'Lies My Teachers Told Me'

Great Debates
1

On another board somebody posted this right-wing screed:

http://www.politicallyright.com/article123.htm

What can we demonstrate to be true and what is false? And do ANY teachers actually say these things? My teachers didn’t, but he’s probably not interested in my experiences. To get things started:

#1: We have had our moments. Can he say “Manifest Destiny?” And as he points out we didn’t annex Germany or Japan, I should point out that my brother was Attorney General (or something similar–an appointed, not elected, post) of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. “Commonwealth,” as in “next stop: statehood.” The same status as Guam and Puerto Rico. None of which can be considered part of the continental US. But I am an admitted Imperialist if the places ask for it, regretting that we didn’t make Luzon a state (the crazies can have Mindanao) and expecting Cuba to petition for statehood within the next hundred years.

#2: If he could find a truly Socialist country as a test case maybe we could come to a conclusion. He cites Sweden, which is more a hybrid of Socialism and Capitalism and darned successful, and Guatemala, which looks to be working on being a Little USA after decades of internal problems. Yeah, they use Commie buzzwords like “solidarity” and “Secretariat” but that doesn’t make them a Little Cuba.

#3: This one is clearly nonsensical and he even admits that the Framers allowed amemdments to improve the document as times required, which is what most people mean when they say that the Constitution is a “living document.”

#4: Weeeeellllll, I gotta say there’s some merit in that statement but we’ve gotten better.

#5: We can save for another discussion, one we’ve been through many times. I usually leave it at, “There are jerks on both sides.”

#6: Marx was a very bright fellow and came up with an interesting solution to the problems of the Victorian London slums but did he even suggest that his system could or should be applied to Czarist Russia? Being a genius and being right are two different things.

#7: The origins of that war are complex, yadayadayada.

#8: Then they should kick their racists out. The Dems didn’t have to; they left willingly when they saw they’d be more welcome in the Republican Party.

For the most part I just say that teachers don’t say most of these things, even when they are true, and the claim that academia is overloaded with Angela Davises is a Conservative wet dream with little basis in fact. Prove me wrong, prove him wrong. With cites, of course.

2

The article makes the college sound like some sort of cult.

Weird.

Cheers.

3

I think it is fairly obvious from reading that full article that what the professors most likely told this student was something more along the lines of:

(1) America has used its power in various ways and with various motivations.

(2) Laissez-faire capitalism is not a perfect economic system and other countries have had successful and vibrant democracies with a system that is less laissez-faire than the U.S.

(3) There is not just one way to read the Constitution…There are various interpretations possible.

(4) There was what amounted to a genocide (with some of it but by no means all of it due to accidental spread of disease) committed against native peoples in America. At the time that the U.S. was founded and for nearly a century thereafter, slavery was practiced. And, even well after that, racism persisted in law and practice.

(5) The Israeli / Palestinian issue is a thorny one with both sides committing acts of violence. While Palestinian terrorists have committed horrific acts against Israeli civilians, Israel’s rule over the West Bank and Gaza has sometimes been oppressive and violent…And, Israel has built settlements in these areas that it occupies that are generally deemed to be illegal under international law.

(6) Marx was an important and influencial person in history.

(7) The Vietnam was a horrible quagmire and one in which the U.S. killed many, many Vietnamese. In addition, it seems quite possible, if not likely, that our actions in the end gave greater strength to the worst of our enemies…i.e., the most radical and sadistic elements within the Viet Cong.

(8) The Republican Party was founded as a party against slavery and the Democrats indeed retained control of the South due to their popularity with white voters there through the 1960s. However, after that, things shifted with many Republicans adopting a “Southern Strategy” of appealing to Southern white voters often with covert or open appeals on racial issues.

In other words, because these professors did not indoctrinate their students with the sort of nationalistic propaganda that we rightfully criticize when it is practiced in the U.S.S.R., Cuba, West Bank / Gaza, they have lied to us.

4

I’ve been teaching since 1985 and have yet to run into the stereotypical liberal teacher or the leftist slanted textbooks that generate the constant whining among self-styled conservatives. I expect that much what they perceive as lies and bias really comes from an “if you aren’t 100% in agreement with me, then you are one of THEM!” belief system on their own part.

5

I was not aware that, living in Pennsylvania, I do not live in a state as Pennsylvania is still the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It has been since long before I was born, and I don’t see that changing in the future, but it is hardly a territory that does not hold full statehood-rights in the U.S. Government.

Being a Commonwealth does not mean ‘on the way to statehood.’

6

  1. Ask the Phillipines how it feels.

  2. My high school Civics teacher nearly cried teaching us about Ayn Rand and how communism is a destructive, terrible force that would never work. I have to agree with her, to the ire of every socialist I know (in fact, it’s ended some friendships that I don’t buy into the whole world love peace thing–not on my side). In college, a lot of time was spent teaching us how capitalism (well, the World Bank/IMF) was destroying Africa. Socialism was never put forth as an alternative. In both high school and college, we did spend time talking about the asssination of Salvador Allende. The lesson was always free elections are morally correct, not communism is morally correct.

  3. It’s not? Then why are Conservatives trying to write anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-free speech amendments into it? Oops, just what I was taught in school. My teachers all said, “There are several schools of thought concerning the interpretation of the US Constitution…one is literalist, that we are limited only to the powers and freedoms actually written… another is that we are allowed all freedoms and powers not expressly prohibited… these specific court cases uphold these specific viewpoints… ad nauseum.”

  4. I’m from the South, living with the shame of slavery is a very large part of my education (which itself is a result of the state constitutions passed after the Civil War). I’m also from Cherokee land, so the Trail of Tears was a Big Deal. I went to a college in a town known for having the first sit-in in the 1960s and also a brutal racially-motivated slaying.

I was taught that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, and WWII was not fought to end the Holocaust, and that any president openly motivated by morals is not going to make it very far (Wilson, Carter).

  1. I was not taught this in school, it never came up, possibly due to being in school during the pax of the Oslo Accords. I learned about Israeli settlements and Arafat walking away in 2000 by reading the news.

  2. Yes, he was, but Marx was not a Communist, just like Albert Einstein is not currently blamed for the bomb falling on Japan. The way in which we view brilliant, dangerous people might be related to Point 2.

  3. In my high school, the Viet Cong were terrorists, the South Vietnamese were sympathetic to the cause of the North, and the US hopelessly ill-prepared to fight in such a situation. In my very liberal college, my very ex-Pentagon teacher complained often that the US had it’s hands tied by over-cautious generals who wouldn’t just let him nuke North Vietnam because we were afraid of starting a war with China.

  4. Never heard that in school, or anywhere else. It’s a logical step in my mind that the party for the “status quo” accepts the current status quo of minority oppression and is unwilling to take measures (affirmative action) to change the situation, but I see this as an indirect effect of the platform, rather than vice versa. Republicans either don’t acknowledge there’s still oppression by race, or believe that those problems cannot be solved by handouts, but can be overcome by individuals working hard and bettering themselves. I was not taught in college that a difference in perspective = enemy.

For demographic tracking, I went to a very liberal college, Guilford, in the South, and got a very liberal B. A. in Political Science/Sociology, then followed it up with a Masters in Library Science at a school accredited by the baby-eating ALA.

That made me giggle. Most of the article made me titter with glee. The misinformation and omissions concerning the Israeli/Palestinian conflict sickens me. Upon preview, jshore’s post is far more intelligent than mine, and I think s/he’s right. Props!

7

Yes, I’d like to quote jshore’s post over there, if I may. Maybe a link, too. It’d be nice for some of them to visit this board and see liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and moderates as well as Americans and non-Americans discuss issues using facts rather than just quoting conservative websites.

8

From what I understand they feel pretty good about U.S. Mostly because we went in and conquered them and soon realized that, well, we weren’t very good at Imperialism and decided to let them go. And, we did, slightly delayed because of the Japanese conquering the Phillipines in WW2.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this whole thing was decided back in 1936 or so. For whatever reasons, we decided that, well, we didn’t really want an Empire and didn’t want to be in on the European game. And we’d never really had much of an Empire to begin with. Our overseas posession seem to be quite happy with our control, and Puerto Rico has consistently rejected statehood and independance. ther than that, we have some military bases, whose job tends to be defending the host country and not controlling it. If it were not so, then Germany wouldn’t have been so arseholic last year.

9

Just to finish this hijack, I’d like to keep the option open for the Phillipines. And I’m not alone, apparently, as there is a pretty big movement towards statehood that I just found out about. http://members.aol.com/XPUS/Phil/Manifesto.html

A liberal American imperialist? Am I confused or what? :confused:

10

Thanks…But I very much enjoyed reading your firsthand experiences on what you learned too.

It would be fine with me.

Another point I’d like to make is that I think the U.S. has had significant problems stemming from not understanding how the rest of the world views it…and also from being insufficiently open to understanding how other nations deal with similar issues and problems as we face. (And, these problems don’t stem from the U.S. viewing itself more negatively than the rest of the world does!) I am certainly not claiming that all the views that others have of the U.S. are always correct…Some are clearly quite whacked out. But, I think we need to seriously consider the criticisms of our friends and allies…And, we need to at least understand, even if we strongly disagree with, the criticisms of others.

If the person who wrote up those 8 “lies” had their way, the U.S. citizens would certainly be taught in a propagandistic way that put them even further out of touch with the views of the rest of the world and would lead to further problems for the U.S. because of this.

11

I was using a different definition of “commonwealth.” Per Dictionary.com:

Commonwealth

  1. Used to refer to some U.S. states, namely, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
  2. Used to refer to a self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily associated with the United States, namely, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.
12

No much to add to jshore’s post. Keep in mind that this type of oversimplified analysis really has nothing to offer in intelligent debate. Not any different from all those threads you see here with titles like “Why do Conservatives/Liberals hate…”.

13

Here you go: http://forums.prospero.com/foxfirefly/messages/?msg=12896.1

14

Dropzone:

You might want to check the SDMB rules about linking to other boards. IIRC, it’s frowned on, in the interests of preventing “Board Wars”.

15

Valid point, though that other board is fairly small and I’ve been trying to get some of the more thoughtful members to join the SDMB for a year or so with a marked lack of success. Okay, the mods may delete the link if they think it’s a good idea.

16

Change that to “If you say anything bad about the United States, you must be one of THEM!”, and I’ll agree with you.

These are the same folks who think “America – love it or leave it” makes sense. :rolleyes:

17

Pete Seeger’s version is still true:

*What did you learn in school today
Dear little child of mine?

I learned our government must be strong
It’s always right and never wrong
Our leaders are the finest men
That’s why we elect them again and again.
…
I learned that wars are not so bad
I learned about the great ones we have had
We fought in Germany and in France
Someday soon I might get my chance.
And that’s what I learned in school today
That’s what I learned in school . . . *

18

I admit it. I teach “lie” #3 to my students. I’ll wait now for the authorities to round me up. I can’t believe I got away with this treason as long as I did. Any punishment they give me will be more than justified. Think of the permanent damage I have done to the youth of America. :frowning:

19

Care to elaborate? It’s certainly “living” in the sense that it has a well defined process for amending it. Do you teach that there is such a thing as the “constructionist school of thought” regarding interpreting the constitution? Do you present both sides and let your students decide which school of thought is appropriate? If not, then you are, in fact, indoctrinating them instead of educating them.

20

The Right has taken over talk radio, the House, the Senate, the Administration and, to a growing degree, the courts. Now there appears to be a concerted effort to pull down what is seen by many as the last great bastion of the Left, the liberal educational establishment.

There is a lot of space on conservative web sites these days devoted to complaints about “liberal bias” on campuses. Much of it sounds like Limbaughesque hype and distortion calculated to motivate conservative activists and have a chilling effect on liberals.