Hmmmm what happened in the mid 1800s that you believe caused America to get worse. https://t.co/RSZesgoI9u
— The Substack of Boba Fett (@agraybee) April 26, 2022
Counterpoint: 17th,18th, & early 19th century Americans had arguably the world's highest standards of living before the development of widespread public education. https://t.co/nleUUBPqo1
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 26, 2022
… And everyone not a white male with decently prosperous parents knew their place!
Well, I guess if you go with Roger Taney's definition of "American" that's true. But those of us who view blacks as people may not believe it was a golden age.
— Lauren Walker (@Laubrewa) April 26, 2022
dan "we don't need public education" mclaughlin brings up new england as an example of a place which did not need public education to succeed. every town in new england with more than fifty citizens has had compulsory municipal education from 1650 forward. https://t.co/f8OMwENIB3
— alcibiades nuts (@Theophite) April 26, 2022
public education isn't just a social good, it's a huge economic positive at a nuts and bolts level–more productivity, more innovation, it's a virtuous cycle
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) April 26, 2022
War for Ukraine Update 62: The Defense of Ukraine on the 36th Anniversary of the Chornobyl Disaster
Soonergrunt
Guys like Baseball Face are why I’m not going to leave Twitter, no matter what Musk does.
Watching them constantly, repeatedly beclowning themselves in real time has been one of the most affordable sources of entertainment you could find.
Anne Laurie
@Soonergrunt: Twenty-four seven, too!
Brachiator
This little fact is a wonderful example of how those who yearn for the “good old days” don’t know any actual history. Dealing with this crap is like trying to take flat earthers seriously.
sukabi
Wow, if that’s not a prime example of “tell me you know nothing about what you’re talking about” I don’t know what is…
Chetan Murthy
There’s an unstated assumption in Dan the Shithead’s argument: that what matters is being better-off than other nations, not being absolutely better-off. And this assumption is the classic baked-in assumption that underlies all male-dominated hierarchies: men don’t care how many humans survive, how many children survive, as long as more of their *own* children are members of that survivor set.
It’s the plot of Fight Club turned into politics: sex-starved middle-managers and paper-pushers who are willing to rip down modern civilization, so that they can get the girl.
Madness, and a peculiarly *male* kind of madness.
Ruckus ??
@Brachiator:
Dealing with this crap is like trying to take flat earthers seriously.
Well they take themselves seriously. And they constantly make a damn mess everywhere they go.
I think that’s mainly because it must be dark where the seem to store their brains 24/7. Dark, smells like crap and requires a double jointed spine to accomplish this trick. That double jointed spine is why they keep wanting to go backwards in time, to before they were born and their thoughts got all corrupted by being in that dark, stank, place they have parked their heads.
mrmoshpotato
@Ruckus ??: That’s the best phrasing of “head up your ass” I’ve ever read.
ian
The source of this twitter fight is a fox news host arguing that if a public high school football coach can’t pray on the field with his team after a football game, then we might as well not have public schools at all.
HuCat
Jayzus! The look of ’em [baseball heads].
Ruckus ??
@mrmoshpotato:
Seemed like it needed a bit of up dating, to be filled out a bit……
NotMax
@Ruckus
“Anal-cranial intersection” works too.
;)
Ruckus ??
@NotMax:
It seemed a bit too obvious…..
opiejeanne
@Soonergrunt: Some smart aleck on Twitter, probably Jim Wright/StoneKettle, pointed out that Elon Musk just paid $44 billion for the same thing that we got for free.
NotMax
Extrapolating from Rand Paul’s most recent expostulation of ignorance, he’d have no problem with the U.S. being attacked by Britain.
//
Mustang Bobby
@Ruckus ??: My late husband called it “cranial rectitus.”
Mustang Bobby
Here’s a bit of fun:
Many future generations of chickens gave their all in the name of freedom.
different-church-lady
@Soonergrunt:
The problem with that is the clowns keep winning elected office.
Ohio Mom
I think the description that best fits here is “not even wrong.”
Nomdeguerre
The majority of parents in the USA view public education as a failure and support a return to religious instruction in schools. Mocking these people is both offensive and counterproductive.
MagdaInBlack
@Nomdeguerre: The majority?
ryk
@Nomdeguerre: Bullshit
Montanareddog
@Nomdeguerre: and which asshole’s asshole was that statistic pulled from. Your own? Betsy de Vos’? Some random chud at the Daily Caller?
satby
@Nomdeguerre: Nah, not even close. And which religion?
Elizabelle
@Nomdeguerre: That you, baseballcrank?
Montanareddog
@Nomdeguerre: Your assertion is also a non-sequitur: in what way would the return of religious instruction stop public schools from failing? Learning the catechism will make kids more numerate?
Elizabelle
@Mustang Bobby: I loved that article. Had one of my favorite sentences this week:
Good luck with your play’s opening night tomorrow.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: My trolling alert was not yet activated by caffeine, so I reacted too. But now, half a pot later, the alarm is buzzing ??
satby
@satby: no affiliation with any specific religion is growing, and the white Evangelical Xtians who make noises like your comment are 12% total of the religious population (as of 2020). Catholics who believe religious education should be included send their kids to private, Catholic schools, and always have. There’s no consensus on which religious training should be in public schools at all, except in the minds of bigots.
satby
@Elizabelle: ???
Nomdeguerre
@satby: Americans think public schools are failing https://news.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx
A similar 60 percent favor prayer in school.
Making fun of the beliefs and concerns of the majority of people in the country is how elections are lost.
You may think that public education is worth preserving. A good faith argument as to why will be more effective than mocking people who have valid concerns about the quality of education.
montanareddog
@MagdaInBlack: I think the troll should change his nym to nomdecachermastupidité
MagdaInBlack
@Nomdeguerre: Ok, I’ll bite again. Which prayers? What religion?
Nomdeguerre
@Montanareddog: I’m not saying it would… I’m saying a lot of people think it would. And the road to convincing people that secular education can be effective is not to mock what they believe.
Soprano2
@satby: Many years ago there was a letter in Church and State magazine from a conservative Christian who said he supported no prayers at school events. He and his family moved to Hawaii, where he was horrified at the native Hawaiian religious display before his son’s first football game. He said it made him uncomfortable, and he suddenly understood why people didn’t like Christian prayers at school events. It’s interesting how these people have no imagination, and cannot imagine things they haven’t experienced.
Elizabelle
@Nomdeguerre: I don’t put much stock in polling. WHO thinks the public schools are failing? Is it anyone with direct knowledge of kids in school, and how they are doing?
Who cares about a bunch of old cranks (baseball or otherwise) who mainline Fox News and rightwing media, and are reachable by land lines (and wholly overrepresented in polls)?
Could public schools be doing better? Sure, there is no doubt room for improvement in each and every one of them. But failing? Nope.
Soprano2
@Nomdeguerre: That was taken during Covid, so I’m not sure it’s the real feeling. Plus, most people think those “other” schools are failing, but like their kid’s schools. Besides, what does that have to do with the idiocy on display in those tweets? Funny, isn’t it, how liberals are always being scolded for mocking people who say dumb things, while conservatives are praised for it.
MagdaInBlack
@Soprano2: I’m so tired of being expected to coddle the willfully ignorant. I refuse.
matt
They like authoritarianism a shitload more than they like economic efficiency.
SFAW
@Nomdeguerre:
OK, I won’t “mock”:
Fuck them and their feudalistic, ignorant mindset.
And being “dissatisfied” with the state of education (which is what the poll “measured”) — after a 40-plus-year demolishing by the Party of Traitors, aided-and-abetted by their Foxbot supporters — is not the same as “view public education as a failure.”
I assume you’ll blame your comprehension issues on your being a product of the “failed” public education system.
Gvg
@Nomdeguerre: Alternatively, treating idiot views as worthy of respect, has only emboldened more idiotic views, especially since it is a minority who wants to bully the rest of us into shutting up and becoming meek little slaves.
The founders put separation of church and state in because they were the recent descendants of religious wars between Christians in Europe. Religion has to be kept out of government and education is a part of government. These religious would be bullies are all making an assumption that their version of faith will be top dog, proving both that they don’t understand statistics, don’t know history and don’t really understand people. Getting their way would not only be bad for a lot of us, but would be a disaster for their own religion too. Oh, and even if they started as top dog, that always changes….several times. Religious wars, keep it away.
Nomdeguerre
@Soprano2: I think dumb ideas often need to be taken seriously. McAuliffes blithe dismissal of parental involvement in schools lost that election.
matt
@Nomdeguerre: Christianity is the #1 thing holding the US back. No flying cars and space colonies until we fix the superstition problem.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Considering the Rethug decades-long attempt(s) to destroy it, I’m amazed it’s survived as well as it has.
I have said this more than a couple of times over the years, but: the Rethugs’ concerted effort(s) to destroy public education is part of their plan to create an ignorant electorate, so that they can keep “winning” elections.
SFAW
@matt:
Well, in fairness, I do too — as long as I’m God-Emperor, and can deport all the RWMFs to either Dumbfuckistan or the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
SFAW
@MagdaInBlack:
And yet you’ve always been nice to me. Oh, wait, you wrote “willfully.”
Elizabelle
@Nomdeguerre: Lot of voter remorse over Youngkin. Virginia is not Florida.
WRT the pre-election hysteria over CRT: one thing I find interesting about rightwingers’ approach (vs. others’ approaches):
the wholly fake “grassroots uprising” that is not. The leaders of the CRT hysteria — surprise, surprise — turned out to be longterm Republican activists and operatives.
You just do not see that elsewhere.
Maybe because moderate and liberal voters are smart enough to see past the Potemkin village? Whereas rightwingers are not, and all you have to do is inflame them to a fever pitch over the outrage du jour? CRT! Ebola. Abortion and guns, always. (More one issue voters on the GOP side, although that is changing. Voting rights and protection of democracy is going to be a big one for Democrats and — get this — it is an ACTUAL threat.)
It is sad.
The Thin Black Duke
Why the Fuck are you guys arguing with the asshole?
Chief Oshkosh
@Mustang Bobby: The great thing about egging vehicles is that it is a PITA to clean it all off, and anything left on may damage the finish. And smell.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: Kind of to strengthen our own skills of persuasion? I realize it’s lost on this one.
But, he/she/it is a reminder that one has to be able to defend — concisely — a lot of what is the common good, which used to be commonly accepted, but is now being torn down by rightwingers.
Cannot take anything for granted anymore. Anything.
satby
@Nomdeguerre: anyone can pray in schools. What is prohibited is prayer that seems government endorsed, as we still have separation of church and state here, as delineated by the founding fathers. And factual information about the decline in religious identification is not mocking. But I’ll mock bad faith arguments based on a single poll with no answer to which religion is supposed to be returned to schools? And I will fight vigorously against any specific religion being introduced as a government sponsored one.
I dispute your entire premise.
Mustang Bobby
@Elizabelle: Thank you!
satby
Geminid
@Nomdeguerre: Elections are won or lost by candidates and officeholders, not by the commenters on this blog. If I saw Democratic candidates mocking the religious beliefs of their voters I definitely would discount their election prospects.
I do see a lot of comments here that are derogatory of religion and the religious, and I don’t neccesarily agree with them. But Democratic politicians generally are circumspect and too practical to talk this way.
Elizabelle
@satby: True. And now it is weaponized (and magnified, where possible) by social media.
We live in interesting times.
Craig
@Mustang Bobby: awesome. District next door to me.
Kay
@Nomdeguerre:
Go back and read the graphs you posted. Beneath the number you like and cherry picked (45 satisfied with public education) is another question:
73% are completely or somewhat satisfied with public education.
The polling on public education has been like this for 50 years. People rate “public schools” much worse than they rate “the public school my child attends”.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Thank you, Kay.
The Thin Black Duke
@Elizabelle: Thing is, I don’t take anything for granted because I know that Rust Never Sleeps. What pisses me off about trolls is their sole purpose is to exhaust us. There’s only so much gas in the tank and I don’t think it’s productive to waste it by driving around in circles only to wind up at a dead end.
AM in NC
@Chetan Murthy: Coupled with that also unfortunately male-dominated stance, “if I can’t have her, nobody can”. See: Putin/Ukraine; MAGA/USA
Eunicecycle
@satby: your argument (whose religion?) is what I used to convince my husband that public prayer in schools was not a good thing. I went to public schools in the 60s when prayer was still allowed. We were Protestant, and moved to an area that was highly Catholic. Every day they said Hail Marys and Our Fathers. I was so confused and felt stupid because I didn’t know these prayers. I’m not stupid so I quickly learned them, but I still felt uncomfortable and “fake” somehow. So to your point, what prayers should we say in public schools? Who gets to decide?
Kay
@Nomdeguerre:
I don’t have any particular objection to religious people, but I think the petitioner to the Supreme Court is a bad coach and teacher. He’s putting his own wants ahead of his students and athletes and not thinking at all about who he’s excluding. I would expect the students to be his first priority, and not just the overtly and publicly Christian students.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: That’s definitely a point.
Interesting this one showed up at Balloon Juice. And, to
the troll’sthis commenter’s credit, did stick pretty much to the issue of public education. Can’t really say this one derailed the discussion (as is a usual tactic).Eunicecycle
@Kay: He also doesn’t know his Bible very well, as Matthew 6:5 clearly states Jesus said NOT to pray in public like the hypocrites do. But as we all know they don’t really follow Jesus anyway.
Kay
@Nomdeguerre:
There was this crazy disconnect between polling on parental satisfaction with schools and media coverage of disatisfaction with schools during the pandemic that was really consistent:
Over and over parents polled said they were good with how their schools handled covid. Two years, the number hardly budged. Over and over media people and pundits said they weren’t satisfied.
Because AA and Latino parents were consistently much more cautious about exposing children to covid than white parents were , I suspect the reason for the disconnect was they weren’t talking to any AA and Latino parents, who are now the majority of public school parents.
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
It’s akin to the polling on “congress” or “government”. Everyone hates congress and government. Until they’re asked about the representative or their personal experience of government. Then it jumps 20 points.
It’s fashionable to attack broad categories like “public schools” and “congress” as part of a herd. Pull out your own school or your own mayor and nuance comes in.
SFAW
@Kay:
Not unlike the (perhaps apocryphal) “I hate Congress but I love my Rep/Sen” polling results we often see.
ETA: And if I had taken the time to read your next comment, instead of adding my (redundant) comment, I woulda seen you beat me to it. Hoist on my own petard re: reading comprehension. Or something.
Soprano2
@MagdaInBlack: ME TOO!
Soprano2
@Nomdeguerre: Except that’s not really what happened. It was old people in rural areas who voted for the radical right sweater vest. Parents were always involved with schools, the GOP just lies about that.
lowtechcyclist
@Nomdeguerre:
Oh, what the hey:
There’s nothing in that poll that says that. Nothing.
All it says is slightly more Americans are dissatisfied than satisfied with the state of U.S. public education, which according to your link seems to be fairly constant going back to 1999.
They also asked parents with children in public schools how they felt about the education their oldest child in school is getting. 73% were completely or somewhat satisfied, and only 26% were somewhat or completely dissatisfied. More poll respondents (28%) were completely satisfied than had any level of dissatisfaction.
That’s your real result. The rest is just noise based on what they hear from news stories, pressure groups, etc. (“Their minds are filled with big ideals, images, and distorted facts.” – Dylan)
Again, the actual poll question would help. Support for, say, a brief nonsectarian prayer to start off the school day (right after the Pledge of Allegiance, I’m sure, because we worship God, and God worships America) doesn’t equate to or support the notion that
And you know that. So kindly fuck off.
ed
@Nomdeguerre: but originalism and textualisim…
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
Soprano2
@SFAW: I read a Salon article this morning about DeVos’ latest attempt to destroy MI public schools. They want all education to be in Christian religious schools for the privileged few.
Kay
@SFAW:
IMO, they hear a constant drumbeat that public schools are failing and young people are less educated than they are, which they like, so they sign on to that question.
It always amazes me. I’ll talk to 40 year olds here who will tell me with a straight face that they got a “great” education at the public school but the schools themselves are now failing. Apparently the 1990s were the Golden Age of public education and every child through the doors since has been dumber.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
And in the 1980s and early 1990s, the golden age was the 1960s and 1970s, but now the kids were scoring worse on standardized tests than Japanese public school cafeteria food. (Stealing from Dave Barry.) And in the 1970s, integration had caused the schools to dumb down, and the golden age was of course the 1950s.
charon
@SFAW:
I think more about make public schools unattractive so more kids get indoctrinated in Christian private schools.
SFAW
@Kay:
I started in school in the 1960s. I was fortunate that my grandparents bought our house in a town with excellent schools — consistently among the top in the nation, pretty much every year since well before I was born, and continues to the 2020s. When the SFAW-ette (i.e., our daughter, our elder child) was getting close to school age, we moved to a town with excellent public schools, rather than stay where we were and send her to private school.
I think the public education system in this country is an amazing thing, and is a large part of the reason we did so well — industrially/economically/what-have-you — into the 1970s. [There are factors far beyond the education system that have led to our decline in standard of living, but the Rethug-pushed demolition of public education has exacerbated the problem.]
In general, I have no problem with parents who want to send their kids to private school, but I think public funding of (pre-college) private schools aids and abets a return to feudalism. I will not live to see it, but I really wish the country would get its shit together, and re-commit to the public education system, and spend the necessary monies to “fix” (so to speak) them.
SFAW
@charon:
Well, I guess that’s always a possibility, and given the current theocratic bent in this country, it is probably a factor. But I don’t think that what started the Rethugs down that path in the 1980s (or earlier).
Not being snarky — I just disagree, but I understand I might not be right. Again.
Kay
@SFAW:
I think conservatives really, really undervalue the community aspects of public schools, especially in rural places.
Public schools are what we have in common. They are absolutely the CENTER of the community. For a lot of people they are they only place outside work they are basically forced to interact.
People on the Right talk about this shangri la where everyone is going to be taking their portable voucher and doing whatever with it as if this is not a big thing. It’s huge. It’s ripping out the center of small and/or rural places. They think we hate each other now- wait until we’re all off in our individual school silos where we never have to cooperate or compromise with anyone else.
Kay
@SFAW:
I do think we need to have a conversation about very religious people and their work lives as opposed to their private lives. I think the students who are not religious are entitled to school activities free of religious indoctrination or coercion. I think people are entitled to expect a pharmacist to fill a prescription and people who go for a marriage license are entitled to expect the clerk to issue one.
The focus is not supposed to be on the wants of the coach, pharmacist or clerk while they are at work. There’s a kind of “lost plot” in all this. What’s the job they’re supposed to be doing? How did that take a back seat to their public religious posture, and is that okay? Just for them, this exception to doing the job? Special category of employees who make their own rules?
J R in WV
It literally takes one click, a scroll, and another click to put an un-American troll into the pie safe. From there one can select favorite commenters to see them tear the troll as desired.
apocalipstick
@Kay: I wonder if the coach has read Matthew 6, where Jesus told his followers to pray in private, rather than in public as did the Pharisees.
apocalipstick
@charon: Same thing.
SFAW
@Kay:
And, of course, were non-RWMFs to attempt to gain the same exception-to-rules/practice, they’d be pilloried for being snowflakes who want special rules for them, or “woke” (because that seems to be the current version of “L-l-l-l-l-l-iberal,” i.e. used as an epithet), or some other means of denigrating the non-RWMFs.
When I watch “Star Trek: Discovery,” or “Picard” or take-your-pick, I am reasonably certain that, whatever travails the characters-we-like go through, it will eventually turn out OK. [Even Michelle Yeoh got reincarnated, praise FSM.] I wish I had the same confidence re: America.
Soprano2
@Kay: It makes me crazy, the conservative emphasis on “choice”. They leave rural schools out of the discussion completely. They pretend urban schools are the only ones that exist.
charon
@apocalipstick:
I should have mentioned not just ideology, money too, charter schools basically a racket.
sab
@Kay: When I lived in Florida in elementary school I never met a Catholic. Not one. Jewish yes.Greek Orthodox yes. Evangelucals yes. Mainline Protestants yes. But no Catholics.I saw them at their bus stop when I went by, but never met one. Separate schools. Now I am married to one, as is my sister.
I hate this everyone heading for their own schools,
StringOnAStick
My oldest sister is a complete RW Southern Baptist bigot. Years ago she told me “the reason I am so screwed up is we didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance in those liberal California schools!” (1) obviously she got this crap from being an early adopter of Rush Limbaugh, (2) I also attended the same schools at the same time and we always said the Pledge, every damned day, and (3) if your religious conversion is the best thing that ever happened to you, why do you continue to refer to yourself as “so screwed up”? We moved away from CA while I was a kid, so her supposed “indoctrination” was limited in time and scope. I avoid her since she is still angry that I married a Jew, who is a zillion times better a person than she’ll ever be. She did manage to not exile her son after he came out as gay, though he also lives as far away from her as he can and who can blame him.
One thing you can count on with evangelical and pentacostal groups is the more “fallen” you are before your conversion, the more cred you get for becoming one of them and professing it all in front of the church. It’s all BS of course, including the idea that not saying the Pledge as a kid will lead to endless harm.
Ruckus ??
@Nomdeguerre:
I was thinking about how to say this nicely. I can’t.
BULL AND SHIT.
I don’t tell anyone what they should believe about religion or if they should believe it at all. And there are numerous reasons for not. But school is about learning skills like writing, math, literature, and existing with people that aren’t like you – socializing. And in this country we have not only the freedom to choose our religion as well as choose to believe that all religion is bullshit if that is the way we see it. We don’t teach religion in schools because that is against all religions that we don’t teach. You want to believe and indoctrinate your kids, take them to the service of your choice. You want to indoctrinate my kids, you and I will have a problem. And from the response to your comment, I’m not anywhere near alone.
Ruckus ??
@The Thin Black Duke:
Because it’s here.
Because it’s bullshit and we like to argue with bullshit. At least for a moment.
Because we all know this is bullshit. Some of us were sent to religious schools and fully understand why it’s bullshit.
Because this is one of those arguments that keeps coming up time after time and it’s always by someone who has a double jointed spine and likes having their head in a tight, dark, smelly place.
Ruckus ??
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’d bet you’d agree that there are fights worth fighting. I can think of several. In my mind this is one of them. The only thing I’d question is the priority of the fights and the levels. This one is a constant one and pops it’s little head up every so often because it is a given in right wing minds. And given the leaders of the right wing, most of whom use religion as a weapon or don’t think of it in any way, it seems to me that it’s a fight worth having. Freedom of and from religion is one of the things that is basic to our country and has extremely good reason to be so.
neldob
@Kay: That’s why the Right wing is going after public schools, at least partly. Because it is a community and they want to divide us. They really don’t mind making teachers, students, and schools the target. Their attidude is destroy all of them, who cares. The right thinks all these people working together to educate and care for children and communities can just be destroyed by their constant made up shrieking crisis- speaking Spanish, sex ed, religion, LGBQ, etc. It’s endless and tiring. Meanwhile youth suicide, drugs, mental and physical health etc. has less time and energy to be addressed. Also they want all that public money to go to private schools. With no or little oversight.