Fox News: Catering To The Mentally Unstable for 20 Years!
The father of elementary school children was volunteering in the school library. He overheard a kindergarten class reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and felt sure that they left out the word “liberty.”
Look, a kindergartener saying any word after saying indivisible is liable to sound suspicious like a foreign language. You and me – well, get that and we think it’s cute.
Not so Colin McGroarty. He went berserk. He demanded to see the principal, who was busy, and then demanded that the librarian call the principal and she just hushed him. So he did what any well trained FOX viewer would do – he interrupted the kindergartners and lecture them Bill Reilly style, starting off with a complaint that the world is not as he wants it to be and then ending up with Hilter.
He said Wednesday was the first time he was there to hear the kindergartners say the Pledge of Allegiance. He thought he heard the word “liberty” removed. But more importantly, he said, was that the pledge was immediately followed by students’ recitation of the school creed. In it, students are asked to treat others with respect, follow school and classroom rules and “to try their best.” He said he was upset they pledged this while still holding their hands over their hearts and facing the U.S. flag.
There should be a break between the pledges, he said, and students should not be facing the flag. He called it “conditioning a child” to blindly obey authority without knowing what is in the rules they are promising to obey. “In the beginning of the Hitler Youth movement, people made similar promises,” McGroarty said.
We cannot be running kindergarten this way, so Colin McGroarty told the little children —
“Children, do not blindly follow to swear allegiance and to follow rules without knowing what they are,” and that’s when he told the children to ask their parents about Nazis.
So Colin McGroarty thinks little children know what the Pledge of Allegiance is, but not what treating other with respect is?
Crazy One: thinking little children should speak clearly.
Crazy Two: lecturing little children about Nazis
And yes, there is a Crazy Three. He send an email to school officials saying that he had “spilled blood before” and would do so again to defend freedom. He later claimed that he meant that he was a veteran and would serve again.
And yes, there are armed guards at the school now and Colin McGroarty is barred from the campus.
Holy crap. This guy just hit the Fox New Trifecta of Freekin’ Nuts.
When I was in kindergarten (up through 11th grade by the way) it was impossible to face the teacher without facing the flag. It was quite often mounted on the front to back center line of the room, in the front above her head.
1“One naked individual” from “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” Anybody else remember what Art Linkletter got kids to say?
2It sounds like a typical symptom of Long Term Fox News Viewer Syndrome. Except for that one unusual detail – – what was he doing in a library? I wish the news reporter had looked into this aspect of the story more, because my guess is that he was either making a list of books to burn, or actually planning to burn some books. If it turned out to be the second possibility, the actual book burning, the mumbling kindergarteners may have saved their school by distracting Colin McGroarty.
3But his FB page shows he’s former military with explosives experience. I know that makes me feel much better about his flip out in school, how about ya’ll?
4And he wonders why the gov’ment wants him to register his AR?
5His poor little kids! Can u imagine how embarrassed they’re going to be? “Hey Suzie M, how come your Daddy had to leave the school with the POLICEMEN? Did he bring a GUN? Was he gonna shoot us?!” Those poor kids! And his poor wife, too! Geez!
6He says that god is important to him. He also says that people should not just blindly follow authority.
He needs to make up his mind.
7I’m too old and have “been around the block” too many times to try and understand wacko thinking. With all the antisocial behavior by young people I look at this misfit parent as a prime example why abstinence in his case would have benefited society.
8And THIS is why we DO NOT need “trained volunteers” in our schools…especially ex-military. This guy caused mayhem in the LIBRARY…..Lord only knows what would’ve happened if he’d been on “armed front door” duty.
9@Barb — I didn’t understand that when I read Linkletter’s book until my father explained to me that “under God” was a recent addition. Dad also said that when he was in grade school, the custom was to start with the hand either over the heart or in a standard soldier’s hand salute but when they got to the word “flag” they would all put their hand straight out toward the flag, palm downward. Try it and see what you think of it.
10“I lead the pigeons to the flag….” is how I remember one kid saying the pledge. Clearly he didn’t understand what he was saying and put words he knew in that sounded like the words in the pledge. Good thing this nut wasn’t around for this one.
11Lord love a duck the crazy is spreading.
hippie in the hollar
12Another Illinoisian?! If there’s any seceding to be done, it should be Chicago from Illinois.
My redacted, amended (due to infant adoption), certified copy of my birth certificate says Chicago, Illinois right on there. It might not stand birther scrutiny, and if I ever run for office again I’m sure I’d be susceptible to crazy euro-israeli lawyer dentist bleach blonde cougar attacks, but I say this by way of saying I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Chicagoan from BIRTH. Even if I now live in O.H. – I.O. A mere accident of geography.
We disavow any connection with anyone outside of the City of Chicago, County of Cook, like not-the-stoner-guitarist Joe Walsh, the kookie Wheaton-Warrenville school lady last week from DuPage County, or this libertardian from Geneva, the Kane County seat.
In fact, I believe the level of Tea-crazy of your burg is directly proportional to your distance from Navy Pier. Once you’re south of I-80, it’s pretty much banjo music from there to the Gulf.
Paddle faster.
13It’s marginally (very narrow margin) better than if he’d wanted the kids to obey all authorities all the time no matter what…I’ve run into that type, too. Don’t question, don’t argue, just “Sir, yes, sir!” and do what you’re told. I’m wondering if he’s got a history of TBI or PTSD or both from his service and has a few gaps he didn’t used to have.
Not that that makes storming into a kindergarten class and scaring them and their teachers is at all OK.
BTW, Everyday Freethought, belief in God and aversion to mindless obedience to everyone who gives orders is not uncommon. At least, not among us liberal Christians.
14“He says that god is important to him. He also says that people should not just blindly follow authority. He needs to make up his mind.”
15@Everyday Freethought, I am so stealing that!
Here’s a copy of his email. The dude’s qualifications are an MBA and MCSE. That’s Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert. That guy is very scary.
http://batavia.patch.com/articles/parent-disrupts-classes-at-mill-creek-elementary
16Speaking of the Pledge . . . I wonder how many THOUSANDS of times those who have signed Secession petitions have said the Pledge of Allegiance in their lifetimes? You know, “one nation, under God, INDIVISIBLE”–that part.
17What I’m grateful for is this: They found out what a whack job this guy is…… while he was a volunteer in the library.
Thank goodness they didn’t hire him as a janitor, and let him carry a gun aound in the school.
How old were these kids saying the plege ob legence?
Just curious.
18@Don A, an elderly (74) friend told me the same thing. The words, under God, were never in the pledge when she grew up. I have to do a search and find out when it was added.
I can’t believe the idiot parents terrorizing little kids in their schools. I can only imagine what goes on in their homes.
19Just did a quick Google and there have been four incarnations of the Pledge. June of 1954 the phrase, under God, was officially added.
20How about this one: “I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for Richard Stands.”
21… and now his wife is probably scared out of her mind
“He then took his children home with him to Rockford. (Their mother has primary custody, but they were supposed to stay with him that night, McGroarty said.) The mother has since obtained an order of protection against McGroarty, and the children were returned to her. McGroarty has been banned from school property.”
22I honestly believe our Founding Fathers would be appalled at the “Pledge of Allegiance”, especially with the latter inclusion of “under god” during the 1950s.
That being said, this guy needs some serious medication.
23daChipster! LOVE IT,LOVE IT, LOVE IT. My son and grandsons were all born in Texas but got to Chicago as soon as they could. I love the place, weather and all and visit them and the city whenever I can, which is pretty often. At the moment I’m not so sure about Rahm but since when is a Chicago Mayor supposed to be totally rational? I say Chicago but my progeny actually live in the “Peoples Republic of Evanston” which may be even better. Oh, and more on topic, I was in college when “under God” was added to the pledge and even in my church school college “conservative” delusion I thought it was kind of dumb!
24Sheriff Joe, I think I found another one of them highly qualified school guards you’ve been looking fer. This un might jest be as unbalanced as yew R.
25I hope the cops are doing regular drive-bys to the mother & kids home; if he can go off on kindergarteners, he sounds like one hair-trigger finger away from doing something terrible to his own family.
26There can’t be anything positive for the kids, having gone trough this experience. So sad.
27daChipster, I went to grad school at Southern Illinois in Carbondale. That area was definitely a link between Appalachia and the Ozarks.
On the rare occasions now when I’m expected to recite the pledge, I just keep quiet on the “under god” and then resume the older wording. That phrase was added in 1954 to distinguish the good ol’ USA from them godless commies. I don’t think the Founders who left gods out of the Constitution would approve of it.
28I was in grade school when the “under God” phrase was added. Since I attended Catholic school until 9th grade I probably didn’t think much about it at the time. I began questioning the convergence of politics and religion a little later.
29I consider myself an honorary Chicagoan. I got my M.A. at U of I and one or both of my daughters has been in college or law school there for nearly fifteen years. Looks like the younger one is going to stay there. I helped her hand out literature for a judicial election last spring down in the South Loop.
Had to chuckle thinking how this would’ve gone down with my littlest grandkids (1st & 2nd graders). Typical reaction would’ve been something like this when they were picked up from school:
“Mommy, guess what happened today?”
“What happened?”
“Some man came in when we were fledging to the flag and guess what he said!!”
“What did he say?”
“He…he… he was MAD!! And he…he… he said we didn’t have to put our hands on our chests ’cause it was WRONG!!”
“WHAT MAN? WAS YOUR TEACHER THERE? WHAT WAS SHE DOING?”
“Oh… she was there with us.”
“Oh… okaaayyyy…”
“Mommy, that man yelled at the teacher!”
“What did the teacher do when he yelled at her?”
“Oh… she just stared at him… and then he left.”
“Do you know what he was angry about?”
“Yea… he didn’t like the flag.. and he was mad that we had our hands on our chests… like this!”
That’s what little folks take away from most all adult hoopla. They absorb only the exciting part.
Now there will be an entirely different conversation just as soon as MOM gets a chance to call other classmates’ mothers… and of course, the school. Then there will be the inevitable PTA meeting with the principal and teachers to discuss whether the policy of having parents volunteer should be looked at in light of the circumstances. You can bet this incident will be on the PTA agendas around the nation now… along with re-evaluating policies regarding parents who don’t have physical custody of their children (like this man), something the schools have had to deal with for quite some time.
As for “under God” insertion in the pledge to the flag in 1954, that was the work of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s organization, pushed by Senator McCarthy’s hunt for commies.
30sharon – And at the time she got the restraining order he should have been relieved of all his firearms and made ineligible to purchase more. That should be one of Biden’s recommendations but I know it won’t be.
31If my daughter had been in that classroom, the man would have answered to me in civil court, and it would have cost him.
32So, per McGroarty , it’s “Children, do not blindly follow to swear allegiance and to follow rules” unless it’s rules McGroarty likes.
33This guy is in a downward spiral and needs to be off the street and institutionalized for intensive treatment. Unfortunately, our communities by and large do not have the systems to identify and contain the potential berserkers. Get McGroarty’s guns away from him. Read his Facebook page and you’ll see why. His best days in his mind were in Special Forces. His career, marriage – and now his parental rights – have fallen apart. He can’t be near children at this time and he needs help before something really bad happens. A VA hospital may be one route.
34It appears that, while his kids live with his ex- in Geneva, this fellow lives even further beyond the pale…in Rockford. So my Distance(NavyPier -> X) = N*Crazy formula is confirmed.
Now, Cheap Trick came from Rockford (and REO Speedwagon from Champaign-Urbana) but you’ll notice how quickly they got out of those places. (And Rick Nielsen’s STILL a little nuts.)
35Hey daChipster, Geneva is a great little town. While there are a few crazies, there are also a lot of sane progressive types. We are on the train line to Chicago, so there are a lot of commuters–people who live here for the good schools and small town atmosphere, but work in the city. And I always loved Cheap Trick. I don’t know where he was from originally, but Dan Fogelberg was another who went to the U of I as well, though I don’t think he graduated. Anyway, I know that you are just making humorous generalizations, but Geneva is actually a wonderful place to live.
36Every teacher has wonderful memories of what their students rearrange to make sense to them. One told me that “Beauty is in the eye of the bewildered”. I thought it was an astute observation. My husband (as a little boy) remembers singing a hymn every Sunday which ended in “world without men”. It cause no small amount of anxiety for years.
37Jo, I feel you, as I lived in Elmhurst my whole life, on that same set of tracks. St Charles and Geneva both are beautiful towns. Some great progressives there in Elmhurst to and yet, to advance politically in Henry Hyde-dom, I had to be a RINO. DuPage trends red, Kane even moreso.
But yeah, me and hyperbole ARE BFFs.
38Hey, daChipster – I take offense with your comments about Cheap Trick. I want you to know that I partied with Cheap Trick back in the ’80’s (one time, their road manager was getting married to my girlfriend’s sister) and… well… it was in Madison so I guess that does prove your point about Rockford. And now that I think about it, Rick Nielsen did wear his baseball hat inside the entire day.
39So in conclusion I’d like to quote the great Roseanne Roseannadanna, “Oh, never mind.”
Jeez, it sounds like there are more present and former Chicagolanders participating in this “professional political organization” than there are Texans! Include me, too, living in southeast DuPage County. Chicago’s collar counties – as we call them – aren’t exactly the rock-ribbed Republican bastions they used to be.
Obama carried DuPage in both 2008 and 2012, though by a smaller margin in the latest election. In both DuPage and Kane Counties in November, Democrats Bill Foster and Tammy Duckworth unseated Judy Biggert and Joe Walsh by significant margins. Kane went for Romney in 2012 after Obama won it in 2008.
Republicans still own the DuPage and Kane county government offices, but younger voters and Chicago and Cook County outmigration means that Republicans are really being challenged by a changing electorate. Best of all, the Tea Party is really losing traction here.
40