San Francisco, home to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has voted to abolish the Junior ROTC program for its high school students.
The board voted 4-2 to eliminate the popular program, phasing it out over two years.Dozens of JROTC cadets at the board meeting burst into tears or covered their faces after the votes were cast.
This kind of behavior is just maddening, and a very large part of why my wife and I were so eager to get out of California. The logic of the JROTC's opponents is superficial and betrays the fundamental unseriousness of the American left.
The board's decision was loudly applauded by opponents of the program.Their position was summed up by a former teacher, Nancy Mancias, who said, "We need to teach a curriculum of peace.'' ...
Opponents said the armed forces should have no place in public schools, and the military's discriminatory stance on gays makes the presence of JROTC unacceptable.
"We don't want the military ruining our civilian institutions," said Sandra Schwartz, of the American Friends Service Committee, an organization actively opposing JROTC nationwide. "In a healthy democracy ... you contain the military. You must contain the military."
Right because... the military is on the verge of deposing civilian authority, like the San Francisco School Board. I'm sure.
"It's basically a branding program, or a recruiting program for the military," Kelly said before the meeting.
That's exactly what it is. What's wrong with that?
I have to agree..this was silly. They really should let the kids decide if they want to join or not.
They are conveniently leaving out the key issue. The school board was paying 1 million a year for the program. If the JROTC wanted to pay its own way it would have been a different story.
Why would they have ever agreed to fund a nonacademic 1 million program to begin with?
I wasn't aware that school boards paid for anything. Thought the taxpayers paid for everything-- we pay for sports, we pay for the arts, we pay for liberal bias in the classroom, why not this?
Actually the school splits the cost with military:
"Why would they have ever agreed to fund a nonacademic 1 million program to begin with?"
How is an ROTC program different from a sports program?