Scrat wrote: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.
Again, you haven't actually looked at Tancredo's website, have you?
Quote:Now, you might easily argue that the teaching should be neutral in tone; neither pushing to leave a positive impression nor a negative one,
This is exactly what I and the rest of those of us capable of independent thought are advocating.
Quote: 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,
This is the fallacy Tancredo presents, and you (among many others of your less than discerning brehteren) appear to have bought into. It is fallacious. The manichean choice you present is simple the result of poor reasoning skills.
Quote: I'll take the latter,
This then becomes indoctirnation, rather than education. GRanted, it has worked wonders in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and North Korea. Do you admire these nations so that you wish to model the US' education system after them?
Quote: and be sure that we also teach children about the mistakes we've made along the way.
Which Tancredo's plan, and yours, if you agree so wholeheartedly with him, expressly disagrees with doing.
Quote:This nation is not simply the sum of our mistakes nor the sum of our achievements, it is the sum of both.
You a,de perfect sense. Was it painful?
Quote: 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.
Again, no on is imply that this is the case, except for Tancredo and (by your favouring of his arguement) you.
Quote: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.
Again, I wonder if you bothered to look at the website.
Quote: 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.
That is exactly what Tancredo, using out of context quotes from textbooks and professors, wishes to have you believe. congratulations, you earned your gullibility badge. This website is a wonder of manipulation and propoganda in action. And you, young whatever, have proudly allowed yourself to be suborned to this casue.
Quote: I would prefer they shape it with hands led by optimism and idealism, not shame and self-loathing.
Agin, this dichotomy is false. It needs to be neither pne way or the other. How about avoiding "good" and "bad" as the examples of determinants imposed by poor thinking skills that they are?
Quote: That's the issue here, not historical accuracy.
No, the issue is Tancredo and Co.'s attempt to discard historical accuracy in favour of "patriotism."
)" doesn't add to his credibility
