Darth Wong wrote:It's not just "soccer moms", although they're an easy target. Pressure for this bullshit comes from both sides of the political spectrum. The real problem is the underlying mentality that children must be "protected" from facts and ideas which are deemed offensive, even if they happen to be true.
And, the 'soccer mom' genre is the biggest and most vocal group pushing for this over-protection. Although it does come from both sides, this group is one of the biggest pushers for it.
There's also this obscure little group called "The Christian Right", which virtually controls the federal government and which is responsible for virtually gutting the entire sex education campaign in the country ...
And not only sex ed. If you are familiar with Mel and Norma Gabler, here is the list of things they objected to:
open-ended questions that require students to draw their own conclusions; statements about religions other than Christianity; statements that they construe to reflect negatively on the free enterprise system; statements that they construe to reflect positive aspects of socialist or communist countries (e.g., that the Soviet Union is the largest producer in the world of certain grains); any aspect of sex education other than the promotion of abstinence; statements that emphasize contributions made by blacks, Native American Indians, Mexican-Americans, or feminists; statements which are sympathetic to American slaves or are unsympathetic to their masters; and statements in support of the theory of evolution, unless equal space is given to explain the theory of creation (Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God, p. 315).
Actually, Nathan's conduct in this thread is a fine example of how American conservatives conduct political debate. When faced with an example of the Christian Right behaving reprehensibly, his instinctive response is to attack the social groups with whom he has a beef, such as "soccer moms"; the most evil group in America according to the typical conservative (some "family values", eh?)
Never mind that it's basically a thread hijack; the INSTINCT is to deflect criticism away from "his side"'s complicity in this problem by attacking the other side. A textbook example of what they call partisanship. Even when confronted with the irrefutable fact that both sides are equally to blame for this problem, he simply ignores it and continues to blame the other side.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:Actually, Nathan's conduct in this thread is a fine example of how American conservatives conduct political debate. When faced with an example of the Christian Right behaving reprehensibly, his instinctive response is to attack the social groups with whom he has a beef, such as "soccer moms"; the most evil group in America according to the typical conservative (some "family values", eh?)
Never mind that it's basically a thread hijack; the INSTINCT is to deflect criticism away from "his side"'s complicity in this problem by attacking the other side. A textbook example of what they call partisanship. Even when confronted with the irrefutable fact that both sides are equally to blame for this problem, he simply ignores it and continues to blame the other side.
Which is exactly why the Religious Right is so powerful. Since in the opinion of most conservatives, the fundamentalists are nice conservative god-fearing people, most of the things they do in the political arena is supported by the majority of them. And, on the local level, the fundies are always conservative enough to get elected to school boards and such, which, of course leads to even more textbook censorship.
By the way. Mike, did you read my paper on the Religious Right (which I posted in the SLAM forum). If not, then simply click on the link in my sig.
