ASD Endorses “Christ was Vampire” Author
February 19th, 2010
Update 10/23/10: for those of you looking for the most relevant information on the elections I recommend you visit www.SaveASD.com for candidates that will act as the public watchdogs we need, instead of acting as apologists for district policies.
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Original post:
I received an email about a week ago from a Susan Schnell concerning a link Alpine School District (ASD) had put on their website Mission Statement page in an effort to bolster their position that America is a Democracy. By directly linking to an outside site, they gave tacit approval and endorsement of everything on that site, but especially the page they linked to.
After Susan’s email started to circulate, ASD pulled the link. Read below and you’ll find out why.You’ll also wonder how on earth they thought the original page they linked to was acceptable just by itself. I filed a GRAMA request with the district on 2/18/10 for more information which will be published here when we have the answers. Please sign the petition on this site (www.UtahsRepublic.org) to be notified as things progress and to ask the state to return us to constitutional education in the tradition of our Founding Fathers.
Here is Susan’s email:
WARNING TO ALL ALPINE SCHOOL DISTRICT PARENTS
I am a parent of 4 children in Alpine School District (ASD) in Utah and I just found out some alarming things that our district is promoting. Please take the time to read this as we need to come together as a community to fix a monumental problem which has crept into our local district. Then please go to https://www.utahsrepublic.org to learn more about this issue and what we can do to solve it. School board elections are coming up soon and we can fix this if we all work together quickly.
Many are aware that our country’s leaders are trying to transform this nation into democratic socialism. You already know that one of their main techniques is to indoctrinate school children around the nation into gradually believing Progressive ideology and move away from our great Constitutional heritage. I moved here in the heart of a conservative city and state from California hoping for a better education and environment for my children. However, I was shocked to find out recently that our own Alpine School District has been aligning itself with people who believe that we are NOT a great God-inspired Republic. They are teaching that our Founding Fathers were wrong in establishing a Republic, that the Constitution was set up by wealthy elitists who only wanted gain for themselves and that we should transform our Republic nation into a social and political Democracy by teaching this false doctrine to our children. They even went as far as linking their Mission Statement page with a California Green Party candidate who believes Jesus is a vampire. READ ON….
WHAT OUR SCHOOL DISTRICT IS TEACHING
Last week my daughter’s 6th grade history teacher was falsely teaching the class that the United States of America is not a Constitutional Republic but a Democracy even when my daughter corrected him twice. One of his main jobs at the school is to teach the Constitution to all 5th and 6th grade students. He also told her that a book she was reading made up of quotes from our Founding Fathers about the Constitution was “pure science fiction”. Because she was not being challenged in any of her subjects and learning false ideas about our country, we decided to check her out of Alpine School District. As we walked into the district office, my daughter and I were shocked to be greeted by a huge sign spanning about 30 feet down the hallway in 12 inch high letters that said:
“Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy”
I immediately wondered why the school district’s motto wasn’t “We Strive for Excellence in Education” or something similar. Nothing about education, only politics. I don’t want the schools teaching my children about politics or enculturating them into any other belief system other than what we teach at home. Enculturating is a brand new word invented by Progressives which means changing someone’s core belief system.
FALSE STATEMENTS ON THE MISSION STATEMENT PAGE
The ASD Mission Statement page says:
“Our current government is best symbolized as a representative democracy.”
(False! Our current government as set up by the Constitution is a Republic. There is NO mention of the words democracy or democratic anywhere in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.)
“The primary purpose of education is developing democratic citizens. Every teacher should have this major board objective in mind as he/she prepares the curriculum.”
(False! The primary goal of each teacher should be to teach the subject in which he/she specializes and leave out politics!)
Shouldn’t a music teacher’s goal be to teach music, a math teacher’s goal to teach math? Why are they teaching that “enculturating the young into a social and political democracy” is more important than teaching core subjects?
A link on the Mission Statement page led to America: Republic or Democracy? That page is an opinion piece (not a fact) by William P. Meyers who speaks about the dangerous and selfish goals of the Founding “Elitists”. He states that an example of a Republic is the “evil empire” of the former USSR and that the elitists started this country as a Republic, but it was a dangerous mistake so people for over two centuries have been trying to change it to a Democracy. Obviously by linking this statement directly to the website, our district believes this false idea.
(As word started to circulate publicly about Bill Meyer’s link, the district quietly stripped it off of their page this week, but we have proof that it was there. Even without Meyer’s link, the ASD has proven that they fully endorse the ideas contained on Meyer’s webpage which denigrate our Founding Fathers and refer to them as “predatory elitists”. This district is determined to teach this to the children in 71 schools in this district.) Proof of the link:
You can look at Meyer’s shocking link here to see what the district deemed was important enough to add to their Mission Statement page. https://www.williampmeyers.org/republic.html
DISTRICT LINKS ITSELF WITH RADICAL SOCIALIST WHO BELIEVES JESUS IS A VAMPIRE
The danger in teaching false ideas about our political system is that other false teachings can also creep into the curriculum. Radical socialist Bill Meyers was linked to our district’s website as the “expert” of why we should be a democracy, and why becoming democratic citizens needs to be the district’s number one goal to teach children and parents instead of traditional education.
Meyers believes in anarchy, pagan worship and that Jesus was just a leader of a small cult and is a REAL vampire! That’s right! He actually says that real vampires disguise themselves as Gods—they live forever and have rituals of drinking blood and eating flesh.
He advocates radical socialism, limiting families to 2 children, abortion to term, homosexuality, worshipping the sun instead of a “dead Jesus”, Mary was just an unwed pregnant teenager, and many other atheist and socialist political views. (Meyers is running for the CA Assembly in 2010 as a Green Party Candidate.)
All this was linked directly from Alpine School District’s website just 2 clicks from the district’s home page!
- Why is the school district pushing this agenda?
- Who is training the administrators and teachers to transform our Republic through indoctrinating our children?
- Who authorized linking Bill Meyers to the district website and who knew about his atheistic and socialist views?
- Where did this philosophy of teaching democracy instead of teaching our Constitution come from when our Founding Fathers made it very clear that democracy always leads to anarchy?
RESEARCH PROVES THAT THIS IS A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
While I believe most of the teachers and administers don’t understand the danger of what they are teaching our children, it is clear that we need to demand that they go back to teaching basic traditional subjects and get out of the business of politicizing the curriculum. I’m sure they don’t realize that these dangerous ideas are linked to Bill Ayers and other radical socialists who have discovered that the best way to change a nation is to indoctrinate (enculturate) our children and their teachers through “democracy” training.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In my research I found out that using the word “democracy” is not a mere mistake in language. There is a concerted national and state movement to re-write our history and move our form of government towards socialism by using linguistics. The first step is rewriting our history to make people believe that we are a democracy.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Go to: www.UtahsRepublic.org to sign a petition and get updates about this issue.
- Send this alert to others even if they are not in the district. This philosophy is making its way into many schools in America. Most people are good moral citizens who believe in standing up for the Constitution. It is time we realize what is being taught to our children about this country’s heritage and demand truth.
- Demand more from our district, board members and superintendent. They need to hear from us. We elected them to represent us. PLEASE write all the board members about your concerns.
Barnes, Donna: barn099@alpine.k12.ut.us
Terry D. Peterson: tdpeterson@alpine.k12.ut.us
Fugal, Guy L.: fugal099@alpine.k12.ut.us
Hannemann, Chrissy: hann099@alpine.k12.ut.us
Henshaw, Vernon (Superintendent): vhenshaw@alpine.k12.ut.us
Osborn, Timothy S.: tosborn@alpine.k12.ut.us
Sundberg, JoDee: sund099@alpine.k12.ut.us
Taylor, Debbie: dctaylor@alpine.k12.ut.us
A quote from an LDS prophet:
“There are at least three dangers that threaten the Church within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. As I see these, they are flattery of prominent men in the world, false education ideas, and sexual impurity… – Joseph F. Smith
With hope that you will stand with me for our children’s sake and for our country’s sake,
Sincerely,
Susan Schnell
Highland, UT
Quotes about Republic vs. Democracy:
- At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation, Benjamin Franklin was asked,
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
- We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship.”
–Alexander Hamilton
- “…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
–James Madison, Federalist No. 10 (arguing in favor of a constitutional republic)
- “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
— John Adams, 1814
- “The adoption of Democracy as a form of Government by all European nations is fatal to good Government, to liberty, to law and order, to respect for authority, and to religion, and must eventually produce a state of chaos from which a new world tyranny will arise.”
— Duke of Northumberland, 1931
- “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”
— John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
- “I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.”
— Thomas Babington Macaulay
- “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” — Alexander Tytler
- “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Ours is a representative republic with a Constitution in which is recognized the natural law and the natural rights of man. It is a republic with a spiritual foundation characterized by freedom — freedom for the individual and for his society.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Department of Agriculture under Eisenhower, An Enemy Hath Done This, page 97.)
- “Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.” – John Adams
36 Responses to “ASD Endorses “Christ was Vampire” Author”
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I am stunned that Alpine School District would support such false philosophies. I suspect most of the people in the district are LDS and, if so, have they never read what the Prophets have said about our nation? This is stunning! I guess they, too, have been brain-washed as much as the rest of the nation.
Rich
This is outrageous. Why is this not front-page news? What is the current status? Another reason why we need to ensure that parents are in charge of education in all venues, including public schools.
It appears that the Alpine School District has “useful idiots,” at the very top level. As a retired teacher, I say that this is the fault of the patrons and voters in the Alpine District for not paying attention to what is going on.
The more I look around me in Utah, I become increasingly more alarmed at how far our Utah culture has strayed from the fundamental principles that President Benson expressed so eloquently throughout his lifetime. I find myself (along with the teachings of President Benson) falling more and more out of step with the mainstream of my church. As a people, we have become silent observers of and participants in the circumstances that we have been warned about by President Benson and repeatedly in the Book of Mormon. A tiny fraction of the members of the Church make the connection and most members, through their actions now reject the premise outright. The general attitude seems to be, “that was then, this is now.” Church members who advocate that position are not looking very carefully. This has quietly infiltrated every aspect of our lives. In short order, our right to worship as we choose will be taken and I suspect, life will become more difficult for members of our church.
There is now a cultural and even institutional attitude that seems to encourage members to quietly accept these developments. The newsroom of LDS not org. states, “As the Church operates in countries around the world, it embraces the richness of pluralism. Thus, the political diversity of Latter-day Saints spans the ideological spectrum. Individual members are free to choose their own political philosophy and affiliation. Moreover, the Church itself is not aligned with any particular political ideology or movement. It defies category. Its moral values may be expressed in a number of parties and ideologies. Furthermore, the Church views with concern the politics of fear and rhetorical extremism that render civil discussion impossible. As the Church begins to rise in prominence and its members achieve a higher public profile, a diversity of voices and opinions naturally follows.” (The Mormon Ethic of Civility – LDS.org) I have had this sent to me from progressive friends to convince me that the Church is now moving in a new direction.
I haven’t been given any formal counsel that the fundamentals of what President Benson taught (below) have been rescinded but it appears that may be the case.
President Benson made this statement in General Conference.
“Basic to this all-important plan is our free agency, the right of choice. Free agency is an eternal principle. We enjoyed freedom of choice in the spirit world as spirit children. In fact, a counter-plan to the gospel of our Lord was presented by Lucifer, a plan of force that would have robbed man of his freedom of choice. Lucifer's plan was rejected, and the scriptures tell us that he, with one-third of the hosts of heaven, was cast out; and they continue their opposition to God's plan, which is based on the freedom of the individual… The scriptures make clear that there was a great war in heaven, a struggle over the principle of freedom the right of choice….
Why have prophets of God been commanded to proclaim liberty and lead the battle to preserve freedom? Because freedom is basic to the great plan of the Lord. The gospel can prosper only in an atmosphere of freedom. This fact is confirmed by history, as well as by sacred scriptures. The right of choice—free agency—runs like a golden thread throughout the gospel plan of the Lord for the blessing of his children.
…“Still earlier the First Presidency warned the Saints that ‘Satan is making war against all the wisdom that has come to men through their ages of experience. He is seeking to overturn and destroy the very foundations upon which society, government, and religion rest. He aims to have men adopt theories and practices which he induced their forefathers, over the ages, to adopt and try, only to be discarded by them when found unsound, impractical, and ruinous. He plans to destroy liberty and freedom—economic, political, and religious, and to set up in place thereof the greatest, most widespread, and most complete tyranny that has ever oppressed man. He is working under such perfect disguise that many do not recognize either him or his methods.…Without their knowing it, the people are being urged down paths that lead only to destruction. Satan never before had so firm a grip on this generation as he has now.’ (“Message of the First Presidency,” The Improvement Era, Nov. 1942, p. 761.)
In spite of the scriptural evidence and the counsel of modern-day prophets during the past more than 100 years, there are still some who seem to feel we have no responsibility to safeguard and strengthen our precious God-given freedom. There are some who apparently feel that the fight for freedom is separate from the gospel. They express it in several ways but it generally boils down to this: Just live the gospel; there's no need to get involved in trying to save freedom and the Constitution or to stop Communism. Of course, this is dangerous reasoning, because in reality you cannot fully live the gospel without working to save freedom and the Constitution, and to stop Communism. In the war in heaven, what would have been your reaction if someone had told you just to do what is right—there's no need to get involved in the fight for freedom? War in Heaven continues on Earth: Of course, the war in heaven over free agency is now being waged here on earth, and there are those today who are saying “Look, don't get involved in the fight for freedom. Just live the gospel.” That counsel is dangerous, self-contradictory, unsound.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, p.120. October 1966).
It is interesting to find that within the Alpine School District web site’s Mission Statement, when you click on Moral Dimension, you will be taken to a BYU website page “Educator Preparation Program”; then you can scroll down to find the following:
Enculturating the Young in a Social and Political Democracy
by Gary Daynes
Associate Director, Freshman Academy, BYU
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Is this where the inspiration was found for the school district’s mission statement?
Yes, and I encourage you to dig a little more. :) It’s not just BYU’s problem.
How fitting that you end your argument with a quote from Joseph Smith. This country was also founded on the idea of separation of church and state. As a non-LDS person born and raised here in Utah I see this being treated as a suggestion and not a fundamental corner stone to our government.
I completely agree that politics should not be taught in our schools. This will only lead to a bigger divide in our country. Along the same lines I believe that religion should be similarly left out of our curriculums so as not to promote a certain ideology.
@ConcernedCitizen:
Joseph F. Smith was not the founder of the LDS church, but was a later President of the church. Nowhere in the founding of our country will you see our founders talking about the separation of church and state. It's not in the constitution or any other founding document. That was in a letter from Jefferson to a friend in reference to ensuring that we never had a state religion forced on the populace such as there was in England with the Church of England (COE). There, if you weren't a member of the COE, you couldn't hold public office. Nowhere will you find our Founders saying the leader of a religion cannot make statements about government, but you will find them saying governmental leaders should not interfere in the role of the conscience of individuals in their preferred religious prescription.
Also, our Founders including Jefferson wanted the Bible taught in schools in a non-denominational, non-doctrinal way. The Bible contains many valuable stories of morality which our Founders called an “indispensable support” to public morality and education.
The link to the William Meyers article was a mistake (not a political statement) by a well-intended employee (who is a patriotic American) that was corrected and removed from the ASD website as soon as the Superintendent was aware of its existence. The link does not represent the core content or philosophy of Alpine School District–I have found them to be a very transparent and open district. The employee who erroneously posted the link was reminded that anything that goes on the website need to be properly approved before it is posted and reprimanded. Get a life everybody! Seriously, do you really think a conservative school district in predominantly LDS Utah would knowingly or intentionally associate or endorse someone so far from Republican, LDS ideals? Plus, their mission statement has been around a lot longer than Meyers' article! It may not be a “perfect” mission statement but I've seen worse!
I live in the ASD. The Superintendent is in my stake and is a former stake president. I challenge you to find a more Christ-like man whose desire is to provide the best education for his students. This blog is so full of misconceptions, misleading fallacies and breaches of logic to give a professor of rhetoric an entire semester worth of “how-not-to” material. I don’t have the time or the inclination to engage with ultra, ultra-right but otherwise good people. FYI, I am a Reagan conservative who was sorely castigated by my peers at one of the nation’s most liberal universities when I was the campus representative for Goldwater back in the 60s.
I am going to go Mr.Adams and Mr. Jefferson one better: The difference between democracies and republics is the difference between “freedom” and “liberty.”
Freedom in and of itself is merely license to do whatever one wishes. Liberty is assigned to freedom with a sense of duty and responsibility. There are accountable consequences with liberty. Freedom is a catch-all term many of our liberal leftist/socialist brethren will use to do whatever they damn-well-please because they have a bigger club than you even if it only a simple majority of one. Might makes right in their book.
Moroni indeed lifted the Title of Liberty not democracy or democracy's “Freedom.” Think about it.
To the poster who talked about “separation of church and state”- It is Freedom
OF religion not freedom FROM religion. The point being that the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure the government could not assign a specific religion that must be followed. This after they lived through this tyranny in England, France, etc and being told what they could or could not believe. Along with this is Freedom of Speech, where we should be allowed to speak of religious things in any setting- church, school civic meetings. The government more and more is taking away these rights, punishing those who do speak. More and more the Progressives are twisting the truth to serve their own purposes. Wake up.
Thanks for commenting Reb. Perhaps you read a different blog post though. If you read the above comments you'll see nobody implicated the Superintendent or questioned his “Christ-like” status. The post merely points out that ASD's motto is promoting a falsehood and to prove their position they linked their website to an extremist. If you'd care to point out some of the many “breaches of logic” I'd be happy to try and address them.
You may label the people involved with this website “ultra, ultra-right” but that would pretty much label you as a stereo-typist. Someone might then label you prejudiced and not really interested in the whole picture which could be wholly incorrect or it could unfortunately be correct. If you actually look at the petition on this site, it has nothing to do with ASD even though they have a long history of rejecting the notion that we are a Republic.
P.S. Reagan knew we were a Republic.
Reb – if you happen to come back and read this:
I have no doubt the members of the ASD School board are good, decent, Christ-like people! That does not mean however, that they do not individually have different political views from me and that they do not subscribe to philosophies, particularly educational philosophies, that could be concerning. The BYU School of Education webpage, from which ASD has taken the mantra seen within the district of “Enculturating the Young in a Social and Political Democracy” IS linked to from ASD's website, and within that website you may be surprised to find some rather left-centre, or left-leaning ideas for education (google social democracy). This does not mean these are bad people. But they may be following philosophica/educationall ideologies that do not ring true or clear with many parents in the ASD. I would like to invite you to share with me, and anyone else on this blog, what the misleading fallacies, breaches of logic, and misconceptions are that you are finding on this webpage. I am TRULY interested! I can't make informed opinions and decisions based on comments that (pardon the expression) “sling mud” without back-up info. If you come back to this site, would you mind posting here, or giving a link to a post, where I and others who might be interested, can learn more about YOUR concerns? I think everyone benefits when we engage in clear and concise communication.
Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with the freedom of religion provided by the original founding fathers, those who founded this country because they wanted such a right in the first place. It seems to be a loaded argument to claim that “Pagan worship” should have anything to do with this. Indeed, I also agree that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, and worry that people are using fear to force individuals to see “their side” rather than forming an opinion of their own.
Everyone should push to keep politics and religion out of schools, period. These are values and opinions that everyone should figure out on their own and not be forced into it by anyone, especially a school.
Wow, Insanity runs deep in Utah. Or it's just full of over-reactive, bored housewives. Either way, this shows the state of mentality within the State. This is EXACTLY why politics should be taught in school. New generations need to be shown that there is a differing view point out there besides the one that God is a republican.
The Internet is a tangled web. A link to a single page can pull you in many directions. As a web master, if I had to figure out the number of ways that any individual could be offended by a single statement on some web page that I didn't know was there, I too would be as insane as that individual. As a species, we are prone to jump to conclusions and accept whatever ideas we formulate as the only relevant truth to any given situation. Oh, and DON'T try to prove us wrong once we accept our own beliefs as conclusive facts. Then you WILL have a fight on your hands.
Standing up and fighting for what is right is what helped build this Country to where it is now. But fighting the good fight also means that we should be fully versed in what we are fighting for. If we accept our own conclusions as the only truth, then we miss a whole different world of thought and education. Narrow mindedness only leads down a dangerous road.
Should Jesus ever be categorized as a vampire? Never. After all, He died for us and then rose again from the grave, so at best, He should be considered a zombie.
High potency wharrgarbl. The mind boogles.
Well said. Keep politics and religion out of schools. Nobody is endorsing a political party. Just because Republicans sound like Republic and Democrats sound like Democracy, bears no necessary resemblance and was never designed to. We should be teaching the constitution in the words of our Founding Fathers.
Thomas Jefferson: “On every question of construction, [let us] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probably one in which it was passed.”
religious morons…
On this warning, I always tend to take these things suspiciously. The warning tells of a link that used to be on the alpine school district to a radically left-thinking politician, William Meyers. The picture isn’t hard evidence. So I looked up the page in google and looked at the cached version. (Google maintains copies of web pages that they update about one a week) The link is on the cached version of the page. Take a look for yourself before it’s updated. Search for “Mission Statement Mission Statement Alpine School District” and click on the “Cached” link of the first result.
I also doubted the link from William Meyers to vampires. On Meyer’s web page that Alpine school district used to link to, there is a “disambiguation page” (https://www.williampmeyers.org/wmdisambiguation.html) to differentiate him from others named Bill Meyer. He clearly states that he is also runs the iiipublishing.com page where those wacky vampire books are sold. See https://www.iiipublishing.com/religion/vampires.html where he says: “Most people think vampires are fiction, but our research has shown they may be very real, indeed.”
I have a hard time believing it but it sure sounds wacky.
Susan – the vampire stuff is tongue-in-cheek and fiction; that website even says so. Meanwhile, you're spiraling out of control in your conspiracy theories. Lighten up, get some psychiatric help, and pull your kids from the School District.
Jesus was a socialist. He insisted that those who had would share with those who had not, as he recognized those with money and power usually were benefitting from the sweat of others and from the stability of a healthy society that cares for all of its members. He insisted that those with ability do their part to help those without ability; to share a loaf even when the other person did not bring one to the feast. To hold back the brutal stones of judgment and realize that you were on the other end of the rock at some point. He certainly was not a capitalist or a fundamental christian as we have today, telling people who should marry, who should feel like a leper on christmas, and who is more deserving of healthcare if they have more money.
He spoke truth to power – the arrogant and overly-religious Pharisees who forced those around them to submit to authority and were too busy meddling in the private lives of citizens to bother being an example of mercy and wisdom. The poor kids who live with parents like Susan would do well to avoid her example of arrogance, over-reactionism, and intolerance of competing ideas in her limited mental space.
?Perhaps she needs some medication to soothe the savage animal trapped within? If a simple (and silly) website really threatens children, then we should just pull the plug on the human experiment tomorrow…
Oh and a republic is a form of democracy so whatever. Think of democracy as one side of a scale and theocracy on the other – we see a deference to authority increasing until you worship the rules of a non-existent and unaccountable fiction of human history, or we see a deference to the wishes of every single person around you – including the felons, the poor, the stupid, and the incoherent like Susan.
I for one am glad she was able to stop dragging her knuckles long enough to type up her screed so that we all could enjoy a laugh and a sigh over lunch, instead of the opposite world where a religious officer hauls me to heresy jail for having an idea, of all things…
Absolutely – Jesus was a socialist, a moocher, a slacker, etc., when you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke; most right-of-center Christians would chase him out of town for being a dirty hippie if he showed up nowadays. Although I'm becoming increasingly of the opinion that Jesus Christ was just a myth, anyway.
And really the important point of all those stories – no matter if he was real like a dollar bill or real like capitalism – is that you have to work hard to go out of your way to be nice to people, to extend the benefit of the doubt, even when you see that person taking advantage of your hospitality or being insincere. And that the miserable people around you are people too – you may find yourself in their soggy shoes one day. I have so much respect for the spiritual and religious people who do social (a dirty word!) work and commit incredible acts of charity to those who are less fortunate. I have no respect for the spiritual and religious people who lean on words and fables in order to justify selfish and hateful behavior. But as role models and ideals go, Jesus is pretty awesome. He's a lot nicer than Old Testament God, Buddah, Confucious, and especially nicer than those golden-plated or child-marrying frauds Mohammed & Joseph Smith.
Actually, no, Jesus was not a socialist. A socialist is one who advocates government control of property and redistribution of wealth. Jesus called on people to voluntarily give of themselves and their means of their own free will. If you had to put him on a political spectrum I suspect he would be somewhat close to libertarian.
Also, the political spectrum only contains 2 forms of government which you'll see if you watch the video by clicking on Ben Franklin's picture at the top right of this site. Every form of government translates into rule by a few, or rule by law. Rule by law is a Republic. Watch the video. It's really good at explaining this.
Religion was created as a way to explain scientific happenings that we as a people could not explain at the time. If it was not so deeply rooted in our societies by the time we were able to explain rationally and scientifically why things are the way they are here on planet earth religion would have been done away with long ago. It is a useless crutch that people hold on to because they are afraid of death and are scared to be alone. If there ever was a “God” he created us and walked away from the experiment long ago. Your “God” is most likely the snot from another civilization in another galaxy that made it's way to earth. Wake up and accept the facts. And besides, Jesus is a zombie, not a vampire. He came back from the dead. Seems to me people should have destroyed his brain then and there because he spread his lifeless, brain dead way of life so far I believe you religious zombies will kill our world one day.
You wake up. Religion is useless to our modern society. Anyone who beleives the word of religion over science is just afriad of death and the unknown which may or may not come after. Grow up and become a rational thinking human being.
Susan Schnell is a moron and should be studied by psychiatrists. Grow up people. God isn't real. You made him up to feel better about death and what comes after. And Jesus is a zombie, not a vampire.
Dan, too bad you are not capable of comprehending the existence of spiritual things. Your statement “Anyone who beleives the word of religion over science is just afriad of death and the unknown” is the exact opposite of the truth. BECAUSE of my faith I have no fear of dying or the unknown because I DO know what to expect.
Thanks Dan for so eloquently and kindly presenting the views of our Utah teachers union to this forum. If you are interested in expressing those points to a larger audience, I hope you will consider presenting this topic in our professional development workshops for K-12 educators at our convention next October 20-21 at the South Towne Exposition Center. In the meantime, you might consider adding your thoughts to other voices of similar tone on the reader comments on every news story published daily in the Salt Lake Tribune.
You need to start a petition to fire the Superintendent and the PRincipals who went along with this. These people need to start losing their jobs.
Show up at school board meetings and demand their resignation.
The “Jesus is a vampire” line is a JOKE, playing off of the ironies in the close alignment between the Twilight frenzy and Christian fundamentalists. I understand the objection on grounds of taste, but your school district is not connected to a delusional nut, merely to someone whose sense of humor doesn't work very well for you.
Furthermore, representative democracy and republicanism are practically inseparable, though not indistinguishable, concepts, and the partisan politics of party nomenclature is the only reason to get so upset about the choice of terms. Direct democracy is the real distinct alternative to republicanism, and it has primarily been a tool of the right wing; to link it to socialist ideology is just silly.
At some point we need to develop new terms. The word “Democracy” is almost meaningless now and it certainly doesn't have a universal definition.
Almost every government now calls itself a democracy.
A Direct Democracy typically results in anarchy. I am not aware of any.
Communist East Germany (The German Democratic Republic) called itself a Democracy. It built a wall to keep it's citizens from fleeing to escape its definition.
The Soviet Union was by one definition, a Republic (a government without a monarch) but it was anything but a “Representative Democratic” Republic. It really didn't give power to the people. It's one party, the Communist Party, chose the Politburo, not the people. The USSR violated natural law: there was no incentive for either the over-taxed, productive Peters or the subsidized, non-productive Pauls and the result was a non-productive, mediocre society. That definition of Democracy went broke.
Venezuela calls itself a Democracy. It's a far cry from what American's consider a Democracy. At one point, there were several political parties in Venezuela. After the “Democratic Revolution” Hugo Chavez and his supporters (somehow) secured all 167 seats in the National Assembly. Then, Chavez's National Assembly voted to merge all factions into Chavez's United Socialist Party. I believe that there is now just one party with Chavez as its “Democratic” leader. Even though they hold fake elections, Venezuela is by definition an Oligarchy, Chavez and buddies.
All European countries are now considered to varying degrees, Social Democracies. The people of those countries still have a voice but they vote increasingly to give more of their personal responsibilty to the state. None of them are exactly Marxist because they not revolutionary. They are civilly allowing social and economic equality to evolve over time. They will likely realign (again and again) and become totalitarian regimes like Venezuela.
The US is a Democratic Representative Republic but the people are obese and content. We are allowing government to take over increasing levels of our care and feeding. Government continues to force social and economic justice. Like all other societies that have taken that route, I suspect the US will become increasingly poorer and weaker and a wealthier and more powerful country will simply consume us.
In the future, the only definition of Democracy that will matter for us is the one that is written in Mandarin.
Jesus was not a socialist. Socialists enforce involuntary philanthropy, Jesus taught people to choose voluntary philanthropy. The difference is choice, in other words, liberty. For the difference between a democracy and a republic, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE&feat….
Jesus was not a socialist. Socialists enforce involuntary philanthropy, Jesus taught people to choose voluntary philanthropy. The difference is choice, in other words, liberty. For the difference between a democracy and a republic, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DioQooFIcgE&feat….