Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Summarizing Presidential Candidates' Speeches at the NEA Convention

EIA (see blogroll at left) does his usual spectacular job in this week's Communique, but two widely separated statements jumped out to me as being intensely related:

For an organization that espouses local control and vilifies top-down mandates, NEA's delegates cheer rather loudly for candidates who want to insert the federal government into even the most mundane decision-making in their schools...

NEA has listed as non-negotiable any provision in NCLB or other federal law that "undermines collective bargaining." But the delegates' response to the far-reaching promises of the presidential candidates indicates they obviously don't mind undermining collective bargaining if it produces the kind of result they want, whether it is smaller class sizes, higher teacher salaries, or less accountability for measurable results.


What have I said so many times about consistency not being a strong point of the left?

7 comments:

Mr. Lucchese said...

I will happily admit that there is little apparent consistency on the left, but see equal amounts of inconsistency from the right. Will you so stipulate?

Darren said...

No.

Individuals, perhaps, but not the movement as a whole.

allenm said...

Inconsistency? Hardly. You just have to look past the rhetoric to the underlying selfishness.

Whatever the issue the leftie is always at the center. That's why emotion plays such a large part in the politics of the left. Emotions are entirely self-referential.

I feel this and I get so angry when and I wish other people were as compassionate as I and how can people be so stupid they don't see the world the way I see it?

That's why any debate gets so personal so quickly with a leftie. Disagreement is a personal insult. You're not disagreeing with the leftie, you're calling them names. You're inferring they're not as smart as they so plainly are or that they're not as compassionate and caring as they so plainly are. The defect you see in the lefty's idea is interchangeable with observing that defect in them.

Ellen K said...

Since we are discussing candidates, I thought you might enjoy this little vision.
Have fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwiOXbMoYSI

Darren said...

He definitely has the buzzwords down.

Ellen K said...

He went to school with my kid. He's a very smart and talented individual. Down the road, he's glib enough to run. But I think he has too many personal hurdles to make it in politics, like a serious religious viewpoint and personal ethics.

Darren said...

He's serious? I can't see him appealing to the over-25 crowd, not with commercials like that.