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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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Concealing material information from parents is pedagogical malpractice.

... If a child is confused about sex or sexuality, that is not the government's business to decide how to address that. By making it the government's business, Democrats are actively grooming children.

Don't be ridiculous. You're seriously trying to say that it's "grooming" if someone believes that a teacher doesn't have to tell a kid's homophobic parents that their kid is gay? You want to call keeping a secret from someone who will hurt their kid if they know the same as deliberately trying to make it easier for someone to sexually abuse a kid? That is absurd.

You're seriously trying to say

No, I'm saying only what I'm saying--not trying to say other things.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of hitting children for receiving school discipline should conceal the administration of school discipline?

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of requiring children to be vegan should be permitted to secretly provide the child with meat?

Children who confide in teachers are placing themselves in an exploitable position. Often it is merely political indoctrination to which those children have unwittingly exposed themselves. Sometimes it is abuse. Parents are the legal and moral guardians of their children. Temporary custodians (like teachers) who withhold material information about those children from parents, on grounds that the custodian doesn't like the things the parent has said about a particular subject (like homosexuality and the likely consequences of coming out), are not helping children. They are imposing their own outsider judgments on the operations of a family they have no business manipulating.

The government is not "deliberately trying to make it easier for someone to sexually abuse" kids. The government is deliberately abusing kids (in the form of exposing them to inappropriate materials), and deliberately doing things that make it easier for someone to abuse kids (like requiring teachers to conceal material information from parents). It's an easy conflation to make, but I encourage you to engage more closely with the facts about what is being said or done, without (twice in one comment) making misleading loaded claims about what I or others are "trying" to do.

I was not intending to mislead. Inaccurate paraphrases by me are the result of genuine confusion on my part as to exactly whom you are attempting to accuse of knowingly aiding and abetting child abuse and for what. You said that it was "grooming children" for the government to be involved in choosing whether to tell homophobic parents about their child's sexuality in the same paragraph in which you referred to teachers as "government employees." As a result, I read you as accusing any teacher who chooses not to tell a child's homophobic parents that their child is gay of grooming children.

Your response suggests to me that this reading was not accurate. I am glad to hear this. Even by the standards of "groomer" discourse, that would be unusually absurd.

Now, since you've also asked me some direct questions, I'll answer them.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of hitting children for receiving school discipline should conceal the administration of school discipline?

I don't think they should be required to conceal it, but I wouldn't outlaw such mercy.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of requiring children to be vegan should be permitted to secretly provide the child with meat?

Happens all the time. Seriously, do you know how hard it is to get a slice of the vegetarian pizza when there's just one in the whole classroom and the meat-eating kids think nothing of taking a slice of it while you're still figuring out which one it is?

Now, deliberately trying to make the vegan kid eat meat, or going out of your way to provide it specifically, would indeed be anti-social behaviour. On the other hand, if the kid deliberately chooses to eat meat of their own accord and you don't tell their parents, well, that's less of an issue. I don't think teachers are required to rat kids out to their parents for every little thing the parents might not like.