The Civil Rights Act wasn't all that great. The TX School Board has voted
 

The people who steer the future of textbooks for our country weren't satisfied with weaseling creationsim into the science curriculum, now they're engaging in outright historical revisionism, including removing Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the 18th and 19th century and portraying McCarthyism in a positive light.

Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards - NYTimes.com
This is Orwellian, to say the least.

I've heard statements from many people that amount to "when your faith is strong enough, facts don't matter." When those facts don't matter, you can emphasize how wonderful McCarthy's delusional witch hunts were. You can teach the downsides of the Civil Rights Act. You can refuse to acknowledge the founding fathers' dedication to religious freedom.

What can we really do when the elected officials who call the shots not only refuse to acknowledge, but actively try to cover up facts that are inconvenient to them?
Are we overdue for national textbook standards and guidelines set by qualified experts in each field of study?

Miseducation is worse than rape and murder, to me. I can't abide people who deliberately misinform people, whether for religious, political or selfish reasons. Poor education is the first step towards controlling people.

So I'm having a hard time thinking of anything to say about these 'people' other than they really don't deserve the air they breathe.

Setting aside the fact that Jinn is right about miseducation - they're doing an incredible disservice to children - I'd be happy to allow Texas to raise ignorant kids if it weren't for how much sway they have on national text books.

I realize it won't happen, but it'd be really nice to see textbook publishers take a stand and refuse to participate in Texas' revisionism.

Why does it have to be an issue of politics and republicans and left wing unbalance, why can't the textbooks just give the straight up facts of what actually happened in history?

As a proud Texan, this is really embarrassing to me.

Because what happened is different for different people.

I can't say it any better than what is here:
Slashdot Comments | Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum

On a personal level, I don't really see this as a huge deal. Primary school curriculum has always seemed to be mostly propaganda to me. And I hope to never be in a position with my children where their teachers have more credibility with them than I do.

On a more general level, this does seem a bit problematic, but I suspect its effects will be mitigated by parental and 'liberal' teacher input.

Anybody ever read the book "Lies my teacher told me"? It's well worth the read and shows that manipulating history textbooks is nothing new to the USA.

Go pick up a high school history text book it's nothing but the USA is the greatest country in the world, significant historical figures are demi-god heroes who accomplished unthinkable feats and never made mistakes and the government doesn't make mistakes. Ever.

This saddens, but doesn't really shock me.

I feel obligated to preface this by affirming that I BELIEVE creationism is hogwash:

Prohibiting alternate viewpoints is offensive.
Trying to force others to believe as you do is useless.
Wasting kids' time = wasting their lives.

filtherton's spot-on regarding parental input.

I think the best we can hope for is to provide developing minds the freedom to decide for themselves.

which comment because there are a lot of comments there.

Apparently, you're of no specific opinion since there are a number of them there.

In the future, I suggest you cut and paste it so that your opinion is better represented if not properly positioned.

There was a quote I read somewhere once: if we teach creationism as an alternative to evolution, then we should also teach Storkism as an alternative to reproductive science.

There needs to be a national textbook curriculum established by a panel made up of credible PhD-carrying university professors, with a subpanel for each relevant subject, so the people who know the subjects best can decide what is and isn't part of required education. Invite every qualified person in the country to be a member, and give the curriculum a year or two to be worked out. Everything turns out peachy.

Why should the children in a state with a ridiculous curriculum be at an educational disadvantage versus those in other states?

"The the universe was created by Gohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhdddd." (ten cool points if you recognize the reference)

That's an excellent book, and was recommended to me in high school by my Junior year history teacher. Great man, dedicated to engaging the students and making them want to learn. I'm sure that most kids in the US learn that the course of WWII was Germany did some stuff, then Pearl Harbor happened, then the Holocaust got bad, then we saved Europe's asses. It's right in there with Reagan worship and apologism that conveniently neglects his support of right-wing dictators and apartheid, plus the myth that he was primarily responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union
The creationism debate is as rational as challenging the chemistry curriculum on the basis that the only true elements are earth, air, fire, and water. It's an outright denial of facts and is unacceptable in a modern education system.

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future" -1984

I'll pick out some of the better points:

http://www.venganza.org/wp-content/u...inting4_sm.jpg

Also, this is why I hope to be able to home-school my children.

The irony is that this is basically an extreme relativist position that is being taken by the same party that loves to accuse others of relativism.

I've said it before... America is a mess and needs to get its shit together.

Hope Ya'll are Ready for this.

All education is relevant; however, parental involvement is key in the development of a child. My kids attend one of the best schools in our state, it so happens this school is 90% African American and I can tell you they focus on black historical figures far more than white, I don’t think they are doing my white kids an injustice, I merely feel my boys are learning from a different angle and I can input and teach as much as I feel necessary to encourage them to study and discover other truths on their own, it’s called HIS STORY for a reason, everybody has a story of their own, respecting each other is the key to progressive knowledge and a progressive society.

I believe in Darwin’s evolution of the species, however, until somebody can prove to me which came first, the chicken or the egg, I will continue to believe that GOD created that which all evolution sprang from.

I understand teaching that the violence approved by and supported under Malcolm X and the Black Panther’s could help our children understand why there were so many violent images that have been used over and over again to show how badly we treated blacks, to continue the victim without cause is a true injustice, it helps to understand that not all blacks followed the passive MLK Jr..

In no way do I feel they are doing a disservice to the blessed Thomas Jefferson who said “I have swore upon the alter of GOD eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” and this summer they will build across the tidal basin the LARGEST statue ever erected for any figure in the national monument area, that of Martin Luther King Jr. at 30 + feet tall it will be 10 feet taller that any other statue figure in the national monument area. Children will always be taught that Thomas Jefferson was one of the most important contributors’ of the Declaration of Independence, and you can bet as a Bush State, they will keep him close. Note God in his quote above.

As for Sociology, it’s about damn time they start teaching “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” DUH……. that’s all one can say about that.

I love how somebody will label you a social conservative if you do not drink the kool-aid their selling but yet don’t want to tell you what the ingredients are in their own poison. A Little learning is a dangerous thing….. I say learn from every angle, it doesn’t sound as though they are cutting off their noses, just maybe trying to clean out the snot noses of everyone who seems to whine about why it can’t be only their way.

I don’t think that’s what they are doing here. If it were true social conservatism, they would not talk of individual choice at all; it would be closed books, closed legs, closed minds. I’m sure we will here more of this as there is 30 days of public comment. I do believe if these changes are that objectionable by the public it will not be tolerated in our schools. I know I read my kids text books, how bout you all? It would not be the first time I had to go to the school and fight the system and I still Thank God for this great country.

First of all, let's clarify the question. It's not 'the chicken or the egg,' but rather 'the chicken or the chicken egg.' Perhaps a semantic distinction, but given that pretty much all reptiles, arthropods and a even a couple of mammals are oviparous, it's important.

That said, it's fairly simple to determine that the egg must've come first. If we had a perfect fossil record and were able to trace the genetic ancestry of the modern chicken back through time, we would eventually hit a point where we'd find what's called speciation. Things do get a bit hazy here, because evolution is a continual and gradual process; however, at some point along the ancestral chicken line we would be obliged to draw a line where we can say that everything after it is a chicken, and everything prior to it is not. Where this line falls is immaterial, because we're only really concerned with the mechanism. Once we've isolated that population that can be considered chickens from that other population that comprises the pre-chickens, we can then identify the group of individuals that we would consider the first chickens.

Once we've done that, it's very easy to answer your question. An entity is genetically distinct from it's parents from the moment of conception. Once that sperms meets that ovum and the DNA synthesis occurs, we have a zygote that carries DNA which shares common traits with both parents, but is distinct from either. And there's our egg. Now, the chicken has to have hatched from an egg much like this one, and the organisms on the other side of our line are by the definition we've established not chickens, since they're pre-chickens. Therefore, the egg that will hatch into a chicken necessarily predates the chicken itself (they're the same entity in two forms) and the organisms that made the egg are not chickens. The egg came first.

Hope atheism works out for you.

...

Taking my tongue back out of my cheek to address the topic at large...

I hate to be so acerbic about it, but I really agree with Charlatan. Who came up with the idea that facts can be decided by consensus?

Thank you.

The only thing that makes it possible to draw lines between species are the gaps in the record. If we had a complete record speciation lines would be impossible to draw. Well, not impossible or hazy but completely arbitrary and meaningless. There won't be any speciation 'event' to draw a line at. Every individual progeny that has surviving descendants will have been sufficiently like it's parents to interbreed with the same population (and therefore be considered the same species). If it wasn't, then whom did it breed with? The point at which we have a complete record (or nearly complete) is the point at which we're obliged to stop drawing lines, not draw them arbitrarily.

-------------------------

This quote makes me chuckle - "Well, they put a bunch of bullshit in there that isn't quite true, so we have to as well. "You know, to make it more conservative." Like either property is something we should find in our educational system.

This is what happens when you put politicians, instead of historians, in charge of history.

O.k. this wanders off topic…. but you went there.

Martian, Dude, I hope that Kool-aid taste good..... I won't be drinking it, by the way before the zygote can form it does so within... the egg... wherein the sperm must reach, which resides within the female body, which makes me wonder… which came first the female, or the female egg, or the male, did he have an egg, or the sperm, and how did the sperm initially reach the egg, which would be needed to develop the zygote within the egg, which then is no longer an egg but conglomerate mass of cells, which would need to be protected within an environment able to sustain the zygote as it developed, wonder what that creature was, that carried the first evolutionary humanish thing…hmm. Either way you cannot show me physical or chemical science that proves the existence of “life” prior to evolution through the evolutionary process all the way back to, and beyond, when the first “cell” “ate” the first “mitochondria” which then allowed the cell to have an internal energy source for life and all creation or maybe the mitochondria made its own cell around itself…. mitochondrial egg shell, as opposed to oh, I don’t know, some other generator, maybe the chloroplast, but then we would all be green and make oxygen rather than use it.

By the way which of those came first the chloroplast or the mitochondria? I would think the mitochondria (only because they have found life in the deepest regions of the oceans where light does not penetrate, but heat and chemical compounds do and life thrives there) which eventually needed the chloroplast to developed inside its’ square shaped cell as opposed to the round “eggish” shaped cell of animals who need to “breathe” the chloroplasts’ waste product which in turn uses the mitochondrial waste to grow also, both of which required development to begin the "evolution" of life on earth in general. Hey you wouldn’t happen to know where the mitochondria come from would you, maybe like your hypothesis, it just created itself.

We all know life originated in the seas, we all know we came from the chemical goo of earth and its glorious mothering. We all know we developed within this solar system around this star in this galaxy floating in this great ocean of time and space slowly drifting from the central spark of existence. You believe what you may, I'll believe that God is, was, and will always be that spark. That spark of awareness of existence of time and space and all that gifts me with each day and I am thankful for these days, even the ones where I have to worry about what my kids are being taught in school.

I truly worry about what they are being taught outside of school more. I have some control as a parent, PTA, teachers, local government, etc… to make a difference for them within the educational system. It’s what they learn from their friends I have a hard time controlling. But life is that gift that keeps on giving through each proverbial “egg” and it’s proverbial “chicken”, I am simply grateful for KNOWING HOW I GOT HERE, and WHERE I AM GOING (No, not a box, I intend on being cremated, I don’t want to waste a perfectly good piece of the earth). It gives me peace, a kindness of heart, an acceptance of the inevitable with a smile on my face that with hope, all things do have a purpose and that mankind was basically “created” GOOD.

Good God Man, why did you get me started? Thank you though, I enjoyed that.

P.S. I’ll take Americas’ shit over anybody elses, and as a mother and care provider, and educated American, I know life and the worlds’ shit. Do you know why we have such a problem with immigration, it’s not because people want to leave here, it’s because people want to live here. We may stink sometimes, but it still smells like freedom to me.

---------- Post added at 11:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 AM ----------

Now back on topic, as for the Republicans and the Civil Right Acts….

Abraham Lincoln was the FIRST Republican President, he WON the Republican Party nomination on his outspoken OPPOSITION to slavery, he introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Civil Rights Act of 1875, was Republican lead.

Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960, were signed into law by Eisenhower, Republican.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 as it passed through by Party
The original House version:
• Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
• Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:
• Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%-34%)
• Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version:
• Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
• Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:
• Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
• Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)
Note how the Republicans consistently voted affirmative by 80% + as where the Democrats voted at less than 70% in comparison.

I believe what they are trying to teach is that you don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican to agree with change, especially when it’s progressive. I think we are losing the objectives of what we are fighting for in regards to freedom when we constantly label ones belief as Democratic or Republican. Teaching children that it was ALSO the Republicans who wanted and helped in the end of slavery and segregation allows them to understand that you can be Republican and that doesn’t mean you are some puritanical codger. If we continue separating Republicans and Democrats we are going to create a nasty new religion, that’s just what we need, another one of those things, religion, that is. Anyway, with the WWW, youth gets to read and evaluate and study all kinds of new thoughts and all kinds of old ones, the worlds’ biggest problems are how to get this wonderful education available to every child. I, as a Republican, don’t like that everyone thinks I don’t believe in Change, I just don’t believe that because you are not Republican your Change it any better.


democratic (comparative more democratic, superlative most democratic)
1. Pertaining to democracy; favoring democracy, or constructed upon the principle of government by the people.

republican (plural republicans)
1. Someone who favors a republic; an anti-monarchist.
2. (history, politics) Someone who favors social equality and opposes aristocracy and privilege. (I know, I know, you people don’t believe this one, but it is true!)

Aren’t they really saying the same thing, just from different angles, see, that way we can say, after you add the liberals and the independents and those who just don’t care, The Great US of A has got all Her angles covered. What really matters is teaching my kids to be good people and get along with other people and realize how privileged they are to live in this great nation, this great melting pot, founded by the great world of humanity (at least those who believe in freedom), and I’m good to go.

Thanks, this was fun. I really enjoyed researching some of this; I learned something new today, what a blessed day. I Love TFP, it really is a great place to learn, even about yourself.

You do understand that the issue is not that the Texas board of education is replacing democrats with republicans or anything like that, right? That the issue is that they are replacing leaders of the civil rights movement with republicans, right? Even the staunchest republican would recognize that there is a difference between voting for something in congress once it's become a foregone conclusion and leading a march down in the south before it.

Oh, and the semantics of republican vs democrat are kind of irrelevant.

I really don't want to derail completely, so I promise I'll stop after this. I just thought I ought to address this.

There's an old joke that goes something like this:

An old man approaches an attractive young woman in a bar. "My dear," he says, "could I ask you a hypothetical question?"

"Sure," she replies.

And so the old man asks his question: "Would you have sexual relations with a man for ten million dollars?"

The young lady thinks hard before nodding and saying "yes, I think I would."

"Great!" exclaims the old man, "here's twenty bucks. Let's go out back and you can suck my dick."

The woman is aghast. "Just what type of girl do you think I am?" She stammers.

"My dear," says the old man, "we've already established what type of girl you are. Now we're just haggling on price."

...

The point of this yarn is to illustrate an aspect of thinking that's relevant. The young lady (and presumably the listener) was shocked at the old man's proposition because she's not a whore; this despite having just answered that yes, she would have sex for a sufficiently large amount of money. To the girl's way of thinking (be it right or wrong), having sex for an exorbitant amount of money is not prostitution -- in other words, a whore is really a woman who has sex for too little money. The precise amount that delineates the two, however, is arbitrary and meaningless.

What I'm getting at is that there can easily be drawn a line. Yes, interbreeding with the prior generation is always possible -- however, if we can point to an ancestor of the chicken that is demonstrably not a chicken, then we know that somewhere in between there has to be a divide between chicken and unchicken. The line is necessarily arbitrary, but it's also going to be there at some point, and anything prior to that generation is prechicken. All the gaps do is allow us to be vague about it.

Yeah, it is completely arbitrary. No, there's not a lot of physical basis for it. This is true of a surprising number of things in the world, where not everything lines up into tidy little categories.

So long as we can agree that there is an ancestor of the chicken that is not a chicken, and that the modern day chicken is a chicken, then all we're doing is haggling on price.

...

Idyllic, please don't misunderstand me. I intentionally misinterpreted your post because it was amusing to me to do so -- you posted a hyperbolic statement and I decided to take it literally.

I am not trying to 'convert' you to atheism. As I'm not an atheist myself, it would be a bizarre thing for me to do.

But we've always been at war with [Iraq/Afghanistan], Winston...

Other than being thoroughly disgusted by this and ashamed that Texas is a part of the US right now... I'm really hoping they at least did a chapter on Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. Ya know, just to confirm our suspicions. War of Northern Aggression'd! MSD had it right with the 1984 comment.

I guess the thing that gets me is that people are fighting over percentages. Assuming that all the things mentioned in these history books are legit facts (ha! of course not), these guys are saying that their political leanings are underrepresented because the other guy's politically leanings are overrepresented. But nobody wants the more neutral balance that a third party just-the-facts historian might provide; it's a silly tug 'o war with what-happened-here and the people that lose the most are the kids that have to read it, graduate, and go to college. It becomes their symbolic reality.

I'm mostly just talking to myself. This is all very disturbing. Even more so than the delicious egg debate above.

Huh, ok, most of the leaders of the “Civil Rights Acts” movements were Republicans. Prior to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil Rights Act of 1863, 90% of African Americans were slaves, had they tried to lead any form of revolt they would have been killed.

If you are referring to St. Strange but Influence and Important Aquinas, or Sir Intellectual William Blackstone, wow, or perhaps the Great Humanist Calvin, none of them were even Americans, let alone Republicans. They are not replacing anybody with “Republicans” they are merely showing how the “hated” Republicans were instrumental in the Civil Right Movements. As for my most admired Thomas Jefferson, whom I believe was one of the greatest men to grace this earth, he founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the elitist Federalist Party. In 1798, the "party of the common man" was officially named the Democratic-Republican Party and in 1800 elected Jefferson as the first Democratic President of the United States. “Democratic-Republican Party”. No One can replace Thomas Jefferson, He wrote the Declaration of Independence; He was our third President He is on the nickel for Gods sake. Maybe TX will stop letting their kids carry nickels too.

This entire ruckus started by some editor for The Atlantic and apparently the NY Times, who writes about culture, politics, and social issues. He cut and pieced, just like most people do, to fit his story and make a page zing, apparently it worked. I don’t buy it, I think he’s being indulgent, I want to read these revision myself before I make any negative remarks about what they are changing, and I seriously doubt they are doing our children any injustices, at least no more than the educational system has already done. Still the best in the world, just my opinion.


This was posted on Mensnewsdaily.com: Imaginary Frienders Cut Thomas Jefferson From Texas Curriculum
Sunday, March 14, 2010
By Amy Alkon
Imaginary Frienders Cut Thomas Jefferson From Texas Curriculum
James C. McKinley, Jr. writes for The New York Times about religious conservatives' rather disgusting influence on the Texas social studies curriculum. As a fiscal conservative who's socially libertarian and an atheist, I wish people wouldn't paint all conservatives with the same brush (as they do in the headline and as McKinley does in the piece). An excerpt about the Jefferson bit:
Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term "separation between church and state.")


Like I said, it’s all in what YOU want to believe, until YOU decide to do the research yourself and make your own collage of “facts.”

Replace historical leaders with republicans, Really? That’s what you got from what I posted, Ouch.

Enough with the EGG thing, you still haven't explained to me where Mitochondria came from other than prokaryotes, or better tell me where the archaea originated please, until then, I believe it was God....we can go deeper, atom, nucleus, proton, electron, they all started somewhere, somehow, who's to say it wasn't God, other than the atheists, ya'll are killin' me. I gotta meet the bus, the bus driver won't be happy. Make me laugh.

---------- Post added at 01:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

My husbands gonna kill me, I haven't even done the dishes, I need to turn this thing off and get back to my Wifely duties....... I'll be back! bus bus bus

Sure, if we broaden the "civil rights movement" to mean anyone at any time that fought for civil rights, you get plenty of latitude in determining who is and isn't part of it. The issue is what is covered under the specific civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, where the members of the Texas school board want to remove both Cesar Chaves and Thurgood Marshall in order to play up the role of republican senators.

dippin.....
Just To Many Good People To Remember. Hell, I went to school, college even and half these people I had to google, God I love that word…..

[re: Cesar ChaveZ and Thurgood Marshall and don’t forget Neil Armstrong he almost got cut from science…. by: Katherine Haenschen, Sun Sep 20, 2009 at 05:47 PM CDT
remove Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from the history books, as the Dallas Morning News report Other famous folks potentially soon-to-be-stricken from the historical record, as taught by our Texas textbooks? Carl Sagan, Colin Powell, Nathan Hale, Eugene Debs, John Steinbeck and Mother Teresa. Well, not too many shockers there. Debs was an avowed Socialist, Mother Teresa ministered to the suffering, and Steinbeck wrote about the plight of the poor. Hale fought for American independence against the British, rather than Texan independence from America. Powell has three strikes against him: prominent African American, endorsed Barack Obama, and spoke out against the Bush administration. As for Sagan, his science fiction probably counts as religious blasphemy to some of the SBOE members. You’ll find this at Burnt Orange]

This sounds serious, I hope PTA members and Teachers stood up for what they believed to be right, otherwise there kids learned what they deserved….. (I am a little joking here). next

[Texas May Bar Students from Learning About Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall, By Ben | July 20, 2009 - 4:04pm From the AFL-CIO's blog:
United Farmworkers founder César Chávez is an unfitting role model for students, and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is not an appropriate historical figure. So say “expert reviewers” in their report to the Texas State Board of Education, which recommends removing the two U.S. leaders from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students.
The ranting of these extremists has the potential to turn into mass censorship—Texas is such a mega-purchaser of textbooks that the state’s required curricula drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide.]

What….. they can’t BAR my kids from learning anything, that’s my job, regardless though, I think BARRED is a bit indulgent….. listen at 5th grade you can GOOGLE, love that word, anything you want, how many kids you think care about this stuff. I think there trying to say focus on the Biggies, the ones that may catch their attention, Malcolm, MLK, etc. I’m not saying that Chavez and Marshall aren’t important, they really are, but how big do you want these text books to be. Next they will be complaining about how the weight of these entire books are hurting our kids backs, oh wait, they already have. We are talking about 5th graders, 10 and 11 year old, you’re lucky if you can get them to remember their multiples. Jiminy, save some of the good stuff for when they may be interested. If ever. No, I’m not saying they aren’t important, again; it really depends on what your interests and field of study are. At this age, teach the basics. They can barely see past their own hormones. Oh, and not ALL the “expert reviewers” said that Chavez and Thurgood should not be in the SS books. More...

[Texas Board of Education Wants to Change History, By Lauri Lebo, August 12, 2009
Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the country. If conservative Christians on the Texas Board of Ed panel prevail in their wish to leave Ann Hutchinson (trouble maker!), Cesar Chavez, and Thurgood Marshall out of the social studies curriculum, all US schools could be affected.
“It is appropriate to teach the right of free speech, but it is also incumbent to teach the responsibilities accompanying free speech; that of accuracy, civility, truth and good taste.” —David Barton
If any question remains about the religious and political motivations of certain members of the Texas Board of Education, one need only read the words of their social studies curriculum experts.]

O.kayyy…. first, love David Barton, second, this part next, it scares me…..

[Rev. Peter Marshall (one of their appointed academic experts), for example, wants to restore America, according to the Web site of his Massachusetts-based ministry, “to its Bible-based foundations through preaching, teaching, and writing on America’s Christian heritage and on Christian discipleship and revival.” He also believes that Hurricane Katrina, Watergate, and the Vietnam War are the result of divine wrath.]

Well, all the sudden, not real fond of the google….. and reallllly not liking the “Rev” eeewww, just icky. He gives people who believe in God a bad name. This is where I revert to the venerable George Washington Carver who said “The out of doors has been to me more and more a great cathedral in which God could be continuously spoken to and heard from." I don’t need anybody to tell me how wacko crazy that “REVEREND” (I use that term loosely) Marshall is, I just need to listen. That’s exactly what these parents are doing, and exactly what the PTA is for. See I can be convinced, a little. This is older news, last summer. Anybody have an update on what WAS accomplished in these books…. I am curious as to how the public debated this. It was big, a lot involved and it seems like some decent decision may have been made, as it is no longer current topic, nice tie in though. Onward we go, kinda.

[12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, July 9, 2009, By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News: Anne Hutchinson, a New England pioneer and early advocate of women's rights and religious freedom, who was tried and banished from her Puritan colony in Massachusetts because of her nontraditional views. "She was certainly not a significant colonial leader, and didn't accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble," Marshall wrote. "Anne Hutchinson does not belong in the company of these eminent gentlemen," he said, referring to colonial leaders William Penn, Roger Williams and others. Williams later invited Hutchinson to help establish a colony in what became Rhode Island.]

Creepy Rev. Marshall alert, I feel like I need to hear alarms before that man talks! You see, I should be really pissed off that they don’t want to include Anne, I mean come on fellows, give us girls some love…..when do they start talking about the impact women had on the U.S., nevermind. If you think you can do a better job than do it. I still think, mostly (except that creepy Rev guy) they are just trying to keep the kids interested and not overwhelmed, life does that enough. Oh, want to know how I learned about George Washinton Carver, well, my first grader had to do a report for Black History Month. GW Carver is considered obscure and not necessarily taught in most school books today and yet this man was EXTRODINARY, why was he left out?

Weren’t we talking about something that happened, like, yesterday….this is just so fun….

Yes, there are other ways people can learn about things outside of school. However, that is absolutely beside the point.

On top of that, I don't see how this thread benefits from random snark about random news blurbs.

Can we vote Texas out of the union?

I'm sorry but when a state makes inane and utterly asinine decisions such as this that effect other states... someone some where needs to step in and say no. I'm not saying the Feds, I'm saying someone like the Texas state government. I read this story (from a different source) and was just stripped of my ability to articulate how monumentally stupid this is.


edit: Texas. It's like a whole other country.

i have to say that i don't understand what the position or positions are that idyllic is arguing here. they seem a little...o what's the word....arbitrary.

help me understand something maybe: on what grounds is it ok for conservative southern baptists, who HAVE to know that their views are to say the least eccentric (literal interpretation of the bible? come on...) to impose those views on the entire school-aged population of the state of texas? is it just a prerogative of power, a kind of fuck you we won thing?

and can you explain to me what possible relation thomas aquinas has to the constitution of the united states?

Ice|Burn: Unfortunately, that wouldn't accomplish anything because the textbook publishers would still be selling to Texas and it would still represent a large chunk of revenue.

Who's drinking the kool-aid now?

response to roachboy, posted 9:24p, sorry guys, I'm still trying to figure this out....

[Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)]

You can find this in the original quote in the initial discussion of this topic.

My point also, how could they possibly replace any American with St. Aquinas, this was were I began to suspect arbitrary involvement, and not mine.

---------- Post added at 10:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 PM ----------


Isn't that where you found Chavez and Thurgood, random news blurbs. This debate is merely personal opinions. Unless you live in TX and have children enrolled in their school system, all of our responses are hypothetical, when do we discuss true actions. Just because I reference my opinions with information that discuss this issue doesn't change my desire to understand what has happened in TX, and it's relevance is obvious, remember you brought in Chavez and Thurgood.

BTW this topic was started on somebody’s (James C. McKinley, Jr.) snarky and arbitrary interpretation of the happenings recently. If you view my comments as sarcastic, I would say, you’re missing my point. I'm merely attempting to be witty in this discussion. I am not ranting; on the contrary, at times I agree that the situation seems pretty drastic. However, I do not feel all the facts have been properly exposed for me to make a hard decision. McKinley did exactly what you are digging me for, he piecemealed a paper together that supported what HE wanted to portrait, at least I wasn’t that one-sided.

My point was not about learning outside of school, although that's extraordinarily important. My point is that parental involvement is key in our children’s' educational development. I also understand you can't cram all the information you or I find pertinent down a 5th graders throat. These people have to pick and choose who and what they believe to be the most important people and issues for a student at their age, during their time in history, sounds daunting to me. If anything I think our educational system should be applauded, it's not perfect, nor will it ever, but I’ll take, and I think my kids are pretty damn smart.

I really have enjoyed this conversation/debate; I have found it both educational and spirited. I sincerely apologize if I have offended you, that was not my intent. In the end, the question was, “What can we do?” The answer is; get involved. You can make a difference in your child’s education both in and out of school, I have.

Now that I feel as though you have slapped me squarely on my hand for not conforming properly, are we done? Now, that was a snide remark.

---------- Post added at 10:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:05 PM ----------

If being an American, being proud of my country and grateful to live in this amazing nation means I’m drinking the kool-aid, just go ahead and pour me another cup. Tastes like Yuengling to me.

Being proud of your country is different from being nationalist. The fact is, there are a lot of places in the world that are just as nice to live in as America. Many of them are arguably better. Recognizing that and being proud of your country are not mutually exclusive. I think pretty highly of America, but I don't delude myself into thinking it's the best, or that the best can even be identified.

Sure, yeah, random news blurbs discussed the removal of Chaves and Marshall. The point was that you didn't actually address the issue, choosing instead to nitpick or criticize the ways these random news blurbs talked about the issue. It is not about conforming, but if we are discussing Chaves and Marshall and their exclusion from curricula, it is beside the point if random news blurb used "bar" or "remove" in their article.

And, again, the point is not to enforce conformity, but I've yet to understand the point you are trying to make or the position you are trying to defend. If you believe the text posted on the original post was snarky and arbitrary, you can always provide an altering viewpoint.

More of a patriot than a nationalist, never said I thought being an American was better just said I was proud to be one. I absolutely believe other nations are great, I would have to be pretty narrow not to recognize the value of our world. I'm just happy to be in America, to be an American, it really is that simply, I imply no superiority. I've always wonder why there is that assumption made when one says how proud they are to be American, that its a comparison to other nations. I've never lived outside of America, My husband has, 23 years in the USAF, retired, he lived all over, says there is no place he would rather live than in America, I wouldn't know. It would be unfair of me to judge the unknown.

---------- Post added at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:12 PM ----------

My point was, has been and will always be, truth is in perspective. Which side are you on, because that is the angle you will see the game from. The quote within the initial post was skewed to show only one side of the issues, those were the ones McKinley wanted you to believe, the ones he found to be the most inflammatory, the ones to make you think, How Awful TX must be.... I say that wasn't the entire reality of what was happening. I believe in humanity's basic good, but, if it is all true, then we must do something about it. It would be unamerican to allow our children a skewed view of their nation and of its glorious and painful past. So, when you ready to hear the other side:
tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=7660
Welcome to the Texas Education Agency
News Releases 2010[/url]

TEA News Releases 2010

Official press releases issued by the Texas Education Agency this year are listed below.

Social studies standards, educator preparation accreditation program win State Board's backing (3-12-2010)

Texas Permanent School Fund realizes 25 percent return in 2009 (3-12-2010)

Ninety-seven percent of Texas districts and charters receive full accreditation status (3-10-2010)

Fox inaccurately reporting State Board of Education action (3-10-2010)

Texas alone at the top; only state to meet all college and career readiness measures (3-1-2010)

Texas College and Career Readiness standards more comprehensive than national standards (2-23-2010)

Texas recognized for strong performance on AP exams (2-10-2010)

Associate commissioner to focus on rule review, school improvement, and federal programs (2-5-2010)

Texas student special guest at State of the Union (1-27-2010)

STAAR to replace TAKS tests (1-26-2010)

SBOE gives final approval to graduation plan changes (1-19-2010)

Race to the Top transcript (1-14-2010)

State's curriculum standards earn 'A' in national report (1-14-2010)

You may take and read this, join the committee, and still it will be skewed by the way you see it. It will be skewed by the way I see it. Nobody is one hundred percent happy with exactly what they get, it's all about give and take. Compromise for what is the best for our children. Everybody is screaming they haven't and yet they are not even done. Perspective, make up you own. I don't trust just McKinley to give me all the truths. :orly:

This whole situation might be resolved by the Feds anyway. I just learned tonight that they are planning on having some kind of national criteria on education (math, science, hopefully history). If that's the case the publishers would have to create text books based upon that national standard as opposed to what one large district decides to do. *crosses fingers that this insanity is stopped*

I'm sorry, but when a series of changes are made and approved along along certain lines, with one group voting for something consistently over the others, this isn't about compromise. If you think that the news in the OP was biased, there's a number of alternative sources. And whatever the point of view of the author of the original post, the changes remain.

---------- Post added at 08:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 PM ----------

by the way

The List of Shame in Texas Texas Freedom Network

I'm on the fence regarding national standards. Would you have really wanted 8 years of the Bush administration in charge of national education standards? Standards - at whatever level - need to come from, by law, established experts in the field.

It would seem that Texas is slowly becoming the mecca for the upcoming American neopuritan revolution. Of course, I hope I'm wrong.

It WAS.
Twice.
For 10 years, beginning in 1836, the Republic of Texas was an independent state bordering Mexico and the United States. From 1861 to 1865 Texas was part of the Confederate States of America, a “whole other country”.


No. over 360,000 men fought and died to keep Texas in the United States. They won.

Other men thought the same thing once. Certain states in the south, felt that northern states were making inane and utterly asinine decisions that affected them. Over 258,000 of them died trying to step in and say no. They lost.

I missed you, Bill.

Can someone explain to me how a nation that is pretty much evenly split between political partisanship on the left and the right can have resulted from an educational curriculum that is plagued with 'liberal bias'? I went to school during the 1970s when all of this so-called 'brainwashing' was going on and I don't remember being taught any bias. All of my bias was taught to me by my parents - the way it should be. :)

I'm so tired of conservative namby-pambying. Tired and totally disillusioned by it. It's not scary or threatening at all, it's just silly. Let them run it into the ground, I say, because people who know better aren't affected by their stupid bullshit. And those that don't are beyond reason anyway. Fuck those guys.

well there are moments when the ultra-right seems to merge into something bigger than itself and there are others, like this, when it becomes vanishingly small, mired in it's own collective stupidity and/or myopia.

it's like the texas board of education was drinking at a party and decided to push the auto-trivialization button, the kind of thing that at other moments lands you photocopying your ass or singing thirties songs with a lampshade on your head, except this time rather than just humiliate themselves and go sleep it off they had a meeting.

erasing thomas jefferson from the history of the declaration of independence and constitution and replacing him with thomas aquinas of all things is amazing to me. the summary of sociology as "something that blames society for things"...you cannot be fucking serious. these people had to have been drunk. i prefer to think they were, that they were joking, that they had votes and collapsed into laughter and are now hoisted by their own petard because the snippy teetotaler keeper of minutes did not approve of any of this carrying-on and the board forgot to vote itself out of being able to pass actual measures, which they often do before these har-de-har evenings.

thomas aquinas, american revolutionary...they musta been on the floor laughing once they looked up who aquinas was.

or maybe these are just really stupid people whose views are not worth taking seriously, not worth arguing against. it is a shame that they are in a position to damage other people's children with their idiocy. if i lived in texas, i would just move. let the place fall in.

Damage other people's children. Not likely.
If ever there were a study done to examine the factors that damage our children, I think school textbooks would be down there with 'wearing their shoes too tight' or 'not getting proper dance lessons.'
I like your party scenario, though. :)
In my mind I was likening it to a bunch of adolescent mutineers who decided the theme for their junior prom should be 'Jerusalem in Jesus' Time' instead of 'Paradise Under the Sea.'

For every left there is a right, for every yen a yang, it’s all in the blub you wish to seek, read and believe.

[Texas Social Studies Curriculum Vote Brings Out Worst in AP Bias, Labeling, By Tom Blumer, Sat, 03/13/2010 - 00:16 ET

April Castro and the headline writers at the supposedly "objective" Associated Press are obviously not pleased with changes the Texas State Board of Education made to the Lone Star State's social studies curriculum.

Castro's report (HT to an NB e-mailer) makes almost no attempt to hide her clear disdain. She includes references to a "far-right faction" (a "faction" that happened to constitute a two-thirds majority!) and "ultraconservatives," while uniformly describing leftists as mere Democrats, and generally comes across as a sore loser in solidarity with the poor, outvoted libs.

You'll also see in the excerpt that follows that the story's headline is disgracefully over the top:

Texas ed board vote reflects far-right influences
AUSTIN, Texas — A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.
Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.
"We have been about conservatism versus liberalism," said Democrat Mavis Knight of Dallas, explaining her vote against the standards. "We have manipulated strands to insert what we want it to be in the document, regardless as to whether or not it's appropriate."

.... Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics. Hostilities flared and prompted a walkout Thursday by one of the board's most prominent Democrats, Mary Helen Berlanga of Corpus Christi, who accused her colleagues of "whitewashing" curriculum standards.

By late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention.

Castro should have been asking why the items described in the excerpt, plus the following cited by the AP writer in unexcerpted paragraphs, haven't been in the social studies curriculum all along:

"... the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on global politics."
former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
"a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class."

Apparently the ultimate insult occurred when "Conservatives beat back multiple attempts to include hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement."
Oh the humanity.

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters]


There are just as many reports that applaud the work of the Texas Educational System as there are those that attempt to defame it. It just seems to me that the truth is boring and doesn’t grab the liberals for their all consuming “Call to Arms” so they piecemeal extreme negativity together and sell it as the golden standard, what a way to run a country, sound like fear mongering to me.

How on earth did it mean so much to the liberals that they just walked out? I would never do that on my kids watch, if it was that big, why did the libs just walk out, oh, that’s right, so they could get to news cameras first.

say what? :lol:
yikes...

You seem to be confusing objective fact with opinion, Idlyllic. In an ideal world, no history book should contain the latter. Your support of efforts to whitewash opinion into history is no different than a 'liberal' attempt to do the same.

The things being introduced are not objective fact. I'd be alright with subjective interpretation of what things are more important to cover, be rewriting history is another thing entirely.

sorry, that was a one-line response
but I can't make heads or tails out of the post...I take it you don't like hip-hop and that somehow the lack of organized liberal response is out of step with the beneficent middle-of-the-road conservative agenda of the Texas Board of Education

try as you might to obfuscate what's happened---and at this point that's all i think you're trying to do here---it's a kind of pathetic display on the part of the texas board of education to make reality more conservative friendly by imposing arbitrary edits on textbooks that are foisted upon kids.

in the end, i think it's probably an entirely self-defeating move though.
either these kids will be informed by their parents that the textbooks are full of far-right horsepuckey fobbed off as history or "sociology" or whatever; those whose parents won't tell them will probably find out from their peers; those who slip through will run into the extent to which they've been duped when they get to university. and this will have an effect similar to those adverts against drug use that featured eggs frying in a pan: they'll reduce Authority to even more a joke than it already is. and there's something almost satisfying about that as an outcome of actions undertaken by these ultra-right defenders of traditional authority.
they're kind of its worst enemy.
don't you find that funny?


i suppose a small percentage will go to some ultra-right bible college and neutralize themselves outside the communities that confuse this conservative horseshit for reality. what this will do it isolate conservative further. one thing the past decade has shown is that nothing more badly serves the right than the exercise of power. look at what the bush administration did to the conservative movement---look at what they're reduced to now. dissociative stuff.

frankly i think this a surreal little moment.

i particularly enjoy the new conservative contempt for notions of justice and democracy. makes you wonder what they're thinking, doesn't it?

Idlyllic,
Yeah, people reporting on the issue may have passion and biases of their own. But those issues outlined in the post you presented here are misleading at best.

The reference about the second amendment was introduced to a section on freedom of speech, not just "citizenship" in general (and one of the republican representatives actually suggested creating a new section to discuss the second amendment, but it was ignored and now the right to bear arms is discussed as part of the freedom of speech section).

And then the person nitpicks the more moderate points while completely ignoring the more egregious examples.

I'd still like to see the people who are so certain that the denouncing of the Tx school board is so unfair deal with the actual issues there.

Why should freedom of religion and separation of church and state not be taught? Why should the word capitalism be replaced by "free enterprise?" Why should Hayek feature prominently in economics? Why should more attention be paid to republicans who voted for the civil rights act than to Cesar Chaves and Marshall? Why should Jefferson be excluded and Aquinas included in the discussion of thinkers who influenced revolutions (including American independence)? Why is it ok for a school board to reduce sociology to "blaming society?" Why must a section include a discussion of how the free market led to Europe's success? One person even justified the removal of Oscar Romero from the list of people who fought against oppression because he didn't even have a movie made about him (which is actually false). Why should the words democracy and democratic be removed from all the texts?


And those members are called ultra right because most of them came to the school board after defeating moderate to conservative republicans.

Holly Cow, Man, they ARE NOT REPLACING THOMAS JEFFERSON.

This is exactly my point; some liberal makes an inane remark and the lefties run with it above their heads like a burning bra. Everyone looks and screams, what are those conservatives making us do now….. They ARE NOT replacing Thomas Jefferson.

You CANNOT replace Thomas Jefferson, He wrote the Declaration of Independence, He was our Third President, He was the FIRST AMERICAN President to VOCALLY HATE SLAVERY…….. If this alone doesn’t scream of the blatant one-sided narrow perspective of some angry self-pitying liberal goon, well, I just can’t believe people could even imagine that they would remove a President from the history books, let alone Thomas Jefferson. How can you people believe this garbage?

I think some of you people just like to believe the doom and gloom, and I’m the one that’s a pessimist. It’s apparent to me, it really doesn’t matter what I have to say, you have all made your own decisions. It’s funny, all the sudden, I want to MOVE TO TEXAS.

Seems they are replacing Jefferson from the world history standard. From the link dippin provided earlier
The List of Shame in Texas Texas Freedom Network
Or from the original article

Here's the specific text they've changed:

it was:
“explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”

It became:

“explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.”

So they quite unambiguously dropped Jefferson from the history of Enlightenment and his impact on the revolutions from 1750 to the present. No one claimed that they dropped Jefferson entirely, so the description of what they did regarding him is fairly accurate.

Here s why:

For as much as Thomas Jefferson WAS an Enlightened Man, he did not contribute to that which is coined "The Enlightenment" He learned from it, he learned from these great noted Philosophers and Writers. To say that Thomas Jefferson was Part of the Enlightenment would be inappropriate, as he was a slave owner. That is why, through his education and learning about the Enlightenment, he was so vocally against slavery.

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 PM ----------



Because our kids growing up as capitalist “PIGS” sounds a whole lot worse than that of a “Free Enterprising” Nation, which is what we are, we are not capitalists, at least I’m not, I do not capitalize on weakness.

They aren’t saying NOT to teach freedom of religion and separation of state and church, they are saying let’s not spend a month interpreting what that means, or where it came from, or why they said it, it simply IS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH and SEPARATION OF STATE AND CHURCH.

You know, the mention of Easter does not exist in a Texas school book, kids don’t hear the word Christmas, in text, until the 6th grade. I’m sure if the hard core conservatives had their way we would have heard about mangers in the gyms by now. Some you people sound so left; it seems to me you’ll never be right.

The whole, “TX is changing all the nations’ schoolbooks.” More garbage, each state has its own board that determines what books they will use and what will be in them. I’m sure that will make you all feel a little better, God forbid you all get Texas’ cooties….. aarrgg.

Well, all I can think about as to why they may try to be reducing the whole democrat/republican jargon is because the base definition of these fine words are simply put to better use in saying that we as a nation, ARE a Republic. We voted that democratically.

The new sociology will express “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” the exact opposite of the cop-out, blame society for all my problems.

I’m getting to the rest, but I think I’ve ignored my kids enough for a while. Thanks for the great conversation. I’LL BE BACK. :thumbsup:

p.s. after reading my post, it appears to me I may be coming across as name calling or judgmental, that is not my intent. I mean no personal attacks on anyone or their beliefs, I just get a little heated, and bitchy.

No jokes about heated and bitchy, I think the last "We've already established" blah blah blah, joke was sufficient, albeit old as Hefner himself.

Textbook publishers use the TX recommendations to shape what goes in the nation's textbooks, as Texas is the largest purchaser of social studies textbooks in the nation (or any textbook,for that matter). Basically, what other states say doesn't really matter because Texas is the 2-ton gorilla that must be catered to.

this is both historically wrong and logically incoherent. as a major force in articulating the goals of the american revolution, jefferson is both a figure of the enlightenment, whatever that ultimately means (it's usually synonymous with secularization, which is obviously why the texas school board wants to erase it, replace it with absurdities like calvin and aquinas) AND a significant figure within it. the question of slavery is not a defining feature of enlightenment figures. if it had been, you wouldn't have seen...o i dunno....the european reaction to the haitian revolution when the slave population of haiti had the audacity to imagine that ideas like the universal equality of man referred to them. you don't have the facts straight.

you don't know what sociology is.

you imagine that up to now there are no debates within a school cirriculum about separation of church and state? quite the contrary. what the ultra-right wants is to undermine the idea that there should be such a separation. that's the clear interpretation that one can arrive at simply by juxtaposing information *about which there is no dispute across reports** about what the texas school board did.

like i say, i find most of these moves to be the stuff undertaken by buffoons and because that's the case expect that it'll backfire pretty roundly on not only the school board but on the right in general. knowing that this is coming, it's convenient for the right to begin playing the victim now...o boo hoo poor us we're getting hostile press from these articles that say what the school board actually did.

I think it is very interesting that the biggest proponents of an idea of American exceptionalism want to remove the writer of the declaration of independence from a discussion on the Enlightenment.

And considering that conservative movements and even Gingrich and Schlafly became topics, I think it is pretty significant that a discussion on the separation of church and state was deemed not worthy of similar treatment.

And please, point to me the texts in "old sociology" where it is stated that people aren't responsible for their life choices.

The debate over "republic/democracy" and the ban on the word democracy is laughable at best.

Finally, the whole "free enterprise" vs "capitalism" debate is too Orwellian to take seriously.

You must have missed this;

I didn't make this up, Fox News did, which surprises me, kinda. But, either way, it's not true that other states are REQUIRED to teach from the same textbooks.

Idyllic, the point isn't that they are require to do so but that many states find it economical sound (i.e. they are small states and can't afford to producer their own text books) to use the Texas textbooks. Their share of the textbook in the free market is large enough that it influences the many other states.

There is a ray of hope for our kids: NO ONE EVEN READS THE TEXTBOOK.

Seriously. When they read it, it goes in one ear and out the other. Most of these kids won't even care what changes they made. I believe it's wrong what they're doing, but come on, this isn't a reason to think our youth are in a world of hurt.

Pearl Trade: You're right, but the sad fact is most of the teachers use the textbook to tell them what to teach. I was lucky enough to have some very good teachers in school, but a lot of kids aren't so lucky. It was really sad to see some of the people that were going to become teachers when I was in college.

Ugh, yes. I have worked as a substitute educational aide in the past. While subbing during the 3rd week of the school year, I met a 6th grade social studies teacher who refused to teach her class because the teacher's edition hadn't arrived yet. The class had been a study hall for three weeks. That is seriously disturbing.

It is true that the state of education is pitiful even before these changes. Heck, I know plenty of schools that showed "The Patriot" as an accurate depiction of the revolutionary war, or "far and away" as an accurate depiction of Irish immigration. Still, changes like these have weird ways of becoming institutionalized that make this noteworthy.

Yeah, that’s what a great philosopher of the enlightenment would think….

How reasonable is it to think someone was inferior “mentally” merely because of their skin color, to hate slavery and yet own slaves, to be an opponent of a permanent standing military, and yet development the U.S. Marines.

Jefferson was an amazing man, but in no way does he rank in the leagues of someone like Voltaire. Jefferson was an enigma, contradictory and fabulous at the same time. He was a very learned man.

All the great things we can wish upon this incredible man still don’t add up to placing him with someone like Voltaire and other fundamental concept developers of “The Enlightenment”. He did learn a lot from it though, and I would agree that he should be placed in the “Political Enlightenment” ranks.

As much of what humans DO fits under the category of social structure, this reality of ones social responsibility in their decisions falls under the umbrella of Sociology.

All they are trying to say is that we need to stop blaming society when we make the wrong decisions. Taking responsibility for our actions, regardless of external bullshit from our society, how is that not sociology, read a dictionary.

It is the Science of Social relations. Like, well, I played those videos games that where all about killing, so I killed. Or I heard that music that said life sucks, so I shot my teacher. This would fall under the study of sociology, this is the study of society and why we make the decisions we do.

Wow, I can’t believe your being so petty in your feeble attempt of making me appear ignorant.

---------- Post added at 10:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:47 PM ----------

What’s with the hating Clérel de Tocqueville. His concept of American Exceptionalism had nothing to do with superiority, more along the lines of unique qualities that had not been so prolific in other parts of the world, that he had known of anyway. He was a liberal; do you lefties not like anyone. He was on you alls side.

Is anybody out there proud of whom we are as a nation anymore or what we have done as a people, and I mean all Americans?

I think I will find a topic with less tyrannical “opponents.”

It amazes me that liberals think conservatives are trying to take over when the loudest voices always seem to be the lefties screaming how WRONG everything is and yet do nothing to make it right but continuing to complain, and point fingers at those trying to get things done. I’m going to go do something more constructive than continue this verbal ping pong game, like wash my dog.

---------- Post added at 10:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:50 PM ----------


True.

talk about strawmen...

How did this become a discussion over American pride or what the "lefties" complain about? How are any of those things related to the topic at hand?

It's funny. What many conservatives see as negativity, I see as putting thing in a proper context.

A conservative would see something like the School of Americas as an attempt to bring higher education and develop strong ties with America's southern neighbours, I would see it as an attempt to subvert existing governments through external influence, ultimately supporting military dictatorships.

It's something of the past. It was, in my opinion a horrible thing for the US to have done. From the conservative world view, we should not talk about these sorts of things. They are too negative. I think we should talk about them so we don't do them again... or can at least recognize them when they reoccur, for what they are.

It isn't about America bashing per se. I simply feel you need the whole, accurate picture in order to move forward and build a better way.

idyllic...you can believe whatever you like. it's fine. this is a debate.

but i don't think you know what the enlighenment was beyond a wikipedia level. for example, there's a long debate about how to position the french revolution with respect to it. if you position the french revolution as coming out of enlightenment ideas---even as there is a real problem with this notion of the enlightenment being one thing, such that some fine morning in the early 18th century a couple dudes in scotland woke up thinking "you know, maybe there is no need for this god character to explain natural phenomena" and suddenly everything changed, a kind of mobile facepalm moment having been set abroad in the land---anyway, if you position the french revolution as an expression of enlightenment ideas, then you have to put the american revolution in line with all of them and not make some silly distinction between what thinkin fellers like voltaire said (dont get me wrong, i like voltaire) and what "men of action" like jefferson said or did. the american revolution was both a cause (in triggering the bond default that triggered the aristocratic revolt that set things into motion in 1787) and an inspiration (for things like the revolutionaries themselves, for the declaration of the rights of man, for the way they proceeded)....

which means that you cannot simply erase jefferson.
and you really cannot erase him and replace him with a string of reactionaries.
not if coherence is a criterion.
but hey, this is texas and these are conservatives. so who really cares?


i'm not debating your kinda arbitrary notion of what sociology is. it's early in the morning, the sun is out and i'm in a decent mood. kinda like what happened with those scottich dudes that explains how Enlightenment suddenly appeared as a Thing. whatever.


and this is a textbook bidness. the extent to which a textbook gets caught is probably a function of the budget of the school district which would determine what real information can be procured for the students to read. textbooks are best as expensive coasters and doorstops.

so naturally this disinformation will probably disproportionately be inflicted on kids in poorer school districts. it's the conservative way.

Dogs Clean.

America had nothing to do with “The Enlightenment” that was all the U.K.s’ baggage. Coming out of the middle ages, monarchy, religion, all the trappings that held people back, pegged them in a hole. It was a time of great thinkers taking stair steps from the time of Fancis Bacon and his Scientific method(thank-you God) to Descartes and his critical rationalism to Locke and his tabula rasa to Hume and his “A Treatise of Human Nature” to D'Holbach and his “Systèm de la natureto” All of which from around Lockes’ time had the advancements of Newton and his, well you know that one. All this to find God, amazing how faith has driven so many so far, and yet man still continues to try and deny something bigger than ourselves, how egotistical is that.

Ah, yes, I remember now, their was Diderot the Imperialist, Voltaire the Anti-Christian, (conformed religion I’m sure) and Rousseau the Musician and Political Economist and their collective works which became the first 11 volumes of the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, the first “real” textbooks, as they were pretty much excepted by “everybody” as educational. Bet those 11 books weren’t skewed…. even if later Rousseau came to regard the Encyclopédie as the work of the devil. By the way I don’t believe in the devil, just God.

Anyway, it wasn’t like Kant just woke up one day in Germany and decided the Enlightenment had arrived, it had been building and singing its way throughout the land. Kant’s Categorical Imperative:

This thinking was a culmination of his elders and his own perceptions of the world and his own attempts to find and to prove Gods’ existence, especially after reading the 11 volumes of the encyclopedia, lord help us all (yes tongue in cheek). Alas he couldn’t prove God existed, no one can, that’s why it’s called faith, and it’s only blind if you are. And, no, faith doesn’t make you a conservative either.

By now almost all literate and affluent man had read those damned books, shit, and that was it we were ready to acknowledge science and our new place within our scientific world, religion was no longer the chains that would bind humans to their king. Hell, religion would no longer even bind us together anymore, as it once did; now it would tear us apart. But faith remained.

Faith, and hard core religion, (gotta love those protestants’ with a nod to you Martin Luther) who would eventually get the nerve up to leave that catholic/monarcy and sail away with their fabulous books, not really, to the New World eventually to tell the Tories and their kind to kindly “kiss their asses” we don’t want you stinkin tea, we got Indians to kill, your no help, this slavery shit you keep sending us is rotten, get the fuck out, oh by the way, we quit. Have you met George……And American was on her way, God I love that. Anyway, back to Tom. You intentionally drag me off-track so my post is so damn long that nobody will read, I got your number roachboy. :)

Thomas Jefferson WAS a reactionary.

The Revolution was a reaction of the teachings from “The Enlightenment.”

Thomas Jefferson resides within the realms of one of the first Political Enlightenment thinkers, but he was not a card carrying member of “The Enlightenment.”

“The Enlightenment” was a specific time when mankind FIRST realized his place within the world, his moral place, his “natural” place, as regarding science and nature, i.e. gravity, solar system, encyclopedias, etc. Thomas Jefferson KNEW his place in that world, it was as an American President.

“The Enlightenment” was considered over when Jefferson was only 16 years old, perhaps this is why his thinking was so developed by the enlightenment thinkers, but it doesn’t change the fact that he just doesn’t fit there, nor does he belong their.

He was his OWN MAN, A NEW THINKER IN A NEW WORLD. HE WAS AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AT WORK, in its purest meaning. He may have been contradictory, even controversial in his time and ours. But I still think he was one of the greatest Americans to walk these grounds. Still, not a member of “The Enlightenment.”

Purest meaning of American Exceptionalism, taking into account Tocquevilles’ development and definition of the term:

Hell, he had his OWN MOVEMENT, JEFFERSONIANS, o.k. followers, still, I kind of like that. He was beyond “The Enlightenment.” He had learned from it, moved past it, taken from it what he needed and made it his own.
HE Was An Enlightened Man, educated by those who taught him. Stop holding him back with those/his intellectual elders. Let him be his own man, he deserves it.

I wonder, did anyone every read textbooks. It would seem that we have all learned in one way or another from a textbook, and I would believe that somehow we have all made it to this point, regardless of or because of that education. We all have different opinions taken from different perspectives, but unless you just didn’t go to school, or your parents home schooled you with books they wrote themselves, you read textbooks that were created by “Professionals” as best they could, and I would like to think, as crazy as we all are, we turned out all right. And their was some crazy shit in our textbooks, talk about skewed, and even crazier in our parents, let alone our grandparents’, have you every read that shit. Remember when the best education a woman could get was a Secretarial Degree; don’t forget how to make the coffee. Jiminy Cricket.

I know, that was a lot, I’d been saving it up. I haven’t felt this intellectually alive in years, oh doggy this is fun. AND NO I’M NOT BEING SARCASTIC, this is fun, but that’s just my perspective.

Bus. Damn it, I'm never gonna get those dishes clean.

An interesting (horribly depressing??) account of the meeting can be found at:

Blogging the Social Studies Debate IV Texas Freedom Network