5 ways the GOP is valiantly trying to make Americans as dumb as possible

[applegrove]

5 ways the GOP is valiantly trying to make Americans as dumb as possible

by Amanda Marcotte, Alternet, Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/21/5_ways_the_gop_is_valiantly_trying_to_make_americans_as_dumb_as_possible_partner/

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3) Redefining education as “welfare” Mississippi state representative Gene Alday made national headlines recently by saying one of the most bone-headedly racist things to come out of a politician’s mouth in recent years, which is saying a lot. “I come from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks.’ They don’t work,” he said during his rant. He added that he once went to an emergency room and, “”I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots.”

The comments got coverage because they were clearly delusional, the result of a man substituting racist urban legends for actually bothering to learn about policy or reality. But what got lost in the shuffle a bit was that Alday went on his rant in part because he was trying to justify his opposition to increased funding for elementary school education. Mississippi schools are abysmally underfunded, resulting in shockingly high rates of kids being held back. Alday’s little racist spiel was an attempt to insinuate that teaching kids reading and writing amounts to “welfare” and to suggest that education is wasted on black people in particular. While his comments were extremist, the refusal to properly fund schools is mainstream in Mississippi. Gov. Phil Bryant, for instance, has revolted against the idea of putting more effort towards teaching kids to read, and suggesting that he’s fine with just holding them back instead.

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5) Continued demands that science education be replaced with magic.Other pro-ignorance forces get more headlines these days, but creationists haven’t gone anywhere. In South Dakota, Republicans once again pushed for a bill that would “allow” teachers to “question” evolution in the classroom, which is a fancy way of saying that teachers would be permitted to treat being ignorant as the equivalent of being educated.

These kinds of laws don’t do well in court, so it’s no big surprise that legislators abandoned it. But that doesn’t mean that the right is giving up on creationism any time soon. Asked recently about evolution, Gov. Scott Walker stuck to the narrative that elevates ignorance over education, saying, “That’s a question politicians shouldn’t be involved in one way or another. I am going to leave that up to you. I’m here to talk about trade not to pontificate about evolution.” Far from a politician trying to have it both ways, the comment was the exaltation of ignorance over education. Evolutionary theory is a knowable thing. The basics can be grasped simply by watching an episode of Cosmosor reading a basic biology textbook. By treating something as simple as giving 45 minutes over to a TV show or an hour to a book as more education than he should be expected to handle, Walker epitomized the new conservative mentality of ignorance uber alles.



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[elleng]

1. Yes they are,

and they're doing a good job of it; have been for some time.

[Pooka Fey]

2. "Evolutionary theory is a knowable thing"

By treating something as simple as giving 45 minutes over to a TV show or an hour to a book as more education than he should be expected to handle, Walker epitomized the new conservative mentality of ignorance uber alles.