Holy Crap: South Carolina Ain’t Dumb Enough Already? Edition
There a guy named Ray Moore running for Lt. Governor of South Carolina. His big plan is to shut down all public schools and replace them with church run schools.
And the details to his plan?
“Then the states would then negotiate, perhaps taking out of their constitution platform, or the provision, that says the state had to provide education, and it would gradually be handed over to churches, families, and private associations,” Moore said. “That’s the way it was for the first 200 years of American history.”
He said non-religious schools, which he has called “the Pharaoh’s schools,” posed an existential threat to Christians.
Go Pharaoh High! Push ‘um back, push ‘um back, waaaaaay back!
And where, you wonder, would Rev. Moore get such a damn crazy unAmerican idea?
Dan Patrick. Yep.
Texas Republican Dan Patrick told the Family Research Council’s Washington Watch on Thursday that public schools in his state indoctrinate children with anti-American, left-wing, and environmental propaganda.
Yeah, stuff like that rain isn’t angel tears and gravity isn’t because the devil sucks.
I told you that crazy is contagious and that Republicans are carriers.
It seems at this point that we must trust in the mortality rate to solve the problem of crackpot GOP politicians.
1Nukular bombs would help the attrition rate along rather nicely and quick.
They’d be blinded by the light
2and burnt to a crisp in the middle of the night
Blinded by the light…..
Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun
but Mama,that’s where the fun is…………
As someone who is not christian this is incredibly frightening. I can almost hear the glass breaking and the books burning.
3Back to the Middle Ages, eh? To quote Forrest Gump’s mama, “Stupid is as stupid does”.
4Nobody is fooled by this ridiculous attempt to avoid segregation, break up teachers’ unions and squash the advance of science.
Sweet baby Jesus on a tricycle he’s a moron. Actually, the first public school in America was Boston Latin School, founded in 1635. Seeing as the Mayflower arrived in 1620 it took a whole 15 years to start public education in America. (Down here in Savannah we pray for winds from the south to keep the stoopid from blowing down on us from South Carolina.)
5Bruce Springsteen and the E Platypus Band!
Let’s understand where this guy is coming from for his “first 200 years of American history.”
Jamestown was settled in 1607, Plymouth in 1620. The first public school was founded in 1635 through the influence of a Puritan minister. The first tax-supported public school was founded around 1640. By a Puritan.
Most of the history of public education happened in the North, and what little there was in the South marched backwards, as they strove to keep knowledge from slaves and former slaves. They recognized that knowledge was power, they just didn’t think it should be shared with, ya know, non-whites, or even white non-elites.
It is in the tradition – and the best interests – for the South to keep the electorate stupid and the non-whites out of the electorate.
6O man O man! Don’t get me going on Irish hedgerow schools when Ireland was a bivouac for British troops and landlords!
Somebody — anybody! — get that bottle of Jack D. out of the lowest drawer of that man’s desk! All of them “private” schools are going to charge $$$, the kind of $$$ a right to work state does not pay their serfs. With both momma and daddy working, none of the kids can be home schooled so what to do with them during the day? Well, hell shucks! Change the state child labor laws and chain them to machines in the factories the day they are potty trained!
7It’s beginning to come to me….I now understand why these people are called Clock Stoppers! Eventually I suspect they will want to do away with modern medicine, new technologies and reintroduce living in caves. . . the way God intended for us.
8Not all together in the north. An early settler in Alabama, Rev. Alexander Travis, set up a school within months of arriving.
9From under what rocks do these people crawl?
Where do these idiots come from?
They live in at least a minimal “modern world”.
They have phones, probably radios,and tv, most probably drive, or are driven where they need to go.
So, these 1700 ideas??? come from where?
If it’s Dan Patrick, let’s move him to South Carolina, and he can reap the whirlwind that he is sowing.
The dumb is unbelievable.
10I suppose he will shut down all the universities too. They won’t be needing them.
11Of course the Republinuts are a major danger. Anyone sane knows that. But please don’t forget the DINOs out there who are just as bad and just as dangerous. Fortunately there aren’t that many, but you have to know your candidate. There are a few wolves in donkeys’ clothing.
12What this guy really believes is that education poses an existential threat to Christians.
Though I’m not quite sure why thinks the threat is existential.
1315. “The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
14~Founding Father James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion”
Free education for children was in every constitution under which Texas was ruled, including Spain and Mexico. I built websites of translations of all the Texas constitutions and typed them in by hand for a job I had years ago. It was a real interesting read and I learned a lot. You can find some of them here: http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/
15The Libertopians have been calling them “government schools” for at least 11 years. My landmark is the day I started sharing an office with a Libertopian. He now has a “Who is John Galt?” bumper sticker on his car; does anyone have a bumper sticker that says “A character in a 2nd rate fairy tale.”
16@Marion- I’d be pretty sure the deity does not entertain entreaties from unreconstructed old atheists but I sincerely hope you get the desired winds from the correct direction.This person’s level of the ignorance might be fatal.
17Unfortunately, the supply of these idiots is practically endless; they are churning out more by the day with the homeschooling going on now.
The prevalence of the ignorant is scary.
18Schools are an existential threat to Christians… because they teach kids facts and how to think for themselves.
His version of Christianity is a pretty poor religion if it can’t stand up to that.
19I’ve always been skeptical about biblical prophecies. But that was before I realized the Bible predicted buffoons like Ray Moore and Dan Patrick:
Collosians 2:8
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to the rudiments of the world, and not in accordance with Christ.”
Is the Ray Moore related to Roy Moore? Remember him? He was the doofus aka “the 10 Commandments Judge”.
20Thank you, SusanF. I had been told repeatedly by folks smart about history and stuff that free public education is in the Constitution, I just wasn’t sure if it was Texas or the whole country. While we’re talking about in the Constitution, the Post Office is in there somewhere, isn’t it?
21I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Sane people, to preserve what sanity is left in the US, must be registered to vote, and vote in every election, primary and general, every year. Rightwing nutjobs are not elected solely by Republican voters (or gerrymandering, although that certainly plays a role). They’re elected by Independent and Democratic voters who STAY HOME.
22The separation of church and state is not part of the US Constitution to these people. It is scary. The voucher programs being pushed by the GOP are simply means to gut public schools in favor of private schools
23Marge, it is…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause
24This guy flunked math. First 200 years?
25Zyxomma? Right you are! I decided to do one better. I volunteered to be an elections worker in my precinct (a decidedly red precinct). There are city elections coming up in May and I will be there if they need me. And in November. It’s at least a 15 hour gig, but like they say, freedom isn’t free. PLEASE PEOPLE — VOTE!!
26The adherents of Christian Dominionism are just telling everyone what they intend to do when they turn this country into a theocracy based upon the strict interpretation of ‘their’ Bible. Step-by-step, from local municipal governments to school boards, to state legislatures and governorships, to Congress and ultimately the presidency. They are focused on the big prize.
27Should have said, “avoid integration”.
28mea culpa.
Hey Chip I thought it was Manford Mann, am I losin it??
I like the term “Pseudo-Christian” for these people. They’re *not* real Christians. JJ is a real Christian-she got it from Momma; some of you others are too. I’m, er, trying to be one. I can easily understand why many of you run like hell rather than have any association with these types, especially if you escaped a repressive upbringing!
29Hello, dear A Liz!
Both Blinded by the Light and For You were hits by Mannfred Mann, but both were written by Springsteen and released on his Greetings from Asbury Park album.
I recommend a listen to the originals: a young, raw rebel Bruce, with the Bob Dylan influence shining strong.
30LynnN, education DOES pose a threat to Christianity and pretty much every other patriarchal religion.
31I’m in Savannah too.
Massachusetts law, 1647:
“It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with love and false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors.
It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns…”
“The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.” –Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779.
Both the Puritans and Thomas Jefferson saw the primary purpose of schooling was to prepare people for a world in which others would try to deceive them. The Puritans wanted to guard against those whose religious views were not the same as their own, Jefferson wanted to guard against those who are greedy for power.
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