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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / It’s Not Going to Stop Until You Wise Up

It’s Not Going to Stop Until You Wise Up

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This seems like the appropriate song to accompany this announcement:

The short story is that the Republicans in the Monroe County NY legislature introduced a Wisconsin-style bill to limit the powers of the newly-elected Democratic County Executive. Then, a shitstorm ensued, they learned that it’s not what they thought when they first began it, and they gave up.

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  5. 5.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Ohio Mom:  I agree. Was is public out cry, the disinfecting light of meadia coverage, human decency or something else that made them change their minds? 
    Attn Watergirl:  @[email protected] showed up on my FIRST click on reply!  (Chrome/Win 10/HP Lap top)
     

  6. 6.

    C Stars

    Just catching up on some highlights from the impeachment hearing today. Good lord, the GOP really was outclassed by Yovanovich. Jordan is just very clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.

  8. 8.

    LesGS

    @Ohio Mom: I saw your nym, and I wanted to ask you (and any other Ohioans what they thought the impact of this bill recently passed in your state might be. (It isn’t really OT, ‘cuz the post’s tag is ‘Republican Stupidity.’
     
    “The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs. Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.”
     
    I’m guessing this is pointed at teaching evolution, but I wonder how a Mormon student’s answers on a history exam about North America would be handled.
     

  9. 9.

    Patricia Kayden

    When Republicans pull these stunts, they just prove that they’re anti-democratic.  

  10. 10.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @trollhattan:
    ‱ Monroe County GOP defeated.
    ‱ Roger Stone convicted.
    ‱ Bevin concedes.
    ‱ Saw Aimee Mann a couple years ago.
    One of these things is not like the others.
     

  11. 11.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @LesGS: Good question. I’ve been wondering about that too and thinking about problematic “Facts” from a fundie pov. So far I’ve got mostly obvious things:

    • Geology and Cosmology: age and location of earth in the universe.
    • Biology: Evolution & maximum human lifespan 600+ years
    • Language: Jesus spoke English
    • I haven’t thought of any religous problems with math yet, but maybe π=3 for some from Indiana.

    What others?
     
     
     
     

  12. 12.

    JWR

    Test … eta Can’t embed tweets, though I went through the same steps earlier. Wait, lemme try again … Nope.

  14. 14.

    clay

    @LesGS: “Substance and relevance”?  The “substance” is scientific reasoning and knowledge.  The “relevance” is how closely their answer follows scientific reasoning and knowledge.
     
    This is just nonsense.  Literally nonsense — it makes no sense.  I’m a Christian, and a high school teacher (math).  But if some student tried to answer a test question with “Pi equals 3 because the Bible says so”*, I’d fail them so hard they’d feel it next year.
     
    *The Bible doesn’t actually say this, but a lot of people think it does for some reason
     

  16. 16.

    WhatsMyNym

    @LesGS:  Snopes has a good write up on it (only the House has passed it)  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ohio-school-religion-answers/

    Critics have proclaimed that however the bill is applied, it unnecessarily duplicates constitutional and state freedom of speech and religion protections and would place teachers and school administrators in the position of having to interpret and judge students’ religious convictions and beliefs.
    What HB 164 might ultimately allow or not allow in the intersection of education and religion cannot be definitively determined until it is put into effect and applied to specific cases. As of now the bill still has to be approved by the Ohio Senate and signed by the governor before it becomes law, so any application of it will not take place unless and until those events occur.

     

  17. 17.

    jeffreyw

    and there are issues with the editing bar going away after a refresh to see the reply I was making only to see it back again after an entirely new comment.

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    @clay:
    I’ve heard some people say that a lot of churches that do Bible Study don’t actually read it straight through — they have a topic every week and jump around looking at verses that the group leader and/or pastor says are relevant. 
    That’s how people can claim that they “know” what’s in the Bible without actually knowing it — they’ve read a bunch of disconnected verses but never read it as a whole to be able to see, say, the Sermon on the Mount as a single piece about social justice. 
     

  23. 23.

    Marcopolo

    Well, for the folks looking for good news today, at some point in the next few hours ActBlue will pass the $4 Billion dollar fundraising mark.  For context, on Jan 1 2018 the total raised was $1,990,437,100.  And that was from their starting in 2004.  Now double in less than 2 more years.  Maybe we can add another $2B between now & the election?  I am fairly sure that the vast majority of Ds will have funds they need to run competitive campaigns.

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @LesGS: 

    I wonder how a Mormon student’s answers on a history exam about North America would be handled.

    Only evangelical Protestant Christianity is legitimately a religion in the eyes of anyone who is going to make use of this law.  Maybe, maybe, Catholicism when it usefully intersects with evangelical bigotry.

  26. 26.

    Avalune

    @LesGS: I’m also from Ohio – though to be fair, I’ve only been back twice since turning 19…    Leto always tries to get me to explain my people and I just look at him and shrug and point to the latest stupid thing South Carolina is doing. He sadly says yeah and we both carry on with whatever we were doing.   I rarely envy teachers in the first place but I especially don’t envy teachers having to try to referee this crap.    Are they going by a list of approved religions, major religions only, or can I make up a religion and say my bullshit wrong answer is based on it?   

    • Ah I just saw the snopes blurb to clarify a little but I stand by my statement. :D
  29. 29.

    sdhays

    @Mnemosyne: That’s the only way I have ever heard of the Bible being studied in church. You start with the point you want to make and then find something in the Bible to help make that point.
     
    People don’t go to Bible Study to better understand the Bible. They go to Bible Study to better understand how the Bible supports their world view.
     

  30. 30.

    Avalune

    The only correct answer is ten because when Snorgbloop came down from Vexis and fed the people with blerg, he named all the things by what we call numbers in our lack of understanding.

  34. 34.

    sdhays

    @Avalune: Yes. I should have said people don’t host Bible Studies to better understand the Bible. They host Bible Studies to convince other people that the Bible supports their worldview.
     

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @JWR:
    Post tweet in Text mode, optionally erase the “script” niblet at the bottom. (That may actually be necessary, haven’t confirmed.)

  36. 36.

    Rusty

    When they started getting cold feet and wanted to “negotiate”, I am glad Bello,t winner,  stood his ground and said no negotiations.  I was planning on going to the meeting on the 10th, that would have a show not to miss.

  37. 37.

    Raven

    I have a friend and neighbor who is a lawyer and a very progressive christian and has a group called Theology on Tap. I like the dude and he rails at his fellow christers so that’s cool with me.

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    @Steeplejack (phone): Some fundies regard General Relativity as being against their religious beliefs. Amusingly, since GR is used as part of the calculations underlying the GPS system and since GPS undeniably works, they square that particular circle by denying that GR used in GPS. If you look at the “GPS” entry over in Conservapedia (remember that?), you can see this particular pathology. 
     

  39. 39.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @jeffreyw:
    If you don’t get the Reply @person, press X to get out of the comment, then press Reply again. That will put you back in the comment editor with the @Person.
     

  44. 44.

    The Moar You Know

    “The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under the law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong as long as the reasoning is because of their religious beliefs. Instead, students are graded on substance and relevance.”

     
    @LesGS:  Fine by me.  If that passes both houses and gets signed into law, the company I work for (Republican as it gets but we do work that relies heavily on established science) will simply stop hiring anyone from Ohio.  And knowing the owner, he’ll announce that publicly.  And the reason why.
     

  45. 45.

    jeffreyw

    @Steeplejack (phone): I was doing that and it works ok, but a newish quirk today was that, having done that, when I pressed post comment I am taken back to the top of the comment thread.  Scrolled down to see if the reply posted and found that it had not.  A subsequent refresh was needed to see my reply.  

  46. 46.

    Roger Moore

    @clay: 

    *The Bible doesn’t actually say this, but a lot of people think it does for some reason

    People believe the Bible defines pi as 3 because it describes a gigantic pot that’s 10 cubits across and 30 cubits around.  Divide circumference by diameter to get pi=3.
     

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @sdhays:
    When Catholics do Bible study (which isn’t often), they usually go cover to cover. Julia Sweeney says that doing it that way was part of what made her an atheist, because she realized that it made no fucking sense when read in order. 
     

  52. 52.

    cckids

    @Avalune: 
     

    I rarely envy teachers in the first place but I especially don’t envy teachers having to try to referee this crap. Are they going by a list of approved religions, major religions only, or can I make up a religion and say my bullshit wrong answer is based on it?

    That was my thought! Anyone who believes this is a good idea has not spent much time around middle/high schoolers and their imaginative ways to get out of work.

  53. 53.

    Feathers

    @LesGS: what’s sad is that there is a better way of handling this, which is to allow students to give answers in the form of “science says X, but I don’t believe this because of my religious faith.”  The problem is the fundies demanding that they be shielded from having to acknowledge the real world actually exists. 
     

  54. 54.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @dmsilev:  Thanks, I hadn’t heard of that one. Do you or anyone else know why they think General Relativity contradicts the Bible? 
    Does it sound too much like moral relativity?
     

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