I learned to love history from a Republican. Back in 8th grade my history teacher at Webster Stanley Middle School was William Pable. Mr. Pable was a super tough teacher for most people. He had Goodies which consisted of 30 page packets loaded with assignments that had to be done in a 2-3 week span on the topic of the day. I worked my ass off in his class and earned his respect and I even think it went both ways regardless of his high regard for Dan Quayle (who was basically the precursor to Dubya). Why does that matter? Because even though we disagreed on politics, he taught history like it mattered. He didnt ignore everything that happened before to create phony narratives. He didnt disregard the importance of education or science or even basic logic. Thats what is so different with the political Right today. FOX News and Rush Limbaugh (and clones) have dumbed down their disciples to the point where you cannot have policy discussions without them going into a rage against the elitism of science or facts or evidence. Its all gut reaction with these people. And their grasp on the founding of the country - they have no idea how any of the amendments actually work, they think all of the Founding Fathers were fundamentalist Christians like them (or like the Puritan Pilgrims) when most were at best Deists who were skeptical and didnt want to govern based on that. I miss the Republicans who may have been misguided but were at the very least open minded enough for polite debate. Its all out warfare now and our country suffers greatly from the lack of intelligent discourse. Evidence and facts need to be acknowledged first. React to the facts once youve digested them and then make a decision. Deciding beforehand is just willful ignorance and makes the discussion pointless.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 04:31:25 +0000
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