Students sent home for wearing Ameican flag shirts

[Lowell Brandon]

Five students were sent home for wearing American flaf T-shirts and bandanas on Cinco de Mayo.  This appears to have happened in the San Franciso area.  I make no comment one way or the other on this issue.  I'm just presenting the article.  Here is the link:

 

 

[Nick Danger]

I agree, there should be no freedom of expression for children.

Really?

So parents have unlimited authority to tyranize children, who can now longer say anything (as an example)?

Ridiculous? Okay, where do you draw the line?

The problem with free speech issues is that the people who end up being "censored" (for lack of a better term) are often the people who profer the most incendiary opinions. (The American Nazi Party, as an example) The fact that you or I do or do not agree with the opinion expressed (verbally or visually) is irrelevent. One of the essences of a free society is the ability to promulgate ideas, regardless of whether or not they are crackpot, whether or not you or I agree with them. It's the ability that's important. Once you start limiting this, the edifice starts to crumble.

This very topic is a case in point. Without commenting on whether or not I agree with any of the positions, some of you would censor the kids for espousing a position. Okay, if you allow that, what's to stop one political party from using the same argument to censor the argument of the opposition? Ridiculous? Okay, where do you draw the line (as I said above)? And why does your idea of the line carry any more weight than the next person? This is the essence of censorship - one group'd ability to limit the expression of another.

In any case, I suspect that the situation is moot because, until it is overturned, the situation would seem to fall under Texas v. Johnson and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which invalidate attempts to prohibit flag desecrations, such as wearing the flag, and which define the First Amendment rights of students (In Tinker, the kids in question wore black armbands with a peace symbol as a protest).

The intent of the kids is irrelevent. The law of the land says they have a right to express their opinion and the school appears to have abridged this.

[larry kremis]

Exactly right Nick. Parents have unlimited authority to tyranize their children. Tyranize is a harsh sounding word, in the definition of tyranny, there's no mention of abuse. My poor children didn't have any freedoms, I didn't afford them any. They needed my permission for everything. But as a free adult in a free country, you can give your children all the freedom they want. Good luck with that.

[Whiny Old Bastard]

Do you think that the Mexican kids would have been sent home for wearing the Mexican flag on the Fourth Of July?
Yeah, yeah, I know that there is no school on the Fourth, just a hypothetical.

[Whiny Old Bastard]

While we're at it, a little history of Cinco de Mayo.
In the 1980's foreign beer became trendy in the U.S. Go to any frat party and you would find guys slamming Moosehead, Fosters or even Grolsch lagers. Corona decided they wanted in on this so they started marketing themselves in America. But American beer companies worried about cheap suds coming North across the border and interfering with their grip on the market. So a distributor of Heineken started a rumor that the FDA found traces of human urine in Corona and spread false reports that Mexican workers had been observed peeing into the beer at the bottling plant, allegedly.

Corona's reputation had been badly damaged and even though they had proven the rumors to be outright lies and won a lawsuit they needed something to regain their losses in the beer market. They came up with a brilliant strategy, they needed a specific holiday in which people wouldn't want to drink Canadian, Australian, German, or even U.S. beers but only Mexican brew.

The logical choice was Mexico's independence day, September 16th, but there was a problem. It seemed that Seis de Septiembre was just too ethnic and hard to pronounce for most Americans and its official name Grito de Dolores was just too confusing and hard to explain. Corona decided to look around and soon found Cinco de Mayo, the very name just rolled off the tongue and didn't cause fear among U.S. beer drinkers, it sounded fun.

And so with a heavy marketing campaign Corona started promoting the Cinco de Mayo holiday around the U.S.. Americans, who are not shy about celebrating a holiday that involves dancing, eating and especially drinking, embraced the new holiday even though they had no idea what it was about. Spreading outward from the border states it now is a party all over America. People come out to celebrate Hispanic or Latino culture and nobody really cares about the actual origin as long as the beer keeps flowing.

And there you have it, the history of Cinco de Mayo in the United States.

[Slayer Dug]

I liked the part in the article where a Latino student was quoted as saying "we wouldn't do that on the Fourth of July". I have never seen one Latino immigrant wave an American flag, wear a t-shirt with an American flag on it or put a bumper sticker with the American flag on the back of their pickup trucks. The only thing that makes them "proud to be an American" is how the Liberal Establishment is bending over backwards in order to accommodate them by letting them leech off of the system that is paid for by THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER.

Why does the Latino immigrant deserve a "free ride" to citizenship when they have done nothing to assimilate themselves LEGALLY into our society? This luxury was not afforded to the European immigrants during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries who risked life and limb not only trying to get here but to assimilate themselves into our society while all while celebrating their European heritage.

[Bull]

Sounds much like St Patrick's Day or any number of other days celebrated in the US

[larry kremis]

I'm open to any holiday, foreign or domestic, as long as it involves the consumption of large quantities of beer.

[darroll]

Tonight I’m going to have a great foreign beer, Bud Lite.

[Slayer Dug]

Well my band has a local gig tonight. We have grown fond of this venue. We get paid, our friends come see us, we make new friends and fans every time we play there and the best part: We get free beer!!!!!! Not just any beer mind you, but a truly great AMERICAN BEER!!!

[larry kremis]

Have a great time TSD!

[DannyO]

WOB: I'm not sure if you're trying to be humorous, or whether you actually believe that Corona had anything to do with it, but I'm going to go with wikipedia.org on this and say that it has to do with the victory of the Mexican army at the Battle of Puebla, which took place on May 5, 1862.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo

[Slayer Dug]

I can't believe how many pages back I had to go to find this discussion. The coming July 4th holiday
made me think about this article.

I liked the part in the article where a Latino student was quoted as saying "we wouldn't do that on the Fourth of July" in regards to Latin American citizens wearing tee shirts depicting the Mexican flag or that of any other Latin American nation.

Not trying to ruin anybody's groove here but I thought that it would be an interesting idea to throw out into the ether. I wonder how many Latino immigrants will be wearing Stars and Stripes tee shirts this weekend waving the American flag as we natural born/naturalized taxpaying American citizens celebrate the anniversary of our independence from the British Crown and/or how many of them will purposely wear tee shirts depicting their nationalist pride?