Link to the article (you may have to subscribe, sorry - it is from a good newsletter I subscribe to called Popular Information)
In Indiana, State Senator Scott Baldwin (R) has introduced sweeping legislation that Baldwin says is designed to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) and related concepts in K-12 education. During a committee hearing on the bill earlier this month, Baldwin told a high school English teacher that he should be "impartial" when discussing Nazism. It is a case study about how the frantic efforts to ban CRT can quickly lead to absurd outcomes.
Among the provisions in Baldwin's 36-page bill is a requirement that teachers "remain impartial in teaching curricular materials or conducting educational activities." At the hearing, Indiana history teacher Matt Bockenfeld said he was concerned about that language. Bockenfeld told Baldwin that he could not be "neutral" on the rise of Nazism before World War II.
For example, it’s the second semester of U.S. history, so we're learning about the rise of fascism and the rise of Nazism right now. And I'm just not neutral on the political ideology of fascism. We condemn it, and we condemn it in full, and I tell my students the purpose, in a democracy, of understanding the traits of fascism is so that we can recognize it and we can combat it.
…We don't stand up and say who we voted for or anything like that. But we're not neutral on Nazism. We take a stand in the classroom against it, and it matters that we do.
Baldwin objected to Bockenfeld's approach and said specifically that he did not believe Bockenfeld should be permitted to express his views on Nazism or any other "ism" in the classroom:
Baldwin said he doesn’t discredit Marxism, Nazism, fascism or “any of those isms out there.”
“I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those isms,” he said. “I believe that we've gone too far when we take a position on those isms ... We need to be impartial.”
Baldwin said that even though he is with Bockenfeld “on those particular isms,” teachers should “just provide the facts.”
“I’m not sure it’s right for us to determine how that child should think and that’s where I’m trying to provide the guardrails,” Baldwin said.
Later, when Baldwin was contacted about his remarks by the Indianapolis Star, he partially backtracked. Baldwin sai
... keep reading on reddit ➡
In my experience, people that respond to a topic of equality, justice, or class with the regurgitated phrase "well lifes not fair" are usually some of the most privileged P.O.S. Ive ever came across, and if the shoe was on the other foot would probably rant or rave about their freedoms being taking away from them, or some other horseshit rhetoric. The thing is life could be very fair for everyone if certain people learned to change their behavior, and dedicated more time towards humality, reciprocity, supression of the ego, being generous, and overhall non-douchebagness.
IndyStar's report on it is a quick read but skips over some of the more horrifying details (such as the fact that librarians are now removed from the protected group that prevents people from suing them for disseminating "harmful material" or books).
