Political Speech in the Classroom

As a current student still involved with the dichotomy between free speech in the classroom and undue influence i can say that students will definitely feel pressure if the stated beliefs of a teacher conflict with your own. This is never more true than in political instances. Matters such as gay marriage and abortion are volatile and if you know that your teacher comes down on the opposite side that you do you will always feel that there is a risk of retaliation there. This retaliation would be totally unjustified but the anxiety never goes away. That is why i am choosing to highlight the decision of Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan that it should be up to individual school districts to determine whether buttons in the classroom interfered with learning.

From the times article,

it should be up to individual school districts to determine whether buttons in the classroom interfered with learning. He cautioned, however, that “school officials may not take a sledgehammer to freedom of expression and then avoid all scrutiny by invoking alleged professional judgment.”

The judge said that while a majority of students would probably understand that a button represented a teacher’s personal view, there would be “inevitable misperceptions on the part of a minority.”

It is my own personal opinion that teachers of k-6 are not going to make any disruption in the educational environment if they were a button. The friction and disruption occurs at higher levels of school where students have more defined political opinions. It is the potential conflict between one student's thoughts and the teachers that makes learning tough. Are these kids feeling pressure from their teachers to act in a certain way based on a button? Probably not. At the same time though i do not see the need to bring a campaign button into the learning environment.

I know that my teachers were always unwilling to discuss their own personal political opinions in class, even government, to avoid any issue. I do not feel that my education suffered from that and it probably benefited from that because no one felt restrained in voicing their own opinions out of fear of retaliation. Some of my classmates growing up were actually very conservative and learning would have been made more difficult for them if they had to fear teachers thrusting their opinion on them.

This is not to say that truth telling about the political events of the day has no place. If a child asked about the race and whether obama was a terrorist or even if his tax plan does what he says it does the teacher is more than free to respond. They are not forced to deny objective reality to be balanced.

Teachers should be non-partisan while in the class room. On their own time they are allowed to live their lives as they please, run for office, write letters to the editor etc. In the classroom though non-partisan is the way to go. After all, the truth has a liberal bias so teaching it should really sink the gop.

BtW, I found this to be amusing,

The government, like any business, has the authority to tell its employees what to do so that it can continue to operate effectively. A teacher cannot spend each English period talking about baseball, or each physics class teaching false scientific theories.

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Death Penalty, Troy Davis, and Legal Process

The case of Troy Davis has become somewhat a cause celeb for anti death penalty activists and people interested in justice generally. Troy Davis is sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail. He maintains his innocence. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him was built upon witness testimony. While he has been on death row all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis. One of the remaining witnesses is Sylvester "Red" Coles who also happens to be the principle alternative suspect. There is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Davis' appeal ending the appeals process available in the courts. There is a very distressing picture that an innocent man is going to be executed. If the case against him is so weak and undermined after all these years why is he going to be executed? The answer seems to come from a utilitarian, process argument, policy. This is what has been advanced by the prosecutor in the case .

Mr. Lawton makes several arguments to refute the idea that Mr. Davis is innocent and that he deserves no further review. Among them he asserts that there was physical evidence that linked Davis to the shooting; shell casings that matched an earlier shooting Davis was also convicted of, the shooting of one michael cooper. Reading the record,

At trial, Kevin McQueen, who was at the Chatham City jail with Davis, testified that Davis told him there had been a party in Cloverdale on the night prior to the victim’s murder; Davis had argued with some boys and there was an exchange of gunfire. (T. 1230-1231). Davis told McQueen he did some of the shooting. (T. 1231). After the party, Davis went to a girlfriend’s house and intended to eat breakfast at Burger King. Davis stated that he was with a friend and they ran into a guy who “owed money to buy dope.” (T. 1231). There was a fight, Officer McPhail appeared, and Davis shot him in the face. As Officer McPhail attempted to get up, Davis shot him again, because he was afraid McPhail had seen him that night at Cloverdale. (T. 1232). Davis also told McQueen that he was on his way out of town to Atlanta. (T. 1232).

This was undermined by the recantation of Kevin McQueen,

“The truth is that Troy never confessed to me or talked to me about the shooting of the police officer. I made up the confession from information I had heard on T.V. and from other inmates about the crimes. Troy did not tell me any of this… I have now realized what I did to Troy so I have decided to tell the truth… I need to set the record straight.”

Mr Lawton also attacks the recantations themselves.

Would it not be ironic, for instance, in a case such as this one, if affidavits claiming coercion by police were themselves obtained by coercive tactics?

He accuses Amnesty International, in their zelous anti-death penalty ways, of coercing the recantations. In a true head spinner the high number and percentage of recantations is not actually an indication that they were originally false or coerced but that they were coerced now.

My favorite view has come from The Debate Link

There's a lot of hand waving going on here, but basically the reliability of the recantations comes down to whether or not you think it is more likely that witnesses are subject to intimidation by police investigators, or by groups like Amnesty International investigating potential wrongful convictions. My default stance is to be suspicious of unrecorded police questioning in Black on White crimes in Georgia. The affadavits Amnesty provides are compelling to me because of their consistency -- they all give very similar accounts of police harassment, and come back to a consistent theme that the police wouldn't let the witnesses leave until they said what the police wanted to hear.

This was a cop killing in georgia. Cop killers do not get off. You can bet that there is behind the scenes pressure from the cops at every turn to keep this man on death row. Is it far fetched to believe that the cops wanted to get someone for killing one of their own and bent the rules to suit? Maybe thats too much tv talking. However i do find Lawton's reliance on due process as a justification for killing davis to be incredibly disconcerting. In putting someone to death process is not enough, it must be more than that.

Lawton blames the media and the anti-death penalty people as either being ignorant of the laws workings or of being ideologically biased so that they cannot be neutral fact finders. I submit that this characterization is simply false. Simply because something is processed through a system does not make the outcome just or legitimate. This is how the courts review a case as Lawton cites,

“Particularly in this death penalty case where a man might soon be executed, we have endeavored to look beyond bare legal principles . . . to the core question of whether a jury presented with Davis's allegedly new testimony would probably find him not guilty or give him a sentence other than death.”

Considering the evidence at trial, favoring it, and considering the post-trial evidence, “We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Davis' extraordinary motion for a new trial.”

Over throwing the discretion of a lower court is not something a higher court takes lightly. If the court thinks there is a 50+1 chance that Davis comes out the same he fails to get a new trial. So we could have a 49.9% chance the jury comes out with an answer other than death and that is not enough to merit a trial or commutation of the sentence? To me that sounds like killing on a coin flip.

That's where the process arguments come back with the argument that if the standard were lower we would have too many new trials in death penalty cases. Ahem..So? Maybe we should not be killing people with this strong a showing of doubt? Reconcile the idea of beyond a reasonable doubt with the 50+1% requirement to affirm his death. Certainly 40%+ chance that he does not get death is a reasonable doubt.

Thats what makes the death penalty so problematic. We are putting people to death. Death is it and to consign someone to this fate we cannot have these kinds of doubts. The law is ultimately about applying justice. is it just to the family of the officer who gave his life in the line of duty to kill an innocent man in the place of his killer? IMO this is too sketchy a situation to put a man to death.

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Powell Against Bigotry

I am really glad i get to write that headline. Too often we see people in the public sphere pull punches in regards to bigotry and racism. General Powell pulled no punches in his endorsement of Obama when he took on the anti muslim bent of the gop,

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that [Obama] is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

"I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star - showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

"And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life."

This country has been far too quick to equate arab or muslim with terrorist and to make that group the new communist. A muslim child in america should grow up with the same chance at life, love, and happiness as any one else. They should not be handicapped by their faith. To do so is unamerican. i am glad to hear Colin Powell bring that point home.

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McCain loses last bit of honor

Too often, i think, we separate the man from the politician. We see that idea reflected in the press coverage of McCain where reporters are shocked and dismayed that McCain is using lies and smears to target Barack Obama. "This is not the real McCain. He is too honorable. You can tell he does not like to do this." You can hear the yearning in for McCain to throw off the shackles and be free! This is of course utter nonsense.

A campaign for the president is a grueling test of a persons' principles, ethics, and morals. Presidential nominees are pulled in thousands of different directions by various interest groups and demands on their time. They must prioritize who and what is important to them. Then these priorities are put to the test when the campaign hits a bumpy spot. Will a candidate stay with their proffesed princples or will those be thrown under the bus in a quest for power? We know the answer with Sen. McCain. If you doubt that he has thrown out any shred of honor he had watch this



Video Description from Greg Sargent

McCain defended his robo-slime by saying that the calls directed at him were worse than anything his own calls said about Obama.

"These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000," McCain said.

McCain said his robo-slime was highlighting "a legitimate issue," which is the question of whether Obama is "being truthful with the American people," a clear reference to his robo-call attacking Obama's association with William Ayers.

Actually, this is false. McCain's robo-call about Obama and Ayers says absolutely nothing about whether Obama is telling the truth about his relationship with the former Weatherman. If you don't believe me, you can listen to the full call right here.

Text of the call

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."

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racism is alive and well

i think we can put behind us the idea that discriminating or hating on the basis of race in america is no more.

Surprise, shock and some fear in a local neighborhood, after an anti-Obama display is hung from a tree. The display is at a home at Symmes and Hicks Road in Fairfield.

And the person who put it there says the message isn't political, it's racist. Shawn Ley spoke with the man who isn't shy about his views.

There it is, right above the "McCain-Palin" sign: a make-shift ghost, hanging from a noose. A Barack Obama sign attached upside down. Obama's middle name: "Hussein" spray painted and misspelled above.

Mike Lunsford hung the ghost in his yard. He spoke to us off-camera, saying his views could hurt his employers business ... but he says make no mistake: He doesn't want an African American running the country.

Lunsford says he believes Barack Obama is not a "full blooded American." And he says the United States is a white, Christian nation - and only with white Christians should be in power.

This is so unacceptable. His reason for doing this was to respond to a cartoon of mccain in kkk robes chasing obama. Explain to me exactly how this is meant to respond to that? If anything it only reinforces the idea that mccain supporters and the gop is racist.

I look forward to hearing Sen McCain condemn this but i look forward to hearing gov palin condemning this as well. That is one of the big points is that mccain is playing good cop bad cop with this topic and this is not a situation where games need to be played. So McCain get your house in order because this is what you tolerate, out and out racism.

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