Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (26918)	9/13/2001 1:05:10 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I did not seek to ban you from teaching. I think it's a pity you're going into the profession I love, but you are entitled to do that. Maybe you will be a better teacher than parts of your posting history on SI would lead me to believe. For the sake of your students, I hope so. If, on the other hand, you would like to see people banned from teaching because you do not like their thoughts, then I cannot agree with you. One can't ban people solely on their thoughts because one doesn't know their thoughts until they are expressed. Once they are expressed, they go beyond mere thoughts to parts of fheir lives. Would I ever approve of people being banned from teaching because of beliefs they both hold and express? Very few, but I won't say never. If a primary school teacher, for example, were to say "it is my teaching philosophy that any student of mine who has not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior is damned to burn in hell eternally" I would seriously consider asking that they be removed from the classroom. If a teacher were to wear nazi emblems on her clothing and refuse to remove them on the grounds that they merely represented expressive speech and she had a right to express her thoughts, again, I would seriously consider asking that she be removed from the classroom. I'm well aware of the "slippery slope" arguments and the danger that once you start banning people based on their expressed beliefs it can be hard to stop. But I think responsible parenting and administering has to say that there do exist some limits to what we can allow in our classrooms. The problem is to limit the exceptions to the absolute minimum possible. It takes maturity and responsibility to make those distinctions. But we know that there are limits to even the most cherished our freedoms. If you've followed my posting history you know that I often advocate Hentoff's book "Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee" which lays out wonderfully the dangers of limiting free speech. I am a strong advocate of the positions taken in that book. But even I am willing to agree that some exceptions to free speech, such as the "fighting words" doctrine, are necessary. I also advocate, for example, the right of schools to prohibit the wearing of gang paraphanalia in school, even though I was and am a supporter of the Tinker decision. The point being that even as a strong advocate of free speech, I recognize that that freedom has limits. The bottom line is that I have not sought to ban you from teaching, nor would I on the basis of what I know of your views as expressed here on SI, though some of those views do significantly concern me, the post at issue not being the only such post. But I am not prepared to say absolutely that I would never advocate banning a teacher based on his or her expressed views. And I frankly doubt that you would take an absolute position on that either, though I may be wrong about that.