The far right rewrites history

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The latest from Tom "I'm proud to be a belligerent bigot" Tancredo.Save Western Civilization from "unpatriotic" interperetation! Stop teaching about them damned Injuns...we won, we get to write the story!

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In recent years, some in our public education system have turned their backs on the notion of instilling in our students a sense of pride and appreciation for American history and Western civilization. Instead, many classrooms have become places openly hostile to these ideals, with teachers and textbooks espousing venomous and anti-American rhetoric to de-emphasize the importance of our collective, historical accomplishments. This disturbing development has contributed to an academic community that is, in many cases, actively attempting to indoctrinate students with negative impressions of America, and a corrosive kind of moral relativism. This leaves American students without an adequate understanding of their past and inhibits their ability to gain a moral compass. In some of the worst examples, this phenomenon has transformed American classrooms and campuses into laboratories of counter-culture experimentation and indecency. As a taxpayer, parent, grandparent, and former public school teacher, I find this trend alarming.

In response, I plan to introduce a resolution that recognizes that teaching young people to have an appreciation of Western civilization is central to the development of a united and enduring American society. It also encourages local school boards and State departments of education to ensure that the concepts and ideals embodied by Western civilization are effectively taught in public schools. In addition, I am working with Members of my State House and State Senate to introduce, and press for passage of a similar resolution at the state level.

If you are disheartened by what is happening in our schools with respect to this issue, I hope you can help. Propose a resolution to your school board. Get your state representative to sponsor a resolution. We will only be able to turn back this tide if dedicated people like you help us.

Is this education? No, its propoganda.
His site includes selected quotes from secondary level texts and comments by academics, equally selectively edited, to show that there is a "vast leftist conspiracy" to prevent students from learning how wonderful westward expansion was, how the Pilgrims were welcomed to Plymoth, and how non-western societies are anything but the crap that all right thinking Americans know they are."
Share this with your legislators and urge them to vote against it. better yet, for anyone in Tancredos district, run the bum out of office on a sharp rail placed selectively in a nether orifice!

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This is interesting. My brother, an annoying closed minded conservative (I'm not saying all conservatives are closed minded, I'm just describing my bro) who likes to say, "Those who win the war write the history books." Well, every country has their version, really.

I'm saddened to hear that this is really happening--why can't teach history from a variety of viewpoints? Just encourages me to homeschool my child.

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HB - Explain for me how reporting history from a viewpoint with which you disagree is "propaganda", but reporting history from a viewpoint with which you do agree is not? (This is your clear implication.)

The fact is that your use of the word "propaganda" here is without value, because your test for whether it is propaganda is whether you like the point of view being espoused. If we assume that the facts of history are accurately reported in both cases, but that the tone and choice of facts is different, that difference in tone and in the choice of which facts to report always amounts to "propaganda". ALWAYS. You either like or don't like the resulting picture painted, but then we all have opinions, don't we?

Isn't the current trend described above just "the far LEFT rewriting history"?

Personally, I think we can teach an honest historical record of our country's triumphs and mistakes without putting forth the notion that we are defined only by the latter. This is what Mr. Tancredo seems to be suggesting. (Of course, I read this without your bias, so it's no surprise I got something different from it than did you.)

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Did I hear a particularly annoying mosquito buzzing?

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America has many dark elements in its history. Are you suggesting we avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves? That's something dictators do without batting an eyelash. How are we ever going to solve our problems if we don't even know of their existance? I'm speaking to the author of the article, not HB.

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Whereas i find HB's tone rather inflamatory, i find Scrat's objection to be ludicrously partisan. Scrat apparently assumes that HB would exclude any comment or evidence with which he has a quibble. Whether or not that were true is not evident from what HB has written. His objection here is to the call to exclude, marginalize or ignore those aspects of the historical record with which Tancredo is displeased. It is an unwarranted assumption on Scrat's part that HB's position and that of Tancredo are analogous but opposing. HB has not called for the exlusion of any historical information.

Nice try, Scrat, but you're just flapping you partisan jaws once again.

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The "Tancredo method," which consists of picking and choosing evidence to support a position is intellectually dishonest. Tancredo and his ilk fear allowing conclusions to be drawn from the bulk of evidence, since they posit a specific weltanschaung derived from ideology. This is what I object to.
Interestingly enough, on another board I was engaged in a lengthy dispute with someone who advocated a method similar to Tancredo's, but from the opposite opinion. To attempt to colour a subject as either "good" or "bad" is evidence of simplistic thinking, and benefits oneself little.

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I believe Bush has been "cherrypicking" along these lines to justify his invasion of Iraq. It isn't working out so hot at this point. I mean, come on, people who want to distort reality think this is a good way to succeed in life? Shocked

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History is the discipline that studies the chronological record of events (as affecting a nation or people), based on a critical examination of source materials and usually presenting an explanation of their causes - just giving a short version of what I have learnt and studied.

I do think, Mr. Tancredo wouldn't like much, if we Germans 'forgot' or 'negleted' those parts of our history, which don't give our pupils and students a sense of pride and appreciation for German history and Western civilization. :wink:

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Umbagog wrote:

America has many dark elements in its history. Are you suggesting we avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves? That's something dictators do without batting an eyelash. How are we ever going to solve our problems if we don't even know of their existance? I'm speaking to the author of the article, not HB.

Can you cite for me anything written in the article that suggests we "avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves"? Question

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As a past university teacher, I feel that "the best evidence" should be the only metric that defines our interpretation and presentation of history or science.
if taught based upon truth and the best evidence available, sometimes national pride suffers, sometimes not , so what? Our kids in college have to be challenged to be informed citizens.
i wonder how germany handles their history of 1930 through 1945? I imagine theyre not sugar coating the holocaust. neither should we ignore our own failings.

As far as Bush, his own National Academy of Science is full of his own "fellow travelers' and includes notables in the vaunted sciences of Creationist research. Im real proud of that.

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Scrat wrote:

Umbagog wrote:
America has many dark elements in its history. Are you suggesting we avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves? That's something dictators do without batting an eyelash. How are we ever going to solve our problems if we don't even know of their existance? I'm speaking to the author of the article, not HB.

Can you cite for me anything written in the article that suggests we "avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves"?

Scrat, in order to avoid further embarrasing yourself, you might want to actually visit the site.

Quote:

...in response, I plan to introduce a resolution that recognizes that teaching young people to have an appreciation of Western civilization is central to the development of a united and enduring American society.

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in this website, you will find examples of how the ideals of Western civilization is being eroded in our public schools. You will also find sample resolutions that can be used for passage at a school board meeting or a state legislature.

Sample Schoolboard resolution

Sample state resolution

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HB - Do you find it embarrassing that you have offered a puffed-up pretense of answering my request, but have not actually answered it at all? Can you CITE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE that you claim calls upon anyone to "avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves" or can't you?

If you can, please do. If you can't, then go ask your mom for a quarter so you can buy a clue, cupcake. Very Happy

Oh, and if you are having trouble getting your head around the subtleties of the question, maybe this will help: There is a PROFOUND difference between advocating putting forth a positive message about one's nation and advocating "avoid<ing> the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves". The author clearly does the former, and just as clearly in no way does the latter.

But you go ahead and teach me a lesson there, cupcake. Show me where I'm wrong. Very Happy

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Those resolutions are really scary. Obviously, we can't teach about the Know Nothings, as they were neither religiously tolerant nor dedicated to the equality of all citizens; we can't teach about the Lily Whites, who were not only racist, but anti-Catholic and anti-Jew; we can't teach about the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticutt, Virginia and Maryland, because they had established churches; we won't be able to teach about navigation before the late 18th century, since until the development of accurate clocks, we depended upon the astrolabe, an Arab (and therefore non-Western) invention; we won't be able to teach about war or military actions of any kind before the 1898 war with Spain, since we used gunpowder before that, and that was invented by the Chinese (and was therefore non-Western) . . .

Well, you get the picture; or, if you don't, you don't know much history.

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Hey Babycakes, er, Scrat, you're asking HB to defend a statement he didn't make.

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Scrat wrote:

HB - Do you find it embarrassing that you have offered a puffed-up pretense of answering my request, but have not actually answered it at all? Can you CITE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE that you claim calls upon anyone to "avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves" or can't you?

If you can, please do. If you can't, then go ask your mom for a quarter so you can buy a clue, cupcake.

Good to see you avoid any pretense of civil debate. I am actually rather impressed at your ability to consistently be a stereotype of the ignorant, belligerant right wing poster. I move we ignore your posts on this and other topics. You consistantly fail to contribute to the discussion. I honestly wonder why you bother to post here, since instead of discussion you engage in name calling and other argumentative behaviours. I wonder if this is evidence of some sort of psychopathology? Since you see nothing wrong with your behaviour, it may well be evidence of illness.

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Setanta - Oh, come on! You are way too smart to fall into the inference trap these yokels have set for themselves. It is simply disingenuous to pretend that calling for a focus on teaching citizens to have an appreciation for the ideals and principles that brought us to where we are today in any way equates to a call to deny the wrongs that have occurred along the way.

Now, you might easily argue that the teaching should be neutral in tone; neither pushing to leave a positive impression nor a negative one, but if our choice is (as it clearly is right now) between teaching children that America is what it is because of bad things done by bad people, or teaching them that we are who we are because of the good things done by good people among us, I'll take the latter, and be sure that we also teach children about the mistakes we've made along the way.

This nation is not simply the sum of our mistakes nor the sum of our achievements, it is the sum of both. I am proud of our ideals and our positive accomplishments in the world, but I am also ashamed of our mistakes and know that we must teach about them so that we don't replicate them. However, I find value in viewing those mistakes as the result of thinking and action that ran contrary to our ideals, rather than evidence that we as a society have no ideals.

There is nothing in the article that suggests that anyone deny or ignore any facts of our history. If it did, I'd find fault with that along with you. But it doesn't. It suggests that our children are being indoctrinated to think badly of the culture in which they will live and work and whose future they will have a hand in shaping. I would prefer they shape it with hands led by optimism and idealism, not shame and self-loathing. That's the issue here, not historical accuracy.

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Setanta wrote:

Hey Babycakes, er, Scrat, you're asking HB to defend a statement he didn't make.

No, I'm asking him what I'm asking him. If you are his mom, please give him a quarter. If not, please let him fend for himself. He seems to think he's up to it. :wink:

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hobitbob wrote:

Scrat wrote:
HB - Do you find it embarrassing that you have offered a puffed-up pretense of answering my request, but have not actually answered it at all? Can you CITE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE that you claim calls upon anyone to "avoid the full truth of our history just so we feel good about ourselves" or can't you?

If you can, please do. If you can't, then go ask your mom for a quarter so you can buy a clue, cupcake.

Good to see you avoid any pretense of civil debate. I am actually rather impressed at your ability to consistently be a stereotype of the ignorant, belligerant right wing poster. I move we ignore your posts on this and other topics. You consistantly fail to contribute to the discussion. I honestly wonder why you bother to post here, since instead of discussion you engage in name calling and other argumentative behaviours. I wonder if this is evidence of some sort of psychopathology? Since you see nothing wrong with your behaviour, it may well be evidence of illness.

You ask me if I'm "embarrassed" by my statements, and then accuse me of leaving civility by the wayside when I turn that exact question around on you. What a joke you are! Oh, and nice job of sidestepping a question you obviously can't answer by pretending that the big nasty evil man got all gwumpy-wumpy when you were all sweetness and light! ROFLMAO!

I move that you grow some stones and accept responsibility for your own incivility. How about that? I get along fabulously with lots of folks here who don't piss on my shoes first and think later (if at all). If you want civility, simply be civil, cupcake. That's all it takes. But condescend to me and you'll get it back in spades, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE OUT OF STEP WITH THE FACTS. Very Happy

Have a nice day!

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That's nonsense, the resolutions which HB has linked have a drum-beat of western civilization, western culture, religious tolerance (oh please, Rolling Eyes

)--and i've got pages and pages of historical references to things upon which we pride ourselves which derive from non-western sources. To claim all the glory of the sum of all the sources which make European, and by extension American, societies successful is historically dishonest. The "age of exploration" directly derives from the renaissance, and the renaissance was directly and demonstrably sparked by the thousands of previously forgotten or unknown texts which were found in the libraries of Muslim Andalus during the Reconquista and Arab Muslim libraries in Anatolia, Syria and Palestine during the Crusades. We got a hell of a big boost from mathematics, which was only possible because of the adoption of "Arabic" numerals, which actually derive from India. To this day, the Indians produce an extraordinary proportion of highly talented mathmaticians.

I've always objected to leftist crap about DWEM's--dead white European males, because i consider the "western canon" to be an invaluable educational resource. I also know enough history to know how much of the "western canon" derives from contact with non-western sources, and the extent to which Europe was spurred to its frenetic pace of exploration, and exploitation, by events and forces from non-western sources.

The resolutions HB has linked call for a prominent and historically dishonest emphasis on a narrow, bankrupt point of view.

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The far right rewrites history

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