Samura: I'm still waiting for a response to the school assignment question. I saw MMM's take on it, but I want to hear your take on it.

As a kid, I had to do assignments dealing with Reagan (letters) and Bush Sr. (drug related stuff). I barely remember the Reagan thing, but with Bush Sr., I remember watching this thing IN SCHOOL where he was going on about why drugs were bad. How is that any different from what Obama wanted to talk about (staying in school, doing better in school) and the type of assignment the Department of Education wanted to assign?

Well if you know what they mean then you are guilty of misleading those that don't, by perpetuating the association of Obama with some of the more brutal socialist imagery that has been beaten into the American psyche over the last century. That's all these comparisons serve to do.

(I actually think that you don't know what they mean though...)

Huh? You're offended by burning effigy's?

Personally I don't give a rats ass whether the right burns Obama's effigy... what I care about is whether or not you actually have a point when you do it.

All this town hall nonsense I've seen from over here is simply right wing fearmongering.

Furthermore... we know you've lost all sense of reason when you start justifying a 2 wrongs as a "right".

You have a very poor perspective on the issues and emotions from way over there, then. It isn't "fearmongering", it's genuine anger at what the President and Congress are trying to ram through against the will of the people.

And it isn't "2 wrongs make a right", it's that after doing the same thing and worse for 8 years, the hypocrisy of crying foul now is appalling and ridiculous. If there were some genuine attempt to reign things under control in the Bush years, they might have some credibility when calling for it now, but there wasn't, and so they don't. It's pure partisanship meant to disrupt all but the meekest opposition to the leftist agenda.

I've already stated my view on it several times, earlier in the thread. I think he changed the content due to public outcry. I also explained what I thought was probably in the first draft. Did you have a more specific question about it?

And I don't remember ever hearing a Presidential address to students. I remember hearing the President speak after Challenger blew up. I remember some Teen Titans comic books that had a "don't do drugs" message from the 1st Lady in it. But that's it. Our school wasn't really wired for TV though... we all had to go to the library to watch the Challenger news when it happened.

Maybe that's it then. To me, there's no difference and I wanted you to explain to me how it's different from Reagan or Bush Sr.'s agenda. I felt that the "worry" was uncalled for and unwarranted. If previous Presidents were allowed to address students, why all of a sudden people have a problem with Obama's speech?

One lady I know of didn't want her kid seeing the speech and threatened to take her kid out of school for the day because of that. When asked what the speech was about, she couldn't even answer.

Still, to me, anyone who had a problem with Obama giving a speech about staying in school and working hard to get good grades and the assignment the Dept of Edu gave is still puzzling to me. I guess my problem is that people were pre-judging and I was seeing that through here and other places.

For me personally, I believe Reagan was the best President of the last century, so I wouldn't mind him speaking. Bush Sr. did get all kinds of flak from Dems when he spoke, including a full-on Congressional hearing.

The lady probably couldn't tell you what it was going to be about because no one knew what it would be about. Yeah, Obama claimed it'd be on staying in school, but the homework assignment originally given out didn't match that claim at all. And many people are feeling like Obama had already fooled them once, with his grandiose campaign promises, and then turned around and governed very differently than he'd promised. (Of course, he'd promised so many different things to different people, he couldn't fulfill them all, they were self-contradictory. Obama pretended to be all things to all people, and then it was impossible to match the hype.) So when he promised an innocuous speech but the homework sounded more like the Hitler Youth loyalty pledges, it brought back images like this (how do these videos play with the left, because the freakin' creep the hell out of most non-leftists, especially the 1st one...) :

YouTube - BARACK OBAMA KIDS AND HITLER YOUTH SING FOR THEIR LEADER
YouTube - Obama Hitler Youth style Brainwashing

So we've already recently seen brainwashed kids singing loyalty songs to Obama like North Korea or Hitler's Germany, and marching in lockstep to him. The song in the first one was put together by a teacher at the kid's school. It is NOT an unfounded concern that he might try something similar on a larger scale, considering the loyalty pledge homework assignment!

Samurai007, you were starting to bring me around, and then you had to go say this.

Comparing the president to Hitler is distasteful, disrespectful, and is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

What happened? You were reasonable yesterday.

Tell me more about this "loyalty pledge" he was asking for. That can't be referring to "What can you do to help the president?"

Its convienent for you to sum up the only people that listen to Rush are unsavvy and thus are being brainwashed. You still compare him to the a news show.

Unlike the US government who explains things only winned pinned and even then can't because it would just reveal corruption and / or failure.

The evening news has all of 15 minutes at the most of national news (5 mins of it spent bringing one up to speed), 10 minutes of commercials, 5 minutes to misc.

It sounds like if you had your way, no one would be able to question or disagree with government and Rush and the like would be silenced and free speech would be out the door.

A Loud: "YOU LIE!"
gasp as I caught myself.... it must be spreading.... the culture... the Rush Culture.... someone stop me before its... its too late..... no its too late.... I'm... I'm questioning government...

It must of been a slow 8 years over at the EIB network when the republicans were in office....

Really? I was starting to bring you around? How? :)

And if the Hitler Youth comparison isn't to your liking, how about the North Korean kids forced to sing praises to Dear Leader? That is just as apt without the genocidal connotations...

What happened? I'm feeling frisky today! :) LOL.

And yes, the loyalty pledge is a referring to the written promise to "help Obama". You can't believe that the left would have sat quietly by while George W. Bush gave a secret speech to America's kids, and then required them to write about how they'll "help George Bush". There would have been outrage.

Now, a few questions from me... what do you think of those videos? Had you seen them during the election, or are they new to you now? Do you see how that kind of creepy indoctrination might fuel the worry of parents? Do you, in fact, see them as at all creepy or troubling and a cult of personality, or do you see it as innocent patriotism?

Please, Clint, don't put words in my mouth. I did not say all listeners of Rush were not savvy. However I do compare him to a news show because I believe a lot of listeners believe he is a journalist reporting news. All of them? No.

I don't think Rush is "brainwashing" people. This is a term people like to toss around. Maybe I am old fashioned or too literal, but I don't think Rush is brainwashing people, and I don't think Obama is either. I think some people need to look up "brainwash" in a dictionary.

It sounds like if you had your way, no one would be able to question or disagree with government and Rush and the like would be silenced and free speech would be out the door.

Did I really say anything to support this statement? If I did, show me.

I said questioning and scrutinizing the government is a good thing, and its our responsibility. However, stirring up a storm of hatred and mistrust just because it is your job is irresponsible. I didn't say Rush should be taken off the air, I said the people listening to him should check his "facts". The problem is they won't. That isn't his fault, but I believe he and other talk-show hosts should show more responsibility in the things they say. It's thanks to him we get people coming to town halls asking Congressmen "Why do you support Obama's Nazi policies?"

How is this opening the door to intelligent discussion? It isn't. It's a distraction, and that's what 90% of Rush and Hannity and Beck etc. shows are: distractions.