There is nothing to celebrate about 15+ years of your life wasted in compulsory government "education".
The speech itself is good, kids need to hear that kind of stuff. Entitlement is way too prevalent among people under the age of 30. The problem is that (a) it's inappropriate and tasteless to give such a speech at a high school graduation - that is a time for happiness and celebration...and (b) it's not the teacher's job to be giving that kind of speech to kids anyway; he overstepped his bounds. The teacher should be reprimanded.
Hang on a sec. Paying a substantial part of your paycheck for 40 years, specifically for the purpose of contributing into a mandatory retirement fund, which is supposed to be your own money, is not 'entitlement'. Now we all know that the government runs it like a ponzi scheme, but that is not the fault of the people who have paid in, and who fully (and both rightfully and reasonably) expect that contract to be honored, and have their money returned to them during retirement. Entitlement is people expecting something for nothing. Don't compare the two, they are absolutely nothing alike.
The students, as did their parents went on a twitter frenzy loving his speech, but let's not talk about that.
Cold Hard and the media knows better than the students and parents what they really like, don't be so harsh.
One would think any high school graduate would have the brains to figure out that they're not special unless they truly are spectacular in some area, Lebron James was as a high school basketball phenom. If our high school graduates need a teacher to tell them that odds are they'll be average people, then they probably don't deserve to graduate from high school
I didn't find anything particularly special about the speech. It was decent enough -- basically about selflessness, doing great things for the sake of doing them rather than for the accolades and possibly a bit about humility. I didn't find it harsh, cruel, depressing, brutally honest, or groundbreaking. Just a teacher saying a few words at graduation. Can't see the controversy. Kids were probably more bored than shocked.
Two pages in and no reference to: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4X2AvfSTi6Q?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
sure it is...because i'm paying for the retired person today. their money paid for someone else a generation prior to them. it's absolutely an entitlement today as it was then. there is no contract. there is no deal. social security can be gone tomorrow. you don't have any claim to cash you've contributed to it beyond a political claim.
Entitlement is being owed a benefit through a government program. Social Security is definitely an entitlement. Just because entitlement has a negative connotation, it doesn't change that programs like SS are entitlements.
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are all a part of the same compost heap. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
"You are a child of the Universe, no less than the moon and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should."
The part about "There is no contract, there is no deal ..." What the heck do you call the Social Security Act? If it means nothing then this country is lawless!
