when there's not a thread of logic supporting it. The GOP isn't the party of small government anymore. It's largely just a populist, culture-war heavy party. They no longer care about small government, the first amendment, or any of a number of things they historically cared about. This bill -- and similar critical race theory bills -- are a good example. It's just culture war non-sense that expands the state's role, and people like you line up to support it and in your support of it illustrate a stunning level of cognitive bias.

As I said before -- it's okay to admit you just don't like the idea of teacher's talking about homosexuality and transgenderism. That's what the rest of the GOP does -- and it's why I don't think their view is hypocritical but think yours is. You try and dress this all up as some idealistic crusade against big government when the logic there doesn't follow even a tiny bit. You're cool with ideas being legislated away when they're ideas you don't like.

You're not a first amendment absolutist. You're just a member of the new GOP.

Yeah man, I know. That's the point I've been making all along. You're supporting a law that in no way comports with the ideals you claim to support. Hence my accusations of hypocrisy. Happy to pick this up next time you claim free speech absolutism and then support the exact opposite.