Dang, he only ran for president 8 years ago? It seems like an eternity ago that he was president.
This is so fucked:
When Mr. Duterte left office, his administration said 6,252 people had been killed by security forces — all described by officials as “drug suspects.” Rights groups say the overall death toll stands at roughly 30,000.
The crazy thing is the right wing rhetoric in the Philippines was significant enough that a shocking number of people supported this. The number of boomer flips that have told me they want him to clean up the streets is appalling.
What’s the difference here between teaching the bible and teaching history? I recall getting through Hon and AP US History and Civics with and understanding of protestantism conflicts, Calvinism, and Deism. The law and mandate is bullshit, but what is the actual curriculum requirements. If you are teaching the historical content of the Bible that means you can also teach about atheists that took issue with it. Is there a lot of room for malicious compliance?
Malicious compliance is still compliance. If you concede this hill, the next one will be a requirement to teach the Bible as historical truth. And then it will be to prevent teaching actual science.
Well I think the Unions and government need to push back on this (the AG already is). I 100% believe that this should be reveresed. But reading the article it states that losing your teaching license is possible punishment. It’s really easy to be high and mighty when it’s not your livelihood and job on the line. If you need to wait it out while the courts settle it what do teachers need to do to protect their jobs, stay in compliance, and avoid retaliation until this gets settled? How many teachers already are in compliance just by teaching regular US history curriculum that says “yeah, protestants read the bible and disputes on interpretation of the bible with catholics is part of the history of America.” I think it’s important to note that the Gutenberg press published the first printed bible. With the increase of education and literacy lay people no longer had to get teachings directly from the literate Orthodoxy. This allowed to different interpretation and rise of different religions which led to conflict, etc…
Oh I completely agree with you, and I don’t begrudge anyone who’s willing to do what they have to do to keep their jobs. My point is just that fascists don’t play fair. They won’t put their hands on their hips and smirk disapprovingly at malicious compliance. They will keep stepping on your neck until you do exactly what they want without question. You know that when they say the Bible, they of course mean their interpretation of their version of a Bible of their choosing. They aren’t going to permit debate on the topic.
Cool. Sorry, I’m accustomed to being flamed on this thread for not being as liberal as the base here. Sorry if I came off super defensive. I can’t tell if the superintendent is just posturing or not. Without any curriculum definition, what does “teaching the bible” even mean. I agree his objective is probably hoping to teach christian fundametalism, but you can’t make that happen with some batshit memo by itself. I actually wish schools could teach religion in a balanced way. In a pluralistic multicultural society, it probably helps to have some background to understand basics of other religions.
No worries about coming off as defensive, I completely understand how you would read my comment as an attack. It wasn’t how I meant it, but I recognize that I was fired up about it.
The superintendent is absolutely posturing, and I don’t think he believes he will win in court. But I believe there is a chance he wins in court, especially given the number of activist conservative justices we have on the bench.
I don’t have any doubt about what he meant by “teaching the Bible,” and I am certain it had nothing to do with providing a rounded and thorough depiction of various religious and cultural practices of a pluralistic multicultural society. The guy is a christo-fascist and a bigot. He belongs in prison for trying to abuse his position in government to subjugate his constituents.
The existence of the Bible is historical fact and artifact. There is historical merit in studying the various religious beliefs of historical peoples that factored into their values and thinking. Protestantism is factually a thing. Different colonies and denominational belief is a thing and a topic in American history. What made Quakers Quakers and how did that impact the Pennsylvania.
There’s a difference between teaching the bible, teaching theology, and teaching histories of religion. There’s definitely questions of what we are teaching and what is appropriate in public primary and secondary schools and in what subject, but I don’t think there is anything in and of itself bad if the historical religious beliefs and impact on historical civic life are discussed.
The funny thing is that a basic understanding of the Bible is actually important for making sense of American history - the people making that history were strongly influenced by the Bible and so unless you know at least the major “plot points”, their actions (and a lot of literature) won’t make much sense.
With that said, I don’t trust Oklahoma to teach about the Bible in a manner appropriate for historical analysis rather than religious dominance.
he people making that history were strongly influenced by the Bible
Depends what era you’re talking about and what you mean by influence. I would say that the reason Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason was so popular and that Jefferson made his own version of the New Testament, which removed the supernatural, suggest that the Bible was less of an influence in the founding of the nation than would be supposed here. The fact that Muhammad is in as venerated a place on the Supreme Court building as Moses also suggests they didn’t think it was the source of all wisdom.
Really, you need to look no further than our legal system though to see how little influence the Bible and Christianity actually have. I don’t just mean the First Amendment, I mean the fact that our whole system is basically a gradual evolution from the laws of Ancient Rome. They had trial by jury in Ancient Rome. It was a permanent jury, not a jury of one’s peers, but you can see the skeleton of our legal system and how it came from those ancient heathens, not Jesus.
Thank you for that. Incidentally, I have never heard for a big push from Muslims to remove Muhammad from the building, or at least obscure his image. I’m not sure if that’s because they aren’t aware of it or just because it is too old to do anything about it at this point.
I think you are really glossing over the work of Thomas Aquinas. It’s kind of hard to separate the Rome/Greek stuff from the historical Christianity stuff before modern day Evangelical Fundamentalism. Christian thought historically became very linked to Greek philosophy.
In what way was Thomas Aquinas an important influence on the founding of the United States and in what way would that be appropriate to teach elementary school kids?
It’s not appropriate for an elementary school kids. Per the article, this applies to grades 5 through 12. So what, 1 year of elementary with the primary focus of impact on junior high and high school?
But if you are getting into questions of “what was more important to our founding fathers, rome or christianity?” I’d say that’s pretty difficult to separate because of thinkers like Thomas Aquinas that married Greek Philosophy with Christianity. When you begin with a point that God is the source of reason, and build off of that, I think you can’t easily separate that out.
No, I asked in what way Thomas Aquinas contributed to the founding of the U.S. It seems like your reasoning is pretty damn indirect and it’s even more indirectly related to the Bible, so this law does not apply.
And it either isn’t appropriate for elementary school or it should be taught in the fifth grade (also, sixth grade is still elementary school in many districts). Which is it?
Really, you need to look no further than our legal system though to see how little influence the Bible and Christianity actually have. I don’t just mean the First Amendment, I mean the fact that our whole system is basically a gradual evolution from the laws of Ancient Rome.
this statement says nothing about what should be taught in schools, it’s a statement of history. my statement is simply stating it is very difficult to separate out the roman influence from the christian influence because of thomas aquinas linking christian tradition to greek thought. I would say that from a intellectual POV, founding fathers were probably equally or more influenced by greeks than romans, but at the end of the day we can just call it all classical thought. that’s pretty apparent in our architecture of state houses. This is a tangential discussion where we are not discussing what should be taught in schools, but just historical thought in the USA. Please re-read your own to catch up on the conversation topic.
The statement was in response to another commenting not talking about the specific policy, but making a general comment that in order to understand US History and thought of early American Settlers you likely need to have some understanding of the bible. That has nothing to do with this specific teaching policy, and the comment you responded to calls out the commenter didn’t trust the superintendent:
With that said, I don’t trust Oklahoma to teach about the Bible in a manner appropriate for historical analysis rather than religious dominance.
Well understanding for a 5rh grader is different than high schooler, or graduate student, or historian. But because protestantism is such a critical historical theme in early America it makes sense to understand to some degree what those religious beliefs are. I’m not saying a fifth grader needs to dive into it, but for high schooler and college students, it’s a bit more important to have a general understanding of it. But I think that understanding also extends to learning about other religions.
Okay, but we’re talking about grade schoolers and, again, it has never been necessary for public schools to teach about the Bible in the past to give kids an education in American history.
So why you’re trying to justify Walters’ decision I don’t know.
Also, you can teach about Christianity without teaching about the Bible beyond generalities and without venerating it as a sacred document that was also primary founding document for the nation. Which it simply wasn’t. I’m not sure why the First Amendment alone doesn’t make that clear to you.
Not just American history, the Bible is the absolute cornerstone of our entire culture. As the one book that every household owned for much of recorded history, the amount of biblical references and reused stories is ridiculous.
I have absolutely no problem with the Bible being taught in schools as it’s an incredibly important document. I find it odd that it isn’t, because the separation of church and state shouldn’t prohibit the study of old books in any way.
I was talking about this with my wife who came from Taiwan at 16 and was sort of second hand exposed to Western culture. She said everything can’t be a bible story can it? I dug out a Bible off the shelf and flipped through, well you know David and Goliath, you know Samson, Jonah and the whale yeah these are classics right?
She says no, so I ask if she knows the story of Pinocchio or why her luggage was made by “Samsonite”. And the truck that we saw yesterday with the “G0L1ATH” license plate?
For a long period which roughly coincided with the founding of America, English-speaking people only learned to read using the Bible, and often that was the only book they ever used for anything so it became a sort of de facto dictionary and Guiness Book of World Records and all kinds of things that it was never meant to be, plus a lot of new things it was never meant to be, and of course the things it was always meant to be.
Mandatory firearms training in school would be more Constitutional than teaching the Bible though. For a very important reason. Akin to a “prime directive” if you will. If you want kids to study it as an elective then fine, allow that, but forcing it on kids is wrong, wrong wrong.
Forcing it as a belief system is definitely wrong, but we were forced to study plenty of literature when I was in school, much of it far less relevant. I don’t see the difference with the Bible, especially if presented as a historical document and prototypical collection of stories?
I’m not religious and wasn’t raised in a religious family, but when I decided to pick up a Bible and read it as a teenager I couldn’t believe how much context it gave me on our culture and its origins.
Having to read and study the whole thing would also help rein in overzealous religion IMO. The #1 reason I’ve heard from evangelicals who left their church was “I decided to read the Bible for myself”
Forcing it as a belief system is definitely wrong, . . . I don’t see the difference with the Bible . . .
Make no mistake, that is absolutely the point of these - again, unconstitutional - laws. They’re hoping to parlay this illegitimate fascist court into making it constitutional while the iron is hot.
. . . especially if presented as a historical document and prototypical collection of stories?
It won’t be. They want this in elementary school. How much literature was in grades 1-3? Any inference that it will be treated as a “historical document” is an outright lie. (Edit: the article says teachers must teach it to “students in grades five through 12” but that’s different than Louisiana’s “10 commandments displayed in all classrooms” law. They all serve the same purpose: to promote “Christianity” in school.)
I’m not religious and wasn’t raised in a religious family …
Then believe me when I tell you this is what it is for. These legislators are not history buffs. They are evangelical ‘Christian’ nationalists.
I couldn’t believe how much context it gave me on our culture and its origins.
Having to read and study the whole thing would also help rein in overzealous religion IMO. The #1 reason I’ve heard from evangelicals who left their church was “I decided to read the Bible for myself”
Good points and I’m all in favor of unintended positive outcomes. Bible scholarship is interesting as an elective and if that was offered at my school I might have considered it. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about criminal penalties for not promoting a specific religion. That’s the whole point of the law, and it is 100% wrong.
Thanks for the American context as I’m a Canadian and our systems are different here. I didn’t realize the risks involved and the motivation behind it. I think this might be my least popular comment on Lemmy ever😅
The USA as a battleground between religion and atheism changes the context as I would shrug most of this off here in Canada as harmless. Like the 10 commandments? Most of them are good advice, basically just “don’t be a piece of shit” and i wouldn’t have a problem teaching them to kids… Unless the goal is to teach them actively as the word of God and marginalize non-believers as sinful, in which case this is absolutely criminal. That is church, not school.
We have a more robust separation of church and state to the point where when I read “teaching the Bible in school” I hear “robustly secular, historical and cultural study” which as I stated I believe would be a valuable learning experience. In Quebec there are even rules that public servants can’t display any religious symbols at all, even as small as a cross on a bracelet. The leader of our Conservative party recently made a statement that both abortion and gay rights were “a closed issue” and he would not stand for any attacks on them.
So personally my wife and I made the hard decision this year to send our daughter to a Catholic school next year due to the rapidly declining quality of public education. However the Catholic school district here is publicly funded and staffed, with strict regulations that any religious content is optional and that respect must be given equally to those who choose it or do not choose it.
Many of her friends have already made the switch (regular school is quickly emptying out of smart kids and turning into a zoo as parents pull their kids) and stated this is exactly how it works, most of them being non-religious as well but impressed with the discipline and learning outcomes. My wife teaches college and said the difference is night and day with some kids even making it out of public highschool unable to read. Meanwhile my daughter’s new school has won awards for the achievements of its graduates and their placement in top schools and in industry.
So you see I’m comfortable enough with our dedication to secularism here in Canada that I am willing to send my daughter to an actual Catholic school with no fear that she will be brainwashed… Obviously a bit of bible study doesn’t scare me but in the context of the USA culture war it’s clearly a much bigger deal.
Oh! Oh, yes, it’s a whole thing here since the “Moral Majority” group in the 80’s that packaged well-meaning people into hateful ignorant political cheerleaders.
And I appreciate your perspective because it highlights a different aspect of the right-wing agenda: part of their process is to build in a “reasonable interpretation” of laws that they actually have no interest in whatsoever.
As an example, there was a big push in many states to enact “voter i.d.” laws. We used to just walk into the polling station, give our name and address, they’d look it up, put a checkmark next to it to show we’ve been counted, and we’d go vote.
Well the right wing media in concert with the republiQans and propaganda mills, i mean, “think tanks” started complaining this was a system ripe for abuse. “SO MANY people just vote multiple times under different names!”
That absolutely never happened in any even-close-to significant amount. Never. There were individual cases - we still see them once in awhile, and it’s always the republiQans doing it. Anyway, they kept this lie up for years.
While that was going on, republiQan legislators, united by ALEC, passed laws saying everyone had to show a valid government ID to vote. I had several conversations with friends and family about these, and either due to parroting the fox news talking points or genuine well-meaning concern, they said, “but doesn’t it make sense to know someone is who they SAY they are, before they vote?” And it does. It does make sense.
But that’s not why they did it. They did it because people without government ID are largely older minority voters, who mostly vote Democratic. This was just to prevent them from voting. They had all sorts of made up lies about “oh they can just go down to the DMV and get a free ID”, yeah if someone takes them and walks them through it and they brought the right paperwork, yeah. It was a big burden for a lot of people who just stopped voting (mission accomplished).
Secondarily, anyone with outstanding parking tickets or who suspects there’s a warrant out for them (or is in general targeted by the cops, like black men) will see lots of ads and mailers before the election that when they show their ID to vote they’ll be arrested and taken away. They won’t, it’s just scare tactics but it works well and voting went down for a lot of Democratic-leaning voters.
To this day they stand by the now long-discredited idea that people are using false identities to vote - trump even clings to this as one of his Big Lies of how he “mysteriously” didn’t get enough votes in 2020, still. It was always bullshit; it was always designed to keep Democrats from voting, and it worked.
lots of ads and mailers before the election that when they show their ID to vote they’ll be arrested and taken away
I’ve seen a mailer providing false information that a certain very liberal group (out-of-state college students) wasn’t allowed to vote, but I’ve never seen something like this. Do you have a link to an example of it?
If you go back further though, translation of the text to a language the “people” could understand was illegal. Anyone caught with such texts was imprisoned or worse. Those in charge and using religion to control the masses (it’s true intention IMHO) didn’t want everyone to be able to read it, they wanted people depending on the “chosen” to teach and judge them (what today we may call a cult).
True, but that was a fair bit before the founding of America. Although to your point I doubt they’ll be forced to teach that history. More likely they’ll be forbidden from teaching that history.
Right, only the modern interpretation of an original text that very few people in the world has even seen, let alone able to read. And then all the MANY offshoots of Christianity because each had something people didn’t like, a “leader” made a new “version” for them. Forced indoctrination like this is very similar to starting a cult, as almost all of those start with someone that needs to interpret the text or “God’s” word.
I think it would be an interesting exercise for everyone pushing this to have to compare and contrast with say David Koresh, or Joseph Smith, and explain how their version of God’s word isn’t a cult.
I have a lot of friends who, like me grew, up going to church. Some went to catholic high schools, some went to liberal arts colleges with required religions classes in the core curriculum, or had other exposure. None of us go to church in our adulthood and have no intention starting when we have kids. But we all want our kids to have an understanding of what Christianity is because it’s important for understanding American history, origins of non profit institutions, and contemporary political and cultural climate. Also want to ensure there’s exposure and understanding of Judaism, Islam, and other predominant religions. Not sure how kids are supposed to get that these days without growing up in a religious house hold.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I remember in school we studied Native American cultures which included some exposure to myth and religion. I wish there was a way schools could touch on modern religions in a more neutral way, perhaps more similar to how we teach classics/greek mythology.
Not sure how kids are supposed to get that these days without growing up in a religious house hold.
The same way I did in my public middle school in the 90s and the same way my daughter did in her social studies class last year- by teaching comparative religion and attempting to do so without bias. And at no point was I or was she taught that the Bible was one of the important founding documents for our nation, since it wasn’t and that’s not true.
If we read any passages from the Bible or the Quran during that class, I don’t remember them. My daughter’s class did not have them. And yet we now both have enough understanding of those religions to be able to put them within a historical framework.
As someone who lives in a jurisdiction where every single vote I can engage in is RCV (Australia; NSW) I can honestly say that it’s so much better than FPTP. I don’t know what the perfect voting system is (frankly a subjective topic as it currently stands; please feel free to correct me with statistically valid alternatives) but RCV at the very least means that I can (and personally have) never vote for a major party as #1 and I can know for sure that my vote has never been exhausted, because I’ve never left a blank box. We also have mandatory voting, which helps to keep things sane.
In Australia, government election funding is only ever allocated to the parties based on #1 votes, so I can also confidently say I’ve never contributed to a major party’s election coffers as I’ve also never donated to any major party. I obviously support one major party over the others, as based on my preferences, but I’ll always give the election funding to a smaller party or Independent.
RCV is a wonderful step to take from FPTP. I understand that it may not be democratically perfect, and frankly no representative voting system may ever be, but it’s a far cry better than FPTP. It’s a known concept that here in Australia politicians vie to represent the ‘middle’ rather than the extremes, because the vast majority of voters aren’t overly-enthused political lunatics. We still have our issues to be sure, but I’d rather that the political class fight over the centrist majority rather than court the political extremes in order to convince people to actually vote thanks to mandatory voting.
It’s still not that old (~10 years or so iirc), it takes time for a third party to be major contentender. Earlier on you’re more likely to see third party wins in more local than national level elections.
It’s not an insta-win for third parties. But that’s ok, because local elections matter, and that’s where you’d typically see results first.
We have four Major Parties - Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals, and the Greens. If you understand their relative power based on our system of government, you’ll see that we’re somewhere in between the US and the EU with regards to representational democracy. It’s not great, but in the Anglospheric context we do pretty well because the others don’t have our combination of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), Proportional Representative Voting (PRV) and Mandatory Voting.
Maybe it’s just to me, but liberal/national coalition and labor seem like the two major parties, green is barely at the table still.
If you exclude the coalition, national has 4 times the representation of green, and liberal 3 times that.
Just my opinion here, but it’s still two major parties, with the thirds coming up in ranks and getting some momentum going. It’ll be a good day imo when the greens overtake the nationals (and maybe one day the liberals), but I personally don’t see it as representative of the people yet. Improving, but still functionally two parties.
I guess it depends on your definition of ‘major’. I think in a pluralistic democracy, any party that represents 10+% of the population meets that criteria. Of course, from the perspective of a two-party system 10% doesn’t seem like much, but it’s significant enough to have held the balance of power many times since the Greens came into existence in the ‘90s.
Labor is the largest single party in the Lower House. The Liberal Party has (almost) never gained a true majority. The National Party, with whom the Liberal Party coalesces (known in Australia as The Coalition or the LNP) is our current major opposition, and they only hold that position as a coalition. The Greens regularly poll between 9-12%, which causes our Federal Senate to end up giving them a significant amount of power. We also (thanks to changes a recent government made) have a significant crossbench made up of The Greens, minor parties and independents. Our current senate (and most previous Senates) has many potential ‘kingmakers’ (including previous AFL legend David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and others) which mean that governments can’t pass legislation without courting those outside their party.
To the outsider it may seem that we only have two parties, but in our context we understand it to be more complex than that. Many Australian jurisdictions have known minority-government, government-by-coalition and Lower House government tempered by Upper House diversity which tempers the passage of legislation.
Like I said, it’s not a perfect system (and pretty far from direct democracy) but we sit in this interesting position between the absolute Two-Party System of FPTP jurisdictions and other systems that produce 5+ parties that need to form government together. Our system is far from perfect, but it’s not terrible.
Long answer, it’s complicated as usual. Short answer: single member electorates.
Not surprisingly, the senate (our upper house at the federal level) is much more representative than the lower house, because they have very large, multi-member electorates.
If you live in a safe seat, your vote only counts for election funding (last I checked $2ish per 1st preference).
Somehow these evil chucklefucks are able to rack up multiple felonies, defy court orders, do whatever they want and really face no repercussions. If his lawyers ever manage to convince him to actually do his time it’ll be in the cushiest, softest minimum security camp. This guy is who people are talking about when they say eat the rich; he’s like a cartoon villain, he’s evil because it’s fun and easier.
I am pretty sure there was an FBI Raid for Michael Flynn awhile back. Ironically he was on social media saying “Come and Get Me, Libs!” And then registered Republican voter Robert Mueller came and got him.
It’s too late. They should have listened when we all said that before. But MMW, if they switch now they’ll not win in November. Stay the course and there’s a squeak of a chance.
Here’s the thing, if they push Biden out and pick Harris, she can’t beat Trump.
If they push Biden out and DONT pick Harris they’re literally telling the public that this presidency is not legitimate.
If they push Biden out and DONT pick Harris they’re literally telling the public that this presidency is not legitimate.
The rest of your post makes sense, but if they choose a new person to run they aren’t admitting that this presidency is not legitimate. How the fuck do you even get yourself to this point? And how does this nonsense even have any upvotes?
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