Intolerance Is Not a 'Value'

[Mixxster]

One of my favorite teachers was a wiry little man with thick, horn-rimmed glasses who taught us fifth grade. It's been 40 years, but I can still see his crooked grin and hear his voice cracking with excitement.

He made learning fun, constantly getting the class to act out skits to reinforce one lesson or another. His eyes were keen and his heart was big: He always made sure that kids from broken homes or the wrong side of the tracks got starring roles in our productions. He helped implant in me a lifelong love of history. I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days that year; he waited until I returned to resume class readings of a Civil War book that he knew I loved. He was everything a great teacher is supposed to be: unfailingly kind, considerate and dedicated. He was, also, we learned much later, gay. But because this was the mid-1960s in a small town, he didn't dare live as such -- especially since he doubled as the school's principal. Only in his twilight years did he follow his heart, moving to a city to live as a gay American.

<snip>

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," Lincoln wrote in the years leading up to the Civil War. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52900-2004Nov15.html

[Brotherjohn]

1. That's a great quote from Lincoln, the one about leaving the country.

Anytime right-wingers chastise progressives for wanting to leave the country since Bush won, that quote should be thrown back in their faces as precedent.

[MountainLaurel]

2. Hell yes, I concur

As the bumper sticker says, Hatred Is NOT a Family Value.

[Skittles]

3. neither is war, cheating, stealing, lying

but Bush "moral values" voters seem all to willing to overlook those little flaws :puke: