Besides “reason”?
I am from the state of Texas. I’m proud of that fact. When you travel anywhere in the world, many won’t know Minnesota from Minnehaha but everyone knows about Texas
At least, I was proud of that fact. Until yesterday, when the electorate of the state of Texas spit in the face of western civilization.
Since California has no plans to buy public school textbooks until at least 2015, Texas has become far and away the largest consumer of textbooks. The Texas State Board of Education is well aware of this, and the half-assed wackaloons that control the board have taken full advantage of this by dictating what will be taught in Texas, and thus will appear in all new textbooks for at least the next five years.
- Thomas Jefferson is now off the curriculum. He’s been replaced with John Calvin (founder of Calvinism, one of the most fundamentalist forms of the new Protestantism) and Thomas Aquinas (a Catholic scholar–emphasis on “Catholic”). This was a move to deemphasize rational Enlightenment though and to emphasize religious propaganda.
- In order to rid itself of the pesky questions surrounding “transvestites, transsexuals, and who knows what else” (board member Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands), all references to sex and gender as social constructs was struck. (The vote was 9 to 6.)
- “Board member Barbara Cargill wants to insert a discussion of the right to bear arms in a standard that focuses on First Amendment rights and the expression of various points of view.” (from Texas Freedom Network)
- A section was inserted on how government taxation and regulations “can serve as restrictions to private enterprise” (board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio). The term “capitalism” was also struck from the curriculum. That’s called lying by omission, baby.
Three of the more liberal Democrats walked out during the discussions and votes, thus making it even easier for the right-wing nuts to get their way.
My favorite quote from this intellectual abattoir?
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state.”–David Bradley, R-Beaumont
