Posted on 04/12/2014 3:26:24 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Normally I don’t have any special affection for the TV show 60 Minutes. So trust me when I say I was overwhelmed by the show on March 30.
I wish every student in middle school or high school could see this program. They would see heroism, genius, ethics, inventiveness, capitalism at its best, visionary talent, the future unfolding, all the things they need to see.
The first segment was about a young manager of a brokerage firm. He saw trading irregularities he didn’t like, and did something about it. (Most of us won’t understand the math but you will quickly understand that this guy was operating in the intellectual stratosphere.)
The second hero was the man who invented the Tesla car and the SpaceX company.
The third segment was about a blind prodigy, now one of our great pianists.
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To understand the significance of this program, you have to understand that the Left hates heroes. That's because socialists hate the idea that ordinary people can rise up to greatness.
The Left seems to want ordinary humans to think they are incapable of any successful action, and their only intelligent choice is to wait for the government to give them a handout.
For the last 50 years, give or take, school textbooks have little by little gotten rid of our national heroes. There might be only a few words about Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Washington, and all the other extraordinary people who built this country. This is completely backwards, and even evil. We all need to be reminded that with extra effort and extra dedication, we can take our game up to a higher level.
That's basically what propelled this country. Everybody in the country thinks they can improve themselves and their lives. The Left doesn't want you to think such thoughts. This is their ultimate evil action.
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Here is a longer account of the three heroes, with a link to the full-length video of the program as it appeared on television.
http://www.examiner.com/review/thanks-for-the-heroes-a-fan-letter-to-cbs?cid=db_articles
They're too busy to write blogs?
Great post, it zeros in on the Left’s OCD hatred of those who do not give blind compliance to irrelevant trivia, and who dare to break free with excellence of their own making.
Ain’t that so, humblegunner?
I’ve been harping on this for some time. As an adjunct professor of humanities, I teach courses in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, The Modern World, (Renaissance to War on Terror) and American History and the Constitution. Unfortunately, as an adjunct I have no influence on the selection of texts. All I can do is try to mitigate some of the damage from the assigned readings. I tell my students up front that their books are primarily social histories, or another form of social studies. We need to get away from social studies in primary and secondary school and go back to teaching history. I am amazed at what an incredible lack of basic American history my students possess when they come into my classroom.....and yes, as my tagline suggests, I openly advocate teaching American Exceptionalism...
Interesting that the Examiner blog link is to a blog post ALSO written by Price.
Because it’s all about blog hits.
Ain’t that so, Talisker?
LOL, I don’t think you’re quite clear on the IRRELEVANCY concept.
But then, OCD is known to block that awareness.
I’m aware that someone is using FR to promote his own writing as part of a business model.
HERO?
SORRY, I THINK NOT.
Just because you do the ‘right’ thing or even ‘invent’ something to better others, or overcome adversity or handicap to become brilliant, does NOT make one a hero.
Interesting? Yes.
Courageous (going against the grain)? Yes.
Outstanding? Yes.
Some people would consider BO a hero, and I am mildly ‘surprised’ that 60 minutes didn’t sort of mention him in that capacity.
HERO? NO!!
And before someone says BUT the dictionary def says....
I will ask
If you are a bright, cheery, happy person and I said you were gay, would you be ‘upset’?
As opposed to FR using other people’s writing to support their business model?
Face it, crosslinking is the nature of the web. And why brand politically biased MSM paid writing as worthy of excerpts, and citizen writing unworthy? Ultimately you have no moral high ground. The only real thing in play is that the MSM has the money to sue for non-excerption, while a blogger does not. But clicks at how a blogger is paid, and why shouldn’t they be paid for their work, especially since it doesn’t hurt FR? You act like the very existence of bloggers is somehow shameful, when precisely the opposite is true.
I take it that by this comment - "Ultimately you have no moral high ground." you are claiming that ground for yourself? Let's look at your basis.
" And why brand politically biased MSM paid writing as worthy of excerpts, ...
Why do you characterize the excerpt as a sign of worth or worthiness? My understanding is that it exists only to appease those who are so driven by profit that they disallow fair use of their writing - OR - those who have restricted their use on FR because of outright hostility to FreeRepublic and its goals.
"...and citizen writing unworthy?"
Again I will not speak for Gunner, but every time that I have asked for a blogger not to excerpt it is so that the full body of his writing will appear here. This is a compliment to the blogger in question. This is saying that we all need to read the full text here and engage in discussion here as we have been asked to do by our host, the site owner many times.
"But clicks at how a blogger is paid, and why shouldn’t they be paid for their work, especially since it doesn’t hurt FR?"
Now I speak from personal experience. It *does* hurt FR.
On numerous occasions I have referred friends to this site only to have them decide not to participate in what they viewed as a giant blog referral.
"You act like the very existence of bloggers is somehow shameful, when precisely the opposite is true."
Just how is it "shameful" to ask someone to post *more* of their work here? You act like this is an insult, when precisely the opposite is true.
And Finally -
"As opposed to FR using other people’s writing to support their business model?"
Again, you have it backward. FR existed long before the blogger craze. As JimRob made it clear in his statement (which I linked above) the Blogger Section was set up as an accommodation to guests, not as an appeal for more opinion pieces. The original "business model" of FreeRepublic was discussion and *internal* commentary on the news, not a soapbox for everyone with a Wordpress or Blogger site.
Opinions are welcome. Most members (like me) post opinion pieces all the time, as part of the discussion threads that follow each piece of "News."
Now a word in deference to Bruce who authored this thread. I regard him as one of the "Good Guys." He does his best to post his material in full. I believe his prime motivation is to share his opinions on education with as many as possible. The worst that can be said about him is that he tends to be a one issue poster, but that's really of no consequence in the big picture. He is smart enough to know that posting his full content here reaches *more* readers than posting excerpts to blog sites that may or may not (especially in the case of "Examiner") get hits from FR's readers.
(As an aside, I am among those who, if I ever find myself lured into clicking on Examiner, get myself out of there as fast as I can. I already "caught a cold" from their site once.)
Thanks for your comments.
“All I can do is to try to mitigate some of the damage from the assigned readings.” That sounds like depressing work.
On the other hand, there must be a lot of opportunities for cleverness. How does one do this mitigating as quickly as possible?
I think we can all be inspired by what Rush did with his children’s books. He found a way to mitigate at a high level. A time-traveling horse??
Well, whatever works! I wish you great success with it.
Shibumi,
Here is an interesting part of the story. Two weeks ago I saw that the Globe, the tabloid, was attacking Obama on its front cover. I wrote a piece called “Globe Magazine demands ‘ Impeach Obama.’” I put this on Examiner.com here—
http://www.examiner.com/article/globe-magazine-demands-impeach-obama?cid=db_articles
As you note I’m a one-issue person, for the most part. I want people to think of me as an education expert. So I did not post this article on Free Republic, although your readers would certainly enjoy it. This article would surely get 10 or 20 times as many readers as a discussion about heroes.
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