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Now, wait a second - either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions, as Graham states in the essay, or it's not and people _should_ get fired for

Now, wait a second - either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions, as Graham states in the essay, or it's not and people _should_ get fired for expressing opinions that you don't like. I don't think you can have it both ways. It's not even as if there's a conflict of interest here, as in the case of public officials being banned from certain kinds of political speech; these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil processes, so under what principle is it acceptable to deny them the same freedoms Graham argues for in the case of corporate employees?

rdiddly 5y ago
According to the Florida bill, it's when the students are 3rd grade or lower. The bifurcation point between "OK to talk about" and "not OK to talk about" is between 3rd & 4th grade.
- NoraCodes 5y ago
  For every issue? Or do you feel this should be different based on the subject matter at hand?
  - rdiddly 5y ago
    The bill is not about every issue and I'm not getting into what I feel. I don't live in Florida and basically am not paying attention.
    - NoraCodes 5y ago
      What's your argument here, then? Or was this just a random fact you wanted to post?
      - rdiddly 5y ago
        Answering your question, on the point you were asking about.
- wnoise 5y ago
  Well the "OK to talk about" is "OK to talk about in an age appropriate way", under threat of being sued by parents.
twofornone 5y ago
> either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions They're not merely "expressing opinions", they're teaching children "facts" of disputed veracity and appropriateness. >these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil processes That's the crux of the whole debate, isn't it? By teaching these topics inappropriately or inappropriately early, they are potentially harming children, if, say, transgenderism is a social contagion.
- NoraCodes 5y ago
  So - again - it's okay to ban people from talking about certain things, in certain circumstances, especially if you believe those things might cause harm, yes? The debate is not over the thing Graham is talking about, but over whether it's worse to tell young cishet children that queer people exist, or to not tell young queer children that other queer people exist. You don't seem to agree with the essay you're defending.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    Here is the actual text of the Florida law in question: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/... It says nothing whatever about "banning people from talking about certain things". It says (pp. 4-5): "3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." In other words, it's the government making clear what the standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools run by the government. Exactly the same as the government has always done for schools run by the government. Teachers in public schools are always required to conduct their classroom instruction in accordance with the rules that the government sets down. Now, let's consider a couple of examples. Suppose a teacher of a 3rd grade class happens to mention the fact that one of the students has a gay couple as parents. Is that violating the law? Of course not. The teacher is not conducting "classroom instruction" about sexual orientation or gender identity. The teacher is just stating a fact. But suppose the teacher says: "There should be more couples like the parents of student A." Is that violating the law? It might be. If the teacher was very careful to explicitly state that this statement was just the teacher's opinion and was not part of classroom instruction, and if no student's grade on anything depended on whether or not they agreed with the teacher, then it would not be violating the law. But if the teacher made such a statement part of classroom instruction, and gave students assignments based on it, and graded them based on whether they agreed with it, then that would be violating the law. Note that this is no different from any other area of instruction.
tomp 5y ago
Would you want to take your kid into a kindergarten where the teacher would be showing (or reading) them porn? If "no", how do you square that with "teachers can say anything they like"? I mean literally no employment is like that (try publicly saying your employer is evil, see how long you last...). Private speech != employee speech.
- NoraCodes 5y ago
  Right. The argument being had here is about whether or not telling children that gay people exist is harmful, not over whether or not it's ever okay to tell people what they can and cannot speak about. All I'm saying is that right-wingers in these comments will tend to agree with Graham in the abstract, and because he targets the left in the post, but in practice their politics are not aligned with what he says in this essay. To your point, though, the law is not about porn; that's already illegal. The law is about literally telling children that gay people exist; unless you believe gay couples are somehow inherently sexual in a way that straight couples aren't, you're off the mark here.
  - 0des 5y ago
    People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some people prefer broccoli over cauliflower." It doesn't even make sense. Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place. Politics only tarnishes your ability to make this common sense observation because regardless of truth you have discarded half of your audience. Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them.
    - NoraCodes 5y ago
      > Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place. It's worth noting that the Florida law, under some readings and I think under its intent, would make it illegal for a teacher to point to a student and her same-sex parents and say "those two women are married and are both raising this child." It's perhaps the most absurd anti-free-speech law I've ever heard of. > Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them. My boyfriend was a pineapple pizza person and he is now, no joke, allergic to pineapple. They're an accident waiting to happen.
ambrozk 5y ago
In general, there is nothing wrong with the government legislating what its employees may say when acting as agents of the government, just as there is nothing wrong with a corporation telling its employees what they may say when acting as agents of the corporation. Free speech does not mean, "Your employer cannot fire you for publicly contradicting company policy while on the clock." Note that there are limits to what the government can mandate with regard to its employees' communications, and the Florida bill may run up against them.
- NoraCodes 5y ago
  You understand that this is contrary to what Graham is arguing in the essay, right?
  - ambrozk 5y ago
    I read the essay and I do not believe it is.
rayiner 5y ago
The difference is that what the teacher says is the actual service the teacher is providing pursuant to his or her employment. The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools. It’s not a free speech issue at all. Note that the Florida law applies only to “instruction.” To use a different example: a public bus driver shouldn’t be fired for an offhand comment. But they have to drive the routes the government tells them to drive. That’s not a “freedom of movement” issue.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Part of the reason this is so prickly is that a huge part of what actually happens in the classroom is ancillary to instruction. And always has been. And is for the good of children. We expect teachers to be robots when we want to chastise them, but we expect teachers to be surrogate parents when they're helping turn students into productive members of society.
- drdec 5y ago
  > The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools. An interesting nuance to this particular case is that it is the state government that is imposing the requirement while it is a local (city, town or county) government which hires the teachers.
  - pclmulqdq 5y ago
    In most US states, local governments are explicitly given power by the state government. It is not like the relationship between state and federal governments: the local governments are strictly beneath the state government.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      They are not only beneath, they are organs of the state government and have no separate sovereignty of their own. They’re like wholly owned subsidiaries.
- deleted 5y ago
WalterBright 5y ago
Are you ok with teaching creationism in public schools? Being government run schools, the government decides what gets taught. It cannot be teachers teach whatever they want - they must adhere to the curriculum, which is decided by the government.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  They might as well teach that Earth is flat - kids are smart, and truth will make its way into their heads regardless. In this day and age, it is hard for it not to.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Why teach them anything at all if the truth will seep in anyway? Besides, I bet I can think of a looong list of human beliefs once held dear by many people you'd strongly object to being taught in public schools. It's not a free speech issue, because it's paid for by taxpayers, and kids are forced to attend it.
    - Koshkin 5y ago
      Teach them reading, writing, and arithmetics. Everything else can be learned independently (which is too easy these days) or in vocational schools (which surely do not care about the origins of the universe).

rdiddly 5y ago

According to the Florida bill, it's when the students are 3rd grade or lower. The bifurcation point between "OK to talk about" and "not OK to talk about" is between 3rd & 4th grade.

NoraCodes 5y ago
For every issue? Or do you feel this should be different based on the subject matter at hand?
- rdiddly 5y ago
  The bill is not about every issue and I'm not getting into what I feel. I don't live in Florida and basically am not paying attention.
  - NoraCodes 5y ago
    What's your argument here, then? Or was this just a random fact you wanted to post?
    - rdiddly 5y ago
      Answering your question, on the point you were asking about.
wnoise 5y ago
Well the "OK to talk about" is "OK to talk about in an age appropriate way", under threat of being sued by parents.

twofornone 5y ago

> either it's bad that people get fired for expressing opinions They're not merely "expressing opinions", they're teaching children "facts" of disputed veracity and appropriateness. >these teachers are not hurting anyone or disrupting any civil processes That's the crux of the whole debate, isn't it? By teaching these topics inappropriately or inappropriately early, they are potentially harming children, if, say, transgenderism is a social contagion.

NoraCodes 5y ago
So - again - it's okay to ban people from talking about certain things, in certain circumstances, especially if you believe those things might cause harm, yes? The debate is not over the thing Graham is talking about, but over whether it's worse to tell young cishet children that queer people exist, or to not tell young queer children that other queer people exist. You don't seem to agree with the essay you're defending.
- pdonis 5y ago
  Here is the actual text of the Florida law in question: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/PDF https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557/BillText/er/... It says nothing whatever about "banning people from talking about certain things". It says (pp. 4-5): "3. Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." In other words, it's the government making clear what the standards for "classroom instruction" are in schools run by the government. Exactly the same as the government has always done for schools run by the government. Teachers in public schools are always required to conduct their classroom instruction in accordance with the rules that the government sets down. Now, let's consider a couple of examples. Suppose a teacher of a 3rd grade class happens to mention the fact that one of the students has a gay couple as parents. Is that violating the law? Of course not. The teacher is not conducting "classroom instruction" about sexual orientation or gender identity. The teacher is just stating a fact. But suppose the teacher says: "There should be more couples like the parents of student A." Is that violating the law? It might be. If the teacher was very careful to explicitly state that this statement was just the teacher's opinion and was not part of classroom instruction, and if no student's grade on anything depended on whether or not they agreed with the teacher, then it would not be violating the law. But if the teacher made such a statement part of classroom instruction, and gave students assignments based on it, and graded them based on whether they agreed with it, then that would be violating the law. Note that this is no different from any other area of instruction.

tomp 5y ago

Would you want to take your kid into a kindergarten where the teacher would be showing (or reading) them porn? If "no", how do you square that with "teachers can say anything they like"? I mean literally no employment is like that (try publicly saying your employer is evil, see how long you last...). Private speech != employee speech.

NoraCodes 5y ago
Right. The argument being had here is about whether or not telling children that gay people exist is harmful, not over whether or not it's ever okay to tell people what they can and cannot speak about. All I'm saying is that right-wingers in these comments will tend to agree with Graham in the abstract, and because he targets the left in the post, but in practice their politics are not aligned with what he says in this essay. To your point, though, the law is not about porn; that's already illegal. The law is about literally telling children that gay people exist; unless you believe gay couples are somehow inherently sexual in a way that straight couples aren't, you're off the mark here.
- 0des 5y ago
  People with sleeveless shirts exist, who cares? Its so normal these days I can't imagine all the things I would have to cover first. "Hey son, brace yourself, some people prefer broccoli over cauliflower." It doesn't even make sense. Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place. Politics only tarnishes your ability to make this common sense observation because regardless of truth you have discarded half of your audience. Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them.
  - NoraCodes 5y ago
    > Teach your kid curiosity and general respect for those different from you and let the rest fall into place. It's worth noting that the Florida law, under some readings and I think under its intent, would make it illegal for a teacher to point to a student and her same-sex parents and say "those two women are married and are both raising this child." It's perhaps the most absurd anti-free-speech law I've ever heard of. > Except pineapple pizza people. They deserve everything they got coming to them. My boyfriend was a pineapple pizza person and he is now, no joke, allergic to pineapple. They're an accident waiting to happen.

ambrozk 5y ago

In general, there is nothing wrong with the government legislating what its employees may say when acting as agents of the government, just as there is nothing wrong with a corporation telling its employees what they may say when acting as agents of the corporation. Free speech does not mean, "Your employer cannot fire you for publicly contradicting company policy while on the clock." Note that there are limits to what the government can mandate with regard to its employees' communications, and the Florida bill may run up against them.

NoraCodes 5y ago
You understand that this is contrary to what Graham is arguing in the essay, right?
- ambrozk 5y ago
  I read the essay and I do not believe it is.

rayiner 5y ago

The difference is that what the teacher says is the actual service the teacher is providing pursuant to his or her employment. The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools. It’s not a free speech issue at all. Note that the Florida law applies only to “instruction.” To use a different example: a public bus driver shouldn’t be fired for an offhand comment. But they have to drive the routes the government tells them to drive. That’s not a “freedom of movement” issue.

ethbr0 5y ago
Part of the reason this is so prickly is that a huge part of what actually happens in the classroom is ancillary to instruction. And always has been. And is for the good of children. We expect teachers to be robots when we want to chastise them, but we expect teachers to be surrogate parents when they're helping turn students into productive members of society.
drdec 5y ago
> The government has every right to decide the content of the material being provided to kids in public schools. An interesting nuance to this particular case is that it is the state government that is imposing the requirement while it is a local (city, town or county) government which hires the teachers.
- pclmulqdq 5y ago
  In most US states, local governments are explicitly given power by the state government. It is not like the relationship between state and federal governments: the local governments are strictly beneath the state government.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    They are not only beneath, they are organs of the state government and have no separate sovereignty of their own. They’re like wholly owned subsidiaries.
deleted 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

Are you ok with teaching creationism in public schools? Being government run schools, the government decides what gets taught. It cannot be teachers teach whatever they want - they must adhere to the curriculum, which is decided by the government.

Koshkin 5y ago
They might as well teach that Earth is flat - kids are smart, and truth will make its way into their heads regardless. In this day and age, it is hard for it not to.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Why teach them anything at all if the truth will seep in anyway? Besides, I bet I can think of a looong list of human beliefs once held dear by many people you'd strongly object to being taught in public schools. It's not a free speech issue, because it's paid for by taxpayers, and kids are forced to attend it.
  - Koshkin 5y ago
    Teach them reading, writing, and arithmetics. Everything else can be learned independently (which is too easy these days) or in vocational schools (which surely do not care about the origins of the universe).