Texas to rewrite United States history with autocrat propaganda

[Henri_Freundlich]

Excerpts from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the "significant contributions" of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.

The [Texas] education board has dropped references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous "Atlantic triangular trade", and recasts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as driven by Islamic fundamentalism.

"There is a battle for the soul of education," said Mavis Knight, a liberal member of the Texas education board. "They're trying to indoctrinate with American exceptionalism, the Christian founding of this country, the free enterprise system. There are strands where the free enterprise system fits appropriately but they have stretched the concept of the free enterprise system back to medieval times.

In the past four years, Christian conservatives have won almost half the seats on the Texas education board and can rely on other Republicans for support on most issues. They previously tried to require science teachers to address the "strengths and weaknesses" in the theory of evolution – a move critics regard as a back door to teaching creationism – but failed. They have had more success in tackling history and social studies.

History students are now to be required to study documents, such as the Mayflower Compact, which instil the idea of America being founded as a Christian fundamentalist nation.

Knight and others do not question that religion was an important force in American history but they fear that it is being used as a Trojan horse by evangelists to insert religious indoctrination into the school curriculum. They point to the wording of amendments such as that requiring students to "describe how religion and virtue contributed to the growth of representative government in the American colonies".

Essentially, the state of Texas wants to indoctrinate all young children with pro-Conservative, autocrat messages, while stripping out liberal viewpoints.

Why aren't Texas Parents and Residents speaking out against this biased rewrite of history? Children should be given balanced facts - from both sides - to ensure that they have the capability to make the *right* choices for themselves.

Do Texas parents want their children (and others) to become mindless drones? Or do they want their children to be able to differentiate between what's right and what's wrong (correctly) by themselves?

Believing in (or blaming) God in this modern age isn't going to help solve the challenges that children; the nation; the world is set to face.

[mr_scsi]

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Essentially, the state of Texas wants to indoctrinate all young children with pro-Conservative, autocrat messages, while stripping out liberal viewpoints.

Texas is a very conservative state. I grew up there and have yet to meet anyone there who is PRO entitlement mentality. We all believe in hard work and being self sufficient.

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

[B]Why aren't Texas Parents and Residents speaking out against this biased rewrite of history?

*see above.

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Children should be given balanced facts - from both sides - to ensure that they have the capability to make the *right* choices for themselves.

I assume by *right* you mean what you think is right?? What makes you so sure you are right???

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Do Texas parents want their children (and others) to become mindless drones?

Common sense runs rampant in the Texas schools I attended... nvm just see first point again.

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Or do they want their children to be able to differentiate between what's right and what's wrong (correctly) by themselves?

Again do you mean *YOUR* view of correct? Or just what *YOU* think is right?

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Believing in (or blaming) God in this modern age isn't going to help solve the challenges that children; the nation; the world is set to face.

Your absolutely reich we must dispel all freedom of choice and religion.
Just go to work, give your paycheck to the government and in return you will get everything you need. That about sum it up comrade???

Sniff Sniff Sniff, smells like trolls ass to me.

[Henri_Freundlich]

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

Your absolutely reich we must dispel all freedom of choice and religion.

Religion-heavy frameworks don't give families an option to choose whether to be religious or not. Children and families would most likely be isolated from other people if they aren't religious but live in a religion-heavy context.

Peer pressure, bullying, and so on.

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

Just go to work, give your paycheck to the government and in return you will get everything you need. That about sum it up comrade???

No, I don't support Communism. Communism's just one of those things that looks great on paper, but doesn't work so well in practice due to the vast nature of man and it's desires.

On a related note, the whole world seems to be getting bombarded with "Let's all accept Technocommunism" messages, with the ignorant and gullible honing in and accepting the pro-Techoncomms messages, like mindless drones.

Yes, some "open source" complements closed-source nicely, but if everything goes 100% FOSS in a non-post scarcity setting, it all goes to rubble. Doesn't matter who implements the system - darkness in man's heart can not be eradicated.

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

Sniff Sniff Sniff, smells like trolls ass to me.

A premature tactic used to discredit someone who he (or she) doesn't really know - presumably based on this particular thread. Like I said, I don't support Communism. I don't support Technocommunism. I don't support Fascism. I'm Center-left, but not a radical.

I've been seeing a lot of pro-hivemind garbage over the past couple years - mainly from the young generation and a couple of adults on both ends of the spectrum subtly steering them into directions that *they* want to go; to get a step closer to *their* dream world. For some odd reason, the ignorants all follow, without even considering the possible consequences.

Children need to be exposed to a *balanced* set of moral and ethical values in order for them to become immune to hivemind principles and make rational decisions for themselves, for the rest of their [adult] lives.

[DragoonEnNoir]

Originally Posted by Henri_Freundlich

Religion-heavy frameworks don't give families an option to choose whether to be religious or not. Children and families would most likely be isolated from other people if they aren't religious but live in a religion-heavy context.

Peer pressure, bullying, and so on.

In discussing history, it isn't a question of whether the content is 'religion-heavy' or not. The question is; what actually happened and why in any given time period.

In looking at events pre-modern era, there is an attempt to remove 'religious' elements from them. This is anachronistic. If we're looking at a period in time when people lived much more closely with their faith, then to understand THEM, we also need to look at their faith.

We can't understand the past if we remove elements we are uncomfortable with. Both the attempt to remove religion from history and the attempt to make it entirely faith based are misguided.

[Vythica]

Originally Posted by DragoonEnNoir

In discussing history, it isn't a question of whether the content is 'religion-heavy' or not. The question is; what actually happened and why in any given time period.

In looking at events pre-modern era, there is an attempt to remove 'religious' elements from them. This is anachronistic. If we're looking at a period in time when people lived much more closely with their faith, then to understand THEM, we also need to look at their faith.

We can't understand the past if we remove elements we are uncomfortable with. Both the attempt to remove religion from history and the attempt to make it entirely faith based are misguided.

You're absolutely right about how religion should be presented in an historical context. The problem is it isn't done that way.

It's done in more like a "God is an accompanying lesson" to the history as opposed to a "this is a people, these were their beliefs" sort of fashion. The people that wrote the founding documents of this country were "heavily influenced by their faith" totally leaving out men like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. It's just fucking ridiculous to be perfectly honest.

[DragoonEnNoir]

Originally Posted by Vythica

You're absolutely right about how religion should be presented in an historical context. The problem is it isn't done that way.

It's done in more like a "God is an accompanying lesson" to the history as opposed to a "this is a people, these were their beliefs" sort of fashion. The people that wrote the founding documents of this country were "heavily influenced by their faith" totally leaving out men like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. It's just fucking ridiculous to be perfectly honest.

I've gotta ask though; are you being fair to both sides in this?

Is it really "God is an accompanying lesson", or is that a preconception or stereotype of the position of Christian conservatives?

I think it's interesting that while Jefferson was not a 'Christian' (in the traditional sense), he was 'heavily influenced by his faith'. I think his creation of his own version of the Bible would be a testament to that. To me, this points to just how much greater the role of faith/belief was in most people's lives in centuries past.

As to Locke, I'm more a fan of Rousseau myself... and I'm not talking about the characters from Lost.

[VandaMan]

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

...

So you support leaving out key facts from the text books children around the united states use? Whether Henri is a liberal or conservative is pretty irrelevant here, we're talking about intentionally feeding biased information to children all across the US, to cultivate their political views. Not acceptable.

[Comp]

Sadly things like this occur in all states since the Federal government really won't get involved unless there's an infringement on the Constitution. In reality, parents (cause I am one) should not rely JUST on the education system to "teach" their children about history, what's right, what's wrong, etc. Luckily I'm a more open minded parent and I allow my children the opportunity to explore and learn "what is" and not "what is perceived."

Ask my son what Abraham Lincoln did that was so important - one of his answers will be "He emancipated the slaves."

Educating our children is not just up to the school system.

[Pizdzius]

So by reading guardian, you already know what's best for Texas? Didn' you even get an idea that almost all of them agree to this?
Believe me, almost everyone who grow up in autonomous countries is proud of what they were taught in childhood. Very often they consider the others as drones. Even me, who grew up in Catholic country, where every kid is FORCED to go to church and FORCED to believe in god, later on we can RESIGN from that. I didn't grow up hating god because of that, I just decided I don't need faith.
Don't you think that can happen in Texas?
People from there can be actually happy with that. They have different surroundings and different community. People from lets say, New York, are very often surprised that Cubans actually love Castro. Sometimes, they show "proofs" from "media" that they hate him. Have you been there? What do you know of what's not been written in news?
I highly believe in freedom of people and to be honest, right now, America is one of the last countries I'd live in. There's NO freedom of speech and almost no freedom of thought. You have to be really careful to not offend someone by expressing your opinion. It's beautifly mirrored in these forums, by the way ;]

In modern schools children AREN'T given the facts from both sides. Children in Russia won't learn about Poland invading Moscow and keeping the city for a long period of time, they will hear only a mention of assault, and that it was a good reason to keep Poland in their boundaries for 123 years. It's just an example.

I don't even LIKE Texas. But I just wanted to express opinion that perhaps people from there pretty much want this to happen. If someone doesn't - isn't the USA a country of states? Can't you move to other state in case you don't like one you live in? You don't need passports and visas for that, do you? USA is very big and I admire it for the incredible variety of its states. Let it be that way.

[VandaMan]

Originally Posted by Pizdzius

So by reading guardian, you already know what's best for Texas? Didn' you even get an idea that almost all of them agree to this?
Believe me, almost everyone who grow up in autonomous countries is proud of what they were taught in childhood. Very often they consider the others as drones. Even me, who grew up in Catholic country, where every kid is FORCED to go to church and FORCED to believe in god, later on we can RESIGN from that. I didn't grow up hating god, I just decided I don't need faith.
Don't you think that can happen in Texas?
People from there can be actually happy with that. They have different surroundings and different community. People from lets say, New York, are very often surprised that Cubans actually love Castro. Sometimes, they show "proofs" from "media" that they hate him. Have you been there? What to do you know?
I highly believe in freedom of people and to be honest, right now, America is one of the last countries I'd live in. There's NO freedom of speech and almost no freedom of thought. You have to be really careful to not offend someone by expressing your opinion. It's beautifly mirrored in these forums, by the way ;]

I don't even LIKE Texas. But I just wanted to express opinion that perhaps people from there pretty much want this to happen. If someone doesn't - isn't the USA a country of states? Can't you move to other state in case you don't like one you live in? You don't need passports and visas for that, do you? USA is very big and I admire it for the incredible variety of its states. Let it be that way.

I get what you're saying to a certain extent, but while the US is a country of states, Texas is the state that sets the textbook standards for the other 49. So their decisions have further reach than their own border.

More importantly though, we're not just talking about expressing an opinion in these text books, we're talking about completely removing any mention of other opinions. They aren't trying to teach children that the separation of church and state is unnecessary, they're removing the idea of separation of church and state altogether.

They want to push certain views, but rather than arguing against opposing views and allowing students to make choices based on information, they are making it appear as if opposing views don't exist. Trying to cultivate good citizens through the educational system isn't entirely a bad thing, but intentionally withholding information is not the way to do it, especially when Texas schools' vision of "good citizens" is not representative.