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.
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