Art by Sandow Birk,
From “In Smog and Thunder: Historical Works from The Great War of the Californias.”
(Published by Last Gasp of San Francisco)

{ The following front page editorial in the Nov-Dec print edition of The Argonaut has prompted considerable comment, as well it should. San Francisco voters agreed with the Argonaut, and approved by a substantial margin Proposition V, a declaration of policy which stated it was the voters’ intent that ROTC  be provided, as an elective, after school, to students who wished to take it.

San Francisco politicos and city bureaucrats have a way of ignoring the voters intent (see: Laguna Honda Hospital rebuilding) when it fits their purposes. We urge the new San Francisco Board of Education, which was sworn in this week and appears to be closely divided on the issue, to heed the will of the voters. }

Argonaut Editorial:
“S.F. Liberalism, Racism & The ROTC”

So many San Francisco liberals have taken to calling themselves “progressives” that it’s getting crowded under that big tent. Traditional liberalism represents gradual progress, but a lot of folks in this town are in a hurry to improve the lot of the commonweal. That’s fine by us, as long as the long march toward “progressivism” doesn’t include steps backward.

Progressive politics, with its populist roots, has taken some peculiar twists in American political history. It has, at times, however subtly or overtly, become de facto racism. Racists rarely can recognize themselves in the mirror.

This is not, at least on the part of the Argonaut, a neo-right critique;  we believe in the least predictable and sometimes quixoctic parts of the California electoral system, the referendum and the ballot initiative – let the will of the people will out — which is, after all, the way democracy sets it’s dinner table.

The current battle royale over faux issue of students’ rights to chose to take ROTC classes, after school, in the city’s public high schools, is ideological and  fundamentally undemocratic on the part of the proponents of the ban, who are being reckless with kids’ lives, and careless about the Constitution.  Let us  spit out the word that dare not be spoken about supersensitive liberals in Frisco –  it is de facto racist. The main economic benefits of ROTC – if students wish to pursue it – is the possibility of a college education which they might not otherwise afford for students from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds. For the Board of Education to impose an ideological glass ceiling blocking opportunities for one class of students is unsufferably politicallly egocentric and manifestly unfair.

We are certain this band of ideologues, headed by hot-headed Supervisor Chris Daly and some of his apostles now running to serve their master on the Board of Supervisors, such as Eric Mar and John Avalos, do not consider themselves racists. Their ideology – that to offer ROTC is constitutionally errant because the Armed Forces don’t let gays and lesbians serve openly et cetera – is certainly a reasonable opinion to hold, and they may be right.

But it is no longer a reasonable constitutional opinion when it is forced on others: We of superior knowledge in San Francisco will give you no choice to choose.

Mssrs. Daly, Mar, Avalos and Co.’s ideology has blinded them to some fundamental principles embedded in the Constitution by the Founders’ common sense  – like the right to freedom of association, which they would deny to students wishing to take ROTC, even after school.

These ideological tight asses like Mar and his likeminds who now sit on the Board of Education, and are otherwise embedded in electoral positions throughout the City, are using their power to force their opinions on others. It is akin to the Catholic Church’s using its belief system about abortion to foist its opinions on non-Catholics.

Flip the coin: By their own m.o. as example, a conservative Board of Education someday could rule gay students will not have the possibility to choose whether they wish to join a gay club that meets, as does ROTC, after school on school grounds. They would be the first to object so such an outrageous policy, and they would be right.
These elitists would take from largely minority and poor students the right to choose to take ROTC because Big Brother knows what is best for them; they are denying these kids the possibilities of higher education afforded to those who choose to go on to enter the military. They have no right to make that decision for them, or disadvantage students of the economic possibilities of higher education which might not otherwise be affordable to them.

We have as many gripes about the military as the average Frisco lib, and you couldn’t drag us into the Army with a pitchfork, but we sure as hell won’t deny that choice to others.