Texas in the news again. Ed board, again.
Posted on: March 14, 2010 - 7:50am
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Texas in the news again. Ed board, again.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100312/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_schools_social_studies
"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."
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
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" * The board removed the word "capitalism" from the standards, mandating that the term for that economic system be called "free enterprise" throughout the standards. Board members such as Terri Leo and Ken Mercer charged that "capitalism" is a negative term used by "liberal professors in academia."
* The board rejected a proposed standard requiring students to "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others." That means the board opposes teaching students about the most fundamental constitutional protection for religious freedom in America.
* Even as board members continued to demand that students learn about "American exceptionalism," the board stripped Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. In Jefferson's place, the board's religious conservatives succeeded in inserting Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. They also removed the reference to "Enlightenment ideas" in the standard, requiring that students should simply learn about the influence of the "writings" of various thinkers (including Calvin and Aquinas)."
There is video. http://www.texasadmin.com/cgi-bin/tea.cgi under March 10 and 11 "Committee of the Full Board"
Someday I hope to own a Texan as a pet. I'll dress it up in a little jester's outfit and make it tell me what it learned in school whenever I need to laugh.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
I apologize again for my state. Not all of us are as ridiculous as these representatives. Also, that article misses one important fact. Don McLeroy, one of the board members, a dentist, is in his last year. He was appointed by the governor, but the Texas Senate voted against his reinstatement. He's going to do everything possible to get his politics reflected in our textbooks, disregarding anything else. He's going down swinging, fucking over the next 10 years of education in this state. Why wouldn't he? He's losing his job, that's been decided. This is just a scorched Earth tactic.
A teacher once explained to me that Texas textbooks are such a big profit for publishers that they write national textbooks for Texas guidelines. I don't know how true it is, but the article says something similar.
Thomas Jefferson's not good enough for Texas history books. James Madison's definition of our government (a representative democracy) isn't good enough for Texas history book. Ben Franklin likely sinned too much to be included. Who are they going to teach founded this country as a christian nation? George Washington?
I can't even imagine anything more un-American than to not teach religious freedom as being part of the country. Thats one of the core principles the nation was founded on. Are they trying to raise a generation of theocrats?
History will look back on this with ridicule. Unfortunately, Texans probably won't learn about it in their history books.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
absolutely they are. and if these fucking conservative wackos ever come close to succeeding in my lifetime, i for one will do everything in my power to remind them of the other meaning of the word "partisan."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Based on what I've heard.........Aquinas, lol.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Groom them to become theocrats in false guise of freedom. Yea, these nuts want freedom like the Shiites in control of Iran want freedom. They want to be free to control others and don't want competition or scrutiny of what they do themselves. Start the borgs out young and you can raise a gang.
To any Atheist with a kid going to school in Texas, or if you are an atheist student in a public school, bring the Jefferson quotes, Barbary Treaty article 11, and the Constitution to all your PTA meetings and send them to the School board and elected officials and insist that the blasphemy of the founders be taught as well. At least, that way, the kids will be exposed to being able to make up their own minds.
THIS should not be tolerated. This is lopsided utopia bullshit designed, long term, to convince the young that Christianity should never be competed with in the states and that non-Christians are mere guests, even if born in this country.
I bet these assholes would never even allow the Obama quote about diversity in the classroom or textbook. The sad part is that the person most responsible for the freedom of all citizens, Thomas Jefferson, couldn't get elected today. He wrote a bible stripping it of all the magic. He valued questioning everything, including deity belief. He equated the virgin birth and death of Jesus as being the same myth category as Minerva. And not to mention his letters to Baptists defending his concept of a "wall of separation".
These idiots do not understand the long term importance of such concepts and are only concerned about maintaining their Alpha Male status. Not seeing what the founders saw, is going on in the Middle East today. When a government gets involved in favoring religion it causes division amongst the masses at the expense of the equality of the citizens it should be protecting.
This is too important to let go. The future of the youth of this country depend on secularists taking back the word "secular" and destroying the fear mongering of the right wing. These nuts do not understand that the only thing that prevents them from becoming like the tribal barbarians of the Middle East is the "wall" Jefferson set up. They are dangerously thinking long term to slowly erode everyone's freedom, and they are to fucking stupid to see that if they get their way long term, they will become the very thing they say they hate, a theocracy.
We are not a monochromatic society. In America there is no citizen hierarchy and religion has no squatters rights to the drivers seat and Christians do not own a monopoly on what it means to be a citizen. A citizen is merely someone born here or naturalized, and as long as they are non-violent non felons and law abiding, they fit the definition.
I take this seriously because I am tired of Christians thinking they own the joint. America is not one size fits all, and the days of the back of the bus are over, and that should also apply to religion.
To the atheists of Texas, with or without kids, do not take this lightly. Contact schools, elected officials, and media. The future of our country depends on our voice.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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