# The Culture Wars' New Front: U.S. History Classes in Texas (WSJ Article) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050 "2009-07-14T22:10:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/121 "2009-07-16T05:38:03Z")
I personally do not believe in natural rights. If they were natural rights they wouldn’t be able to be taken away by others would they? We have a right to life, but only for so long as we can maintain it. By virtue of having been born at all we had the right to some life, but there is no right that it may continue for any guaranteed period of time. If there were a right to liberty we wouldn’t be able to be made into slaves. There are no rights, only agreed upon privileges that stem from the will of the people. The very notion of natural rights is faith based. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/122 "2009-07-16T05:45:49Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > That tells me a name of a philosophy but not from where these rights derive. Where do they come from? Well they are abstract, so they don’t really exist, and so don’t “come” from anywhere. I suppose you want me to say they came from God, but it would be slanderous to say that God only gave rights to white people until after the Civil War. The rights were also suspicisiouly absent from the 10 commandments which were the only concrete communication from God. In fact the rights specified in the Constitution are at odds with the 10 commandments. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/123 "2009-07-16T05:46:52Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > **pravnik** , it gets worse! Even though that information describes only the Texas Board of Education, it affects _every_ State Board of Ed. Texas is so large and orders so many textbooks that the scope and focus of the textbooks they approve is limiting the kinds of textbooks that are being published and made available. So textbooks in Massachusetts or California may become more conservative just because options are limited by what Texas likes. Texas represents less than 8% of the US population. Does it really stand to reason that the wacky views in Texas schoolbooks would dictate what the other 92% can buy? It would make more sense for schoolbook publishers to just charge Texas more for ordering stuff that is non-mainstream. For means of comparison, California represents 12% of the US population. If that logic followed, then Texas schoolbooks should be more liberal (assuming California schoolbooks are in fact, liberal) because they order so many books. It might stand to reason that it reduces the options for other, smaller states, but states are going to order whatever books they order. I’m fairly sure that some of my kids schoolbooks have even been Florida specific, although I have no idea why the state does that. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/124 "2009-07-16T05:50:18Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > Texas represents less than 8% of the US population. Does it really stand to reason that the wacky views in Texas schoolbooks would dictate what the other 92% can buy? It would make more sense for schoolbook publishers to just charge Texas more for ordering stuff that is non-mainstream. > > For means of comparison, California represents 12% of the US population. If that logic followed, then Texas schoolbooks should be more liberal (assuming California schoolbooks are in fact, liberal) because they order so many books. > > It might stand to reason that it reduces the options for other, smaller states, but states are going to order whatever books they order. I’m fairly sure that some of my kids schoolbooks have even been Florida specific, although I have no idea why the state does that. The impact comes because Texas buys it’s school books state wide, vs most places which buy school books at the district level. I must say it showed great foresight to plan ahead for a convenient place to shoot a liberal president from. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/125 "2009-07-16T06:14:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I’m not sure what role Deism, specifically, played in the founding. While the D of I can be said to be the product of a Deist (albeit of the monotheistic strain) it could just as well have been the product of common ground of devout religionists. I don’t think there is any way to determine this one way or the other at this point. A look at the personal beliefs of the actual founders would be helpful, though. > > As far as the latter part of your paragraph, you omit or gloss over an important distinction. A crucial difference between the U.S. and European nations was that while their _governments_ came from God, our _rights_ came from God. Our government was through the populace, and existed in order to secure and protect those natural God-given, unalienable rights. That was the point of my first paragraph. The God who gave inalienable rights was the Deist god, not the Christian God. If it were the latter surely Jefferson could have cited chapter and verse. The argument that we were imbued with rights as part of being created is a more subtle argument than reference to Scripture. > [@](#): > > I think that, in combination with a less generous attribution to Deism (which I think is fair), argues well for this being founded as a Christian nation. One in which any religion may be practiced. But many states had officially established religions. This was fine with the founders. Establishment was not surprising given that many colonies had religious origins. The American Revolution was certainly not an anti-religion one, the way the French Revolution was. The crucial point was not that there were holdover established churches, but that the new government, the one established from scratch, had no establishment - and eventually the First Amendment. Which did not give any special rights to Christianity as a whole. Obviously such a radical step was not done unanimously. But those we respect most highly today were not the most religious. Remember, Washington went to church, but he never took communion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/126 "2009-07-16T06:17:10Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Where do natural rights come from I wonder? A deity, but not the Christian one. Teaching that the founders were atheists would be just as incorrect as teaching that they were devout Christians. Even Paine explicitly said that he was not an atheist, and gave a reason why there had to be a god - the structure of the solar system. What he’d be today is an interesting question. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/127 "2009-07-16T07:18:45Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > But the difference is not that we were Christian, but that we viewed that rights belonged to the people. You seem to say that in your post then contradict yourself. I don’t see how. Let’s try this. I think the word that might be confusing things is “belong”. The point is from where these rights originate. The DofI states that man’s rights are imbued in him by God, and that they cannot be separated from him. Prior to that, in Europe, the rights people may enjoy were due to the whim of the King. He could grant any right is wished, and he could take it away. The Dof I states that they come directly from God and are unalienable. > [@DanBlather](#): > > ETA: In other words, what differentiated the US from other countries was not their religious philosophy, but their political philosophy. It was the relationship between the two, and what gives birth to which. Europe: God \> King/Government \> Rights \> People USA: God \> Rights \> People \> Government ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/128 "2009-07-16T08:01:03Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That was the point of my first paragraph. The God who gave inalienable rights was the Deist god, not the Christian God. If it were the latter surely Jefferson could have cited chapter and verse. The argument that we were imbued with rights as part of being created is a more subtle argument than reference to Scripture. I don’t think the fact that he didn’t cite chapter in verse holds much water. It would not have fit in the tone of the DofI. Keep in mind that the body of the document is the grievances they enumerate. It was a an announcement of severance and a list of the reasons why. Citing chapter and verse would have been clunky and unnecessary. I understand the Deism argument, and it may be correct. But my guess is rather than the document being crafted and agreed to by a bunch of Deists, the people were devout religionists of various Christian stripes. The document jives with either interpretation. I hold to the non-Deist interpretation because most of the founders were quite religious. Even Jefferson was quite religious. He just didn’t believe in the miracles and the divinity of Christ. When he started his university, their was Christian religious instruction and places of worship. > [@Voyager](#): > > Establishment was not surprising given that many colonies had religious origins. The American Revolution was certainly not an anti-religion one, the way the French Revolution was. The crucial point was not that there were holdover established churches, but that the new government, the one established from scratch, had no establishment - and eventually the First Amendment. Which did not give any special rights to Christianity as a whole. > > Obviously such a radical step was not done unanimously. But those we respect most highly today were not the most religious. Remember, Washington went to church, but he never took communion. But there was no state (national) because 1) that would have encroached on the rights of the states, which were likely to have a state religion and 2) it would have given one strain of Christianity a nod over the others. This is what the letter from the Connecticut Baptists was about, to which Jefferson responded with his “wall of separation” line. The founders, Jefferson among them, were not afraid of religion, they were afraid of the nation making any one religion (any one flavor of Christianity) the national religion (like England had), which would then conflict with the religious wishes of each of the individual states. They were not trying to keep religion out of their government, they were trying to keep the national government out of the religion business. Again, unlike England. I think this is supported by the religious beliefs of the founders themselves and their including prayer and mentions of God in their governing. [Here](http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions27.html) is an interesting document, that I offer by way of example. It is the Constitution of Maryland, drafted in 1776, _after_ the DofI was signed. In it we see: 1. that although the state’s official religion was The Church of England, Marylanders were free to worship outside of that. But the Legislature could levy a tax for support of the Christian religion, allowing each person to steer their payments to their particular Christian sect. > [@](#): > > yet the Legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax, for the support of the Christian religion; leaving to each individual the power of appointing the payment over of the money, 1. that no one could hold office if they were not Christian. > [@](#): > > XXXV. That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention, or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion. Many of the states had this arrangement. Even if there was a state religion, people could worship as they pleased; taxes could be levied for Christianity, but each person could direct those taxes to their strain of Christianity. Some states, like Maryland, allowed one’s payments to be applied to something as seemingly secular as the poor, but all those options were construed to be within the teachings of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/129 "2009-07-16T12:51:05Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Were you taught about the whites who voluntarily went to live in native societies (and the blacks who escaped to them), and who were forced to return? And about the laws passed by white communities forbidding their members from living in native societies? > > I only ask because I wasn’t educated here, but had heard tell of the capture of whites you reference, but until recently had heard nothing of the voluntary aspect, and the involuntary nature of the return at times. Public school students here get at least 2 years of Texas history. Which includes the sad tale of [Cynthia Anne Parker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Ann_Parker). > [@](#): > > Cynthia Ann Parker, or Naduah (also sometimes spelled “Nadua” and “Nauta”), (ca 1827–1870) was an Anglo-Texas woman of Scots-Irish descent who was kidnapped twice in her lifetime - once from her natural family at the age of nine by a Native American raiding party, and once from her Indian family at the age of 34 by Texas Rangers. All those years ago, our teachers didn’t state it quite so clearly–but it was evident to anybody learning her story that she should have been allowed to stay with the Comanche. She had married a chief & wanted to return; eventually, she starved herself to death because of grief. Her son [Quanah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah_Parker) became a great chief of the Comanche. **All this sideline discussion is fascinating, but the topic of this thread is the damage the State Board of Education continues to do to our public schools**. [The Texas Freedom Network](http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rrreport08) is fighting against them: > [@](#): > > In the early 1990s, the religious right began a long process of turning a sleepy corner of Texas government the State Board of Education into a major battleground in the nation’s culture wars. Each year, the board’s far-right faction sparks battles on issues such as the teaching of evolution, medically accurate sex education and religion in public schools. Elections in 2006 brought the religious right to the brink of complete control of the state board for the first time. This year’s report examines how social conservatives have become so influential on the state board and what that means for more than 4.5 million children educated in Texas public schools. There’s lots more information at the above link. Blathering on about definitions of Deism should not distract us from these Neanderthals who want schools to preach their very narrow definition of Christianity, treat Creationism with respect & tell kids that all they need to know about sex is “Abstain!” Next year’s elections might help rid us of these cretins. Directly & indirectly: Governor Perry is also up for reelection. An ally of said cretins, he’s been playing to the cheap seats lately, with his talk of secession, because he’s worried that Kay Bailey Hutchision will run against him next year. In the general election, I’ll proudly vote for the Democratic candidate for governor; it really hasn’t been that many years since Ann Richards. But some Democrats are planning to cross the line in the primaries & vote for Hutchison; she’d make a far better governor than the former Aggie Yell Leader who only got his job because the Supreme Court installed Bush in the White House. In 2006, he was re-elected with a measly 39% of the vote because of the candidacies Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn (who, like Governor Good Hair, started out as a Democrat & switched for the most meretricious reasons) & poor Kinky Friedman (who sincerely didn’t realize he was a Republican tool.) Yes, there’s a cultural war in Texas. Since we buy so many textbooks, our state policies will affect texts used in other states. Which side are you on? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/130 "2009-07-16T14:02:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I personally do not believe in natural rights. If they were natural rights they wouldn’t be able to be taken away by others would they? I think you’re wound up a little too tightly about the concept of natural rights. To me, and I think to most people, the phrase just means those rights that people _should_ have, what we should strive for. Then it’s up to a good government to ensure those rights as legal rights. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/131 "2009-07-16T14:19:19Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The individuals do not survive for centuries but the narratives do, and the way narratives propagate through a semi-Democratic cultural process is simply fascinating to me. A lot of ink has been spilled in the past 50 years about this process. As it turns out, it is probably not democratic at all. A lot of ink has also been spilled on rights theory, and some of it is quite interesting. [This](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/) is a pretty good place to start reading. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/132 "2009-07-16T14:29:34Z")
See, this is why this stuff is insidious. I don’t really see us taking 2 weeks out of an already-too-short school year to explain the sociocultural non-existence of Atheism in the 18th century. Everything 99.9% of people did back then was filtered through a lens of religion (whatever the religion may be); it wasn’t because that’s “just what they believed” or because it was natural or bla bla bla - it was that they would get burned at a stake for being a witch or a demon if they didn’t believe it. Ok, maybe not that bad, but you get the point: you weren’t entirely free to divorce your thoughts from religion back in the 1700’s, especially not if you wanted to form a popular government. Think it’s tough being an Atheist (or at least a skeptic) and getting elected, today? Try 1776. Secularism didn’t exist as a concept until the mid 1800s - I don’t think anyone currently operates under the delusion that the founders of this country were all godless, and people recognize that the founders’ (almost mandatory) adherence to a religious belief (invariably Christian) colored their view on things, but explaining anything more (especially as a causal factor for anything in our history) than that requires a lot of philosophical musing about why that’s the case. Entire University departments are dedicated to religious history and its effects on human civilization - I’m not quite sure you can distill that knowledge into a paragraph or two saying “Jefferson was down with Jesus”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/133 "2009-07-16T14:30:44Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Many of the states had this arrangement. Even if there was a state religion, people could worship as they pleased; :dubious: > [@](#): > > taxes could be levied for Christianity, but each person could direct those taxes to their strain of Christianity. Some states, like Maryland, allowed one’s payments to be applied to something as seemingly secular as the poor, but all those options were construed to be within the teachings of Christianity. Historically speaking, taxation does coerce people into adopting a religion, In medieval times the Muslims tolerated Christians and Jews and allowed them to worship as they pleased, as long as they paid a tax for the privilege. Just in Northern Africa many Christians realized that conversion gave one benefits. So many converted to Islam that IIRC the fall of revenue was a factor in the fall of the caliph in the region, the new caliph changed the taxation rules. Even though states pushed laws to benefit religion, the reality is that in the end they were considered intolerant to other faiths. One notices that the language referring to the Maryland constitution is in the past tense, it is because the amendments of the US constitution ran over it. [http://www.religioustolerance.org/texas1.htm](http://www.religioustolerance.org/texas1.htm) > [@](#): > > Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution states: > > ``` > "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." > > ``` > > The free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution states: > > “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” > > The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, proclaimed adopted on 1868-JUL-21, states: > > ``` > "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." > > ``` > > The important feature of the 14th Amendment was that the banning of a religious test and the free exercise of religion which were formerly applied only to Congress became applicable also to the states. > > However, many states had clauses in their Constitutions and Bills of Rights that required religious tests for political candidates, for witnesses and jurors at criminal trials, and for employment in the civil service. > > The conflict between the religiously restrictive policies of the states and the elimination of such policies by the U.S. constitution was settled in favor of religious freedom by the U.S. Supreme court in a 1961 case Torcaso v Watkins. > > Unfortunately, many states still have bigoted, religiously discriminatory clauses remaining in their Constitution and/or Bills of Rights. Although they are now null and void, they still hang about in these states’ founding documents and teach modern-day citizens that Atheists and non-Judeo Christians should be considered second-class citizens. > > Since the repeal of these clauses would require the majority vote of the states’ citizens, they will probably remain in place for decades to come. I still have the impression that the yahoos that are trying to over inject religion the Texas curriculum are not aware that American history in reality is not too flattering to the past bigotry of organized religion. [http://www.religioustolerance.org/us\_orgin.htm](http://www.religioustolerance.org/us_orgin.htm) > [@](#): > > We have all heard preachers and politicians referring to the time when the United States was founded. They describe this era as a type of golden age when ethics, morality, family values etc were at their peak. The next time that you hear this, we urge you to remember four terms: “racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and homophobia”. > > In those early years: > > ``` > * racism abounded. Persons of African-American descent were considered by many to be less than human. So were Native Americans. Slavery was legal; people were owned as property. The Bible was extensively used to sanction the continuation of slavery. > * sexism abounded. Women were denied the vote; it took a 70 year effort in the 19th and 20th centuries to achieve universal suffrage. Women were not allowed to enter many professions. They were given very few basic options: marriage, nursing, spinsterhood or teaching. Again, verses from the Bible were quoted to justify the suppression of women. > * religious intolerance Clergy were prohibited from running for office in some states. At the other extreme, Roman Catholics and members of non-Christian religions were heavily discriminated against in other states. > * homophobia: "Crimes against nature" could result in a life sentence in some states. Such crimes included all gay and lesbian sex, and many practices common to heterosexuals. > > ``` > > As the 21st century begins, the legacies of racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and homophobia are still with us. But at least there are no effective laws that discriminate against people on the basis of faith. The only hold outs are State of Texas and a few other states whose constitutions still have a religious requirements for holders of public office or civil service. And although these laws are still on the books, they have been nullified by the Federal Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/134 "2009-07-16T15:03:16Z")
Sometimes I wonder if the best thing to do is just implement the conservative’s policy literally. I’d love to see the religious fights if school’s did start out with a prayer. I know that I was forced to say a Roman Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer in my public school. I bet the evangelical yahoos would go nuts about “papists” influencing their kids. How about posting the 10 commandments; which of the several versions would they choose? Can you imagimine a test where they asked “What is the 2nd commandment?” and a kid was marked wrong for giving the answer in his church’s version. Imagine the horror if it was explained that some of the founding father’s did not believe in the Trinity or Jesus’ divinity. Imagine bible readings: there would be riots in the streets over what version to use (this was the issue that led to Catholic schools). How about if your teacher were a Seventh Day Adventist and gave a test asking what day was the Sabbath? We’d have parts of Boston teaching Catholocism, NYC teaching Judaism, and Silicon Valley teaching Hinduism. Berkeley might have Wiccan’s in to teach. It’d be great! Can you envision World History class? There’d be fights on whether to start the timeline 6,000 years ago or use the more liberal interpretation of Genesis. Since more and more Chinese and Indian kids are at the top of their classes we can have much more interesting commencement speaches: “please sit in the lotus position with me and recite ‘rom nyo hai hai ku’”. Biology class would be really cool if you had a Santeria teacher: “let’s start by sacrificing this chicken and smearing it’s blood on the ground”. This’d be the best spectator sport since Swift’s fights between the big-endians and little-endians (I wonder if he knew Intel would win?). ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/135 "2009-07-16T15:57:01Z")
“We hold these truths to be self-evident.” We don’t argue, we don’t respond to calls for a Holy Cite, we assert a dogma of human rights and refuse to argue, its a secular leap of faith. Works for me. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/136 "2009-07-16T19:01:27Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Sometimes I wonder if the best thing to do is just implement the conservative’s policy literally. I’d love to see the religious fights if school’s did start out with a prayer. I know that I was forced to say a Roman Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer in my public school. I bet the evangelical yahoos would go nuts about “papists” influencing their kids. How about posting the 10 commandments; which of the several versions would they choose? Can you imagimine a test where they asked “What is the 2nd commandment?” and a kid was marked wrong for giving the answer in his church’s version. Imagine the horror if it was explained that some of the founding father’s did not believe in the Trinity or Jesus’ divinity. Imagine bible readings: there would be riots in the streets over what version to use (this was the issue that led to Catholic schools). How about if your teacher were a Seventh Day Adventist and gave a test asking what day was the Sabbath? We’d have parts of Boston teaching Catholocism, NYC teaching Judaism, and Silicon Valley teaching Hinduism. Berkeley might have Wiccan’s in to teach. It’d be great! Can you envision World History class? There’d be fights on whether to start the timeline 6,000 years ago or use the more liberal interpretation of Genesis. Since more and more Chinese and Indian kids are at the top of their classes we can have much more interesting commencement speaches: “please sit in the lotus position with me and recite ‘rom nyo hai hai ku’”. Biology class would be really cool if you had a Santeria teacher: “let’s start by sacrificing this chicken and smearing it’s blood on the ground”. > > This’d be the best spectator sport since Swift’s fights between the big-endians and little-endians (I wonder if he knew Intel would win?). There are two different questions. One is what the founding fathers believed, and believed they were creating. Another is the degree to which we are today bound by those beliefs. My comments went to the first question. Yours to the second. The OP is talking about history class, which goes to the first. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/137 "2009-07-16T19:36:53Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I don’t think the fact that he didn’t cite chapter in verse holds much water. It would not have fit in the tone of the DofI. Keep in mind that the body of the document is the grievances they enumerate. It was a an announcement of severance and a list of the reasons why. Citing chapter and verse would have been clunky and unnecessary. I understand the Deism argument, and it may be correct. But my guess is rather than the document being crafted and agreed to by a bunch of Deists, the people were devout religionists of various Christian stripes. The document jives with either interpretation. I hold to the non-Deist interpretation because most of the founders were quite religious. Even Jefferson was quite religious. He just didn’t believe in the miracles and the divinity of Christ. When he started his university, their was Christian religious instruction and places of worship. I’m sure he could have worked in a reference or quote of an appropriate verse - though I am at a loss as to what a good verse about rights would be. The Christian nations of Europe did not incorporate these rights, and the philosophers who inspired Jefferson never seemed particularly religious to me - at least not in the traditional Christian sense. In 1776 the country was between revivals, so though the general public was devout compared to you and me, establishment didn’t seem to be a big issue. In contrast, Jefferson got called an atheist in the 1800 campaign. > [@](#): > > The founders, Jefferson among them, were not afraid of religion, they were afraid of the nation making any one religion (any one flavor of Christianity) the national religion (like England had), which would then conflict with the religious wishes of each of the individual states. They were not trying to keep religion out of their government, they were trying to keep the national government out of the religion business. Again, unlike England. Yet the Virginia case shows that they were not against keeping religion out of state government also. As for other states. even if they were against establishment at the state level in general (and I’ve seen no evidence of this) doing anything about it would be politically infeasible. The question at hand in this hijack is if America was a Christian nation. (As opposed to a nation of Christians, which it clearly was.) Answering this in the negative does not require evidence that Christianity was tp be expunged from the public arena, especially not if it was already there. > [@](#): > > I think this is supported by the religious beliefs of the founders themselves and their including prayer and mentions of God in their governing. I don’t think you can draw too many conclusions from this. Lincoln, whose religious convictions are certainly unclear at best, spoke of prayer and God all the time. > [@](#): > > [Here](http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions27.html) is an interesting document, that I offer by way of example. It is the Constitution of Maryland, drafted in 1776, _after_ the DofI was signed. In it we see: > > 1. that although the state’s official religion was The Church of England, Marylanders were free to worship outside of that. But the Legislature could levy a tax for support of the Christian religion, allowing each person to steer their payments to their particular Christian sect. > > 2. that no one could hold office if they were not Christian. > > Many of the states had this arrangement. Even if there was a state religion, people could worship as they pleased; taxes could be levied for Christianity, but each person could direct those taxes to their strain of Christianity. Some states, like Maryland, allowed one’s payments to be applied to something as seemingly secular as the poor, but all those options were construed to be within the teachings of Christianity. This is an excellent example. Maryland was certainly a Christian state as of 1776. This demonstrates that if the founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation, they could easily have added a religious test for office - but they explicitly prohibited such a test. Sure establishing a church might have been infeasible, but supporting churches the way Maryland did would not have been. Referring to Jesus in the Constitution (outside of the date) would have been simple to do. So, a model for a reasonably non-denominational Christian state existed, but the founders did not choose to use it. The real issue here, not that you disagree, is that teaching that America was a Christian state would be teaching a value judgment as fact. Teaching the facts of the matter, which have been presented by both of us in this discussion, is values free and very appropriate. All all for teaching about religion, I’m just against teaching any is better or more correct than any others. My daughter’s high school world history text had a very good section on religion that did just this - if superficially. ---
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/138 "2009-07-16T19:50:23Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And why not? After all, they were busy stealing it from each other when the Europeans first arrived anyway. White brother wasn’t playing a new game. He just played the old game better, and red brother didn’t have a problem with the game until he lost. > > Obviously it isn’t only Christians who are guilty of simple minded moralizing and putting a spin on history. Sure they were stealing land from each other and were engaged in constant warfare, but it’s hardly the same kind of warfare. Indian warfare consisted of raiding, not the total annihilation of the other side. As such, wars between tribes could be continuous for generations. Warfare among native North American tribes was hardly the outright genocide that European settlers brought to the continent. > [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And the US government often had little control over its citizens either. The invaders having more power is irrelevant. If it was wrong for the whites to do it, it was no less wrong for the Indians to do it. Painting the whites as the bad guys in this scenario is not only simple-minded moralizing, it’s a superb example of the anti-white racism of the left. The US government often had little control over it’s citizens? That hardly matters when it’s the US army committing the act. Haven’t you ever heard of Wounded Knee, or any other incident in the “Indian Wars”? The whites weren’t always the “bad guys”, and hardly any reasonably educated person other than your strawman leftists could possibly believe that. Objectivity is not an example of anti-white racism. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/139 "2009-07-16T19:52:04Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > P > > Next year’s elections might help rid us of these cretins. Directly & indirectly: Governor Perry is also up for reelection. An ally of said cretins, he’s been playing to the cheap seats lately, with his talk of secession, because he’s worried that Kay Bailey Hutchision will run against him next year. In the general election, I’ll proudly vote for the Democratic candidate for governor; it really hasn’t been that many years since Ann Richards. But some Democrats are planning to cross the line in the primaries & vote for Hutchison; she’d make a far better governor than the former Aggie Yell Leader who only got his job because the Supreme Court installed Bush in the White House. In 2006, he was re-elected with a measly 39% of the vote because of the candidacies Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn (who, like Governor Good Hair, started out as a Democrat & switched for the most meretricious reasons) & poor Kinky Friedman (who sincerely didn’t realize he was a Republican tool.) > > Yes, there’s a cultural war in Texas. Since we buy so many textbooks, our state policies will affect texts used in other states. Which side are you on? **magellan01** began our discussion by saying he was against the Texas policy also. That’s not a point of dispute. The optimal solution would be to nuke the board from orbit. Barring that, is there a possibility for local action. When I moved to California I was quite concerned about issues like this, being incurably Eastern, and I got myself appointed to the site council for the high school and then the district textbook review committee. (Not very hard, just took not saying no.) I got to look at the recommended biology books, and found that first the faculty review committee consisted of excellent biology teachers, and second, that the books they recommended had an accurate, if too short, discussion of evolution. One had a two page interview with Richard Dawkins. if my fears had been justified, I could have raised a stink. Working at the state level is fine, but I think those who care could do more at the local level. Even if you lose, you can sensitize people to the existence of religious dogmatism on school boards. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050/140 "2009-07-16T20:05:08Z")
[http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-socialstudies\_09tex.ART0.State.Edition1.4bfaaf7.html](http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-socialstudies_09tex.ART0.State.Edition1.4bfaaf7.html) > [@](#): > > …Barton, a former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, said that because the U.S. is a republic rather than a democracy, the proper adjective for identifying U.S. values and processes should be “republican” rather than “democratic.” That means social studies books should discuss “republican” values in the U.S., his report said… Agenda, much? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-culture-wars-new-front-u-s-history-classes-in-texas-wsj-article/503050.md?page=8)