More thoughts on the fear of education

I posted a few months back about how fear of education is driving our schools to teach reactionary and revisionist history, science, and sex ed to our children.

A couple things have happened in the last couple of days that causes me to revisit this. First, Texas' GOP came out with their state party platform for 2012. Read it and weep. (Full Platform PDF) No, really. Read it. And weep.

The cray cray this espouses is seriously out of control. These four stood out (ok, they all stood out, but these four in particular for the purpose of this post, as they are so contradictory to one another). I'm changing the order a bit so we can see them in progression of the likely outcomes.

• Calls for further funding cuts for public schools following draconian cuts by lawmakers in 2011
• Rejects “any sex education other than abstinence until marriage” in public schools
• Opposes the sale and use of emergency contraception and backs the Legislature’s war on women’s health programs
• Adopts a radical position that would essentially bar abortion even in cases of rape, of incest or to save a woman’s life

Wow. What are these people so afraid of? I'll tell you what they're afraid of. The exact thing that's going to happen: There will be no funding for public education. Kids won't get sex education. They will continue to have sex. Because that's what kids do. Whether you're in Texas or in liberal California, where we're all doing it. Without birth control, since they won't know much about it. Guess who gets preggo? Yup.The preggo girls will be unable to access any sort of healthcare, since Planned Parenthood has been completely defunded, and they won't be able to access any sort of pregnancy termination. They will have kids out of wedlock, and need public assistance. They won't be able to get it because, well, those people are leeches on society. Their children will go hungry, live in the streets, or be abandoned. Leaving a state mired in uneducated, unemployable, extremely poor kids having kids.

Bleak? Oh hell yes, it's bleak. And it's where the whole damn country is headed.

But these kids will all be so mired in their own misery and poverty that they won't have the chance to question what we've taught them. They'll be too busy trying to simply survive.

Next up, Louisiana. Where the crazy has gotten seriously out of control. Louisiana has decided to put in their textbooks that the Loch Ness Monster is real, and therefore evolution must be disproved for sure this time, since the Loch Ness Monster is ... wait for it... a dinosaur. (Which I thought never existed, but hey - what's a little paradoxical hypocrisy when you have a point to prove).

Needless to say, the people of Scotland think we've completely lost our marbles. And they'd be absolutely right.

"One of these texts from Bob Jones University Press claims that dinosaurs were fire-breathing dragons."

Seriously, Louisiana? Fire-breathing dragons?!?!?! Holy shit! And then you're going to teach that dinosaurs never existed because that's part of the theory of evolution, but evolution couldn't have happened because Nessie is real, and is a dinosaur (or a fire-breathing dragon - whatever), so people & dinosaurs can't coexist, therefore evolution is disproved? When you put it all together, you do realize how amazingly fucked in the head that makes you sound, don't you?

And to the textbook publishers who are going to actually create the content that Texas and Louisiana want? (Bob Jones University Press excluded, cause you're part of the fucked up craziness) Is money that all-important to you that you would knowingly publish such untrue crap? I happen to work for a K-12 publisher, and we are completely devoted to giving our kids the best education that we can. To improving critical thinking skills in kids so they can compete in a global economy. To make the next generation of Edisons, or Galbraiths, or Keynes, or Curies. The fact that a publisher dedicated to the education of children could publish such drivel, knowing it would end up in the hands of children is unbelievable and abhorrent to me. More than that, it's incredibly and unforgivably irresponsible to print that crap in the quest for the almighty dollar.

I don't believe for a single minute that these folks truly think that dinosaurs were fire breathing dragons or that the Loch Ness monster is real. So what does that tell us about the agenda?

Well, it must be to keep our kids so freaking stupid that they can't ever question our authority or the bullshit that we're teaching them. They won't be able to think for themselves, and therefore can perpetuate our own self-important white man Christian superiority machine that keeps cranking out the crazy.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Sob.