Wait…these are bad guys now?
In Michigan, Schall Elementary School principal Susan Wright defended the latest example of attempted public school thought-control prompted by Sandy Hook hysteria, the seizing of 30 plastic toy soldiers (you’ll recall them as among the heroes in “Toy Story”) that the mother of a 9-year-old boy had placed on his home-made birthday cupcakes. She said in a statement,
“These are toys that were commonplace in the past. However, some parents prohibit all guns as toys. In light of that difference, the school offered to replace the soldiers with another item and the soldiers were returned home with the student. Living in a democratic society entails respect for opposing opinions. In the climate of recent events in schools we walk a delicate balance in teaching non-violence in our buildings and trying to ensure a safe, peaceful atmosphere.”
I will come to the point with uncharacteristic economy. Ms. Wright is a disgrace to her profession, a fearful, compliant, incompetent fool who is a danger to the development of the young minds placed in her charge. Let’s consider her outrageous “defense”:
- “These are toys that were commonplace in the past.”
That’s right, because they are toys, and toys that allow kids to play at war games, and history-based games at that. Chess is a war game too. It is all about imagination, which is critical in the development of strong young minds. The existence of toy soldiers has not damaged civilization, and has provided a great deal of recreation, education and fun along the way. They have earned a cultural pass. Back off!
- “However, some parents prohibit all guns as toys.”
Bully for them. Some parents are fearful idiots, and want to raise a new generation of fearful idiots. The fact that some parents are terrified of toy guns, which never have killed or wounded anyone, is irrelevant to the issue of whether a school should prohibit decorative toy soldiers which are not “toy guns.” “Some parents” have no right to dictate what other parents permit. Some parents don’t have any business imposing their silly phobias on other parents’ children, and competent, responsible administrators should not allow them to do so.
- In light of that difference, the school offered to replace the soldiers with another item and the soldiers were returned home with the student.
What “difference”? Where does the school get the authority to not only enforce conformity of thought, but political thought? The absurd horror of toys with any reference to guns or warfare is not a majority attitude, or even a rational attitude, but a hysterical, fear-driven position that is calculated to imprint the values of unilateral disarmament, pacifism, hatred of the military, and opposition to the Second Amendment in children and the U.S. culture. The school may not, on its own authority, take steps to indoctrinate children with these ideas. If parents are determined to do so, they have the right to make their children fearful of tiny green plastic men and their even tinier fake guns. The schools don’t have any right or authority, and must not, ape those attitudes and promote those goals.
- “Living in a democratic society entails respect for opposing opinions.”
Then respect them, you hypocritical fool. When you take the soldiers away, you are disrespecting the opinions that there is nothing wrong with toy guns (there isn’t), nothing wrong with toy soldiers (there is not) and nothing in the least bit dangerous about allowing plastic models of Audie Murphy and my father stand on cupcakes, which is so obvious that not comprehending it should be grounds for sending you and the teacher involved directly to Starbucks job training.
- In the climate of recent events in schools we walk a delicate balance in teaching non-violence in our buildings and trying to ensure a safe, peaceful atmosphere.”
No, you don’t. There is no “delicate balance” in allowing cake decorations that honor World War II American soldiers appear in class. What’s delicate about it? You get to teach non-violence to the extent that you tell kids not to beat up each other on the playground. You don’t get to teach lies like “toys are dangerous,” “soldiers are bad,” and “you are bad if you like guns.” Nor do cupcakes with green inanimate soldiers on top in any way threaten “a safe, peaceful atmosphere.” Do you think they do, Ms. Wright? Then you are a hysteric. Your reasoning faculties have been obliterated by Post Sandy Hook Stress Syndrome, and you need help. But you are no longer qualified to oversee an educational institution.
This final note regarding the news media: I will surely receive complaints that I was trolling the “conservative media” for this story. Indeed, only CBS among the mainstream media is reporting the cupcake story at this point. With that, you have the smoking gun (RUUUUUUNNNNN, Ms. Wright!) of news media bias and its despicable agenda-driven selectivity in news reporting. This is a bad story, and a significant story. This is a story that shows how deeply and irresponsibly some school administrators want to control how the future generation thinks, and the lengths they will go to accomplish their political ends. If only right-leaning media like Fox, the Examiner and the Daily Caller will report a story like this, then that shows exactly why they are doing the nation a service, why they are necessary, and how miserably the rest of the news media is doing its job. It doesn’t like guns, you see, so anti-gun insanity seems benign to them. But it isn’t benign, and neither is their passive endorsement of indoctrination in the schools.
________________________________
Sources: Fox News, The Daily Caller
Graphics: Etsy
Ethics Alarms 
The author of this piece is 100% on the money. This is getting ridiculous when an entire society denies a normal childhood because of over-reaction to a singular event. Parents should object to this in their schools – but they likely won’t because standing up for your child just isn’t popular anymore. – Mother of a West Point graduate
“A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body.” -John Stuart Mill
Very good and relevant quote, Tex.
“Some parents prohibit all guns as toys…”
I like how they’re trying to throw this back on parents now. Baloney.
I would be surprised if one single parent had any problem with someone else’s kid bringing army men to school, ever. It’s the mentally and morally diseased, backwards pseudo-teachers. They won’t even take ownership of their own twisted principles.
Yahoo! News picked up the story, and ran it yesterday, and then again today, bless ’em. My friends and I used to organize war games, armed with toy guns, with which we would industriously go about “killing” each other. Today, of course, we are all psychopathic, gun-obsessed, would-be killers, just waiting for the trigger event that will send us off to wreak the next massacre at someplace where people gather. If I had uttered the preceding sarcasm at any sort of school function, I’d shortly be explaining to the police that no, officer, I’d never dream of shooting up anyplace, and I just spoke carelessly, and I’ll never do it again, and please don’t take me to jail…. For heavens sake. We were kids, relatively powerless in a large world, filled with hard to comprehend authority figures, some genuine dangers, and lots of hard to understand rules. In short, the world could be a scary place. Sure, we were, objectively and in adult hindsight, very safe and very blessed to be that way. But it didn’t always seem that way in a child’s eyes. War games and the like were a way of coping, of making us feel powerful and in charge of our situation. They helped channel our energy and natural aggressions in a way that was, at the end of the day, not only harmless, but fun. Later, of course, we learned that our games were downright idyllic in comparison to the actual horrors of war as waged in the real world. But, at the time, they served a constructive purpose. Our parents and other elders and authority figures knew what we were up to, smiled tolerantly and, probably, said a little prayer no real aggressions would be in our future. They them had just lived through the largest and most destructive war in human history. But they knew that we were just playing, as they had similarly played in their own youth, and that our games were no predictors of our own future. They were right. Today, we are properly horrified of war, of violence, of senseless aggression. But we are not killers, bullies, or other violent sorts. Not the overwhelming majority of us, anyway. Sandy Hook did not show that there is something terribly wrong with people today. It showed that there was something terribly wrong with Adam Lanza that day. It said nothing about the millions of other people who never thought of harming another person.
Comment of the Day, Karl. Thanks.
This was highly circulated among my Army friends – and everyone who commented was equally disgusted at the teacher’s response. We laughed as moms who thought we’d keep our boys from playing with guns. They held Barbie dolls’ legs at 90 degree angles – one leg as a pistol grip and one as the barrell and aimed them at each other. They used their fingers (oh, what damaged psyches!) and said “Bang!” they lobbed stuffed animals as hand grenades. What were we thinking? Their dads (and in my case also their mom) were all soldiers – some military police that carried loaded weapons every day. haha Of course we also had little green (and grey and black) plastic toy soldiers who adorned many a birthday cake. Whole battles set up including tanks, too! I see why so many of my friends home school their kids. These zero tolerance attitudes are mind numbing and doing more damage than good.
You mean, that principal seized the toy soldiers, but NOT the CUPCAKES?! Mayor Bloomberg, where are you when you are truly needed?!
Ms. Wright and her utopian school system seriously need to re-prioritize their zero-tolerance policies. For the children! Who wants a bunch of non-violent little sheeple-bots falling dead in classrooms like insecticided gnats, thanks to the opportunity to eat too much sugar and fat?
You’ve hit on it, Eeyoure. This woman may have done her job in ridding her school of those plastic fascist pig soldiers, but she FAILED in her duty to throw out the cupcakes. Now her pupils will balloon up like Larry the Cable Guy and turn out just like him! This must reported to Michael Moore on the nonce.
In public schools, the only opposing view that needs to be respected is the left-wing one. Allowing a viewpoint or opinion that is ‘wrong’ to be presented might cause children to be confused about which is the right one to have.
-Political Correctness for School Employees 101
Overprotected children result in underprepared adults.
If zebras protected their foals to a similar extent, the African savannah would be overpopulated with fat overfed lions.
This is the letter I sent to Ms Wright in its’ entirety:
Susan Wright, Principal
Schall Elementary School
325 E Frank St
Caro, MI 48723
Ms Wright,
I am a Grand Rapids resident and I read with great interest the recent story regarding the Fountain incident, where thirty (30) cupcakes were baked for a students’ class adorned with small, plastic, green soldiers on top. The student was subsequently admonished as “insensitive” and the soldiers removed and sent home in a bag. I have a question…… are you kidding me??? I cannot believe that you are using recent events at Sandy Hook to further your own politically correct and skewed beliefs. I am not a member of your school district, but I do have a 10 year old daughter and I can tell you if my daughter was a member of your school, I would pull her out and place her in another school immediately. Your attitude is dangerous as it demonstrates a lack of tolerance. It also shows you lack depth of thought/ analysis. No one believes that a toy soldier on a cupcake will inspire violence in a grade schooler.
I think I am qualified to comment on this as I am a parent, a veteran with multiple combat and peacekeeping tours, and in my civilian capacity as a security and emergency management consultant, I advise all types of learning institutions as well as small and large businesses regarding the management of workplace violence and emergency situations like Active Shooters. You say your actions were not motivated with the intent to disrespect. I can tell you without hesitation that it was completely disrespectful. As if a plastic representation of a soldier could somehow be equated to the motivations of an insane person who chose to inflict indiscriminate violence on our children. There is no way you can spin this action as anything but what it is—an anti-military and anti-gun bias that permeates today’s education system. Within mass media outlets, it is still appropriate to “support the troops” but the reality among our supposed “enlightened” educators is a clear contempt for those who deploy to far off lands to do the jobs people like you are unwilling or unable to do.
Your response said “living in a democratic society entails respect for opposing opinions.” It would seem that this is an appropriate statement only if those opinions fall in line with what you deem suitable and as long as that opinion is the same as yours. What about the views and opinions of the family that brought the soldier adorned cupcakes. Couldn’t you have just as easily defended the parents’ actions in bringing the cupcakes if some hyper sensitive parent complained about a plastic toy on a desert? Aren’t they entitled to your representation too? In the fairly recent past, any activity that has had even the most remote connection to firearms (ie the kid who was admonished and suspended for holding up a piece of pizza that was chewed into the shape of a crudely crafted pistol), the 2nd Amendment (ie the high school kid who was failed on a research paper regarding guns and the 2nd Amendment because it was about guns) or support for service members (ie the student who was suspended for wearing a US Marine Corps shirt to school because his brother was a Marine) is met with a virulent opposition under the umbrella of sensitivity to Sandy Hook or some other school tragedy. Educated people see through this every time and your argument is feeble at best.
We expect better from our enlightened educators and administrators. Your comments and actions were insensitive, condescending, hyperbolic, damaging and ill-placed as you clearly used your position of authority to interject your own political beliefs. Pathetic. Is this what you call progressive?
John D. Storer, MSIR
Major, US Army, ret.
Thanks, John. I’ll post this as an Opinion of the Day tomorrow. Thanks for treating this with the seriousness it deserves. As you point out, this is more than the typical no-tolerance freak out, like punishing a student for shaping his pastry like a gun. This is the school trying to instill any military, anti-defense, anti-U.S., and gun attitudes via slander and propaganda, and it needs to be addressed in the strongest possible terms.
Thank you. This letter went to all 7 members of the school board too. I don’t expect it will sway anyone’s opinion on the board and they will probably fall right in line behind Ms Wright but it’s important to engage.
Regards
John
Just posted it. Well done.
Indeed.