Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
Here's the specific text they've changed:
it was:
“explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”
It became:
“explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.”
So they quite unambiguously dropped Jefferson from the history of Enlightenment and his impact on the revolutions from 1750 to the present. No one claimed that they dropped Jefferson entirely, so the description of what they did regarding him is fairly accurate.
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Here s why:
Quote:
The authors of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791, were motivated by Enlightenment principles.[1]
The terminology "Enlightenment" or "Age of Enlightenment" does not represent a single movement or school of thought, for these philosophies were often mutually contradictory or divergent. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values.
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For as much as Thomas Jefferson WAS an Enlightened Man, he did not contribute to that which is coined "The Enlightenment" He learned from it, he learned from these great noted Philosophers and Writers. To say that Thomas Jefferson was Part of the Enlightenment would be inappropriate, as he was a slave owner. That is why, through his education and learning about the Enlightenment, he was so vocally against slavery.
---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
Idlyllic,
Yeah, people reporting on the issue may have passion and biases of their own. But those issues outlined in the post you presented here are misleading at best.
The reference about the second amendment was introduced to a section on freedom of speech, not just "citizenship" in general (and one of the republican representatives actually suggested creating a new section to discuss the second amendment, but it was ignored and now the right to bear arms is discussed as part of the freedom of speech section).
And then the person nitpicks the more moderate points while completely ignoring the more egregious examples.
I'd still like to see the people who are so certain that the denouncing of the Tx school board is so unfair deal with the actual issues there.
Why should freedom of religion and separation of church and state not be taught? Why should the word capitalism be replaced by "free enterprise?" Why should Hayek feature prominently in economics? Why should more attention be paid to republicans who voted for the civil rights act than to Cesar Chaves and Marshall? Why should Jefferson be excluded and Aquinas included in the discussion of thinkers who influenced revolutions (including American independence)? Why is it ok for a school board to reduce sociology to "blaming society?" Why must a section include a discussion of how the free market led to Europe's success? One person even justified the removal of Oscar Romero from the list of people who fought against oppression because he didn't even have a movie made about him (which is actually false). Why should the words democracy and democratic be removed from all the texts?
And those members are called ultra right because most of them came to the school board after defeating moderate to conservative republicans.
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Because our kids growing up as capitalist “PIGS” sounds a whole lot worse than that of a “Free Enterprising” Nation, which is what we are, we are not capitalists, at least I’m not, I do not capitalize on weakness.
They aren’t saying NOT to teach freedom of religion and separation of state and church, they are saying let’s not spend a month interpreting what that means, or where it came from, or why they said it, it simply IS, FREEDOM OF SPEECH and SEPARATION OF STATE AND CHURCH.
You know, the mention of Easter does not exist in a Texas school book, kids don’t hear the word Christmas, in text, until the 6th grade. I’m sure if the hard core conservatives had their way we would have heard about mangers in the gyms by now. Some you people sound so left; it seems to me you’ll never be right.
The whole, “TX is changing all the nations’ schoolbooks.” More garbage, each state has its own board that determines what books they will use and what will be in them. I’m sure that will make you all feel a little better, God forbid you all get Texas’ cooties….. aarrgg.
Well, all I can think about as to why they may try to be reducing the whole democrat/republican jargon is because the base definition of these fine words are simply put to better use in saying that we as a nation, ARE a Republic. We voted that democratically.
The new sociology will express “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” the exact opposite of the cop-out, blame society for all my problems.
I’m getting to the rest, but I think I’ve ignored my kids enough for a while. Thanks for the great conversation. I’LL BE BACK.
p.s. after reading my post, it appears to me I may be coming across as name calling or judgmental, that is not my intent. I mean no personal attacks on anyone or their beliefs, I just get a little heated, and bitchy.
No jokes about heated and bitchy, I think the last "We've already established" blah blah blah, joke was sufficient, albeit old as Hefner himself.