Muddle-headed Progressive or closeted conservative teacher with a masterful sense of satire? - Granite Grok

Muddle-headed Progressive or closeted conservative teacher with a masterful sense of satire?

I’m not sure WHERE or HOW to label this as it really depends on:

  • how you look at these Letters to the Editor
  • what is "really up with" the author?

so I’ve chosen "Just Because".

Upon strolling over to Weekend Pundit, Brent had posted this:

But what to make of these inane statements in a Boston Globe letter to the editor by Brockton High School math teacher Doug Van Gorder?

Although [immediate exodus] removes potential hostages and makes it nearly impossible for the shooter to acquire preselected targets, it unfairly rewards resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others….But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.

Wow. Could it be satire? I’m thinking so.

What caught my eye was this: Brockton High School.  My alma mater way back in the stone age.

I think I tend to agree with Brent.  Either Mr. Van Gorder is really a Progressive that has gone over the deep end or, being a teacher in a public high school, doing political theater in very fine style.  I checked – as of 2007 he was a math teacher at BHS and had completed a math education program at BU.  Read the LtE after the jump – and like a number of commenters at a lot of the gun blogsites, you might condemn him as just being absolutely out of his gourd for this phrase: "I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime."

Taken at face value, I’d be on the same side but the LtE is just written a bit over AND understated at the same time.  I kept on looking, and there is another LtE that he wrote, in the same style (also after the jump).

Read both – and you’ll probably be as unsure as I am which way to use Occam’s Razor on this puzzle.  Frankly, I am tending to lean on the "he’s a conservative who is deftly covering his tracks because of his profession but really wielding that flensing knive with great skill".

Here’s the Letter in the Boston Globe that has caught so much attention:

I AM a math teacher at Brockton High School, the site of a school shooting earlier this month.

Current school security procedures lock down school populations in the event of armed assault. Some advocate abandoning this practice as it holds everyone in place, allowing a shooter easily to find victims.

An alternative to lockdown is immediate exodus via announcement. Although this removes potential hostages and makes it nearly impossible for the shooter to acquire preselected targets, it unfairly rewards resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others.

Schools should level playing fields, not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish.

Some propose overturning laws that made schools gun-free zones even for teachers who may be licensed to securely carry concealed firearms elsewhere. They argue that barring licensed-carry only ensures a defenseless, target-rich environment.

But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.

DOUG VAN GORDER
Quincy

Speaking of "unfairly rewards resourceful children", "level playing fields", and "self-defense" is anathema?  That is one long skewer! 

And here is the next one that I found at WickedLocalQuincy:

QUINCY – Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court signals America both strives for global approval and recognizes equality among all citizens of the world.

Should evidence from waterboarding be excluded at trial, some fear the accused may be found not guilty and freed to commit further attacks.

But threat of attack is much diminished now due to America’s increased global approval, approval that is a virtual security blanket President Obama has knitted from hope, change and powerful supplications before the world.

Should evidence from waterboarding not be excluded – admittedly setting a precedent permitting torture of citizens too – it will be worth the loss of our protections from such tactics in order to redistribute our rights to all humanity.

Better to spread rights, slightly thinned, than to hoard them even for our own children. Thankfully, our president values global equality, underscored each time he rightfully bows before world leaders in symbolic atonement for our disproportionate quality of life.

DOUG VAN GORDER
Quincy

He certainly is making much of Obama’s and Progressives claims that we are much more loved in the world than pre-Obama and that fact along should cover a multitude of sins – and the "spreading of rights" vs hoarding?  Priceless!

Both in the same style and I am all but convinced that Mr. Van Gorder is making great sport of the true Progressives by holding up their Tenets of Faith – and then using a MW laser beam for slicing for the fall.

‘Course, if this isn’t the real Mr. Van Gorder, the real one may be one upset dude….

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