Topic: WorldNetDaily
Patrice Lewis rants in a June 21 WorldNetDaily column:
It was a remark meant for no other purpose than to be divisive.
When President Obama stood in front of a crowd in Northern Ireland and said, “If towns remain divided – if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden – that, too, encourages division and discourages cooperation.”
In other words, the president was suggesting that private and/or religious schools encourage division and discourage cooperation. Was this remark meant to be unifying? What other purpose could such a hostile suggestion have except to be divisive?
Well, let's think about where Obama was speaking, Ms. Lewis. He was in Northern Ireland, which -- as we pointed out when CNS' Terry Jeffrey similarly pulled Obama's statement out of context -- has a lengthy history of violence between Catholics and Protestants. Lewis also forgets that one reason there is a large system of Catholic schools in the U.S. is because the public schools were largely controlled by Protestants.
But Lewis doesn't care about context or history, because she's in the middle of a massive anti-education rant:
If there’s one thing totalitarian governments detest, it’s citizens who can think for themselves and who question the ever-expanding role of government. The easiest way to prevent such seditious thoughts is to seize children at a young age and force them into central indoctrination centers, where they are taught that any questioning of government mandates is subversive and wrong. Hitler demonstrated the effectiveness of these techniques.
When our president suggests that private schools – noted for their academic excellence and high moral standards, as well as their willingness to accept students of all races – discourage cooperation, it sounds eerily like he’s referring to cooperation with government authority.
Is Lewis denying that private schools indoctrinate their children like public schools do? Surely not -- she believes education is indoctrination and brainwashing, but that the parents are the ones who should do it.
