What you think, you become.
-- Buddha --
---------------------------------------------------------------
I know a few people who are worried about Sharia law creeping into US courts. Well, if that worries you, don't look at your Muslim neighbors - look at Texan Republicans. The Christian Taliban is here, and it's centered in Texas.
The Texas Republican Platform is downright scary. It hates everybody, especially gays and people of non-northwestern-European extraction. It wants a very high national sales tax (something like 25%?) instead of an income tax. (Note that rich people spend a much smaller percentage of their income on taxable goods than poor people, so that the burden of a high sales tax falls most heavily on those who can least afford it.) If you can't afford health care, and can't manage to keep a full-time job with a company that provides it, then you obviously don't deserve to live. It guts education budgets. Lots of scary stuff.
From the platform (the link is mine, and the red is my emphasis):
We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification)[Silk note - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_order_thinking_skills], critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority"{Note - since the furor, they have claimed the "critical thinking" part is an error - note that it's still there - but they stand by the "challenging the student's fixed beliefs (a buzz word for indoctrination?) and undermining parental authority" part.}
They want to stick to teaching only rote facts, and their approved "facts" only. They want to raise a generation of children who cannot think logically and critically, who have actively been taught not to think for themselves. Well, of course. People who are taught to obey authority and not think logically and critically for themselves are much easier to control.
Fiendishly clever. Dumb down the populace, discourage critical thinking, teach them to believe what they are told by the authorities (while your own children go to private schools in Switzerland or even Canada), then you can control them, and they will like it! They'll even think you're taking care of them.
Turn them all into sheeple. Good little sheeple.
Louisiana school textbooks are also in the news. They have been reducing school budgets, too. They really want to change from public schools to all private (read that as conservative Christian) schools, run on a voucher system. Yeah, Christian, and ideally only Christian religious schools. Jewish and non-sectarian schools are finding it difficult to get approved for the vouchers, let alone Muslim schools. (An aside - is that even constitutional? Vouchers is still tax money.)
There are three publishers of textbooks approved for those schools, and those books are ridiculous. For example, one of the books teaches that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons. Another claims that the Loch Ness Monster is real, and has been proven to be a pleisosaur (even the Scots are laughing at that). Therefore, since man and dinosaurs are currently coexisting, this conclusively disproves evolution.
What!?
Do they even know what the theory of evolution says? Do they have any concept of what it means to "prove" or "disprove"? Are they aware that there are many living dinosaurs, near-dinosaurs, and dinosaur-era flora and fauna all over the place? Like the coelacanth? Alligators and crocodiles? Cockroaches? Ginko trees? Ferns? Bacteria? Oh, foo. I forgot - we're not allowed any logic or critical thinking.
I almost wish the south would just secede again. You know, I think the north would just let them go this time.
There's commentary on the topics of the Texas Republican Platform and Louisiana textbooks all over the internet. The weekend's coming. Take some time to do some reading. The US is becoming the laughingstock of the world.
Something to think about: What other countries oppress people's thought processes and allow ingorance to continue, with the approval and support of the government?
The answer is frightening.
--------------------------
It's best if you look up stuff yourself, but if you're unfamiliar with the use of search engines, here's a start:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/louisiana-students-loch-ness-monster-disprove-evolution_n_1624643.html#slide=more219313
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/07/01/texas-gop-platform/2/
http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2010RPTFinalPlatform.pdf
.
3 comments:
Second time I've tried to leave a comment. I can't read the blogger confirmation word and the spoken version makes no sense at all.
To the immediate right of the word space you should see a set of symbols. The first one is roundish. Click that one and it will give you another word. Keep clicking until you see one that is clearer. It often takes me three or four before I get one that I can figure out.
SCAREY! But, dare I say, we are already raising a generation of children with no critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, I put my son on the computer at 18 months of age, thinking I'd raise a computer genius. Now, all he wants to do is play computer and video games. He does not think about going outside, exploring his neighborhood, nevermind universe, or actually MEETING UP with his friends. They all talk online. I've tried to intervene multiple times over the years by limiting his computer time or just saying NO to the computer. It's painful and futile.
Post a Comment