Pages

Monday, April 09, 2018

Back in 2008 there was Muslim bashing which, timewise, trumped Trump. It likely had to do with the "Obama=Muslim" smear, given timing. [ with UPDATING re the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment of the federal Constitution]

If not knowing history the claim is a doom to repeat. This story remains online. We have today a legislative candidate with hubris enough, as an Iraq war veteran - a participant in an unneeded war where six-figure Muslim deaths resulted and five-figure American loss of life happened - openly campaigning on the web:

LIFE
I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of life at all stages. I will be a fierce protector of all innocent human life, including the unborn.

As a pacifist I find that to be morally dishonest from one who did Iraq not because he was like a Vietnam draftee not wanting to go to prison as an alternative, but as a volunteer for the activity in the Bush-Iraq situation. Whether any Iraqi was directly shot by the person, or not, volunteering for a killing-force venture - an invasion of another people's nation - seems disrespectful of "innocent human life, including the unborn." If saying "I will toe the party line on abortion hate," then dishonesty would not be a question.

Clearly, opinions can differ. But "sanctity of life at all stages" is strong language and it is fair to examine and question context.

UPDATE: The 2008 email is presented, and then critiqued and rebutted, this link. Authorship of the rebuttal is not posted, but at a guess it was not written by Katherine Kersten. That last Kersten-related link is to a David Brauer MinnPost 2008 item which interestingly concludes:

The bottom line: TIZA offers a plan, and the Ed Department agrees, subject to reasonable verification.

The Strib has occasionally provided supporting documentation for past Kersten columns, but it really needs to make that a habit when TIZA is involved. By definition, columnists aren’t your go-to folks for context, but given anti-Muslim fervor and acknowledged death threats, this is an especially hot button, punched for a story that seems to shrink as the weeks roll by.

(As has been true in the past, TIZA screws up by not engaging Kersten beyond a bland statement that, frankly, makes the school's case look weaker than the documentation suggests.)

There is, of course, delicious irony in Kersten, a small-government conservative, championing an offended bureaucrat. Crusades sometimes require marriages of convenience.

That’s not the column’s biggest irony, however: in her penultimate paragraph, Kersten approvingly quotes an Ed Department statement that “this upcoming legislative session may be an appropriate forum” for “a serious discussion about the appropriateness of sectarian organizations sponsoring publicly funded charter schools in the first place.”

Given that the bulk of those charters are Christian-sponsored ones Kersten has written about approvingly in the past, be careful what you wish for, Kate.

Yes, the unintended dog might respond to the dear lady's whistle. Yet to happen, it could. And should.

FURTHER: 2008 "news" can be a timely lesson. Kersten wrote:

March 9: Are taxpayers footing bill for Islamic school in Minnesota? -- Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain -- is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis. - April 11, 2008 — 3:57pm - KATHERINE KERSTEN

[...] The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine.

TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school "recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa, Asia and Middle East)."

But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students' religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.

TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.

[...]

While also disapproving of tax money going to fund Islamic schooling, (perhaps even view it as Islamic indoctrination along with Kersten), the position here is taken out of respect for anti-establishment clause wording and intent within the First Amendment having the broadest of reasonable interpretation; which would reach the impropriety of public tax money going to fund Christian schooling, a/k/a Christian indoctrination. To any extent indoctrination funding is done via charter/voucher shenanigans, it is Unconstitutional. And that is so regardless of whether the Roberts Court might cook up excuse building. Public money to sectarian causes should never be or have been permitted by education watchdog public officials. Ditto this as Constitutionally offensive. Better now than then, the blot remains.

FURTHER: I would have no objection to a Charles Martel Academy locating itself next to TIZA as long as each is privately funded in whole and in all parts, and additional policing cost at the border of the two, if arising, would be compensated by the two private-sector parties instigating conflict, if any. That seems within the spirit of the anti-establishment clause, although private sector wisdom would suggest a distancing between any such pair of academies as best.

FURTHER: One more in the rebuttal parade.