Sub-subminimal

Every job comes with a set of minimum standards. An entry-level volunteer firefighter, for example, must meet a basic standard of physical fitness as well as be able to demonstrate a basic capacity for learning the craft of firefighting and a basic commitment to keeping the community safe.

Every once in a while, though, someone slips through the screening process and reminds us that every job also comes with a set of sub-minimal requirements. A volunteer firefighter, for example, shouldn't also be an arsonist on the side.

We tend to think of such subminimal requirements as things that go without saying, and thus we rarely state them explicitly. The recruiting materials for volunteer fire companies will mention the minimal requirements of time and physical capability, but they won't usually spell out the subminimal requirements. They won't say, in large block letters at the top of the page: "Firebugs need not apply."

Perhaps they should. Because again every once in a while some person comes along who meets the minimum requirements but turns out not to meet the subminimal ones and we are forced to rethink what we have previously allowed to go without saying. We start to think that maybe we should have stated explicitly that candidates shouldn't expect to spend all day in their cubicles surfing cyberporn, or that they will be expected to refrain from embezzling, or not to fabricate articles or plagiarize.

Or not to set fire to the fire station itself.

But of course we could never keep up. Subminimal requirements, it turns out, not only go unspoken but unimagined. It simply wouldn't be possible to list all of them, or even for most of us to conceive of what they might be until we actually witness some sub-subminimal employee who demonstrates for us some new and startling way to delve beneath simple incompetence into the astonishing realm of the sub-subminimal.

The firebug firefighter may be one exception -- an example of a subminimal standard that does need to be stated explicitly. Arsonists -- the sort who set fires for thrills, not for insurance fraud -- tend to seek work with fire departments and volunteer companies. Most squads, therefore, have learned to carefully screen against this, incorporating this one particular subminimal standard into their hiring process.

The closest parallel to the fire departments' problem is an equally common affliction bedeviling school boards and state boards of education. As with fire companies, the vast majority of candidates for these positions are responsible people committed to public service, the common good and quality education. But just like the fire departments, school boards seem to attract a significant unhinged minority of firebugs -- people who just want to destroy public education and laugh while it burns.

The latest of these is Cynthia Dunbar of Texas, whom I learned about thanks to an e-mail from Matt D.

Gov. Rick Perry is reportedly considering appointing the chair of that state's school board. Dunbar wants to destroy public schools, which she regards as "tyrannical" and a "tool of perversion."

Let me repeat that: Gov. Rick Perry of Texas wants to put in charge of his state's public schools a woman who wants to destroy those schools.

Perry doesn't just want to hire the giggling firebug, he wants to make her the fire chief. This makes Gov. Perry the second craziest person in this story.

The craziest, of course, is Cynthia Dunbar who is -- even by Texas Republican standards -- barking mad.

In a book published last year, Dunbar argued the country’s founding fathers created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” She endorses a belief system that requires “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Dunbar -- who is, astonishingly, an attorney -- takes as her first principle of government an illegal and flagrantly unconstitutional religious test. "Unconstitutional" isn't strong enough a description of Dunbar's views on this point, actually, she's anti-constitutional. Her idea of "an emphatically Christian government" ruled by a "biblical litmus test" douses the Constitution in kerosene and sets it ablaze, then pisses on its ashes.

If Dunbar is really an attorney, then the views in her book make a good case for her being disbarred. Maybe even deported.

It doesn't help that Dunbar is also a staggeringly unoriginal whackjob. Her book is titled, One Nation Under God.

That's the same title as dozens of previously published theocratic "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth" books. This hackneyed title comes, of course, from the Pledge of Allegiance -- an incantation from which Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has been working hard of late to remove the word "indivisible."

Also in the book, she calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.”

The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even “tyrannical,” she wrote, because it threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children.

Dunbar home-schooled her own children.

The Houston Chronicle's Lisa Falkenberg provides some additional background on Cynthia Dunbar:

If the chatter from some board members proves correct, and Gov. Rick Perry is indeed considering appointing member Cynthia Dunbar as the board’s new leader, we may find ourselves reminiscing fondly about the good ol’ days when Chairman McLeroy simply disregarded experts, sidelined teachers and insisted on inserting his religious beliefs into public policy-making.

Dunbar’s shortcomings go far beyond ideology and poor leadership skills to beliefs promoting paranoia and bigotry.

This is the same Richmond Republican who penned an online essay shortly before the presidential election warning Barack Obama was plotting with terrorists to attack Americans. She refused to retract her claim, even under pressure from Republicans.

There are 4.7 million children in Texas' public schools. There are children in those buildings that Gov. Perry is willing to watch Cynthia Dunbar set on fire. Somewhere there's a line between simple incompetence and outright, deliberate, predatory evil. Dunbar and Perry have crossed it.

Some subminimal standards are worth stating explicitly. Fire companies mustn't hire firebugs. School boards mustn't hire insane home-schooling zealots who want to destroy public schools. Cynthia Dunbar is sub-subminimal.

Comments

[Anton Mates]

She also likes to misrepresent the positions of Nobel Prize winners in order to attack mainstream science:

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2009/01/how_the_texas_board_of_ed_misr.php

[Omorka]

Holy freaking crap. Now I gotta join the union again. All I need is another literal witch-hunt at work, and she sure sounds like the type to start one.

[Lee Ratner]

I try to understand people like Ms. Dunbar but I really can't. Maybe I'm too far out on the left to understand where they are coming from but I really fail to see where they get their ideas that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to create a Christian government. The Constitution is ambiguous on certain issues but not on this one. It specifically separates religion and state and prohibits a religious test for public office. The personal writings of the Founding Fathers also shows that they did not intend the United States to be a Christian nation. Witness George Washington's letter to a synagogue on Long Island that stated that Jews that stated that Jews would not be isolated and excluded from American life by the United States government.

I also wonder where their fast and furious hatred of public education comes from. Its not just the conservative Christians. Many others on the Right seem to hate public education. The Libertarians certainly hate it. Other conservatives seem to see public schools as institutions of leftist subversion. It was very rare to hear these types of sentiments before the Supreme Court outlawed segregation, school prayers, and creationism in public schools. Now its all over the place. Maybe they think that all kids would magically end up good little right-wingers if not for the public schools because all home schooling and private schooling turns out good right-wing adults.

These people are dangerous.

Also, Ms. Dunbar can not be disbarred or deported Fred. To be disbarred you have to do something more serious than possess loopy and stupid beliefs. Citizens, usually, can not be disported. People with citizenship from birth can never be deported. Also nobody is officially deported from the United States anymore. The official legal term is that people are removed from the United States.

[Kyle]

Fred,

I have an article I think you'd really like; it's from an 1831 review of an English book advocating the removal of laws that restrict the political offices which may be held by Jews. A lot of the language still sounds pretty relevant.

"We hear of essentially Protestant governments and essentially Christian governments, words which mean just as much as 'essentially Protestant cookery' or 'essentially Christian horsemanship.' Government exists for the purpose of keeping the peace, for the purpose of compelling us to settle ou disputes by arbitration rather than settling them by blows, for the purpose of compelling us to supply our wants by industry rather than by rapine. . . But just why a man should b less fit to exercise these powers because he wears a beard, because he does not ham, because he goes to the synagogue on Saturday rather than to the church on Sunday, we cannot conceive.

The points of difference between Christianity and Judaism have very much to do with a man's fitness to be a rabbi or a bishop. But they have no more to do with his fitness to be a magistrate, a legislator, or a minister of finance than with his fitness to be a cobbler."

http://books.google.com/books?id=xwEYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA350

[Kit Whitfield]

Ai, ai, ai.

What stands out to me is how far things must have gone for this information to even be public knowledge. If Dunbar is arguing that neutral, non-partisan education is in opposition to her beliefs, that sounds like an open admission that her beliefs are contrary to reality. In any sensible situation, you'd expect to be called a crank for saying things like that, and at least try to hide your beliefs a bit while advancing your agenda. Things must in in dire straits if she feels comfortable saying them openly.

I really fail to see where they get their ideas that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to create a Christian government.

Tenderly cultivated ignorance? That would certainly tally with her policy on education. Given that she uses 'one nation under God' as a slogan about the Founding Fathers, who didn't actually say that, I think we can conclude she's one of the people who simply hears what she wants to hear, and considers that virtuous.

On the firebug argument, I've heard people say that this was a problem with the whole neoconservative movement. People who hate the idea of government should not be put in charge of it because they'll dismantle it; it would be like putting Andrea Dworkin in charge of a strip club. You want something to work, you give it to someone who wants it to work, and that includes the infrastructure of a country.

[Jill Smith]

And I thought appointing John "There's no such thing as the United Nations" Bolton as UN Ambassador was kooky.* If there are further depths, I'm too frightened to consider them.

*Fun fact: I was on a shuttle flight from DC to NY a few years back and saw Bolton seated in first class, fidgeting characteristically with his glasses. I almost said, "Hey Ambassador - on your way to your imaginary job?" But then decided I wasn't keen on getting kicked off the plane and refrained.

[Not Really Here]

Personally, I think this is a variation on the "education (along with health care, food, clothing and shelter) should be a privilege reserved for those who can afford it" theme.

Homeschooling requires a stay-at-home parent, or at least a parent who only works part-time, which means the other parent would have to be in one of the better paying occupations. The same goes for sending children to private schools and madrassas Christian schools (although I will say the tuition at the ACE school I went to for a couple of years was considerably less than a Catholic school, probably because the teachers there didn't actually teach, we worked out of little workbooks).

[Pseudowolf]

It doesn't surprise me that Gov. Perry is considering her. He's one of, if not the worst thing to happen to Texas. George Bush was a better governor than Perry. I sincerely hope he gets booted out next election round, which he just might. The whole secession talk was just a way for him to shoehorn in an attack on Kay Bailey Hutchinson who, from what I hear, is planning on making a run for the office herself and looks to have a good shot.

[Lori]

I disagree with Fred a tiny little bit. I don't think Gov. Perry is the 2nd craziest person in this story. Dunbar may be crazy, but I don't believe Perry is. He knows exactly what he's doing and he's doing it any way. He's willing to destroy the education of the majority of children in Texas for political expediency. I don't think that's crazy, I think that's evil.

As for why wingnuts hate public education, some of it is a desire to have absolute control over what is taught. A lot of it is that public ed is an obvious place to focus if you hate government. It's an experience that the majority of the population shares and you start young. If it is well run it serves as a powerful example of the fact that government is a good thing. The wingnuts want you to believe that government is evil so getting rid of positive government services is sort of important to them.

[Just Joe]

Is... is this real? How did we get to this? I could understand them appointing someone uninterested or incompetent as the chair of a school board. I wouldn't be happy about it, but at least it would be attributable to good old bad decision-making. But someone who is actually opposed to the idea of public education?

It's like something out of a very obvious, vaguely unfunny political allegory from a few decades ago about where we're headed. And that is not snark against Fred, btw.

[Scheme Guy]

As a native Richmond-Rosenberg citizen, I can tell you that Mrs. Dunbar is only atypical in her success. There may be more influential nuts per capita here than anywhere else in the US.

[Just Joe]

Also, I *like* the picture, Fred!

[rm]

In public schools, races and (especially) classes mix. Not as much as they should, but at least they are not forcefully separated most of the time. That's why the opponents of public school are against it.

As a parent of kids who homeschooled for academic, rather than ideological reasons, I've encountered a few of these folks. Yes, I do sometimes despair for the future of the nation.

Also, there is a religious ideology that says anything not affirmatively Plastic Jesus All The Time is definitively a Tool Of The Devil To Pervert Our Young. They like to quote "he who is not with me is against me," but never notice "whoever is not against us is for us."

[GDwarf]

...See, I'd heard about this, but hadn't realize just how...out of touch with reality she was.

Alas, I debate people online who seem to feel the same way she does. It's not even carefully cultivated ignorance, there's an entire culture that believes everything she does. She may very well believe everything she's said because everyone she knows believes it too.

Of course, appointing her is the epitome of madness for anyone who wants a working public school system. So clearly the intention is to destroy or damage the system. I...I honestly cannot think of why anyone would want that. Reshaping it into a form that they like better? I could see that, though I likely would not approve. But removing it? I just cannot fathom a reason for anyone to want that.

[Just Joe]

rm said:
""Also, there is a religious ideology that says anything not affirmatively Plastic Jesus All The Time is definitively a Tool Of The Devil To Pervert Our Young. They like to quote "he who is not with me is against me," but never notice "whoever is not against us is for us."""

Not quite true. The more insane RTC viewpoints are often presented as though they are mainstream-- that is, as though they have the support of everyone who is not actively campaigning against them.

[Joy]

This is the point where I lose it, start babbling about reinstatement of the Test Act, and haul out Swift's _Argument for Abolishing Christianity_ as an exhibit.

[Bruce]

Perhaps the most telling point in this whole post is that Dunbar does not have her own children in the public school systems she would, at least indirectly, be in charge of, and if she's anything like other adherents of that Christian-nationalist ideology, would sooner be caught dead than let them in the door of one of those schools.

But her aberration is only one small visible symptom of a much larger and deeper, and still mostly unexamined, root cause. If this were the story of one person on an individual crusade to destroy the public school system, my response would simply be to laugh and say, "Yeah, good luck with that." The danger is that she represents a significant, and vocal, and highly motivated minority in this state (and many other states) who may well succeed in their crusade to dismantle every single protection we have in this country against the creation of a bona fide theocracy, while at the same time dismanting or outright destroying any form of education or journalism or history that doesn't support their ideology.

And they have a plan.

[Cathy W]

Homeschooling requires a stay-at-home parent, or at least a parent who only works part-time, which means the other parent would have to be in one of the better paying occupations.

This isn't necessarily true; the other alternative, which seems to be embraced by some right-wing Christian homeschoolers, is to accept a certain degree of poverty. On the other hand this isn't a recipe for a good education for the kids - the family will make up for lack of money with extra work for everyone, reducing teaching time, and the mom, doing the teaching, is probably not well-educated herself.

[Elmo]

Cynthia Dunbar and her antics (along with the Texas State Board of Education) have been well documented by a Texas web site http://www.kissmybigbluebutt.com My favorite is their recent use of the phrase "pagan left" to refer to anyone who doesn't agree with what they know to be the truth. This jibes with the Tim LaHaye, John Hagee, Jerry Falwell, Frances Shaeffer et al. eschatheology. You know, the kidn of people who can not entertain any thought which might include the slightest inkling that other people can disagree with them. And of course anyone who does is a tool of Satan.

Cynthia Dunbar is just another example of That Guy.

[chancelikely]

Re Lee Ratner's comment:

Nitpicky detail - Washington's letter was to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, not Long Island. Wherever the congregation, the point still stands.

The scary thing about Dunbar is that even if she is nominated by Perry and rejected by the legislature, there's at least one more creationist whackjob on the board - Terri Leo. The creationists are at least three deep on a 15-member board.

[David]

@NRH:

Similar to what Cathy W said -- it really isn't an affluence thing for a lot of the hardliners (there are suburban upper-middle-class folks with stay-at-home moms, but a lot, maybe most, are more in the lower middle class with lots of kids and just get by without much money). For that subculture, homeschooling is less about privilege and more about maintaining an impervious bubble around their children so they can't be forcibly indoctrinated by the evil anti-Christian secular liberal evolutionists that have hijacked the public school system...

[Kyle - who's finding out there are a lot more Kyles in the world than he'd like to know about]

I was reading through the "Why nerds are unpopular" article someone posted in one of the earlier threads, and ended up spending most of my day reading Paul Graham essays. I ended up on one about "What makes a good hacker/programmer", in which he states (paraphrasing / generalizing so it applies):

A great worker doesn't know how good they are. Instead, they wonder why everyone around them is so incompetent.

I'm a naturally curious person. When something new comes my way that looks even remotely interesting, I try to at list familiarize myself with it. Which is why it completely boggles my mind that there are people out there who aren't just ignorant and incurious (because those two traits are necessarily bad things), but who are willingly so. With so much to learn, and so much to see in this world, why intentionally limit yourself to a small, close minded existence? Why pigeonhole as much of the world as you can into something petty, and reject the rest of the world outright?

Ms. Dunbar is at the extreme end of this too. Not only is she guilty of being incurious, but is trying to force that same incurious behavior on millions of others.

[Reverend Ref]

A friend of mine relayed a bumper sticker she saw recently that said something like:

I love Jesus -- I just don't like his fan club (or words to that affect)

That pretty much sums it up.

[Firefall]

Gee, I dunno Fred:

Firebugs need not apply."

At least half of the firefighters I know passably well would definitely qualify as firebugs: in fact, it seems to be the way they keep the arsonist impulse somewhat in check.

[smadin]

This hackneyed title comes, of course, from the Pledge of Allegiance

A bit of a nitpick, Fred — it comes from the unconstitutional revision of the Pledge enacted in 1954. That might seem like a questionably relevant detail, but when the phrase is being used to promote the argument that the Founders intended the United States to be "a Christian nation," I think it matters.

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

it completely boggles my mind that there are people out there who aren't just ignorant and incurious ... but who are willingly so.

Indeed, some are proudly ignorant and incurious. For them, it's a badge of honor that sets them apart from the "worldly" types they disdain. These are the people who use words like "intellectual" and "educated" as slurs.

[Raj]

Obvious joke, but somebody has to say it:

Not much intelligent design seems to have gone into the creation of Cynthia Dunbar.

[Aethernaut]

@Bruce: And they have a plan.

Well, as long as they're no better at figuring out what their plan is than the Cylons were, you should come out okay. :)

[Raj]

I keep wondering if there is a practical way of letting the Dunbar/Limbaugh/Coulter/Hannity-types set up their own society in which they can happily de-educate themselves back to the stone age.

[Trevor]

We need to understand that not all homeschoolers are proudly incurious and committed to keeping their kids in a Christian bubble. I think you'll find that it's really only 90 percent or so that are giving the rest of us a bad name...

[David]

@Aethernaut:

(*** BATTLESTAR SPOILERS ***)

I don't know, the Cylon god sent angels to help smuggle a nuclear warhead to a domestic terrorist group, ultimately leading to the enslavement of the non-Cylon population. It was an incoherent plan, but I still wouldn't want to be its target...

[MikhailBorg]

For that subculture, homeschooling is less about privilege and more about maintaining an impervious bubble around their children so they can't be forcibly indoctrinated by the evil anti-Christian secular liberal evolutionists that have hijacked the public school system.

Well, except that Dunbar wants to build that bubble and then nuke all the educational opportunities outside the bubble, so that the rest of the populace remains uneducated. Perhaps we'd all be of more use to them that way.

[Randy Owens]

One point, about Dunbar's attorneyness, in two simple words: Regent University. With honors. Rings bells here, I presume.

[cjmr's husband]

Just a reminder: please be sure to separate *these* whacko homeschoolers from those of us who are doing it for academic reasons.

These nuts have been trying to destroy the public schools since (variously) Scopes and Brown. If suddenly I ended up on the School Board (impossible, I'm not anywhere near corrupt enough) I would work at improving the schools until it was acceptable to send my kids there.

ObSteven Wright: "My nephew has HDADHD - High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder. He can't concentrate, but when he does, it's AMAZING"

[Randy Owens]

Oops, I guess that turned into four words, plus trimmings.

@Lori: I really don't think crazy and evil are mutually exclusive. Not synonymous, certainly, but there is overlap, and I think that territory is represented here.

Also, I suppose it's time to reiterate the point that the Texas school system carries a lot of weight in what educational publishers put in their textbooks. So, if they go downhill, they can drag the rest of the nation along behind them.

[David]

@cjmr's husband:

Well, my comments above should be read with the context that I was also homeschooled. I think we were somewhere in the middle ground between academic reasons and crazy ideology -- I used to think it was all academic, but the more distance I get from it the more random crazy stuff I remember, producing some retroactive cynicism. On the whole it was probably still a good fit for me, but I'd also agree with Trevor about the homeschooling culture as a whole...

[truth is life]

The reason for Perry floating the idea of appointing her is simple: He's about to go into a hard primary fight with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and has been pandering to the base. Now, Senator Hutchison is much more popular than Rick Perry. If she makes it past the primary, she'll probably be the next governor. If. Unfortunately--for both the Republicans and the other citizens of Texas--the Republican primary here is dominated by wingnuts. Amongst whom Perry has a lead. So, Perry is fighting hard to keep that lead by making all sorts of wingnutty decisions, like talking about secession a few months ago. Which kind of just makes it worse; it's transparent pandering, and yet it works.

[MikhailBorg]

@cjmr's husband:

That's why I specifically referred to Dunbar. I know many homeschoolers who have more sense than that.

Also, I love the Steven Wright quote and will appropriate it to refer to myself!

[Froborr]

One point, about Dunbar's attorneyness, in two simple words: Regent University. With honors. Rings bells here, I presume.

Very much, yes.

*sigh* I've been research cultural selection theory for a panel I'm giving at Otakon, and it's depressing the crap out of me. It's caused me to have doubts that there's a non-brutal way to stop the religious right. Dominionism is a near-perfect mental plague. Between the superficial similarites to mainstream Christianity and the appeals to fear and greed, it is adept at sidestepping people's resistance to bad ideas. It shuts down the capacity to reason, empathy, contact with the outside world -- everything that could be used to combat it in the market of ideas. Victims isolate their children to encourage vertical transmission, and are exhorted to evangelize and to seek sociopolitical dominance, encouraging lateral transmission. How do you contain and stop such a plague?

These nuts have been trying to destroy the public schools since (variously) Scopes and Brown.

Brown yes, Scopes no. American creationism was already fading at the time of the Scopes trial; by the 1940s it was pretty much dead in the educated classes, including politicians and theologians of all creeds. It wasn't revived until the sixties, and it's only after that that you start seeing creationism-based objections to the public schools.

So, Perry is fighting hard to keep that lead by making all sorts of wingnutty decisions, like talking about secession a few months ago.

Texas *may* be the only state legally able to secede. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that states can or can't secede, and in the Civil War it was established that they can't. However, the Constitution says that international treaties are second only to itself in establishing the law of the land, and a treaty between the U.S. and the Republic of Texas specifies that the state of Texas can withdraw from the Union at any time. However-squared, the country that treaty was made with ceased to exist the instant the treaty was signed, and anyway that was before the Civil War.

Regardless, I wish they *would* secede. This country would be a vastly better place without Texas. The quality of our beef would go down, sure, but it would reduce the wingnut population significantly (especially if we could convince other wingnuts to move there) AND lower our oil supplies, thus replacing "must stop relying on foreign oil" with "must stop relying on oil, period."

[Lee Ratner]

1. The Long Island thing was typo of mine. I did mean Rhode Island, I really did.

2. People like Cynthia Dunbar are reasons why I am not very fond of home schooling. Like other people on this thread said, home schooling is an attempt to keep kids in a "Chrisitan" bubble. They did do not want any "non-Christian" ideas corrupting their little darlings. They seem to fear competitive ideas so much that even "Christian" private schools are too dangerous. They really want to isolate their kids.
This means that most of the kids will grow up to be just as dangerous as their parents and with equally bad ideas. The wing-nut population of the United States will increase. They might never achieve majority or even plurality but their will always be enough of them to cause harm.

[Kyle - who should probably pick a handle now]

@Naked Bunny: Here's my problem with the proud and willful ignorance. She has a law degree, and is a lawyer. Which means that not only has she spent years and years in school (even if it's a school like Regents), but that she sat the bar exam. And that means she has submitted herself to someone else's educational standards. And THAT means that she has become an educated member of the world/society she so proudly proclaims she's ignorant of.

But I suppose that proudly proclaiming one's superior level of ignorance would make one ignorant of one's own hypocrisy.

Oh...and @cjmr's husband: One of the problems with this debate is that like Christian vs. "Christian" (or RTC), there's two home-schooling camps that have decided to use the same name. One is "our education system isn't as rigorous as I'd like, therefore I'm going to give my kids a better one". This is laudable. But the other camps says "our education system is TOO rigorous. It encourages children to become a part of this world, rather than apart from it". Perhaps we need a term for the second camp - RTHS, maybe? Real-True-Home-Schoolers? Or Home-Ignoranting?

I've read comments from cjmr about home-schooling that show others here have struck a nerve, when people aren't trying to bag on Home Schooling in general, but the RTHS-ers

[Froborr]

Public schools are quite possibly the greatest innovation of the 20th century.* Before public schools, literacy rates in what would become the First World hovered around 10-20 percent. Now they're typically above 90 percent, sometimes well above. The American public schools were generally quite good up until the 1970s, and in some parts of the world public schools still provide an excellent education. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever our public schools can't be excellent, if we have the will to make them such.

*Yes, I know they existed in the 19th, but they didn't become widespread until the 20th.

[Izzy]

Kyle: Maybe "isolationist home schoolers" versus "educational home schoolers", since that does seem to be the divide.

[TG]

How do they square the notion of secession with the indivisible part of the Pledge that they claim to follow? Just askin' ...

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

And THAT means that she has become an educated member of the world/society she so proudly proclaims she's ignorant of.

In Dunbar's case, I was referring more to her proud ignorance of science than of the law. As far as her legal views go, she's more deluded than ignorant. Watching her talk about the Founding Fathers is like watching a Moon-landing-hoax believer talk about the Apollo program.

[Trevor]

Home schooling is an attempt to keep kids in a "Christian" bubble.

This statement really must be qualified. I certainly know plenty of people for whom that is true; on the other hand I know many others who homeschool to give their kids a broader and deeper curriculum than that available in the school system, and many kids whose educational needs can't be met within the limitations of a conventional classroom setting.

That said, I have no time at all for those who choose it to ensure that their kids will be less well educated than they would be in a public school.

[Winter]

*Facepalm*

Having spent half a summer reading about the debate over ratifying the Constitution, the idea that it in any way set up a 'Christian' government strikes me as either willful stupidity or an outright lie. The Constitution was attacked as Godless and there was a great deal of babbling over the clause of Article VI that prohibits religious tests. 'Oh noes! A deist/Jew/Muslim/Catholic/atheist might become President! They could elect the Pope!'

My first reaction to that last assertion was to ask where the hell they expected to find an American Pope. And the usual argument against a religious test was that it would only bar honourable people with consciences but actively encourage corrupt hypocrites.

[cjmr's husband]

@MikhailBorg: Appropriate away. And buy his new album, "I Still Have a Pony". Just as good as the original, that's why it took him twenty years to get around to it...

[cjmr's husband]

@Kyle: "Real True Home Schoolers" -- good one. I may start using it. Until my wife yells at me.

[Lee Ratner]

I can't rembember the exact quote but in the early 19th century, I think the 1820s or 30s, a Jewish man named Mordecai Noah became the sherriff of New York City. A Christian lamented on the fact that a Jew was in position to hang Christian, Mr. Noah replied by lamenting that is a shame that Christians put themselves in a position to be hung.

Frobarr, what is cultural selection theory and why do need to research it for a panel at Otakon. The panel sounds fascinating. I kind of agree with your opinion that there might not be non-brutal methods of dealing with the religious right. I'm not very fond of this because I'm a member of the ACLU and really can't condone such methods but the religious right could do very real amounts of damage to the United States and being gentle with them does not seem to be an option.

Maybe we get them to act like the Amish or Hasidic Jews. We will allow them to live in their little bubble if they try not to influence the world outside their bubble.