This is creepy, personality-cult indoctrination.

At least, that's what I'd call it.

It's more about NJ public schools than about Obama. I remember having to do that sort of shit for Reagan from 1st-8th grade.

I never remember doing anything so blatant during my (long-gone) school days (the 1970s and early 80s).

I suspect - having been for at least part of the time, a scared-pious little kid - if the teacher had asked me to do that, I would have gone to her and quietly said, "I'm only supposed to say stuff like that about Jesus." Not sure what that would have gotten me, perhaps detention. But there you are.

Minerva the Wise is right again--an entirely disgusting "fearless leader" spectacle quite familiar in craphole dictatorships.

Although I find this creepy, reverence for the president as a benevolent father figure is not an invention of the Obama era. Don't tell me that there weren't elementary school pageants in the Bush era about how Bush44 was protecting us from the bad men.

That would be Bush43, of course.

Well, nuts . . .

But, for those who use the tu Quoque fallacy to claim that "it's happened before," I'll bite . . .

I can easily believe that evidence for teachers extolling the office of the president is well established, and that some teachers may well have built some curricular "something" around it . . .

But can anyone point me towards any evidence that a particular president — an individual other than Obama — was the object of such deification as he was Obama here?

For example, is there evidence that some teacher led her children in a chant extolling President Kennedy or President Bush, while either was a sitting President?

Because if so, I'd love to condemn it outright.

(Notice I'm not saying I'd "not approve." I'm saying in no uncertain terms that I'd "condemn.")

Why is pointing out that something is not novel and thus not a sign of some sinister "brave new world" a fallacy? There should be a name for the fallacy that involves invoking the "tu quoque" fallacy at every turn.

As for presidents who were objects of worship, I propose the two Roosevelts.

Minerva, you make the mistake of trying to use logic with Peter and Luther.

You're wasting your time, because no matter what evidence you produce or what evidence they fail to produce, it doesn't matter. The truth is always what the revolution requires.

You are just too bourgeois in your focus on things like verifiable facts.

John,

For someone who invokes "facts" so much, you spend a lot of time on ad hominem attacks...

If you actually said something of substance, I might address it.

John,

I believe (somewhat naïvely, apparently) that if you can take the time to attack someone's intelligence and character, then you can take the time to have a civil discussion with him/her. You might for instance, want to consider my suggestion that both Roosevelts were objects of personality cults, not to mention Reagan (as Luther points out). We might discuss the fairly substantial body of scholarship on FDR. Or we could ponder whether the advent of YouTube has made this kind of thing more visible than it was in the past.

But I fail to see what you accomplish through personal attacks, except to demean yourself and the principles for which you claim to stand.

Erin once enjoined me not to "bait people into emotional responses" and "keep to the issues and stay away from the personal stuff." You might consider this advice for yourself.

Again, I ask for evidence that teachers in public schools taught their students to adulate a sitting president using anything like the creepy chants and songs that are appearing in virtual deification of Barack Obama.

I ask for this so that I can condemn them, too.

Assertions in and of themselves are not evidence, irrespective of the depth of passion or sincerity with which those assertions are offered.

And I'll point out tu Quoque fallacies when necessary, however tiresome that may be to some. If that's annoying to some, they should avoid resorting to tu Quoque fallacies in the first place.

Minerva,

Sorry, I don't have any YouTube footage from the 1980s, but both Luther and I remember this kind of thing during the Reagan administration. You're free not to believe us if you wish, of course.

As for "Tu Quoque," I think that you'll find you're misusing the term. If I were to refute something YOU said by saying that YOU did not consistently with YOUR assertion, that would be an example of the "Tu Quoque" fallacy (thus the "Tu"). But I never made a claim about *your* conduct, or Erin's. Instead I acknowledged that this footage was creepy, but noted that this kind of thing is not new. You may disagree, but there is no logical fallacy here.