If you mean do I realize ideas have power, both for good and evil, and that evil ideas have killed more people on this planet than anything else, you are right. The more appropriate word might be "respect," not "fear."

If you mean do I want to shut anyone up who disagrees with me, that's patently stupid on the face of it, or I wouldn't be here, I would be on one of those conservative echo chamber sites.

If you mean do I want to protest the teaching of poisonous philosophies at taxpayer-financed public schools, you are right.

Look, if someone from a white supremacist group went to public schools and started spouting the virtues of the white race and the inferiority of the black race, he would be run out of town on a rail, so obviously you can't legitimately say that you think it's okay for ANY ideas to be pumped into kids at public schools. And equally obviously, this wouldn't be because you are "afraid" of racist ideas. It's because they are wrong, and teach the children the wrong things. It's no different than if a driving school taught kids to drive down the wrong side of the road, or that "red" means "go." It would not be censorship to tell the instructor to cut it out.

You might note on the original link the organizers' intent to keep military representatives out of schools, and there is also a long history of the left opposing any form of corporate advertising in schools. Are they "afraid" of these ideas? Or do they have legitimate complaints?

Just because everyone has a right to an opinion, doesn't make everyone right, and it doesn't give them a right to a publicly financed soapbox at our expense.

...Fifth-graders from Sequoia Elementary School spoke in favor of the teach-in at Wednesday's board meeting and read letters they had written to Bush opposing an Iraq war.



"When you go to war, you are setting a bad example for all the kids in the U.S.A.," one letter stated. "Wars and fights are not right, and bombing beautiful things is not right either."

Teacher Betty Olson-Jones* said the students came up with the idea on their own [*coughbullshitcough*]. The students invited Bush to come to a weekly class at Sequoia that teaches youngsters how to resolve problems without fighting.

"It's not fair for other people (if) they get killed, because they haven't done anything to George Bush," said student Jennifer, whose parents did not want her last name published. Bush "is only mad at one person (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein)," Jennifer said. "We think (Bush) should come to our class on Wednesday to learn some (conflict resolution) skills."

The fifth-graders showed they understood that the United States once supported Iraq militarily. "We think it's strange to go to war with a country you taught war to," student Emma Styles-Swaim said. "We think it's strange because, well, it's weird."



Yeah, these fifth graders pick up the paper every morning at home over their Lucky Charms, and study Bush's Iraq policy and the history of U.S./Iraq relations. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

You pay for this stuff, folks.