Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History 1238
suraj.sun picked up a Guardian (UK) piece on the Texas school board and their quest to remake US education in a pro-American, Christian, free enterprise mode. We've been keeping an eye on this story for some time, as it will have an impact far beyond Texas. From the Guardian: "The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favor of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy. ... Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting right-wing views on religion, economics, and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement, and the horrors of slavery. ... Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the 'significant contributions' of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the Civil War. ... Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favor of examining scientific advances through military technology."
In case there is any confusion... (Score:5, Informative)
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
--Treaty of Tripoly [wikipedia.org]
Ratified by the Senate, signed by President John Adams in 1797.
I hope that clears things up for these right wing wackos who are confused about our founding fathers' intentions. I hope to see this quote up on a sidebar in the next issue of their books.
Why omit Newton? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
This classic quote doesn't have much to do with rewriting history, I'm afraid.
I'm afraid it does. It is one of the basic points of the book, and what the entire Ministry of Truth is all about. Shortly after the above quote, this appears:
'In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?'
Re:Indoctrination cuts both ways (Score:3, Informative)
Putting a pair of words in quotes generally means that the author doesn't share that opinion
Uh No, it means that the author is quoting literally here and is not paraphrasing based on his own opinions.
Re:Uggghhh! (Score:4, Informative)
I do not remember the attempts at influence of the fundamentalists to be quite so blatant in the past. Perhaps they are becoming emboldened in these times of the Tea Parties.
Re:FrostPeas (Score:0, Informative)
hay dip Sh*t, what Texas is doing is correcting the rewriting of liberal bias in the text books. Why not research what the changes include and their factual background. Talk about rewriting history, read the other crap passed for history of our country and you would think we were children of evil demons invading the world.
Read the changes and look at what was in there before you complain, you dip Sh#t.
Two words ... (Score:5, Informative)
Manifest Destiny ... look it up. Think of it as a democratic jihad. Not a good idea. The British had a similar notion: The White Man's Burden. Well meaning ideas that just result in a lot misfortune.
Can't we just go back to the way things were? (Score:5, Informative)
You know, back when it was the US and the Republic of Texas?
Re:MOD PARENT UP UP UP (Score:5, Informative)
This nation was built on ignorance! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1984 (Score:4, Informative)
I love the aping of a plot point from 1984. Unfortunately, being that they're morons, they don't know the extreme irony of what they're doing. The sad part is neither will the students of Texas if this miseducation process goes ahead.
Sidelining Jesus as well (Score:4, Informative)
Then again, we're dealing with merchants in the temple here.
A big clue about whether your Church is about worshipping money and power instead of anything else is their attitude to the poor and homeless. The ironic thing is such wide ranging heresy which could not exist without tolerance is incredibly intolerant.
Pro-America? (Score:2, Informative)
Since when is being "pro-america" a bad thing for Americans?
Re: These Neo Cons Are Turds in the Punch Bowl (Score:4, Informative)
There is not a real "left" in America. Democrats are not left, they are just slightly left of the Republicans. If you want to know what real leftist ideas look like then read about the Green Party, or the Democratic Socialist Party. If those were viable parties and were winning elections then you could say we have a real right-left divide, right now all we have is right and far right so if you have a problem with either the Democrats or the Republicans then you are saying you don't like conservative ideas - they are both conservative.
Re:Good, let them (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1984 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:1984 (Score:4, Informative)
I'd have to agree that 1984 is about telling the big lie until it becomes the truth, including the historical truth. But in the AC's defense, the quote is about both real control and the illusion of control. Where Big Brother's regime can really control something, they can override any past influences, let just those parts of the past they want to allow to influence the future. Where they don't really have direct power to deal with real events, they can fake it with the big lie technique.
I.e. if there's a famine, it was objectively caused by past events (such as screwing up centralized agricultural planning). In the present, the Orwellian society can aim things so the famine mostly impacts regions where there are lots of suspected dissidents. They can also or alternatively rewrite official history to say the famine happened because of Eastasian saboteurs or that treasonous Emanuel Goldsmith, or they can rewrite current rumors to say it isn't happening at all, and it's double plus ungood to spread such untruths. In practice, they are likely to use all these techniques in overlapping series.
Turn any historical current towards accomplishing their present goals - lie as needed to deflect any organised opposition - and lie extra, just in case.
Re:In case there is any confusion... (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but "In God We Trust" only appeared on currency after the civil war.
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.shtml [ustreas.gov]
E Pluribus Unum is a much better motto, because I don't trust your invisible friend.
http://www.greatseal.com/mottoes/unum.html [greatseal.com]
Re:In case there is any confusion... (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the founding fathers were properly called "deists," meaning that they believed in a god, but that he didn't interfere in any way in normal life. Although they believed in a god, the deists were functionally no different than agnostics.
Re:Why does this sound exactly like the start of.. (Score:3, Informative)
Yep, no crisis at all right. Easy to find jobs. We didn't waste billions of taxpayer dollars "bailing out" businesses. Not sure if that was your primary point that it didn't exist, but putting "economic crisis" in quotes seem to indicate it...
The bailouts have been working [wsj.com]. Yes, we have lower job numbers than desirable, but that's arguably because the stimulus wasn't big enough.
Because we should all be just happy that we have a president who has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, supports a supreme court nominee vowed against true freedom of speech and supports unsustainable programs. Right?
I note that the bank bailouts were accomplished under Bush.
I have no idea what you're talking about regarding Kagan or Sotomayor, and i've been following both FOX and other outlets' opinions of her. Many conservatives are supportive of Kagan.
As for unsustainable programs, I assume you are referring to Medicare and Social Security? What would you propose be done with them?
News flash. News sources are biased. It isn't new. Look at MSNBC, heck, look at the Guardian which TFA is taken from. The Guardian doesn't even make any claims to be balanced or fair.
MSNBC has some left wing opinion shows, a right wing morning show, and pretty much run of the mill NBC news otherwise.
I venture that your views above have demonstrated a number of falsehoods mixed in with truths, and some debatable points. You might want to sort out which from which.
Re:1984 (Score:1, Informative)
Not to overly nitpick, but it's Emanuel Goldstein. Emmanuel Goldsmith is a rabbi and author.
Re:Can't we just go back to the way things were? (Score:3, Informative)
Sure.
However, the Texans won't fall for it. They take a moment to add up all the money they get from the "evil" federal government, and suddenly they're not so interested in leaving.
Except Texas is a donor state, so it get less money from the federal government than what it pays in taxes.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/60.html
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
1984 was Orwell's diatribe against Fascism (Nazism specifically).
Animal Farm was Orwell's diatribe against Communism, Napoleon played the role of Stalin, Snowball played Leon Trotsky and other purged party members. There was a reason Orwell used Trotsky pigs and mentioned them specifically throughout the book. Dogs were the KGB, Boxer was the unthinking average citizen.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
Until Amazon deleted it entirely.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
You are the one who is incorrect.
We are comparing democratic nations similar to the US, including other nations would be meaningless and you know it. Stop trolling. And the Democratic Party as a whole IS conservative by world standards, even if there are people in the party who are more left. Even the "liberals" you demonize are not all that liberal.
Get a clue.
Re:God help those who follow... (Score:3, Informative)
The question is, a beacon indicating exactly what?
"Get the hell out of our way! We're not real sure where the brakes are on this thing, and we've been drinking."
Re:1984 (Score:4, Informative)
Far right-wingers who claim that the Democrats are "left-wing" or "socialist" or "communist" only reveal their absymal ignorance of history, which Texas is apparently doing its best to reinforce in the next generation.
You seem to be the ignorant one. Far right-wingers will claim the other side are all fairies who only eat honey, if it gets them the Vote. Truth has nothing to do with what one side claims the other side is. Who knows what they really believe?
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
>By definition a Troll is someone who makes defamatory ad hominem comments about the poster, instead of bothering to legitimately address the subject of discussion.
That would actually be a "flamer".
A troll is someone who deliberately presents a false and/or stupid opinion in order to generate a reaction in their audience.
Welcome to the internet!
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
As a quick aside, please don't use these ridiculous news channel fear mongering fake words, they just make you sound stupid.
You mean "majoritarian?" It's a standard word used in political science discourse. I remember reading papers in college that discussed the pros and cons of "majoritarian" vs. "proportional" electoral systems, for instance.
Re:1984 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good, let them (Score:3, Informative)
"while the children from Texas will believe that there is no USSR/soviet union"
Um, did it come back? Last I heard, USSR collapsed almost 20 years ago.
Re:FrostPeas (Score:1, Informative)
Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripooli?
The sad irony... (Score:5, Informative)
I especially like the one about ditching Isaac Newton in favor of military technology. Not only did the law of gravity give the first definitive equation for the ballistic trajectory of cannonballs, artillery shells, etc., but Newton switched from being a physicist to being a devout Christian theologian later in his life. I would've thought they'd love Newton, but nooo, they're so ignorant they're chopping out someone who falls right into their key focus areas. Either that, or maybe he was the wrong kind of Christian.
Re:In case there is any confusion... (Score:1, Informative)
No it doesn't clear anything up but your misinterpretation of the Treaty. If you actually read all of the wikipedia information you would have seen this too.
("According to Frank Lambert, Professor of History at Purdue University, the assurances in Article 11 were "intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.)
If you actually were taught your history correctly all our founding fathers were religious men.
Thomas Jefferson was not religious but he did believe in a Creator.
Wait I thought they were all religious? Oh, are you saying you can be a religious man and not be religious? Fucking moron.
I fail to see how a bunch of people being borderline "religious" in an era when they didn't even know what a fucking GERM was should affect our interpretation of their vision 234 years later....
In the 1700-1800s Science was an INFANT compared to what we KNOW (not think) today. Not even an infant, a fetus, a zygote, a barely fertilized egg.
How can you blame smart critical thinkers for going with what they knew at the time?
And even with that caveat...
Thomas Paine:
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
George Washington: never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
John Adams: He wrote that he found [...] among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"
Thomas Jefferson: "I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." He referred to the Revelation of St. John as "the ravings of a maniac" and wrote:
"The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained."
James Madison: was not religious in any conventional sense. "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
Ethan Allen: "That Jesus Christ was not God is evidence from his own words." In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally "denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."
Benjamin Franklin: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity"
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
I'm with you eliminating private property, the other stuff is fear-mongering though.
There is a difference between private property (the means of production) and personal property (the items you own like your clothes, car, etc). No one is suggesting we get rid of personal property, not even the socialists/communists want that. When you confuse the two it's easy to make the mistake you made, I don't blame you for that it's a different concept than most people are used to dealing with but it's an important distinction.
Re:1984 (Score:3, Informative)
It was published in 1948, it was written before then with the ideas Orwell had during the war. The likes of Lord Haw Haw being the model. In 1948 there was still a significant Fascist presence in England (I think this is where most yanks go wrong with 1948, it was written by an Englishman. No offence to Americans of course, I love you like brothers). In Europe the ideas of perpetual war to keep the masses in line and ensure continuing leadership always belonged to the extremist right (fascism is an extremist right philosophy).
Where the direct comparison between 1984 and Fascism begins is in the party structure. In 1984 you had three levels, the Inner party who had rights and decided things for everyone else (this is a direct link to the inner Nazi Party). Then you have the outer party members, those considered pure enough to have responsibilities and benefits but not able to make real deceptions about their life (these are the Aryans and upper class German citizens). Finally you have the Proles, no rights, no responsibilities and kept completely demoralised (the average German). Fascist governments always end up with at least these three basic groups and maintained a very rigid structure. Also the types of propaganda used in 1984 were very much like that produced by Nazi Germany, an external group were always blamed for internal problems like the Jews in Nazi Germany (Goldstein is a Jewish sounding name).
But to be more specific, Fascist totalitarianism which as I said was a big fear in 40's England, especially by liberals (as in liberalism, free thinkers) of the time. Orwell did fit in with this group. Fascism is about enforcement of a rigid classed society, which was the society depicted in 1984. In Europe at the time, fascism was still as much of a threat as communism.
And therein lies the problem... (Score:1, Informative)
"The Guardian [guardian.co.uk] makes no pretense at all of being balanced, centrist, unbiased, or apolitical."
Methinks you protest too much and that the Guardian article struck a raw nerve in your political consciousness. I don't know where you're from, but in the UK, the Guardian is one of the more reliable newspapers on offer, It contains serious political thought and while well known for its occasional spelling mistakes, is not noted for sloppy journalism and downright fibs. In terms of UK political opinion, the Guardian IS a centerist paper, and supported the Liberal-Democrat party in the recent elections.
I'm assuming that you're a proud US citizen, with an axe to grind of your own and a political belief thats somewhat to the right of Maggie Thatcher.
FYI
Left WIng papers: Morning Star, Daily Mirror
Centerist papers: The Guardian
Right Wing papers: The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail
Page 3 papers: The Sun, The Star
Your problem is that you seem to have no understanding of the range of political opinions expressed in the British press. If you had slagged the Mail, the Express the Sun or the Star off for being unbalanced, jingoistic, biased or political then I would have had some sympathy with your PoV.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
The Free Market was destroyed long before you were born. The Free Market today is a misnomer, there is no Free Market.
What has failed is the idea that the Government can control Economy with politics. Rockefeller created the Federal Reserve by colluding with Government Officials, who should have never been allowed to create such an entity in the first place.
Once you have the Fed, the Free Market is out of the window. Instead you have the real Government printing money and giving it to the preferred corporations at a very low artificial rate. Where is the Free Market in this? You have some corporations colluding with the Government to create regulations to prevent competition. Where is the Free Market in that?
It is not the Free Market that allowed people to make billions by doing 'money manipulation', it is the policy of the Government, which has adopted the Keynes ideas that the normal Economy should be controlled because normal Free Market economy is cyclical, it has a Boom (expansion) and a Bust (contraction) and before the Fed, when there was Free Market, the US standard of living was constantly rising and prices would not go up all the time but would come down due to actual competition. The Government took Keynes ideas and applied it to its own purposes because Keynes is about removing the Bust from the Economic cycle, which is actually a BAD thing because it does not allow the Economy to restructure, cut the fat, get rid of some jobs that are really not needed.
The Government cannot allow the Bust because no Government is a producer. Government is a burden on Economy and during a Bust it has to shrink by reducing spending. Government cannot have that, they want their jobs forever and ever in an ever growing 'economy'.
So they print money left right and center, print bonds and t-bills when they really should have been raising taxes for their spending, but Governments know that it is not a popular move, to raise taxes for actual spending. So the borrow and print, debasing the currency while propping up huge Monopolies and regulating out the competition.
Event he income tax is the manifestation of the Government's agenda to keep the inflation going and setting the economy to failure because income tax is a disincentive against production. Income is not what a person spends on him/her self, it is money that is not spent on anything for pleasure, instead the money is re-invested.
Free Market Economy NEEDS investment. It needs liquidity, it needs people saving money and putting it back to work. Government reduces the incentives to put money back to work and it creates liquidity in the form of DEBT and not in the form of savings.
Government printing and lending policies lead to banks getting free money and then they gamble with it. Of-course they do, I would totally gamble with huge wads of cash if it was not actually MY money and I never had to be responsible for losing it!
Government insuring the banks, insuring the mortgages, insuring insuring insuring everything, creates huge moral hazard. People do not gamble hugely like that with their own money knowing that there may be real consequences. Government removes the consequences and gives out the free money.
Government created Monopolies are huge economies of scale who benefit ridiculously from Globalization, unlike small and medium size businesses. Government props up Huge Monopolies because those pay the most in bribes, it just makes sense to grow your own gigantic money laundering machines. When USSR fell apart and the world became Global, the Monopolies created by the Government moved out of the US to places with cheap production costs and little if any regulations.
Government created the Monopolies and the reasons for them to move. Minimum wage laws, regulations that were useful for Monopolies to keep the competition down became a nuisance. So they move production.
Government encourages consumption based economy from all fronts, from the Keynes ideas of fake consumption
Re:Richard Feynman on textbooks (Score:2, Informative)
For people who are too lazy to read through the whole chapter (a worthwhile read!), I'll give one of my favourite examples of human decision making in practice:
My rating was often different from theirs, and they would ask, "Why did you rate that book low?" I would say the trouble with that book was this and this on page so-and-so -- I had my notes.
I would ask them why they had rated this book so high, and they would say, "Let us hear what you thought about such and such a book." I would never find out why they rated anything the way they did. Instead, they kept asking me what I thought...
The man from the book depository was there, and he said, "Excuse me; I can explain that. I didn't send it to you because that book hadn't been completed yet. There's a rule that you have to have every entry in by a certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent to us with just the covers, and it's blank in between. The company sent a note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books considered, even though the third one would be late."
It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other members! They couldn't believe it was blank, because [the book] had a rating. In fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do with the rating.
Ref: Richie Feynman [textbookleague.org]
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
Here's what a real leftist government would look like.
Heh, let me compare what you said to Norway, which is considered pretty much the most socialist country in a socialist Europe currently under a socialist government.
Immigrants would be given amnesty and a path to citizenship.
No, we have illegal immigrants but there's no general amnesty for them.
The top marginal tax rate would be closer to 90% than the current 35%.
47.8%
Regressive taxes like sales tax and vehicle taxes would be eradicated.
VAT is 25%, vechicle taxes are a complex mix of weight, horsepowers, emissions etc. but highest in the world.
There would be a massive investment in a single payer government run health care system for all.
Yes.
A massive reinvestment in education from bottom up, focusing on leveling the inequality of poor school districts in minority neighborhoods and inner cities.
Yes, though the school system is underfunded it is far more equal than the US.
Wall Street would be heavily regulated and much of what currently goes on would be illegal.
Mostly no, nobody is stupid enough to try a soviet plan economy. The Oslo Stoch Exchange is quite regular.
Housing, food, and a meaningful job would be a right just like speech currently is.
Housing yes. Food yes. Meaningful job? No. Though the government does try to act anti-cyclical creating jobs in downturns unlike California etc. which seem to be cutting adding to the downturn instead.
Workers would collectively own the businesses they work for.
No. But there is a larger public sector and more government ownership interests.
The level of income inequality would be unacceptable.
Yes. Progressive taxes and strong unions have made the income inequality much less.
And the military industrial complex would be dismantled, removing the troops we have stationed over seas. We would also never use our military again in an unprovoked war of aggression.
Norwegian troops are in Afghanistan as well, this is more geopolitics than a left/right policy.
THAT would be a leftist party.
Yes. Far to the left of the Socialist Left party on some areas. The democrats aren't exactly left by my standards but you are setting the bar where any party will fail.
Re:FrostPeas (Score:3, Informative)
All of our presidents have been Christians and the majority of the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress are Christians.
All that shows is that all politicians *claim* to be devout Christians, which is not surprising given the fact that the united states discriminates against atheists. Last time I heard the atheism is political suicide, which is mostly due to religious propaganda and bigotry. The list of qualities people seem to like in politicians looks like: white males > colored males > women > fundamentalists > racists > gays > sex offenders > atheists... Everyone is happy that it's possible to have a black president, but I will only be amazed when the first *publicly* atheist president is elected. Note the 'public' since there have been enough 'alledged' atheist presidents... I say alledged since both atheists and christians 'claim' these presidents for their camp, but knowing the aforementioned bias against atheism it's no big surprise that any atheist president would hide this fact.
P.S. here is the old poll: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_ [outsidethebeltway.com]
P.P.S. read the first comment about Obama's atheism (gave me a laugh), funny that 'politicians will do anything for votes' can't be put in perspective by the faithful: http://salaswildthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-obama-atheist.html [blogspot.com]
I head that speech before... (Score:3, Informative)
"a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy."
That's EXACTLY the same words that my misguided Afrikaans ancestors used when they were justifying appartheid. Same shit, different country.
And before that - it was the exact same words that the Germans used to justify World War 2. I say this at risk of being Godwin'ing myself but I am by no means downplaying the holocaust as horror (in fact, I'm in the process of writing a science fiction story in which the protagonists are descendents of holocaust survivors so I have been doing significant research on the topic). I'm not saying biased schoolbooks = holocaust, I'm just saying the justification is the same they used.
Mind you, those Afrikaner's were under significant Nazi influence - that's just historical fact. In the early 50's a huge proportion of the Afrikaner voters were members of the Ossewabrandwag - a Nazi propaganda group founded during world war 2 to try and convince South Africa to switch from allies to axis.
Before that, it was the same words the British used to justify the destruction of two independent republics through the systematic killing of 27 thousand women and children in the South African concentration camps.
Right now, it's the exact same words the Chinese government is using to justify turning a sixth of the worlds population into sweatshop workers that is only one step away from slaves (a step DOWN in many cases). Well "mandate of heaven" is near as makes no difference.
Just how big a set of ideological blinders do you need to be wearing to make the same mistakes yet again, the same arguments that have consistently led to the persecution of individualism and subsequent atrocities, and somehow convince yourself that what you're doing is about individual liberty and freedom.
It's like humanity has a predisposed concept that "individual freedom" is the right to live as I please, but other people only get it if they want to use it to live the same way I do - despite the obvious logical error of such thinking. Critical thinking is a good defense against that, but apparently it's a skill more rare than rocket scientists.
Re:1984 (Score:2, Informative)
They're not doing it ironically.
Which in itself makes it ironic.
Re:FrostPeas (Score:4, Informative)
All of our presidents have been Christians
The funny thing is that that statement isn't actually true. A lot of the founders, most notably Thomas Jefferson, were Deists who denied the divinity of Jesus, the central belief of Christianity going back to the Council of Nicea (and for precisely this reason, Thomas Jefferson is being downplayed by the Texas School Board). Several presidents weren't religious at all, a bunch were Unitarians, and if anything the trend is towards more of an emphasis on candidate's faith or lack thereof now than in most other periods of US history.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
>I was taught that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves from their southern oppressors.
> In reality, the north controlled the federal government and set a history of economic policies
> that ignored the well-being of the southern states. Slavery was the last straw; abolition would
> have crushed the southern economies
So slavery was the part of the southern economy that was keeping it viable. In other words, the war was fought over slavery.
> Secession happened out of fear and desperation to preserve a way of life.
Yes, a way of life where slavery was not only acceptable, but essential.
Are you being serious? (Score:3, Informative)
What do you propose? What exactly do you think we should compromise here? The planet is at stake. Should we compromise the planet?
2 + 2 = 5 (Score:3, Informative)
Because GOD says so. And Texas was the first state in the Union, so we get to call the shots, after all, we won the civil war. And I didn't get that there girl pregnant, biology got nuthin' to do with it, GOD got her pregnant. Leave me alone so I can drink my beer and shoot out windows while driving my pickup truck. God made America for us to do whatever we want, as long as we say three hail mary's after we done whatever we did. So, if the kids are smarter than the school board, they'll contest every answer they get wrong on every test, because all they need to do is say "God says so".
If the school board can change "learning" to their benefit, so can every single student in the state Texas. Go for it. Idiocracy is prophecy.
Now you're being disingenuous... (Score:3, Informative)
Now you're just being cheeky and provocative. It won't work; I see through it.
You know perfectly well that the environmental movement considers nuclear power to be as bad as coal burning, or worse. Therefore, they would accomplish nothing by favoring nuclear power. Granted, they would reduce c02 emissions, but that is not their primary objective. They have never really cared about c02, and they don't now. What the environmentalist movement really wants is a reduction in technology and a return to a simpler life. That is their objective. Their claims about c02 are really just means to that end, as you perfectly well know.
I cannot continue this debate with you, if you reject the most elemental degree of honesty and sincerity. You feign ignorance about the motives of the environmental movement when those motives are obvious to everyone. After all, why would the environmental movement favor biofuels so consistently, when biofuels increase c02 emissions and destroy the environment? Obviously, because biofuels promise a return to a simpler mode of life (grow things and burn wood!) and not because they help the environment. And you can't help but realize these things. Don't pretend you think otherwise.
Re:Dear America... (Score:3, Informative)
"Actually, I'm Canadian, not American".
I'm not really Canadian, but you know, I'm thinking that could be a *really* useful phrase to remember if I'm ever traveling outside the U.S.
Re:Even 2010 Conservatives are left of 1776 Democr (Score:3, Informative)
"after all, isn't that what this nation was founded on."
Funny, I thought our nation was founded on protest against the Governance of the British Crown?
Go read the declaration of Independence. Now, it obviously is very much informed by Christianity, and Christian values, BUT, there is a long list of grievances in the Declaration, NONE of which have anything whatsoever to do with the exercise of religion (well, it may be possible, I suppose, that some of the laws which he either refused his Assent to, or imposed on the colinies, might have had something to do with religious practice - I leave that possibility open, but the Declaration isn't very concerned with religious matters).
The Constitution likewise, is certainly informed by Christian values, but it clearly defines a secular government.
Was Christianity important in shaping the worldview and beliefs of many of the revolutionaries?
If you want to go back *earlier* than the Revolution, you can look at the first British settlement/colony in the present-day U.S. - Jamestown, VA. That had nothing whatsoever to do with religion - it was all about seeking resources in North America so that investors and colonists could get rich. Good old fashioned greed.
Re:1984 (Score:2, Informative)
Stalin was in power for 29 years, from 1924 to 1953. The bulk of the dead during Stalin's reign were during the Holodomor which happened during the 8-9th years in his stretch.
Furthermore, had Bush been able to run again, all the polls showed that he would have lost to Kerry, Clinton or Obama in the 2008 election, and remember that the Republicans never ran someone for a third term, the only time a former Republican ran a third time was Teddy Roosevelt as a third party in 1912.
Gitmo and the "Black Prison" system were nothing compared to the GULAG, perhaps you need a refresher on what the GULAG was.
"In 1931–32 the Gulag had approximately 200,000 prisoners in the camps; in 1935 — approximately 800,000 in camps and 300,000 in colonies (annual averages), and in 1939 — about 1.3 millions in camps and 350,000 in colonies."
"After World War II the number of inmates in prison camps and colonies, again, rose sharply, reaching approximately 2.5 million people by the early 1950s (about 1.7 million of whom were in camps)."
So...by Stalin's eighth year there were 200,000 political prisoners in the GULAG.
By Bush's eighth year there'd be as many as 3,000 people imprisoned by extraordinary rendition and 775 held in Gitmo. Lets say both are low and round it up to 5000. Still a damn sight lower than what Stalin was doing.
The methodology of abuse by Bush is nothing at all like what Stalin did and to say it is, well its just plan ignorant of what people like Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot did.
Half of my European relatives were killed by Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, the other half were killed by Stalin's invasion of Poland in 1939. None of my relatives have been killed or imprisoned by Bush.