Sunday, April 19, 2015

Texas Education: A Spectacle in the Wholly Absurd.



Texas Education: A Spectacle in the Wholly Absurd. 






There is something about election year that make the entire political world righteous with indignation. Even as early as April, candidates know whether they are lucky or doomed. You can see on their faces in those first sweaty television appearances that mark the long, nail-biting crawl to the primaries. It’s excruciating to watch and hopelessly Darwinian. Dozens of so-called potentials mercilessly acting out Mortal Combat on the world stage. Each gouging out the eyes of what were once allies amidst shrieks of “Finish Him!” It doesn’t take but a few weeks before despair sets in and most just want the pain to end. You see them between commercial breaks shoveling oxycontin into their mouth holes and wiping their foreheads while trying to hide the nervous tic that’ll make them look weak or maimed. It’s a dirty business. More than a few get righteously superstitious and are willing to conduct any ritual- however horrifying to their personal sense of self or family to win a few votes. I once witnessed a primary hopeful finish a speech and immediately demand a deck of cards, a live rabbit, and a bucket from his closest adviser. God only knows what the cards were for.

But that’s the nature of the beast during election years. And it’s not isolated to those being coronated or in the fight of their lives. The trickle-down insanity of politics also makes agendas further down the totem do strange and bewildering things. Such was the case last week when Texas unexpectedly decided that the Biblical Moses was a Founding Father of the United States. The Texas Board of Education went so far as to ‘change history’ and edit public school textbooks to reflect absurdly that the constitution was conceived through Mosaic Law. The private schoolers whined and gnashed their teeth that it was unfair and unjust to dote on those ‘paupers’ but nobody cared to listen. It was all part of the plan.

One of the surest ways to sculpt a new history is to get after the young people early. Children’s textbooks are a devious way to achieve this end. According to the President of 'Texas Freedom Network'  Kathy Miller, “the new textbooks include passages that suggest Moses influenced the writing of the Constitution and that the roots of Democracy can be found in the Old Testament. Scholars from across the country have said such claims are inaccurate and mislead students about the historical record.” 

There is something embarrassing and pathological about reshaping reality in such a manner. Especially considering the Board purposefully ignored any legitimate scholarly input in favor of a mucky political agenda hell-bent on creating a history where the U.S. is chosen to carry out God’s will. It’s as if the TBOE wants to make America Israel. I can only feel saddened for Florida when it’s deemed a Palestinian State and thousands of rockets rain down in a hapless show of Texas superiority. When Ben Netanyahu got wind of the Texas agenda, witnesses remarked that he savagely screamed “That’s my schtick!” and bashed a close adviser rendering him unconscious.

The whole business has made the political landscape terrible and ugly. The Founding Fathers are understandably aggravated. Thomas Paine remarked, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any other church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”[1] John Adams also weighed in saying, “Although the detail of the formation of the American government is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons or employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven…it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”[2] When asked about his thoughts, Thomas Jefferson spat, said sarcastically, “I am of sect by myself, as far as I know”, then proceeded to suggest a public flogging for every member of the TBOE.

As of now, the entire Texas education system is teetering on complete collapse. Many Texans are wildly calling for widespread panic and public shaming. God only knows what they’ll do with the politicians that created this mess. But I do believe there are punishments under Mosaic Law that might be deemed appropriate.




[1] Richard Emery Roberts, ed. “Excerpts from the Age of Reason.” Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. 1945. Everybody’s Vacation Publishing Co. New York. pp. 362.
[2] John Adams. A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. 1787-1788.

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