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From: Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: Students threatened with punishment for failure to show fealty
Date: Thu, 9 May 2024 17:35:41 -0400
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On Thu, 9 May 2024 19:35:32 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> In San Diego, the school district superintendant was upset because
> certain students didn't clap loudly enough to satisfy her when her
> daughter received an award. I believe this was May 2023. She
> identified certain students who hadn't clapped loudly enough then
> threatened them with punishment like being unable to attend their own
> graduation ceremonies.
> 
> The kids aren't morons. It's possible they thought the award was
> specious or that the award was given with undue influence. You kind of
> have to feel sorry for the daughter and the kind of unwanted attention
> she received from her fellow classmates and even teachers, just for
> being the daughter of the superintendant and that her mother was
> interfering inappropriately in her life.
> 
> I'm sure I learned at some point -- possibly in school -- that America
> had fought the Revolutionary War for the express purpose of not being
> required to show fealty as we no longer recognized the King of England
> as our ruler and wanted to have a republic. No school superintendant
> is allowed to fill in the fealty gap and require that it be shown to
> her.
> 
> The board of education finally addressed the issue in November 2023,
> had a report prepared (likely at great expense), then fired the
> superintendant in April 2024.
> 
> Steve Lehto video
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0_jLbfdOak

This reminds me of accounts I have read of what happened in Stalinist
times if you failed to applaud Stalin or other senior Communist Party
officials long enough or enthusiastically enough, except that violators
were adults and could be arrested and sent to the Gulag where many did
not survive their sentences. 

The fear was so intense that several incidents were noted where no one
wanted to be the first to stop clapping when the bigwig had said his
piece for fear that this would mark them as being insufficiently
enthusiastic about what the speaker had said. Sometimes these rounds of
applause lasted substantial amounts of time, far longer than they would
have in freer countries. 

It seems like this (now ex-) superintendent was applying a similar
approach to get other kids to applaud for her own kid. Kind of pathetic
really. It reminds me of the old insult where you tell another kid he's
so ugly his parents had to tie a bone around his neck to get the dog to
play with him. (I think I first heard that from Rodney Dangerfield.) 


-- 
Rhino