# TX education board conservatives succeed in whitewashing history **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 13, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314 "2010-03-13T00:14:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/81 "2010-03-15T21:18:20Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I think it’s more an issue that the wacko-left wants to describe the country as a democracy, when it simply isn’t. So now only the “wacko-left” describes the US as a democracy? Or rather, now that the [your epithet here]-right has decided this week to attack the idea that the US is a democracy, anyone who doesn’t immediately line up in agreement is “wacko-left”. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/82 "2010-03-15T21:23:26Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Or rather, now that the [your epithet here]-right has decided this week to attack the idea that the US is a democracy, anyone who doesn’t immediately line up in agreement is “wacko-left”. The right-thinkers. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/83 "2010-03-15T23:46:56Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > So now only the “wacko-left” describes the US as a democracy? > > Or rather, now that the [your epithet here]-right has decided this week to attack the idea that the US is a democracy, anyone who doesn’t immediately line up in agreement is “wacko-left”. When we’re fightin’ terrists and tha Axis o’ Evil, we’s a democracy. When them liberals get a majority in congress, we’s a republic, so majority rule and progressive taxation are wrong. Ya got it? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/84 "2010-03-16T00:05:47Z")
> [@sleeping](#): > > Ya got it? Technically, wouldn’t the party of no govern through a Republican’tsy? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/85 "2010-03-16T20:50:15Z")
IIRC, the Tex Books standards also seek to emphasize the reference in the Declaration is Independence to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” and the “Creator” as an abvious attempt to push the Religious Right belief the Christianity deserves credit for Americans’ freedom. But IMO they are misinterpreting the meaning. “Nature’s God” is not the God of the Bible. Nowadays, we take freedom and equality for granted, and the controversey is over whether God or some secular reasoning is responsible for them. But at the time of the Revolution, the presence of God was taken for granted and the controversey was over whether the people were entitled to rights or whether God granted the King the divine right to rule. The latter had been the tradition in Christendom for over a millenium. If the FFs had cited Bible references it might be a little harder to argue against, but they’re not there. Instead, I think “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” means that the FFs looked at the world and extrapolated the idea of human rights from there. The references to God and the Creator is an attmept to establish some sort of authority that went over the King’s head. They don’t refer to any miracles. And yet conservatives act like the FFs were as well-connected to the Almighty as were the writers of the King James Version. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/86 "2010-03-17T00:53:17Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > But IMO they are misinterpreting the meaning. “Nature’s God” is not the God of the Bible. > > Nowadays, we take freedom and equality for granted, and the controversey is over whether God or some secular reasoning is responsible for them. But at the time of the Revolution, the presence of God was taken for granted and the controversey was over whether the people were entitled to rights or whether God granted the King the divine right to rule. This makes sense, as a calculated and deliberate “slap in the face” to Europe, and the concept of the “divine right of kings”. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/87 "2010-03-17T04:44:20Z")
Just when I thought America couldn’t get any dumber, these clowns come along to make sure the American educational system gets flushed even _ **further** _ down the toilet. :mad: What really gets me steamed the most at this revisionist [del]bullshit[/del] history is the inclusion of Jefferson Davis on an equal standing with Abraham Lincoln??? 😕 Let me see if I have this correct. Jefferson Davis was the head of a country that was at war with the United States of America. So, we are to include his writings and speeches in our textbooks to give students a “balanced” view of history? Well, why stop at Jefferson Davis? How about the writings of King George III describing what a bunch of ungrateful, arrogant bastards those colonists were? And why stop there? Why not toss in the writings of Hirohito and Hitler? And heck, why not make the dictionary lose its liberal bias too? Under the word “nuclear” make “NOOK-YOU-LAR” the only accepted pronunciation. Well, our former Commandable In Chief used that pronunciation and he’s from the Lone Star State so that would be readily accepted by the Texas State Board of Education don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/88 "2010-03-17T04:51:10Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > … and he’s from the Lone Star State … Kenya. ---
**Author:** ![sleeping](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@sleeping](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleeping)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/89 "2010-03-17T12:23:34Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#): > > What really gets me steamed the most at this revisionist [del]bullshit[/del] history is the inclusion of Jefferson Davis on an equal standing with Abraham Lincoln??? 😕 > Let me see if I have this correct. Jefferson Davis was the head of a country that was at war with the United States of America. This is a perfect example of how disingenuous these people are. On the one hand, they want to emphasize the role of Republicans in the civil rights movement (while ignoring the complexities of the Democratic and Republican party demographics and historic realignment of the South due to the [Southern strategy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy)). At the same time, they promote Jefferson Davis to an equal footing with Lincoln–a Republican. One would think that they would seize onto this opportunity to praise Republicans…but then the veneer between the historical Southern legalized racism and the institutional (but implicit) racism of contemporary America could not be maintained. After all, these are the sorts of people who complain about not being able to fly the Confederate flag without controversy. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/90 "2010-03-17T13:58:06Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > They want to acclimatize to their likely afterlife destination? 😉 What afterlife? There’s no such thing. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/91 "2010-03-17T14:33:49Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > What afterlife? There’s no such thing. I know that, and you know that, but them? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/92 "2010-03-17T20:07:08Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Kids that age are capable of dealing with algebra, trig, geometry, physics, biology and science. As long as they are schooled in a basic way on the various factors that come into play, I see no reason why they can’t get a good rudimentary grasp on economics as well (and for the average student that knowledge would likely serve them better in life than most of those other subjects anyway). [HOBBY HORSE] I wish that more educators would read Lewis Carroll’s [_Symbolic Logic_](http://durendal.org/lcsl/index.html) (intended to be apprehensible to Victorian children aged ~11 years who would shortly be learning formal logic from somewhat drier texts) and ask themselves if modern children have some\* physical \*limitation which makes the subject of logic inaccessible to them, or if they aren’t merely being intellectually stunted to no good purpose. Why the hell isn’t logic taught in grade school anymore? Woudln’t a general population of people who are capable of critical thought & analysis produce some benefits for us? [/HOBBY HORSE] ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/93 "2010-03-17T20:37:27Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Jeez Louise. No, that’s wrong. > > Canada is a representative democracy, but is NOT a republic. > > The People’s Republic of China is, by many accepted definitions, a constitutional republic, but is not really a democracy. > > “Constitutional republic” and “representative democracy” quite simply are not the same thing. The USA happens to be both, but a country can be either without being the other. Exactly what I was going to say regarding the PRC. The whole “we are a republic, not a democracy” argument is just an strange fixation on the names “republican” and “democrat” in the USA’s two dominant political parties without regard to the history behind those names; they’re not refelective of some kind of decades-long ideological struggle to establish the country as either a republic or a pure democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/94 "2010-03-17T21:00:38Z")
Today’s LA Times weighs in on the issue: > **[American history -- right and left](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-17-la-oe-zimmerman17-2010mar17-story.html)** > > American history -- right and left > [@](#): > > And that’s the real back story of the tragicomedy that’s unfolding in Texas. It’s easy for coastal liberals to scoff at the unlettered rubes of the Lone Star State, who are obviously revising history to fit their present-day predilections. But that’s what we all do, all the time, and then we foist these ideas on our kids. > > What if we gave them multiple points of view instead? Recent history gives us a perfect opportunity to do precisely that. After the arch-liberal author Howard Zinn died in January, his “A People’s History of the United States” shot to No. 12 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction list. Just behind – at No. 15 – was Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen’s conservative “A Patriot’s History of the United States,” which received a big boost when Glenn Beck pumped it on his radio and TV shows. > > So here’s a modest proposal: Instead of bickering about the “correct” version of the past, the Texas school board should decree that every high school history class use both of these texts. That would teach students that Americans disagree – vehemently – about the making and the meaning of their nation. And it would require the kids to sort out the differences on their own. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/95 "2010-03-17T22:11:45Z")
You guys are aware of course that all this sturm und drang over teaching creationism in school is just a backlash resulting from left-wing attempts to quash religion in the first place don’t you? When I was in school the only religious thing we were “taught” was by virtue of Christmas plays containing Jesus, a manger, and three wise men, with most of the learning emphasis placed on what were gold, frankincense and myrrh. It wasn’t until the left began trying to remove every bit of religious symbolism (Christian, that is. Curiously nobody seems to mind other forms of religious expression) from public view and verbally assailing religion outright that religious people on the right began trying to force religious teaching in schools to begin with. And don’t forget, one of the principles this country is founded upon is the principle of religious freedom - a freedom protected by the establishment clause in the Constitution. Lefties are real big on government prohibiting that “establishment” thing and taking it to ridiculous lengths, but somehow never pay any attention to the rest of that sentence which reads _“or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”_. Prohibiting the free exercise thereof does not mean restricting it to churches and private homes. The whole idea is that people should be free to think and believe and practice their religion as they see fit, free from government interference. So it’s only natural that when certain people become politically invested in trying to quash that religious expression, it’s believers are going to become politically invested in trying to promote it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/96 "2010-03-17T22:14:25Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It wasn’t until the left began trying to remove every bit of religious symbolism (Christian, that is. Curiously nobody seems to mind other forms of religious expression) Nobody minds other forms of religious expression because nobody puts them in schools, you twit. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/97 "2010-03-17T22:23:02Z")
I would posit they don’t mind them because they aren’t primarily associated with America and traditional American values. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/98 "2010-03-17T22:24:32Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Nobody minds other forms of religious expression because nobody puts them in schools, you twit. Maybe they should, just to be fair. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, why the hell not. No, usually it’s more a case of it’s gotta be christian and it’s gotta be the right type of christian. So, it’s not about religious freedom when “they” push religion, it’s the opposite because they want to promote their brand only. But watch the shit storm if anyone wants to teach about (let’s pick the most obvious) Islam. Freeedom for them but not for the others? I think so. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/99 "2010-03-17T22:33:23Z")
Speaking for myself, I’d be quite happy if people were taught about all religions in school. Religion is an important element in other cultures worldwide and is as apt a subject with regard to other counties around the world as are their geographic layout, agriculture, economic systems and gross national product. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314/100 "2010-03-17T22:37:08Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Speaking for myself, I’d be quite happy if people were taught about all religions in school. Religion is an important element in other cultures worldwide and is as apt a subject with regard to other counties around the world as are their geographic layout, agriculture, economic systems and gross national product. We are in full agreement. A class in comparative religion (as it is sometimes called) would be a good idea. Students would learn that there are more similarities than differences, and that someone is not The Enemy or The Heretic, just because they go to some different church or temple. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tx-education-board-conservatives-succeed-in-whitewashing-history/532314.md?page=6)