Writing in the new issue of The American Spectator–I know, it’s a Hitlerite rag that can’t be trusted because it’s, well, it’s, it’s just, so, well, so conservative–Dallas’ William Murchison puts the Texas textbook controversy into perspective. And, as a bonus, takes a DMN columnist to task for some hysterical rhetoric.
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Murchison: “[blah, blah, blah] Here and there the SBOE may have pushed unduly hard. [blah, blah, blah]”
If even Murchison has to admit the SBOE is too radical, you know we’re looking at some fringe elements here.
Of course Murchison is going to say things were too far left before – when you’re that far left, even the center looks liberal.
RIGHT. I mean right.
And I haven’t even started drinking yet.
1. Have you looked at Murchison’s lunatic writings on Dallas Blog? Wait, did I say lunatic, I meant LUNATIC. He is an idiot, wrapped in a pretzel universe, confounded by conundrums. Oh, and he is a LUNATIC.
2. Do you have gradations for “conservative”, because we might need a ladder that could see Plainview for how far over The American Spectator is. (Inspiring headlines like: Monumentally dumb, even for TAS: http://mediamatters.org/blog/200908250033)
3. Please put into perspective for me: Joseph McCarthy was a great American, maligned by the commie pinko liberal extant left leaning, oh, facts. Wait, you can’t. You’re quoting Murchison. It leads me to ask, Glenn, how long has it been since the accident?
It’s not about balance, dammit.
It’s about fidelity to the historical record inasmuch as we fallible humans are able to determine that record, to what happened. Once we weed the ideologues of both sides out of this debate, we can proceed. What we have so far is lefties barking at righties and righties snarling at leftties. God help the rest of us!
And those whose fingers are just quivering to blog, “But who determines the historical record? How do we know what happened? What is Truth? It’s all opinion, etc, etc.” Stifle that impulse. It’s not an argument. Its a sophism.
I respect Bill as a writer and pundit, though not one of my persuasion. But I don’t want him or any other opinionist deciding what will be taught to my grandchildren
Let’s not also forget that yes, it is embarrassing, so Murchison is wrong on that count. Texas is the biggest purchaser of textbooks in the country, which means it gets a huge say in what is taught in every school in the country, because other states have the option of taking the book tailored for Texas, or spending much, much more to have a different book printed.
California is already seeking legislation to bar Texas textbooks from appearing in California schools. They would actually rather pay more than take what the SBOE wants to teach Texas children.
Ah, the Murchisonian gems floweth: Liberals [...] don’t like the idea of profit. They think, deep down, the government should decide who gets what
And conservatives want, deep-down, an iron-fisted theocracy and imposed racial segregation. (I like this idea of political dialoge being “publishing things you’d say over ****tails to friends when you were maybe a little too worked up.” It’s fun and, best of all, really, really easy!)
P.S. Should we change the word Communism to Collectivism? Of course, I advocate it — I’m a moderate-left American, which is to say a full-throated Marxist, and I’d like to hide the whole long-march-through-the-institutions thing, which is now coming to glorious fruition, behind more innocuous-sounding language.
But I put it to the class: Should we? Please?
that’s “over kocktails,” komrades
Murchison said, “Sorting it all out, as to meaning and intensity, can daunt in the face of secular liberal assumptions that religion is better understood as a divisive factor in public affairs (think evolution) than as a foundation for understanding, and acting upon, the human condition. The liberal assault on supernatural religion is perhaps the preeminent feature of modern times. That the public schools, where, in my own time, brief nondenominational prayer was an unexceptional feature of particular school days, should acknowledge the religious spirit is just too much for conscientious liberal commentators to bear. ”
He’s talking about Christianity folks. That’s religion.
Maybe he can explain to me why there is only one child conceived out of wedlock that the Bible speaks well about?
Think about that. One of the Ten Commandments is about impregnating an unmarried female. No one is allowed to do that without facing the wrath of almighty God, except of course God.
Hypocracy anyone? Help you understand the problems the Catholic church is having with priests and children, Charismatics and homosexuality, Baptists and beer?
King David, the Bill Clinton of Biblical days, dipped his wick in the wrong olive bowl and God killed the fruit of his philandering. Yup, no lie shoeflie, it says right there in the good book, God killed the baby.
So even the man whom God loved like no other couldn’t impregnate an unmarried woman without paying the ultimate penalty, baby killing one oh one.
But God can and it’s Christianity.
And don’t you dare ask any questions or you’re a liberal bent upon destroying all that’s good about America.
Little correction there, Bathseba was a married woman, heat of the moment, David would understand, I think it’s called passion.
But and this butt is of real importance. Once David got Bathsheba’s husband killed, along with all of his men of course, David and Bathseba were married.
Their next son was Solomon. Shows to go just how important that wedding document is to some folks, like God for instance.
It’s my guess that Texas will no longer be the decider once textbooks go digital, and the business model changes. And that would be a very good thing indeed.
Seems like this thread could use a little balance. As i said on another blog, the Christian Right is simply reacting to the decades of liberals using public schools to push their agenda. I’ll just wait over here while you all get the predictable “our saintly teachers and their unions have never, not once, pushed a politically correct liberal agenda on the kiddies, they deal in facts sir, facts, for realz” response out of your systems. Done? Ok, so the point is, the right is simply playing the game the left created and most likely the lefts reaction will be to push an even more liberal agenda and the right will respond in kind, mutually assured destruction for lack of a better phrase. My guess is most people will tire of it and abandon the public school system leaving it to the ideologues, and home school their kids or put them in charter/private schools.
@BillMarvel “Once we weed the ideologues of both sides out of this debate, we can proceed.”
excellent point Bill are you then saying that currently ideologues of the left have control of the curriculum? if so then why has there been no outrage in the past. why the outrage when the right seeks to bring things back towards the center. oh! i know it’s because the right now controls the SBOE. horrors! girls will be taught that there place is in the home and they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. lawd a mercy. we’re doomed doomed i say
how do we rid the system of the ideologues of both sides?
here is article about the Pilgrim’s you might find of interest since it pulls from Governor Bradford’s history
http://mises.org/daily/336
there must be some truth in what Murchison writes if it has folks like Bill, Bethany and Harvey riled up.
harvey lacey,
Stop writing. Immediately. You’re making Bill Murchison look like a bubbling spring of clearest wisdom.
If I wanted to read Bill Murchison, I would go down and read the old microfilm.
Please do not inflict him on a generation or a city that has struggled to move on from the Stone Age.
Y’all, I’m like, so totally honored.
“there must be some truth in what Murchison writes if it has folks like Bill, Bethany and Harvey riled up”
Riled? I’m not riled.
It just irritates the bejeezuz out of me that righteous wrong types like Murchison are still wanting to educate our kids based upon their fantasy.
And Bill, read their Bible and then tell me I’m wrong. Right there in their Bible is the story about David and Bathsheba, God killing the baby, Solomon, and did I mention the incest and brother killing brother brought down upon David’s family over his dallying with the nude lady on the roof?
It’s there.
peterk,
I’m saying don’t want ideologues of any persuasion teaching children.
I’m saying ideologues by their nature seek to control curriucula, debate on curricula, and thought about curricula. Left or right, no exceptions.
I’m saying the answer to left-thought domination of schoobooks is not rightthought domination.
I’m saying — along with George Washington — that rigid partisanship shifts one’s loyalty from the country to the party.
I’m saying the rigid partisanship clouds thought and enfeebles judgment and weakens the common bonds of citizenship.
How can I make it plainer, peterk?
Every survey shows the vast majority of Americans fall in the political middle. That is, they find themselves on the right or the left depending on the specific issue, but overall they cannot be classified with any confidence.
I’m saying that anyone who things the right or the left has a monopoly on political wisdom is a damn fool. And dangerous to boot.
That’s what I’m saying.
harvey lacey,
“Their” Bible is my Bible, and I’ve read it several times over. What is your point?
@Bud Kennedy: What city are you referring to, Bud–Fort Worth, or Dallas? Thank you for your comment, though; it succinctly defines you as someone whose mind isn’t just closed, but shut tight.
Peterk,
Here’s Winthrop in 1630, seven years after the experiment in Christian sociology was supposedly abandoned:
“[W]e must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly Affection, we must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities for the supply of others’ necessities, we must uphold a familiar Commerce together . . . [and] make others’ Conditions our own, . . . always having before our eyes our . . . Community in the work, our Community as members of the same body[.] . . . [W]e shall find that . . . when [God] shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: the Lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill.”
I like Harvey Lacey’s homespun kernels, even if (and sometimes because) he is somewhat off-topic. Don’t stop writing, Harvey Lacey. Bill Marvel is a pompous crank who tragically fancies himself gifted with words.
““Their” Bible is my Bible, and I’ve read it several times over. What is your point?”
Bill read http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=1275889 starting with chapter eleven.
Then tell me oh wise one that King David wasn’t the Bill Clinton of his day.
Tell me God didn’t kill David and Bathsheba’s baby because, well He’s God and God can do that.
Tell me he didn’t further punish David by having a daughter bump nasties with a brother.
Tell me that brother wasn’t killed by another brother for treating the sister like she was not nice in the respectable sense after he had his way with her.
Tell me that after wrecking David’s life God didn’t bless him with a son named Solomon.
Tell me it doesn’t make you wonder what’s in store for Chelsea one of these days….
Let me adjust my hearing aid, this oughta be good.
Good grief, Daniel! Lacey’s latest qualifies as “homespun kernels”? I’ll take pompous crankery any day.
Bill you biblical devil you, did I misquote the good book or not?
Come on now fess up. I’m write.
Of course I imagine you don’t think it was wrong to kill all those baby boys so the Israelites could leave Egypt do you?
Those baby boys made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong gender, bad babies.
The only thing more wrong that that, killing babies to punish the actions of the leader of their parents, is to teach that as God’s love in action. Remember that in Sunday School?
Maybe since you’ve read the Bible through and through more than once you can give me the scripture where it says babies goe to Heaven.
I haven’t been able to find one which means teaching little kids to sing “Jesus loves me because the Bible tells me so” kinda sorta of a lie if you know what I mean.
And the point relevant to this discussion is….
I don’t mean to be obtuse, harvey lacey, but so far the only thing I can derive from your posts is that you have a nodding acquaintance with the Bible and you find a lot of really disagreeable stuff in there. And you seem to think I might want to defend that stuff. For some reason that escapes me, unless it’s that your mind just kind of mixes up all sorts of “christians” and Christians and people who’ve read the Bible. My suggestion is put down the Bible, in whatever version you’ve been browsing, place a cool wet washcloth on your forehead, and lie down for awhile. Try not to do any intellectual heavy lifting for a couple months.
Well double doggone darn. I’m off to cell hell, NPRlessville, and no internet until Sunday.
I was hoping that Bill the Marvel would use his knowledge of the scriptures to correct me about babies going to Heaven.
You give him the podium and he gets silent, darn.
I can’t imagine why harvy lacey thinks I could address the subject of babies other than the fact that my wife and I had a couple of them once upon a time. There were dark moments when I would have happily consigned them to hell, and long stretches when I thought they — and we — were singularly blessed.
But they grew up to become fine human beings, so all right so far.
But we both know harvey lacey is just baiting me because he thinks he knows all about Christianity and what Christians believe or, as he’s said one place or another, every faith that stems from Abraham. His knowledge of religion rivals the creationists’ knowledge of science. But, as Daniel remarked, he’s a colorful galoot and I will concede he can sometimes be funny, intentionally or not.
So I take back what I said. Write on, harvey lacey.