The Tree of Knowledge...

[The Animator]

... must, from time to time, be refreshed with the blood of idiots ~ Charles Fernandez

Seriously, the framers of our Constitution were depending on the American people to be well educated, and well informed, so that we would be capable of debating the issues with well reasoned arguments...

Boy have we let them down...

How the hell can so many of us be so goddamned stupid? It's really depressing how easily so many of us are manipulated. I've believed for sometime now that Republicans consistently cut funding to education because they want us to be dumb, they want us to be uninformed, and easily lead. They want us to be incapaple of critical thinking, and free thought. It's like they're trying to re-instate a feudal society. Their children, who get sent to private schools, get every advantage, and are practically handed the reigns of power once their of age... while the serfs who go to public school recieve only education enough to follow orders.. to do what they tell us, and how we should feel about it....

If we don't do something about these jerkoffs spreading misinformation and riling up the masses, we're set to become the world's first idiocracy...

Funny as a movie, but as a reality, it's scary as hell..

[snot]

1. Love the Chase Fernandez quote; source? (pref. w/ work, page, etc. . . . )

[The Animator]

2. No need, I am Charles Fernandez...

... and I just made that up tonight... tommorow in will be a bumpersticker..

[Birthmark]

3. I like the quote a lot.

And I agree with you. I first noticed the Republican attack on knowledge and thought in the late 1980s. It wasn't hard to do. They have succeeded splendidly. The tobacco wars really served them well. Sure, they lost but they learned a valuable lesson. That is, that confusing an issue will buy you a whole bunch of time with the side benefit that many will stay confused.

We're seeing the application of that lesson in action now. They confuse on global warming. They confuse on evolution. They confuse on health care. The fact that they have to distort, spin, or outright lie makes no difference to them. Every day that they can sow confusion is a little victory. And eventually people tire of the issue, so there's a good possibility that nothing will be done.

It's crude but effective...as well as immoral and probably deadly in the long run.

[Selatius]

4. There is a video on youtube explaining why Americans are so collectively stupid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDuL4jTkz0

Enjoy the video...and be depressed about the truth in his words.

[paulsby]

5. public/private?

"Their children, who get sent to private schools, get every advantage, and are practically handed the reigns of power once their of age... while the serfs who go to public school recieve only education enough to follow orders."

um,plenty of children of democrats go to private schools. fwiw, obama's kids do and so did bush's. the last president to send their kid to public school iirc was carter.

i went to private school (mostly) . i didn't see any bias amongst my classmates in them all being children of repubs.

heck, i even had a kennedy at my school. pretty sure his parents werent repubs :)

i'd actually like to see the stats. what %age of republican parents send their kids to private schools vs. democrats.

i think a more important stat would be how do the %ages compare when you normalize for income.

iow, is a repub family with 120 k income more or less likely to send their kids to private school than a democratic family, and by what factor?

iow, i think you are talking out your okole if you think it's only repubs that send their kids to private school. or am i totally misreading what you are saying.

[Selatius]

6. It's not a stretch to see why he thinks Repubs send kids to private schools.

The top one percent of income earners in America probably send their kids to private schools. There is a popular conception that wealthy people don't like government regulating their businesses or taxing them of their income derived off the labor of others. What do they do? They may end up voting for people like Ronald Reagan, etc. Whether or not the conception is true is beside the point that the conception exists at all.

[paulsby]

7. i generally prefer people make statements based on evidence

was my point. i have no idea if repubs (normalized for income or not) are more or less likely to send their kids to private school.

nor does the OP, yet they talk about it like it's a repub only thang.

i am eternally grateful my parents sent me to private school, fwiw.

[Selatius]

8. Eh, my mother was too poor. I grew up on food stamps.

I'm a product of public education, with all its warts. I probably perfected my writing skills far more outside of class than inside it. I don't knock things I haven't tried before, such as private schools. I'm sure there are some excellent private schools out there, but for the rest of us, there is really only public schools, and the quality drops the poorer the municipality is. Sadly, the state I grew up in was one of the poorest in the nation.

I suspect that there is probably a stronger correlation between income and the enrollment in private schools than party membership and enrollment in private schools. I have to say I have no evidence to cite off the top of my head, though, but it seems logical that if money becomes less and less of an issue, then private schools become more and more of a realistic option.

[paulsby]

9. well, i was hardly wealthy

but the scholarship helped.

i agree about the income correlation w/ certain distinctions.

for example, ime low income catholics are probably more likely to send their kids ot private school than low income protestants.

my experience suggests this, in that most of the kids i knew from catholic school were less wealthy than non-catholic private schools.

but i totally agree that private school is a much more likely option for those who can much more easily afford it. that's pretty commonsensical.

the obamas send their kid to sidwell friends. i have two friends who went there. it's like 20k a year iirc.

[Selatius]

10. Sounds like Sidwell is a good place. I had a terrible time when I went to school.

Not a very accepting environment, but this is in the backdrop of going to public school in Mississippi, which never really cultivated a reputation for tolerance anyway. I like to think I came out OK, but God, sometimes I wonder how much things would've been different had I been in a private school with better facilities and a more productive learning environment.

[paulsby]

11. i have mixed feelings

the private school was CLEARLYa better education. i mean our teachers were way better, few had "education degrees" or teaching certificates, but they were generally very smart and very well educated. my freshman english teacher was also one of the funniest people ever. he had us reading james joyce freshman year of high school and managed ot make it understandable and interesting. he also had us memorize a passage from shakespeare. i am not a fan of rote memorization nor was he, but he said this is something that we would retain our whole lives, and the language was so beautiful and the words so meaningful. you know what? i still remember that passage word for word. one school i went to was episcopalian, relatively conservative, and an excellent education. the other school was quaker, relatively liberal, and also excellent.

senior year i went to a large public high school in california. i fit in MUCH better there, i learned ot SURF!!, i just had a bitchen time. but clearly, the education and quality was nowhere near as good. not even close.

but coming from new england prep school, the idea of going to a big socal high school was an irresistable opportunity.

"tasty waves and a righteous buzz"... and all that.

[The Animator]

12. I've had experience with both actually...

I started out going to a private Catholic school, in the Republican stronghold of Temple Terrace, FL. My experiences there were not pleasant (No I was not molested, but a few in my certanly class were).

My parents weren't wealthy, but they managed to send both my sister and I there for a number of years. I suspect my grandparents helped, they had a little more disposable income..

At anyrate my parents pulled me out of there after the third grade, and I started going to public school... I still wasn't a pleasant experience, I kid who is easily bullied finds safe harbor nowhere. I did notice one change though, the kids in my new class were easliy a full grade or two behind me. Despite the religious droning I had recieved a higher level of education at my old Catholic school.

This isn't really a Dem / Rep thing, this more of a socio-economic thing. I don't have the statistics to back this up, but I'm makeing a few deductions that make sense to me. With few exceptions, I don't see too many kids going to private school unless their parents can afford it.

The children of poor Republicans go to public school like the rest of us... they're as much a victim of this as the we are... when they become adults they are easily recognizeable... holding signs lke "Get a Brain Morans"...

[omega minimo]

13. This sounds like a cut and paste post.

:thumbsdown:

[The Animator]

14. No copy paste funtions were harmed in the making of this post...

Don't get me wrong, I loves me some ctrl C and ctrl V.... it comes in really handy sometimes... but not this time.