Taylor Pugh, 4, (known as Tater Tot) is a bit too hairy for Floyd Elementary School’s principal. Taylor and his Dad are growing their hair to donate it for wigs for cancer patients. The suburban Dallas school district, however, insists that boys cannot have long hair and it has suspended him from classes since last month.
Remarkably, the school district is sticking to its position. Mesquite Independent School District spokesman Ian Halperin “We expect students … to adhere to the code of conduct.”
The short hair requirement always struck me as a bit sexist since girls are allowed to have longer hair than boys. So long as the hair is clean and not a danger to the child, why should a boy be required to have shorter hair than a girl? Looking at the picture with the article below, Taylor does not even appear to have particularly long hair.
Even if you agree with the requirement, it is bizarre that the school would not want to encourage such a selfless act of charity. One of my nieces at eight was part of this program and I was very proud of her. It is a wonderful message of giving that has now been replaced with a conflicting message of a senseless bureaucracy imposing arbitrary rules on children.
Not only would George Mifflin Dallas (left) not appear able to attend the school under the hair rules, but some other famous individual would find themselves suspended if they showed up for class.
For the full story, click here.
Byron: sorry, I meant Stalin, not Marx.
Bryon:
I would submit that those with a totalitarian bent on the right who would be viewed as conservatives (even claiming to be so) are frauds.
A conservative, in this country, promotes liberty–an ordered one, of course. License is not liberty.
It is the neocons and the RINOs who have contempt for liberty and the Constitution. They are leftist republicans in my opinion. Examples of these are Guiliani, Newt, McCain, Bush.
They tow the Rockefeller republican line and they are indeed an awful bunch who trampled the Constitution as much as democrats.
I was reading an interview from 2007 with Judge Andrew Napolitano. He was talking about the Patriot Act and how republicans behaved just like democrats are now doing with the health care heist. Republicans rammed the Patriot Act through congress, didn’t give congress enough time to read it, didn’t allow debate either. It was some 300 plus pages.
It took Napolitano 20 hours to read through it once and he read through it twice. It was complicated because of all the laws which were abrogated by it.
Now the squealing little republican brats get their comeuppance and can hardly gripe about the immoral conduct of democrats when republicans were just as bad.
Trouble is, we all will pay for the despotism by both parties: Liberals promoting despotism through welfare programs and republicans promoting despotism through warfare “programs”. All of it is in my opinion driven by liberalism (that which does not conserve).
Conservatives, by their very nature, must CONSERVE the Constitution. Liberals (in both parties) because of their ideology and changeable moral code, change it into something it is not.
Tootie:
no political party has a lock on liberty, there are some on the conservative side that are just as totalitarian in their own way as some of those on the left.
Gyges:
you would have ripped me a new a . . . hole.
Tootie needs some Gygucation. 🙂
Byron,
Told you I was being gentle. What do you suppose my reaction to that whole “democrats are all Marxists” thing coming from you would have been?
Tootie:
here a couple of more
http://www.adamsjefferson.com/papers.htm
http://mises.org/daily/1628
hope this helps.
Tootie:
“Karl Marx very much admired Mussolini, he just thought Mussolini should have a more global perspective. And so Fascism fits in neatly with Marxism, and democrats are all Marxists. This swallowing up of private (or state run) functions by D.C. is fascist outright or in nature.”
it is doubtful Marx ever knew B. Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) as he died in 1883.
If you are going to argue “conservative” points at least have the decency to get historical context correct. I also bet you have never read Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto.
Think about what you are saying, that bit on Marx having known Mussolini is just pure ignorance and makes the rest of your argument suspect.
Wikipedia is a good first try and then move on from there. I have some very good web sites that have a bunch of good information. here are 2
http://economics.gmu.edu/wew/index.html
http://classics.mit.edu/index.html
Edit:
“…definition of Fascism. ONE of the primary…”
Tootie,
Better than I was expecting, still some huge flaws though.
To start with, I’m just going to throw out this whole sentence, “And so Fascism fits in neatly with Marxism, and democrats are all Marxists. ” Why? Because you’d have to prove two separate things: Fascism is analogous to Marxism and Democrats are all Marxists. You don’t come close to doing either, and it’s completely irrelevant to the subject at hand.
As a major clarification your definition of Fascism. The primary defining characteristics of Fascism is it’s dedication to nationalism. Meaning, you can’t have fascism without nationalism. So, any time you hear someone calling a movement that doesn’t include extreme nationalism as fascism, you’re hearing someone fall prey to a trend about which Orwell commented,
“The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else… almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.”
Resulting from this nationalism is a resistance to all forms of globalism. Mussolini’s famous Doctrine of Fascism states: “Equally foreign to the spirit of Fascism, even if accepted as useful in meeting special political situations — are all internationalistic or League superstructures,” so any time you see someone describe a movement involving globalism as a fascist they’re wrong.
Now that we’ve got a better (if incomplete) working definition of what is and isn’t fascism, let’s get to supporting public schools. Your argument seems to be “If fascism includes government control over private entities then any new control of private businesses is fascism.” If all squares have four sides, and a rhombus has four sides, does that mean a rhombus is a square? Having four sides might be one of the primary qualities of being a square, but it is not the sole one. Just like government control over private businesses might be a primary quality of a fascist system, but it is far from the sole one.
The problem here is that in America we’ve been conditioned to think of politics as a spectrum, gradually changing as one progresses from right to left. It’s not. There are far more then one axis when it comes to politics. There’s Authoritarian vs Liberal, Free Market vs Controlled Market, Progressive vs Conservative, (this one is actually relative to the society involved, what’s progressive in one country may be conservative in another), individualism vs globalism (with nationalism being somewhere in between the two, and deep into the authoritarian side of it’s spectrum), and probably a few others I’m missing. All of these things are required to define a political system, not just one.
foo:
“Hair style is not considered a protected form of speech. Our legal writing memo last year at GW had this very topic.”
**************
“Perhaps the length of one’s hair may be symbolic speech which under some circumstances is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment. But the record before us does not establish that the minor plaintiffs selected the length of their hair for any reasons other than personal preference. For that reason, we prefer in this case to treat their right to wear their hair as they wish as an aspect of the right to be secure in one’s person guaranteed by the due process clause, Union Pacific Railway Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S. Ct. 1000, 35 L. Ed. 734 (1891); Bishop v. Colaw, 450 F.2d at 1075; Clews v. Cloncs, supra, 432 F.2d at 1263-1264; Richards v. Thurston, supra, 424 F.2d at 1284-1285, but having overlapping equal protection clause considerations since the purported limitation of the right was by a state public school official.”
Better get back to that research and take a look at Massie v. Henry, 455 F.2d 779 (4th Cir. 1972) for a pretty good discussion and survey of the law establishing hair style as a due process right falling within the penumbras of the First & Ninth Amendments. See also McNew v. Surry County School Board (EDVa 1999) for a case holding that blue hair is protected under the due process clause.
Fascism is not a function of government proper, Toolie.
Fascism isn’t an economic system. It’s an authoritarian, militaristic, aggressively expansionist political philosophy where corporations make the rules and the people as just fucked out of their votes or say. Ask the Italians. Ask the Spanish. Fascism is a retarded idea started by CEO’s to justify their greed. But it’s not what the Democrats are proposing you partisan hack. The ones who get it are backing a form of socialism. A blended economy that can ride atop any political system not run by corporations (due to the nature of corporations).
Fascism, plain and simple, is where corporations control the laws and institutions. Nothing more, nothing less. Mussolini preferred the term “Corporatism”. It has nothing to do with providing social services. It has nothing to do with democracy, liberty or freedom. It has everything to do with the corporations making themselves into shields to hide sociopaths and criminals intent on destroying democracy while maximizing their profits. After all, liberty and democracy are counter to profits if some human or civil rights abuse is required to get back in black.
As a result of basic definitions of the words, corporatism would mean that privately funded colleges would be the example of fascism and publicly funded universities would an example of socialism – something done as a public trust with the good of all citizens in mind, not just the employees of Company SCUM IS US.
Sorry you don’t speak English. Rephrase: Sorry you don’t understand English.
The seizure of the health care industry would also be an example of SOCIALISM, nitwit. It’s already fascism as corporations control it NOW – from regulation to price fixing to deciding who lives or dies based on how it impacts their bottom line. Profit or breaking even isn’t enough for these types, no. Got to make as much money as possible and who cares if sick people die to make it, eh? That’s really subhuman behavior. Most of our allies have socialized medicine and enjoy a higher standard of care than we do despite the fact that we pay more for care on average and get outright raped by Pharma companies (there is a special place in Hell for you venal bastards). Again, more fascism. The good the people sacrificed on the alter of Pfizer’s or Humana profits.
Every time you abuse a term, I’m going to club you over your troll head with it, Tootles. That’s a promise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism (Private Control)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism (Private and Public Control)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism (Private Control)
What’s wrong with that picture? Why it’s that only one of these systems considers PEOPLE AS A WHOLE instead of just some individual jackasses personal greed and lust for power. And just in case you are wondering, Communism WAS the lie of Public Control disguising an oligarchy. No one is a communist now, not even the Chinese. So since I know that was going to be you next scare word . . .
WRONG!!!!!!! TRY. AGAIN. TROLL.
You really need to be better at this propaganda game around here. Because eventually we’re going to make you cry if this is how poorly you lie.
Your logic is pitiful, your language skills more so.
Gyges:
Sorry, I misspelled your nice name.
Gynes:
The best example of it (and it will get worse if the democrats have their way) is that colleges were once private entities mainly funded by private money. Grove City and Hillsdale college are the only colleges I know of that don’t take federal dollars, via their students and their loans, and these two had to beat off the overreaching power of the government with a stick to stay that way.
This takeover in higher education began in earnest with the GI bill. Primary and secondary eduction are funded by the feds at about 5 to 6 percent, if I remember correctly, and are controlled mainly by the states. But taking money from the feds is all it takes for local schools to be subject to overreaching control from D.C.
This is not classic fascism in the sense that a national government is seeking to take control of education from private business, but it is a form of US fascism wherein the national government seeks to gain control from the states while the states mostly fund them. The states do the main funding but more and more power to run them accrues to Washington in the most serious and dangerous ways.
Just recently, the government forbade private loans for college, now only the government can do this. Where is such a power allowed? No where. The government has stepped in and grabbed this power for itself. This is fascistic.
Of course, the seizure of the health care industry is fully fascist, but it is not the subject of this post. I mention it only to point out how fascism is alive and very “healthy” in America and how fascistic-minded democrats are on the move.
A key feature about Italian fascism was the government control of private businesses. How can Harvard be a private business if the government controls it? It cannot; that is the big scam. It is basically a government school by virtue of he who pays the piper calls the tune. And no wonder democrats insist that college education be put into the public school system and anyone who wants to go to college should be able to like they are able to go to grades K through 12. They feel they have this power because of the monies they currently send that way.
This is a hard thing to accomplish, especially during these economic times, but the seizing of the loan powers is a step in that direction. Next, the equal protection clause will kick in when some student is denied funding, and to avoid “not equally protecting” greater government oversight from D.C. follows.
I don’t know how long this will take, the fascist slide had taken nearly a half century. And though fascism (especially Italian) was nationalistic in nature (nationalism not necessarily being a bad thing), modern leftist fascism is dedicated to the global state, as opposed to the nation-state.
The dedication to the state (whether national or supra-national) by the state and forcing children to consume it by law is fascistic. If it weren’t compulsory by law, it wouldn’t be fascistic.
Karl Marx very much admired Mussolini, he just thought Mussolini should have a more global perspective. And so Fascism fits in neatly with Marxism, and democrats are all Marxists. This swallowing up of private (or state run) functions by D.C. is fascist outright or in nature.
But alas, democrats are not really the gods they think they are and are having a hard time seizing all powers over education all at once (but they get an A for effort), so they have mostly worked on getting control of other people’s kids at the pre-school level.
The college loan grab is their most recent attempt to seize power at the other end of things.
A good place to start reading about this topic is at the link below (beware the fascist totalitarians in D.C.have deemed this organization (the von Mises Institute) a threat to the fascist totalitarians in D.C.). They have a big problem with people who promote liberty.
http://mises.org/story/2226
(the section “Compulsory vs. Free Education” is applicable to my point)
Tootie,
“If you take on the fascist notion that government schools are a good thing”
Time to show your work, how is thinking that government run schools are a ‘good thing’ fascist?
I’d begin by looking up what fascist means, then showing how our current school system meets that criteria.
Tootie: “It is a bit sick that parents have exposed a child to the burdens of adults in this manner and are encouraging this little baby to take on these burdens. …What kind of parents are they anyway?”
_____
The kind that are teaching compassion, empathy, sharing, charity, and the virtue of concerted action for a good cause.
Also, that daddy loves him “Pugh said. “He’s my son. I love him. I will back him to the end.” ”
Not bad lessons for kid to learn early.
What’s sick is a school board that embraces form over substance to the detriment of its charges and the community. Consistency is after all, thee hobgoblin of small minds.
foo–
I have a question. Is the length/style/color of a person’s hair always considered a form of speech? People wear their hair certain ways for certain reasons. Many of those reasons have nothing to do with trying to say/express something with the color, length, straightness/curliness of their locks.
I would think that if a person’s hair is not interfering with his/her education or the education of others it wasn’t posing a problem for a school.
Hair style is not considered a protected form of speech. Our legal writing memo last year at GW had this very topic. See Tinker v. Des Moines School District, 393 U.S. 503. Stupid move on school’s part, and maybe parents too, but not against the law.
Marcus Annius Verus was the grandfather of Marcus Aurelius. It is well documented that Aurelius was not a good student per se, but that had more to do with a personality conflict with one of his Greek tutors in oratory, Herodes Atticus. He got along much better with his other Greek tutors, Aninus Macer, Caninius Celer, and was immensely fond of his Latin tutor, Fronto. It was in fact Aurelius’ conflict with Herodes that prompted him to quit studying jurisprudence and start studying philosophy (despite the warnings of Fronto that it was a treacherous area of study best left at a superficial understanding). Thankfully, despite having much love and admiration for Fronto, the desire to learn at his own direction was instilled by that very teacher. Fronto encouraged Marcus’ education both formally and informally. That’s a good teacher. Marcus’ study of philosophy resulted the “The Meditations”: one of the great works of Stoic philosophy.
Yeah. That sounds just like people who devalued education, Tootles. And let’s dismiss that Romans introduced the idea of both public education and what would later become the idea of universities.
Your comments were spoken like someone who has no idea that the formal teaching methodologies of the West are all rooted in Greek and Roman promotion of education.
Thus again, proving the utility of theocratic private and home schooling by people not qualified to teach . . . anything. Except producing ignorant foot soldiers in their little propaganda war.
You’d better read some history before you say something that stupid again, Tootles. I’m not the only Marcus Aurelius fan here and I’m not the only one who’ll gladly call your false attribution by association out as the bullshit it is (Marcus’ grandfather’s opinion is his? Please, that’s just retarded.).
Were I educated at home by the great stoic Diognetus, perhaps I would also deplore public schools. Sadly the home schoolers of today opt more for the Pat Robertson version of “education.” I know Pat Robertson and he is no Diognetus.
It is a bit sick that parents have exposed a child to the burdens of adults in this manner and are encouraging this little baby to take on these burdens.
What kind of parents are they anyway? The kind that send their kids to government schools, obviously.
If you take on the fascist notion that government schools are a good thing, you cannot then complain about the rules they make. The schools have a right by virtue of the powers you have already handed over to them, to make such rules. And it is a bit disingenuous to complain about the power you already surrendered.
Government schools are evil. Marcus Aurelius (actually his grandfather) figured that out long ago.