Yearbook quotes Hitler -- students may be disciplined.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/06/13/hitler.yearbook.ap/index.html

Obviously we all agree that Hitler was evil, and it's probably not in the best taste for the students to use his quotes.
However, what would you discipline them for? It seems like a major First Amendment issue to me. Just because an administrator doesn't like something doesn't give them the right to discipline for it.
Have we really gone this far with PCism (and this coming from a liberal).

 

So, simply because those quotes originated from Hitler, they're now off-limits for EVERYBODY?

It's not like these two kids were using some white-supremacy quote from Hitler. Leave 'em alone.


And besides, pretty sure that last Hitler quote has been picked up as the official slogan for the Bush administration.

 

To me this isn't so much PC as it is typical school board. There are just some people who the school board don't want to be involved with and Hitler is generally at or near the top of the list. The quotes were fine, good quotes and the latter is prophetic, but the source isn't rated highly in any school administration. No school wants to be known as the "Hitler" school.

 

Geez, where were you guys to defend Marge Schott when the old bag said, Hitler was OK in the beginning, he fixed the roads, honey.

The editors of this yearbook and the sponsor screwed up big-time.

 

"The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

Like Dog said, it sounds like it could have come right out of the Bush/Rove field manual. And perhaps that was what the student was attempting to suggest. However, I can also understand why people would be offended at the use of a quote from the likes of Hitler.

 

It didn't necessarily say that the students were quoting Hitler approvingly. And it's not like the "big lie" quote doesn't have relevance today.

 

But a quote like that co-exists along with a similar one from Abraham Lincoln -- "you can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Whenever I think of one of those passages, I automatically end up thinking of the other because they're both equally true, regardless of whether or not one originated with Hitler.

 

"Three cheers for old Hitler High,

Bring out the whiskey, bring out the rye ... "

 

That second one, obviously applicable to what the current president fed the American people, is fucking brilliant and needs ZERO apology from anyone.

 

How about this scenario:
What if both kids had just listed those quotes as being ''their'' quotes, something that each thought up? Would they have been busted for plagarism? Or what if they had just reworded the Adolf quotes so that the meaning was the same?
Hitler ... bad. First Amendment ... good.

 

Hmm ... let's see. Schott said Hitler was OK. These kids were using a quote, which isn't anywhere or in any sense an endorsement of the man. Like the dad said in the story, it was the quote they were after, not the source.

 

And let's not forget, even some of the most evil people in history still had some pretty powerful quotes.