Reviews for A Free Country? - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: A Free Country?

RuathaWehrling 2007-11-06 ch 1,	abuseHey again. My computer is running my code, so I have a few minutes to read. Well, I generally agree with this article, though I have a few comments that I'll make later on. First I want to talk about grammar. Specifically, when to use colons and how to punctuate quotes. (The rest of your grammar was fine, once again.) 1.) In your first line, you wrote: "In a book by: Ray Bradbury entitled Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury speaks about the horrors of censorship." That colon after "by" should actually just be a comma. A colon is used either to start a list (not relevant here) or to start an explanation or description (this is the way I usually use them). But just as "the book was written by Ray Bradbury" needs to punctuation, neither does your sentence above. 2.) You wrote: "A man name Henry Steele Commager once made this quote, "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose..." ". First off, you missed a "d" on "named". But more importantly, the way you wrote this particular sentence, the comma after "this quote" should actually be a colon. The reason is that the actual quote is a type of explanation of the part of the sentence before the colon. (Note that I used the same punctuation at the start of these bits of advice here, when I quoted you.) If you'd instead written "A man named Henry Steele Commager once WROTE, "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose..." " then that would be correct with a comma. Ditto for the quote by Stewart. And now on to a discussion of content... 1.) "Even during the Holocaust, America was politically correct." -- This is interesting, but it would be more meaningful if you'd put a date on it. For example, is this more true before or after Pearl Harbor? Why the change in opinion at that point? 2.) "Due to political correctness in the United States, both the Muslims and the Nazis succeeded at keeping their secrets of destruction and torture secret." -- Well, not TOTALLY secret, since you're talking about it now. Might want to rephrase to be more exact. They weren't really keeping things secret, they were just keeping people from being interested or offended enough to do something about it. 3.) "The Ten Commandments is being taken out of court houses and schools. It is no longer “appropriate” because it could offend someone that is not a Christian." -- Ah yes, I recall those arguments. I remember thinking that both sides were getting overly excited about a matter that should not really be so important. To the non-Christians I wanted to ask, "Why does a wall-hanging bother you so much? As long as no one demands that you agree with the tenets on it, why is a piece of laminated paper or wood worth an argument?" And to the Christians I wanted to ask, "Why has a wall-hanging become so important to you? No one is asking you to stop believing in your religion or stop following the ten commandments. No one is asking you not to teach your kid to live by them. So if a non-Christian parent politely tells you that she doesn't think they belong in a school, why are you arguing with her? As long as your faith has not been challenged, why is a piece of laminated paper or wood worth an argument?" There are few succesful arguments about schools and courthouses which have the ten commandments printed out right next to Hammurabi's code and the Declaration of Independence. That's because such displays are usually non-religious in origin. They're historical instead. Such things belong in schools and anyone who claims to be offended at seeing the ten commandments there is being overly-critical. On the other hand, I can sympathize with a non-Christian parent who is angry because her child is being forced to learn the ten commandments because of their RELIGIOUS significance. If in such a case, other similar codes (either from other religions or other cultures) are not taught, then the school IS preferentially teaching one religion over another, which is against the law. (The separation of church and state goes both ways, remember.) 4.) "there was a debate about whether the Pledge of Allegiance should mention God in it" -- The trouble with having "God" in the middle of the Pledge is that in many schools, children are REQUIRED to say it. There's no real option except to risk demerits and detention. Imagine that instead of "God", the Pledge said, "...one nation, under Zeus, indivisible..." Would you want to say that everyday? Would you want your kid to? What if he started believing that Zeus really existed and was the real God? Repetition is a good way to convince a seven-year-old of things... And again, what difference should it matter to Christians if the word "God" is omitted from the Pledge? Is it going to change your opinion that God is watching over you and your country? Is it even limiting your right to say that God is watching over you and your country? Ok, you can't say it during the thirty seconds the Pledge lasts, but only because you'd be disrupting class -- just like you'd get yelled at for interrupting math class by talking about religion (or anything else non-mathy). That's a matter of discipline, independent of religion. The whole rest of the day you're free to say what you want. How would erasing the God clause limit your freedom of religion in any sense? And if it doesn't limit your freedom of religion, then why is it worth an argument? 5.) "Freedom of speech is another thing that gives Americans pride. Yet I hardly see it anymore!" -- Haha! You DO realize that this very essay is an outstanding example of freedom of speech, right? :) 6.) "And it is not only for religion that teachers are supposed to stay silent. Teachers are not expected to bring up their political views either." -- I agree. This is sad. It can cause a lot of lost viewpoints in classes about things like history and philosophy too, which I see as a terrible loss. I am 100% willing to fight for the freedom of speech for such a teacher. On the other hand, would you stand for a biology teacher who bluntly and repeatedly stopped teaching biology in order to lecture on how Wicca was the true religion? I wouldn't, and not just because I'm not a Wiccan. I'd also be mad because he SHOULD have been teaching biology! That teacher was taking time off from his JOB to teach my kid something totally random! This is another reason for the law: because political and religous discussions can eat up a lot of time, during which the material that was SUPPOSED to be taught isn't. When you add to that the fact that (based on the constitution) religion is not supposed to be taught in public schools (except in terms of history or current events, I'd argue), well, there's a good reason for the law. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, it can be and has been occasionally abused. 7.) "he only example lately where freedom of speech has been exercised is through the Iranian president’s speech at a United States university. But he is not even a U.S. citizen!" -- I think this is a very weak point (after all, it's not something that happens regularly, he's not a US citizen, and there was a LOT of controversy about the whole thing). Honestly, I think you'd be better off deleting this, or replacing it with a stronger example. It's not nearly as good an example as any of the others you've mentioned. 8.) "The avoidance of conflict is not a virtue." -- This is true. Obviously, since I'm here arguing with you, I agree. On the other hand, neither is conflict a virtue on its own. There are times to speak your mind and other times to hold your tongue. There are things that are so wrong that it would be immoral to say nothing -- your example of the Holocost, for example. But there are also things that are annoying but don't really change anything important, and those aren't worth starting a fight over -- I'd put things like the many of the ten-commandments arguments in this category. The trick is to figure out which is which. Nice article! Thanks for the thoughts and take care! --Ruatha
Modulated 2007-11-02 ch 1,	abuseSeparation of church and state, my girl. I'm Christian, so I don't much mind the Ten Commandments in a courthouse or "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. But imagine if the United States was founded by Muslims: I'd be ** if I had to swear allegiance to "Allah" or if passages from the Qu'ran greeted me when I walked into a court of law, and I bet you would too. This country was the first one to be secular and therefore free, which gives it strength. As for the Lebanese Revolution? It's not like Lebanese Christians were exactly martyrs. During the Palestine-Lebanon War and the occupation by Israel, the Israeli's would open up the refugee camps and let the Lebanese Christian militias in to slaughter innocent men, women, and children. At least Hezbollah built schools and provided food as well as medical care to all Lebanese. Public school teachers are representatives of a secular government, and therefore aren't allowed to preach to children their own views. If teacher's don't want to take on the responsibility of representing the United States of America, they can work at a religious private school. People who work for the government give up their rights for a reason, we don't let soldiers tell their families details about deployment, and we don't let public school teachers proselytize. Furthermore, if parents want a religious education they're free to send there children to a religious private school. As for sounding the warning bells of censorship for fear of "offending people," all one needs to do is turn on Fox News to hear a string of hatred and offensive speech fouler than any ever spewed forth. And it's not like they're in any danger of going out business. However, it wouldn't be such a loss to remove hate and terror from our public discourse. At this point, it ceases to be about "censorship" and more about "common decency."
Itzcoatl 2007-10-27 ch 1,	abuse... I saw almost the same essay somewhere else. Good though. Please R & R my essay series The World: How Messed Up Is It? Chap 24 is up
Smiling Bob 2007-10-26 ch 1,	abuseHey look i know this is your school site but you can tell them who i am anyway. I agree with what you have said. After all was this religion not based on freedom. It was mainly christian to start with and no one complained. Freedom is not to be politacally correct but to be able to do things without persecution. America is America. Is is not israel or iraq. If these people complain we should tell them that it is thier choice to live here. America was based on freedom. If the founding fathers were politacally correct there would be no America to begin with. All political correctness gets you is more conflict. this is a country that was not based on correctness. how would slavery have been abolished if the north did not critize the south. How would the colonies break away if they did not critize the british. it was political correctness that almost made everyone german. The tree of liberty must be cleaned with the blood of tyrants and patriots. no one seems to remember that when slavery ended and blacks got their rights and the colonies broke away and all of the greatest americans on the face of the earth did what they did no one was politicaly correct. when germany invaded and killed the jews politacal correctness almost destroyed us. It was political correctness that ended world war one and fueled germany for the second world war. instead we did not step on anyones toes and sure enough. Sometimes toes are meant to be stepped on. the ancient people had the right idea. If you offended them or you did not agree with them they came at you with a club in hand. Sometimes that is the only way.
poet tree 2007-10-23 ch 1,	abuseI do agree that America is getting overobsessed with the concept of "political correctness", going so far as to change the phrase "Middle East" to "Southwest Asia" and "mentally retarded" to "cognitively disabled". Especially true was your comment about how the US covers up wars and genocides - but I think it's less about being politically correct and more about keeping the country to their political agenda. (For example, we didn't want to offend Germany because they made cars, weapons, and other economically valuable things.) However, as for the word God being in the pledge - this isn't an issue in places where you're allowed to decline to say it. However, in places (especially schools) where you can get disciplined for refusing to say it - that's not fair. The pledge isn't just a string of phrases; it has actual meaning, and people shouldn't be forced to swear on something they don't believe in. Re: the Ten Commandments - there is a separation of church and state, period. I personally believe you shouldn't have to swear on the Bible, but rather your holy scripture of choice or something you believe in. As for the teaching thing, in Arizona public schools we are taught Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In my AP History class we also learn Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroaster. shrug Of course, it could be different in other places, so that's just something to think on.

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