Disturbing...

[RWB]

I need some help on an issue I have. I recently HEARD from some reliable sources some very disturbing things, seriously, you will see why I am disturbed after I think of a way to say and ask this....

Basically......... what I heard is that schools in America are getting revised texts on history and other things. For example, it will be illegal to portray any history in which a black person was once a slave. Some famous pictures of George Washington Crossing the river with his knife have been "retouched" where his knife is no longer on him. Other items just like this have been made.

Along with this, is that right now you can no longer have pictures of candy or anything that can remotly be miscontrued as "stereotypical" of children are illegal to have in School Text books. IE: using pictorials to help children learn math by having 2 peices of candy and 2 peices of another candy to equal 4 peices of candy total for Math Books.

This is ****ing rediculous! And before I blow a gasket or something, I want to make sure this is true, and I have been searching google like a mad man for the past 2 days trying to find a resource on all this and I cannot find it.

NASTA should be one resource, and I tried looking up the Texas school district stuff, but I don't know where to begin really. Texas is supposedly the leader in school districts of America, if Texas does it, then the rest follows or something dumb like that.

[Geeky1]

RWB, yes, it is true. It is now apparently illegal to have pictures of junk food (Read: anything from candy to hot dogs) in textbooks in California, if not the rest of the country.

It is also illegal in CA to teach anything but classic darwinian theory in Biology. While I personally believe in evolution over creation, not reaching creationism (and allowing students to come to their own conclusions about it) is not good. Hell, apparently they can't even TALK about creationism in Biology.

[RWB]

Is there a place I find these laws and proposals?

[Geeky1]

Google? I'm going based on memory here, so I can't help you much in the way of finding the actual laws or anything.

[Templar]

They shouldn't be explaining the origin of man in Biology anyway. That's what History is for. Biology is for memorizing the cell stages and slicing into worms and frogs. Why would they need to teach the origin of man in that class?

But anyway, this is disturbing. Thank god we only live for about 80 years. I'd hate to live 4 to 5 hundred and see all the crap that happens.

[Thrax]

They teach the origin of man in that class because the origin and evolution thereof is important to cladistics, explaining nomenclature, darwinism, etc.

The origin of man is more along the lines of Sociology, Anthropology, or Ontology.

But even so, Biology is the study of life.. Origins of man is pretty important to that.

[Mt_Goat]

If it's not accurate it's not teaching. It then becomes "conditioning".

~Amen brother! Now please pass the amunition!~

[Templar]

Thrax had this to say
They teach the origin of man in that class because the origin and evolution thereof is important to cladistics, explaining nomenclature, darwinism, etc.

The origin of man is more along the lines of Sociology, Anthropology, or Ontology.

But even so, Biology is the study of life.. Origins of man is pretty important to that.

I'm tempted to reply but I'm just going to hand you the stick :p

[Thrax]

Can I beat people with it?

[CB]

Thrax had this to say
Can I beat people with it?

Did you learn to do that from pictures in your math textbook?

[Thrax]

From Vice City... When I was beating sluts, Haitians, cops, and gang members with my Louisville Slugger.

[pseudonym]

Thrax had this to say
From Vice City... When I was beating sluts, Haitians, cops, and gang members with my Louisville Slugger.

lol, Don't forget grills of cars, and motor scooters!!!

[RADA]

Dateline did a story a little over a year ago about a history book that was being sold to US school districts.

This history book had 9 pages about the life & Times of Marylin Monroe, and two @#$%^!!! paragraphs about George Washington!!!!!!!!!!

Due to public outcry, the book never made it into the school system. It's pretty bad when someone says "Do you know what your kids are reading" and its in reference to the revisionist-pseudo-history crap that certain groups are trying to pass off as the truth.

[Geeky1]

What's going on is that political correctness has taken over. People are afraid to do or say anything that may upset anyone. It's rediculous.

[CB]

Well that's the question then, ya?

Rights issues usually come down to a question of which right is more valuable.

So, which is a more important right: Person one's right not to be offended by a text book, or Person two's right to learn the truth from his/her textbooks in public school?

One of those rights must be taken away. Which one?

[RADA]

I'm not quite sure I understand how you came to that theory.

Here's how I break it down;

I for one don't find the truth offensive, the subject matter may be of an offensive nature, but that doesn't make it any less true.

How does explaining the truth infringe on anybody's rights? I would think lying to, or "whitewashing" the historical facts to be more of a removal or degradation of my rights than learning the truth of a historical event.
Why should someone else decide what is offensive or not offensive to me, or my child? Why should this mysterious person(s) be allowed to edit history to his or her values or morals, without a thought toward documented historical accuracy?

IE:
Thomas Jefferson, a founder of our country, was a slave owner. While I find the thought of owning another human being offensive, I cannot change the that fact that this is the truth. So do we edit TJ out of our history for this, or do we accept it as fact, adjust our understanding of TJ, by taking in the good and bad he did in his life. Then when we have ALL the facts, we learn from them, so it can never happen again.

"Those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it" - George Santayana

Hope you don't think I'm flaming you, not trying to bro, hope I kept it as neutral a possible. If not, I appologize!

Sincerely,

RADA

[Dexter]

RWB et al,

I too find the Revisionist PC-ing of our history to be very disturbing. I agree with RADA on the Santayana quote - I was thinking the exact same thing before reading your post.

This issue should be important to us all, but should be very important to those of you who are American. After Sept 11/01, many Americans were asking the question "Why do they hate us so much?" Many Americans know very little of their nation's historical interests, influence, and actions in the middle east arena. It goes far deeper than the fact that your gov't supports Isreal over Palestine. America and England have had a long history of interference in middle eastern politics, backing leaders financially, employing assisination to replace leaders they do not like, etc. All in the name of ensuring the security of American "interests" in the area, ie oil, and in the days of the cold war, controlling an area economically before the Soviets could. Yet very little of this is spoken of or taught in your school system. Many Americans could not even point out Afghanistan on a map before Sep 11/01, depsite the fact that their gov't poured millions and millions of dollars into arms and bribe money there before, during and after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Things like that are a footnote in the history texts of America. But to the people who lives that political interference changed interminably (ie, Osama Bin Laden), it was not just a footnote.

I'm not trying to threadjack this or justify terrorism, merely draw a parallel. By "glossing over" history or the current actions of their nation's gov't, people run the risk of being woefully naive when the sh1t hits the fan. How many Americans said "We never did anything to them!" after the 9/11 attacks? But they just didn't know that, yes, your gov't did do quite a lot to "them", ie - gave them money and arms and training and promises of support and allegiance....then pulled out suddenly and left them hanging high and dry a couple of years when it was decided the return on investment was not good enough.

The point is, we all need to learn *all* of our nations respective histories - the good, the bad and the ugly. Revisionist history for the sake of political correctness is an abomination.

Dexter...

[RADA]

So you, in around about way are blaming US for 9/11. Sorry man, can't go there, the flames will fly. Just have to say we agree to disagree.

[CB]

I'm not offended, I know the difference between discussion and insult... This is a discussion.

I wasen't presenting that I agreed with either side. The point is that there is no good answer.

I understand that you are not insulted by the truth, neither am I, but that doesn't mean that everyone is as rational as you and I.

Here's the thing:

It's not really our place to decide what does and does not offend others. We can have our opinion about weather or not it's justified, but that doesn't change anything.

Silly Example for the sake of point-making:

If you told me in confidence that you thought my sister was hot, I wouldn't care, so your right to express your feelings about my sister is upheld, and you can say it again another time if you wish.

My sister however might be offended to hear this from a stranger. So after you tell her the first time, she lets you know that she doesn't like it. You still have a right to express your feelings, but my sister also has a right to not be offended. In this case, I would say that my sisters right is more important, so you should probably stop harassing her.


It seems obvious in that example, but isn't it the same. You're just telling the truth, if the truth offends someone, that's their problem, right? maybe not.

As I said, I'm not actually taking sides (yet), I'm just trying to define the issue. At present, I don't know much about this specific text book thing, so I don't feel qualified to make a judgement...

Perhaps I'll look over the information that's out there about it....

[RWB]

I am looking for the proof, not what "I have heard" type stuff. You all pretty much know I am not one for political correctness, which sends flames my way becuase I am a bit of an *******. But I don't wanna get a good thread that could be used as a good resource for finding information on this subject to be closed or something.

I just can't find the "laws" written anywhere on what many people claim to be "how it is". So far all I have seen in past flames on MOST if not all forums, is that the better bull****ter wins. Frankly, anyone can SAY America has done THIS or THAT, but I never see this "proof".

So, I created this thread, in high hopes, that someone will help me to find resources. Hopefully I worded this, in a good explainative way to be understood.

[profdlp]

What do dinosaurs, mountains, deserts, brave boys, shy girls, men fixing roofs, women baking cookies, elderly people in wheelchairs, athletic African Americans, God, heathens, witches, owls, birthday cake and religious fanatics all have in common? Trick question? Not really. As we learn from Diane Ravitch’s eye-opening book "The Language Police," all of the above share the common fate of having been banned from the textbooks or test questions (or both) being used in today’s schools.
Just Google (http://www.google.com) "PC in Textbooks" and you'll find more info than you want...

I still believe in "the whole truth"; just not in "the whole (sanitized) truth".

I am a lifelong history buff who is facing a bookshelf of (seemingly) obsolete books...

Ain't giving up though! :)

[Black Hawk]

Dexter had this to say
RWB et al,

I too find the Revisionist PC-ing of our history to be very disturbing. I agree with RADA on the Santayana quote - I was thinking the exact same thing before reading your post.

This issue should be important to us all, but should be very important to those of you who are American. After Sept 11/01, many Americans were asking the question "Why do they hate us so much?" Many Americans know very little of their nation's historical interests, influence, and actions in the middle east arena. It goes far deeper than the fact that your gov't supports Isreal over Palestine. America and England have had a long history of interference in middle eastern politics, backing leaders financially, employing assisination to replace leaders they do not like, etc. All in the name of ensuring the security of American "interests" in the area, ie oil, and in the days of the cold war, controlling an area economically before the Soviets could. Yet very little of this is spoken of or taught in your school system. Many Americans could not even point out Afghanistan on a map before Sep 11/01, depsite the fact that their gov't poured millions and millions of dollars into arms and bribe money there before, during and after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Things like that are a footnote in the history texts of America. But to the people who lives that political interference changed interminably (ie, Osama Bin Laden), it was not just a footnote.

I' not trying to threadjack this or justify terrorism, merely draw a parallel. By "glossing over" history or the current actions of their nation's gov't, people run the risk of being woefully naive when the sh1t hits the fan. How many Americans said "We never did anything to them!" after the 9/11 attacks? But they just didn't know that, yes, your gov't did do quite a lot to "them", ie - gave them money and arms and training and promises of support and allegiance....then pulled out suddenly and left them hanging high and dry a couple of years when it was decided the return on investment was not good enough.

The point is, we all need to learn *all* of our nations respective histories - the good, the bad and the ugly. Revisionist history for the sake of political correctness is an abomination.

Dexter...
I fully agree. History shouldn't be made pretty. All the facts should be known.

OT: RWB had this to say
Frankly, anyone can SAY America has done THIS or THAT, but I never see this "proof".
My $0.02 - IMHO in any example if the "proof" is shown, most people won't accept it. They would either say it's BS or it's just a conspiracy theory. Alot may say that the US gov't is evil, but that's cause they can see things from a difrent point of view that your own gov't may not want you to see. Other thing that a person may not want to believe. The media says that another country did something and you believe it without questioning. Now a country says something bad about yours and you act fast to question and say that they say you're evil. The US gov't may have done bad stuff and you can't deny it or justify it but they've also don't good. I can't argue that.

Aside from that I hope the thread stays clean and without flames. Friendly poke. Carry on :)

[primesuspect]

CBDroege had this to say
So, which is a more important right: Person one's right not to be offended by a text book, or Person two's right to learn the truth from his/her textbooks in public school?

One of those rights must be taken away. Which one?


Look, whether or not truth is offensive, truth is truth.... You cannot deny bad things just because they offend you or make you sad. Jews were pushed into ovens in Germany. Terrible? yes. Makes you feel bad? Yep.. Horrible truth? Yes. But I would much rather know this, than not know this. Whether this offends me or not has no bearing on the fact that it happened. Textbooks should reflect truth, not someone's opinion of what would or would not offend students.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I really cannot imagine how it is a violation of someone's rights to tell them the truth, whether it offends them or not.

[RWB]

The Media needs a good switf kick in the ass, I haven't WATCHED the news in at least 3 months, or any Tv for that matter. I don't know if your saying that _I_ believe anything the media says or not, either way, I don't know ANYONE who does believe anything the news media says. I am getting tired of hearing 12 ways to roast a chicken, when they COULD perhaps actually be speaking of recent events, like the guys that got creamed on the road for being drunk or something.

[Black Hawk]

RWB had this to say
I don't know if your saying that _I_ believe anything the media says or not, either way, I don't know ANYONE who does believe anything the news media says.
I was making and example and trust me, alot of people believe what their local news, CNN, Fox and gov't tell them. They're called sheep. It's good to read international news every now and then and see things from another perspective.

[Geeky1]

DEBATE ABOUT THIS TOPIC HERE:

http://www.keyboardjockey.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=164&

CB: Your sister does not have a right not to be offended.

And, with that statement, let's all go over to keyboardjockey and debate about political correctness and stuff, and leave this thread as what it has been so far- a discussion.

[profdlp]

The root of the problem lies not in what ideas should be readily available to all (My vote: ALL of them), but in what ideas should be conveyed in school textbooks, which by their nature must be somewhat simplified.

Ask your average 2nd Grader to choose from a group of complex historical ideas and you're apt to experience the same difficulty one is likely to encounter asking them to pick what kind of candy they want when going to the theater two minutes before the movie starts - "They all stink; they don't have my favorite; buy me one of each".

The big question is: "How do we gradually expose our kids to new ideas, without indoctrinating them?

My personal answer to this has been to (cheerfully) make my own values clear, while being as fair as I can be about the alternatives. This is a fine system for children raised with substantial parental involvement - maybe the real problem is that we don't see enough of that nowadays.

EDIT: Geeky1 - took me too long to type it all out - GREAT idea!

[WuGgaRoO]

i personally agree with the darwinism in the bio classes...i mean goddamn...i hate lemark...use and disue my right ass cheek

[profdlp]

WuGgaRoO had this to say
...i hate lemark...use and disue my right ass cheek
Who is "lemark"? Does he Fold?

As far as the rest, what you do with your cheeks is your own business... :wtf:

nice to see ya posting more, though... :thumbsup:

[primesuspect]

So, this thread has been successfully moved to keyboardjockey. Shall I close it?

Just to reiterate:

http://www.keyboardjockey.com/forum...?showtopic=164&

[profdlp]

primesuspect had this to say
So, this thread has been successfully moved to keyboardjockey. Shall I close it?
Not until WuGgsy answers... :D

[Geeky1]

Prime, I dunno. It seems to me that the debate could be carried on over there just as easily, but people may want to make some other points that they weren't looking to debate about.

I think for right now, I'd leave it, and just make a note that the debate itself should take place @ kbj.

[RWB]

But I didn't want it to be a debate, but fine. Close it, and continue over there.

[profdlp]

Not to be the ol' turd in the punchbowl, but the link tain't working, neither...

Just thought I'd mention it.:wave:

[Geeky1]

Prime's link isn't, but mine is. Apparently Prime can't operate the "ctrl+c" "ctrl+v" key sequence... :p

Here's the link AGAIN, to save you the effort of scrolling up to my post:

http://www.keyboardjockey.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=164&

[primesuspect]

I suck at computers.

[Geeky1]

Can I quote you on that? :D

[Dexter]

RADA had this to say
So you, in around about way are blaming US for 9/11. Sorry man, can't go there, the flames will fly. Just have to say we agree to disagree.


Grrrr,

Rada, can't you read? I said pretty clearly:


Dexter said...
I'm not trying to threadjack this or justify terrorism, merely draw a parallel


I am not trying to justify the actions of cowardly terrorists. I am saying that THIER side of things is based on issues that primarily, the average American school child has no clue about, because the actions of their gov't are not always presented in an "unbalanced" way. You cannot teach every single thing that has happened in history, there is just too much of it, so the tendency is to teach kids the good things, the things to be proud of, the things to recite in front of the parents in the school gymnasiuk once a year. The things that do not get taught are the things your enemies, and those who hate your country, will remember. The muslim exteremists and Palestinians did not just wake up one morning and collectively say, "Hey, let's hate America today." There are things that happened involving the American gov't, where they felt that the American gov't either directly or indirectly invloved itself in the affairs of another nation or the overthrow of a gov't or the oppression of a population, or killed or supported in some way the killing of people, or supported in some way the occupation of territory they feel entitled to. They may not be 100% right in their feelings, but somewhere in the middle of the 2 sides lays the truth. Many of the dictators whom are enemies of the US now or have been in the past few decades used to be supported either directly or clandestinely by the Gov't: Noriega, Kaddafi, Hussein. The US directly involved itself in the internal affairs of Iran, activities which led to the hostage taking incident of the Carter/Reagan era.

Please read that for what I am saying, not want you want to think I am saying. Get as mad at me as you want, but what I am saying is an obvious truth. It's your history, look it up somewhere...or choose to ignore the parts of that you personally do not want to hear about.

Dexter...

PS - I'll take this up at KBJ if the mod wants to shut it down here...but I cannot get into KBJ this morning...

PPS - Let it be known that though I am Canadian, my wife is American, so my kids are half American, and I have friends, acquaintances and family through out the US. I'm not US bashing, I fly a US flag in front of my home right beside my Canadian one. I just prefer to look at the sum total of facts available to me, rather than stop at the set of facts that is the most palatable to me.

[Leonardo]

one's right not to be offended

That's 100% cliche - not a "right".

[CB]

I'm talking about human rights bassed on ethical science. not legal 'rights' which are completely tentative, and change from country to country.

Ethicaly, every person has the right to everything that they desire until that right infringes upon the rights of another, at which point a judgement of importance needs to be made as to who's right should be upheld. This decision is made by analysing the greater good of whatever community that you're focusing on.

I have a right to throw mud.

GH has a right not to get hit with mud.

As soon as my right to throw mud infringes upon GH's right not to get hit with mud, a decision needs to be made. Would it be better for the community to support My right or GH's right? It would be better to support GH's right, for obvious reasons.

Law-makers use (or are supposed to be using) this science to create our 'legal rights'. Thus, in this exapmle, a law-maker would create a 'law' stating that it is unlawful to throw mud at other people.

We can't analyse this particular topic based on existing laws, because there really is no precedent to follow.

[Black Hawk]

You can't compare something like that. It's not the same thing. You may have the right not to be offended but IMHO teaching a student real history is not offending them. You shouldn't/can't just ignore something that happened. You accept it, your learn from it and you move on. Not knowing something like that would make the student seem that the world is just fruity colors.



meh...I need to learn how to express my self :(

[Geeky1]

CB, I'm afraid not. You have every right to throw mud, and people have every right not to be hit by it. However, they do not have a right to stop you, they have a right to move instead.

That's the way the law works in this country, and that's the way it should work.

[CB]

What if I used 'to shoot my gun' in my example instead of 'to throw mud'?

It's all about where you draw the lines.

[primesuspect]

ONe problem about your line of reasoning, CB, is that nobody has any right to define "offended"

Where is the quanitification for offense? What is offensive to one is not offensive to another. So how can anybody say "I have a right not to be offended" - that basically gives somebody carte blanche to say "you can't do _fill in the blank_ because it offends me"... I could say that not being able to eat warm human hearts that I've freshly pulled from a person I've just murdered offends me.

[Preacher]

I agree with you, Prime. No one has a right not to be offended in the public domain. Our freedom of speech precludes a person's right to be free from offensive speech. I agree with the framers of the constitution that freedom of speech is much more important and essential to a fair and just goverment then freedom from offensive speech. You have the right to say anything you want as long as it doesn't physically harm another person (Falsely yelling, "Fire!", in the crowded building being the classic example).

With that being said, I as an employer or private citizen have a right to refuse service, jobs, or contracts with you if you espouse beliefs or ideas that negatively affect my other employees or customers. The same even goes for government service. Certain things have no place in the workplace.