In a day filled with bad news, the worst for the Republic may come from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who declared that it doesn’t matter that the President used his bully pulpit to promote Islamophobic videos of questionable veracity from a fringe, neo-fascist-founded right-wing British hate group known for pushing its message with fake material; all that matters is that Il Duce is making people think about a threat he says is real:
No.
No, no, no.
When you retweet a video that a foreign right-wing group labels, “VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” to raise alarms about a threat (of what? violent Muslims in America’s streets?), and it turns out that the video is not what the foreign right-wing group claimed it was, you have made a false statement. You have helped spread a lie.
Donald Trump didn’t make an argument today. He just waved his deep racism and bigotry again to rouse his racist, bigoted supporters.
Instead, he is pressing his war against rational argument. Trump does not care if he is posting facts. Donald Trump knows he and his deeply selfish, racist agenda cannot win an argument based on facts. Donald Trump has never won anything other than by buying and bullying. He thus sends out lieutenants like Huckabee Sanders to tell us that facts, the underpinning of rational argument, do not matter. The President doesn’t have to give real evidence that Muslims are violent and dangerous; the President wants everyone to treat Muslims as violent dangerous, and what the President wants, the President gets!
Donald Trump’s retweets today are frighteningly similar to Al Novstrup’s use of the claim that Dearborn, Michigan, is ruled by Sharia law to justify the anti-Muslim sentiments stoked at over a year’s worth of anti-immigrant rallies in Aberdeen. Novstrup’s claim about Dearborn was patently false, based on an easily debunked satire. Novstrup fell for fake news; his fear is based on falsehood.
Rational argument matters. The evidence we use to support rational argument matters.
If I make an argument—say, that we would get better economic results from tax cuts for working families and investments in social assistance and infrastructure than from the current GOP tax plan—and if I support that argument by citing past examples of tax reform similar to the GOP plan that didn’t work, my past examples need to be real. If Pat Powers or Bob Mercer or anyone else can find that I fabricated those examples, or that I fell for fake examples peddled by jokesters or troublemakers, I lose more than my argument; I lose my credibility.
That’s why I try hard to check my facts and tell nothing but the truth on this blog. That’s why the Washington Post checked out the Roy Moore rape story so hard (and saved itself from falling for another conservative James O’Keefe lie).
That’s why we shouldn’t trust Al Novstrup when he starts huffing and puffing about Sharia law. That’s why we can’t trust Donald Trump when he talks about “threats”.
And when we can’t trust the President—when the world cannot trust the President of the United States—that’s a real problem. We need to replace Donald Trump as soon as Constitutionally possible with a leader who respects facts and who will not try to persuade voters with anything other than truth.
Update 17:20 CST: South Dakota Voices for Peace warns of the danger of Trump’s dehumanizing lies:
“Trump is fulfilling his campaign promise to ‘ban all Muslims from entering the United States,’ by laying the groundwork with dangerous anti-Muslim propaganda,” said Communications and Policy Director Samantha Spawn. “By retweeting videos originating from the cult-right in the UK, Trump is working hard to import to America the same hatred that has been condemned across Europe. We’re seeing some preliminary repercussions of that here in South Dakota, and it’s our fear that the continued use of this rhetoric will escalate an already tenuous situation into a deadly one. How many more hate crimes do Muslims, immigrants and refugees have to endure before Trump is able to accept responsibility for his reckless and racist agenda?”
…“This is a real threat for me, my family and over 7 million Muslims in the United States, including the millions of others who are not Muslims but are attacked because they don’t ‘look American’,” said Executive Director Taneeza Islam, a practicing Muslim who has received threats for the work she does providing accurate information about Islam, Muslims, immigrants and refugees in SD. “There has never been a genocide in human history that didn’t start with dehumanizing the targeted population. That is exactly what these videos depict. If you believe these videos, and there are millions of people who do, and many people in SD who do, you will surely believe that brown skinned people, with beards wearing long shirts, otherwise stereotypically categorized as Muslims, are inhuman” [South Dakota Voices for Peace, press release, 2017.11.29].
Donald Trump threatens both rational argument and the physical safety of fellow Americans. Holding him accountable (reporting and debunking his lies, resisting his racism and fascism, electing conscientious Congresspeople to check his overreach, and removing him from office at the soonest Constitutional opportunity) for his dangerous lies is essential to the health of the nation.
Trump needs to be called to account for this crap, but I can tell you that it is almost certainly a calculated distraction from the Republican tax plan. Once again it has worked to change the subject from a horrible tax plan for middle income Americans.
Anything coming out of his mouth or his twitter account is a lie or fake. Can someone who lies all the time undermine facts? All you have to do is believe the opposite of what he is saying or tweating. In a way, he points to the facts because you know they in the opposite direction.
Show me someone who actually believes anything the guy says, and I’ll show you a fool.
Drumpf can’t keep is trap shut and judges can easily find references to banning Muslims and throw his EOs in the trash. Drumpf assumes he is the law and everything he says and does should be the law.
The total dumbing down of the electorate by a thug not fit to hold Obama’s jock.
Fake videos matter.If the president doesn’t realize or doesn’t care if the video he’s posting is real or phony, that only demonstrates his own lack of intellect and leadership skills.Man, how far we have sunk with this man.
Trump ran on a campaign of lies and falsity. His presidency will be no different. We can labor all we want against it, but I am not sure enough people care. I blame public schools for not creating an educated populace that cares about facts, rationality, or the greater good.
Joe, please don’t blame schools for this. What we see here is a cultural shift on how news is accessed. No longer do we turn on the TV at 530 or 6pm and see CBS/ABC/NBC lay it out. Now, anyone can post a picture/video on facebook, throw a sensationalist claim in the title – and dammit, it has to be true. The many of the nations youth understands this, many older folks don’t. Trump certainly doesn’t.
Funny thing is, social media has turned into a festering scab. How many friends or family members do you know have posted something that is flat out offensive on facebook? Would that person say that to your face? What did you do? You/me/others most likely just scrolled on. Not worth the time, and certainly not worth the notifications on your phone.
There is nothing our schools can do to help this. Hell, they already have their hands full. The public has to police itself on what is right, correct, and true. Scrolling past on Facebook will not fix this. Call them out on their BS. Yes, it may make that next family gathering uncomfortable, but it may make them think the next time they share something on social media, and further poison the well of society.
Joe K.,
I agree with many of your thoughts, especially on how news has changed and the effect of social media.
However, public schools in South Dakota, by way of the Legislative Branch, have a constitutional duty of which they have failed:
http://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Constitution/DisplayStatute.aspx?Type=Statute&Statute=0N-8-1
The State public schools, in large part, took the place, duty, and responsibility of producing educated and moral citizens. An educated and moral citizen could not approve of what Trump is doing, his behavior, his attitudes, yet these people abound. Therefore, the public schools have failed at their duty.
Show me where my premises are false, or my argumentation is invalid.
This is what none of you understand and exactly why Trump is smarter than you guys: Trump, whether the videos are 100% accurate or not, turned the conversation again and further exposed the radical anti-American left. He turned the conversation forcing you all attack him over the actions of those in the videos. Now you are all forced to defend muslim extremist just because Trump showed something, anything in a tweet. The guy just a rolled a ball in front of you and you are all chasing it through traffic.
Donald takes the position that every journalist and world leader is justified in taking: we cannot trust anything the President of the United States says.
OldSarg, you aren’t pointing out something for which to praise the President or something for which you can criticize his opponents. It is not radical, anti-American, or leftist to expect that the President of the United States should speak the truth and should not use his bully pulpit to promote the propaganda of a foreign fascist group.
I would certainly rather spend my time discussing the tax reform package and mobilizing Americans to call their Congresspeople to oppose that monstrosity. However, when the President commits errors this grave, we can’t sit and do nothing.
I’m willing to accept Joe Nelson’s contention that we have a generation of Trump voters who, for some reason, are able to overlook lies and immorality and vote for an incompetent who strokes their racist ids. There may be several causes of that generation’s willful ignorance and immorality, including some failure of public education (but wait—surely no products of homeschooling voted for Trump?). But as Trump includes in his selfish agenda the denigration and privatization of public schools, let’s not be tricked into helping him by mistaking who bears the fullest blame. The public bears blame for being lured in, but the greatest blame lies with the lurer.
OldSarg, the President of the United States sent out fake videos to the world! He is the laughingstock of the world! He has eroded the moral authority of our country in the world and made us to look like fools. We are losing, not winning.
Isis uses fake videos–not the President of the United States. Tin pot dictators use fake videos and lies for propaganda–not the President of the United States. Far right wackos and conspiracy theorists put fake videos on the internet–not the President of the United States.
Make no mistake here. Whether Trump gets his bogus tax plan passed or not, he has debased and denigrated our country in so many ways that we all lose. Trump is the worst of us.
Joe Nelson, blaming public schools for the failings of our electorate is like blaming a mechanic for not keeping a car running that the owner has run out of engine oil. There is only so much public schools can do with the resources they have to work with and the time constraints and role they have in the life of kids. Parents and society as a whole have much more of an influence on the morality and intelligence of our children than schools. If kids are not taught morality and intellectual curiosity at home and in society, the efforts of schools are often overwhelmed. That is not said to diminish the importance of education. We just have to keep the role of education in perspective.
If you look at the data, the more education a person had, the more likely they were to vote for Clinton over Trump. I think that is a win for education.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/
Darin, prove the videos are fake. They aren’t. The media tells they are “un-collaborated”. Do you know what the word means? Are you telling all of us islamic radicals did not throw people from buildings, cut off their hands, burned them alive, used young boys sexually, sell women as slaves? Who and what are you defending here by saying the videos are “fake”? How do you even justify your position on this?
You can call Trump “the worst” all day long but clearly you, who have sided with animals against humanity, would be more than a close second.
The market is up again. Do you think its because the tax bill is closer to passage or is it because of the “fake” videos Trump sent out on twitter? Ha, the man is winning and you are all biting at his heels.
The videos Mr. Trump retweeted were titled: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!” But the assailant in one of them was not a “Muslim migrant” and the other two showed four-year-old events with no explanation.
OldSnarky, you need a dictionary. What does uncollaborated mean?
I believe the word you seek is uncorroborated. There is not corroboration for any of these videos. These videos were apparently supposed to show radical Muslim imagery. Not meant to be taken as actually having happened.
I already provided a Snopes link on the Dutch crutch video. And the burden lies on the President of the United States to demonstrate that his affirmative claims are true. POTUS spreads a video claiming to show a Muslim beating a non-Muslim and cites it to stoke fear of all Muslims and support his polices; POTUS has the affirmative burden to prove his evidence is true.
Trump is a chronic liar, bigot, and racist. He promoting foreign fringe fascists while insulting our allies and damaging America’s reputation. We cannot trust Donald Trump to speak the truth or lead this country effectively.
“the burden lies on the President” no it doesn’t anymore than it does on you Cory. Look at what you just typed “Trump is a chronic liar, bigot, and racist. He promoting foreign fringe fascists while insulting our allies and damaging America’s reputation. We cannot trust Donald Trump to speak the truth or lead this country effectively.” Stop hating.
You sound like a man obsessed, writhing in anger, who has lost control of the situation and have nothing left but to strike out like a beast. Do you honestly think a tax cut, secured border, preservation of the life of the innocent, freedom of speech and religion would cause you such harm? It seems as if you would oppose Trump if he was trying to save you from drowning.
Come on OldSarg. “prove that the videos are fake” ? Huh?
The so-called leader of the free world acts like a child, retweets things just to retweet and enflame, and that’s not a problem? Like always, you are missing the point. 71 year old man, abuses his power, acts like a child, and is divisive. That is leadership?
The guy that always screams and yells about fake news, is a conspiracy theorist, and “plants” fake news all the time. …… That is a problem. A BIG problem. It is stirring up irrational fear. This is good ole Joe McCarthy days – stirring up irrational fear about communism in this country. Pure and simple
Trump’s own spokesperson didn’t try to defend the videos, but leave it to OldSarg to stick up for Don the Con and claim the validity of the videos. Maybe you should apply for press secretary, OldSarge.
Do I know what “un-collaborated” means, OldSarg. I suppose it means to not collaborate. Like Trump claims to uncollaborate with the Russians.
“The market is up again.” That’s funny. When the market was rising tremendously after Obama saved us from the Great Depression II, Trump was complaining that the market was not rising because of Obama’s policies. Trump complained that it was only because of the Fed’s monetary policy that was causing the rising market and that the market rise was otherwise meaningless. Now that Don the Con is in the oval office, he points to the stock market rising as his big achievement.
I just watched the video of the beating of the boy on crutches and based upon my reading Snopes it is clear NO ONE proved the creep was NOT a muslim simply said that he was born in the Netherlands. The party that posted the video only claimed the perp was “born” in the Netherlands. To assume that someone is not a muslim because they were born in the Netherlands is ignorant. The Netherlands has muslims as residents. I would also say upon watching the video the bully in the video sure does look like he is of Arabic decent which, based upon the failure of muslims to assimilate, it is more likely he is a muslim thug than not. Now if you are predisposed to call me a “racist” because the perp dresses like, moves like and is acting like an arab so be it but, just so you know, I would never go to the grocery store with you out of fear we would end up with radishes instead of apples because you don’t have the sense to observe, make judgement of and pick the obvious apple.
Joe Nelson is fact-free in his attack on public education. I’m sure it’s from ignorance, rather than an intent to mislead, but let me provide some information to correct the record.
Rapid City public schools, and I think many other districts, have a moral component to teaching. In Rapid City the “Character Counts” program was implemented in the 1990s. The program runs mostly in elementary schools, and includes lessons, activities and role-playing around six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.
https://charactercounts.org/program-overview/six-pillars/
In addition, character development and moral instruction is built into the curriculum. You can’t read Mark Twain, Dickens or Shakespeare and not wrestle with moral issues.
Can you imagine if Obama had posted fake left wing videos on his twitter account? No, I can’t either. The rationalizing and mental gymnastics necessary to try to defend Don the Con are really astounding. Most main-stream Republicans do not even try anymore. He is the worst of society’s ills all balled up in one terribly flawed narcissistic person. If he wasn’t such a danger to the country and our democratic republic, I would pity him.
OldSarg, did you ever wonder why the religion of criminals typically is never mentioned in headlines, or the body of the story, unless the perpetrator’s religion happens to be Muslim?
And I won’t call you a “racist” OldSarg, but when you attempt to propagate negative opinions and judgments about people (whom you personally know nothing about) based on their skin color or mode of dress, some folks might see that as classic racism.
barecreekbatty: my wife is from the Netherlands and other than her temper I think I understand her most of the time. She is from Ziest to be exact. As far as what I know about islam and people from around the world I would set my travel log against yours any day.
Cory, Darin, and Donald,
Thank you for responding, and in Cory’s case, acknowledging some culpability on the part of public schools.
Cory, I am just making a logical argument. If my logic is invalid or unsound, show me. I agree that blame can be spread around, and I know of homeschooling parents who voted Trump (they themselves were not homeschooled, but products of public schools). We can also lay a lot of the blame on Trump, the lurer. However, Trump did not create the soil from which he sprung, and we need to address the bad soil and the agents that seed and cultivate politicians like Trump.
Darin, I like your mechanic analogy, and there is some similarities there. I think the public and society also share culpability. However, legally and constitutionally, it is public schools who have the responsibility codified. The majority of people voted for Trump, and the majority of those people went through the K through 12 public school system. That is not a win for education. Public education is broken.
Donald, I can own up to my ignorance in many fields. For example, I am not aware that they teach logic in Rapid City public schools. Do they? If so, dispute the facts of my premises, or show how my logic is invalid or unsound. Bully for Rapid City schools for implementing a moral component to the education plan. Those six pillars are great! Too bad Trump has none of those quality, and the program has failed in producing voters who would vote for a person who has those qualities.
Premise 1:The State public schools constitutionally and legally took the place, duty, and responsibility of producing educated and moral citizens.
Premise 2: An educated and moral citizen could not approve of what Trump is doing, his behavior, his attitudes.
Premise 3: Many people, who are products of the State public school, voted for and approve of Trump, his behavior, and his attitudes.
Conclusion: Therefore, the State public schools failed in the duty of producing educated and moral citizens.
The logic is sound, so which of my premises is false?
Joe N, I would question this premise: “The State public schools constitutionally and legally took the place, duty, and responsibility of producing educated and moral citizens.”
Isn’t it the people of the State that have this duty and responsibility? Isn’t it the people who elect legislators that decide school funding and where kids can go to the bathroom? Isn’t it the people who elect school board members, who in turn hire teachers and make decisions about how the school functions?
If we need to look somewhere to place blame for under-educated South Dakotans, why blame the State public schools? Instead, it would seem more appropriate to blame the people of our State for electing legislators that do little or nothing to aid in the fulfillment of this duty. After all, the schools can only do so much without the support of the public and the legislature. And as we all are aware, South Dakota has factual history of extremely low teacher pay, neglect of infrastructure, and pandering to silly notions such as bathroom bills, instead of listening and providing what our schools need to succeed.
Joe, I appreciate your civil and rational discussion. That said, your Premise 1 is faulty because it implies that schools are the sole or most responsible party for the education and morality of our citizens. With resources limited by the legislature (some would say severely limited), the obligation to teach an ever more rigorous academic curriculum in the same amount of teaching time as was allowed 50 years ago, and the continued deterioration of society and the family unit, in many cases there is no way for schools to overcome the deck that was stacked against them by the child’s family and society. The constitutional obligation you have pointed out is an aspirational one in the same way that all people deserve the free pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, but none of this is guaranteed. The SD Constitution is not a guarantee of morality and an educated citizenry any more than the funding for education is guaranteed by the SD Constitution and probably less so.
If you want to say that schools could do more to educate our children and help instill morality, I will agree with you to a certain extent. But this discussion does not occur in a vacuum. The legislature has constrained education funding in this state. Given the low levels of funding, schools here do a remarkable job of educating our children. In sum, schools obviously have an effect on the morality and education levels of our citizens (more so education levels), but in the big picture the determinates of family and society dwarf the macro effects of schools on final levels of education and especially morality.
Joe, We don’t need to play little kid games on this. The pathetic game you set up is similar to what Trump does.
When you simplify complex social issues down to a few rather ridiculously incomplete set of premises, you are likely to conclude something that is completely at odds with the truth. For example, parents and religion probably have something to say about why people blindly follow the idiot in the White House. Far more of the self-appointed holier-than-thou religious folks who “graduated” from religious schools or home schooling have been following the fool in the White House. These morals-less religious folks with self-appointed parents as teachers are likely to provide the total vote for Ray “the kiddie diddler” Moore in Alabama, just as they did for their pussy-grabbing President.
Orin Hatch of Utah said yesterday, “This is the BEST President I have ever served under.” There you have it, folks, a classic example of enabling from Republican “leadership”. BTW, is there some way to filter OldSarge? His schtick is getting Old!
Orrin Hatch and wingnuts raised the impeachment bar so high for wingnuts, there isn’t an impeachable offense out there. They lowered the bar for Clinton and tried the same for Obama because they could.
The only metric Drumpf could be judged fairly by is gross stoopidity. He is a landslide winner in that category. Hatch has gotten more looney as he has aged. It is waaaaaaay past time to pasture this horse’s arse.
From DutchNews.- The Dutch video was originally posted on shockblog Dumpert in May but was removed on the request of the police. According to GeenStijl, the incident took place in Monnickendam and the 16-year-old perpetrator, who was arrested, is neither a migrant or a Muslim but an ‘ordinary Dutchman’.
Read more at DutchNews.nl: Anti-Muslim Dutch video retweeted by Trump is fake news http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/11/anti-muslim-dutch-video-retweeted-by-trump-is-fake-news/
As for the smashing of the statue of Mary, only right wing sources have reported this so that is suspect. Curiously, some wingnuts report a bunch of kids trashed and urinated on the the statue in Italy. Other sites said it was done by one guy in Syria.
Italian officials said they attributed the vandalism to vandals and said there was no religious component to this. But that wouldn’t put right wingers in a tizzy, would it?
POTUS has the affirmative burden to prove his evidence is true.
But, everyone knows the pathological liar doesn’t operate that way. He will not attempt to provide any evidence. He will give a pep talk to his base and tell them how fake news is trying to destroy all the progress he has made and they eat that narrative up.
They probably know he is lying and just don’t care about it. Drumpf isn’t that icky brown or black color and so everything he does is okay to save white Americons from POC.
The DOW is up 300 points now. I think it’s because Trump posted those videos. . . That bastard!
This is so 1929. We even have Warren Harding’s ghost in the white house…That bastard!
The DOW being up 300 points is nothing short of the celebration of the 1% seeing another big win in their wealth grab as GOP votes roll in for their tax cuts.
The DOW is not the sign of America’s health and prosperity.
Dow is up because Wall Street is salivating at the thought of more billionaire wealth to play with, especially if Democrats rules are totally dismissed.
But, to equal the rise the market got in 8 years of Obama’s guidance, and wingnut obstruction, it would have to go 200 plus percent where it was when Putin and Drumpf declared themselves co-Potii.
OldSarg, if you want the stock market to do as well under Trump as it did under Obama, the Dow will have to rise to between 47,800 and 61,500. Don the Con better keep giving tax breaks and hands out to big corporations.
Here’s a link that explains the 47,800 to 61,500 figures:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/10/investing/obama-stock-market-trump/index.html
President Donald Trump didn’t know that anti-Muslim videos he shared on social media this week were connected to a far-right political group in the United Kingdom, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday.
Do these people ever stop lying, Old Forge?
But now, we can thank the republican for the retweet of this to make our troops safer in Afghanistan and other places in the sand box. Nothing is held more dear than mocking the religion of Islam for those that live in the heart of that religion. I can hear them laughing about it now.
Don’t kneel at the football games because it disrespects the troops, you betcha. What a load of unadulterated bull pucky.
I really see this as a Crazy Republican issue more than anything else, and frankly, all of us non-republicans should throw up our hands and let the republicans deal with this themselves.
It is impossible to separate the rational republicans from the Crazy Republicans by virtue of appearance, casual acquaintance, or even public debates. Crazy Republicans are very good at deception when it serves their goals. We non-republicans must maintain a certain level of guardedness permanently.
We non-republicans have organized, fund-raised, educated, lobbied, and consciousness-raised and I JUST DON’T THINK WE CAN DO MUCH MORE. There will always be some non-republicans who deny the craziness of the Crazy Republicans, but that just shows that some non-republicans are flawed, too. Despite those exceptions, we non-republicans ARE DOING ALL WE CAN. Literally – there isn’t one more single solitary thing that we can do. Really. No hyperbole here at all. Totally serious. This is a serious topic, so I’m totally being totally serious.
This problem belongs to Crazy Republicans as the privileged group. Even republicans that aren’t Crazy Republicans still have a critical role to play. Because Crazy Republicans control the government, they have the greatest power, and they must take immediate action.
Sane republicans need to be the first ones to call out Crazy Republicans for their lies, and they must be the first ones to file articles of impeachment, or to invoke the 25th amendment. They must never doubt the word of a non-republican who suggests that a republican is a Crazy Republican. Sane republicans must physically restrain Crazy Republicans with their bare hands when they see the Crazy Republican as soon as they are aware that the Crazy Republican is about to do something crazy because, as you know, the safety of a sane republican is far less important than that of a non-republican. When a Crazy Republican is in the news for doing something crazy, the first condemnation must, absolutely must, come from sane republicans. Non-republicans are relieved of these obligations due to their status as the minority parties.
Sane republicans owe it to everyone everywhere to follow through and bring swiftly the iron fist of justice to the front doors of the Crazy Republicans’ houses.
Sane republicans need to insist on transparency in politics. Nothing should be hidden or covered up. Sane republicans must not protect Crazy Republicans from scrutiny, even if that Crazy Republican is the president. Certainly, there would never be any retribution for a sane republican standing up to a Crazy Republican. They are all in it together.
Republicans – what do you think of when you hear “be conservative…”? I think of something that shows closed-mindedness, greed, and the suppression of civil rights. Perhaps I have no idea how the mind of a republican works because I am not a republican, but that minor detail shouldn’t matter, right? However, those qualities are a very large part of the problem in a republican-run government. As long as republicans are all the same (which of course, they are; none is different from another in action, belief, morality, anything), they will continue to perpetrate demeaning and frightening acts on the rest of the country, regardless of political affiliation.
Republicans – this is your issue, your problem. The rest of America needs you to fix it.
All, I linked to the State Constitution where the duty to produce educated and moral citizens is laid out. I imply nothing, so infer nothing. Read my logical argument for what it is, and judge it for what it is. I never said the State has the sole responsibility, nor did I say that others do not have a responsibility (in fact, I whole-heartedly embrace my responsibility as a parent to produce and educated and moral citizens of my children and reject any pubic schools attempts to do so) .
By virtue of the Constitution of South Dakota, the public school system has the duty to produce educated and moral citizens. It has failed in that duty. If you want to include society, parents, Bob the Butcher, God, that is certainly your prerogative. No one has shown my premises to be false, instead you have changed the premise to make it false (saying it implies something false, or that despite what the Constitution says, public schools don’t have this duty.).
But maybe it is a quibble over articles, and I should use “a duty” opposed to “the duty”.
As for simplifying the issue, I suggest the adage “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. If we do not recognize and admit the problems of public education, we will not be able to fix them. In my argument, I lay out a problem not a solution. If we want to talk about solutions, you first have to admit there is a problem (and not resort to “whataboutisms”). As citizens, we have the legitimate and legal means to change what is taught at the public school (school boards, text book selection, etc…), we do not have the means to change what is taught in someone else’s home.
I appreciate the thoughtful discussion, and for most of you, a refusal to lower yourselves to demeaning language.
One last little tidbit, since this post jumped the tracks- wingnut senate staffers essentially hacked wingnut house donor lists- very valuable lists. Drumpf dysfunction has swept the country in a few short months.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/29/campaign-data-stolen-republicans-house-senate-196238?cid=apn
for previous post.
Joe N, I reviewed your earlier comment with the quote from the Constitution. The actual language that you quoted states: “it shall be the duty of the Legislature . . .”
I looked at our State Constitution on line but could not find any language, direct or implicit, that our “public school system” has a Constitutional duty to do anything. Is there some language that you are aware of that imposes duties upon our “public school system?”
I admire your energy and belief in the importance of education. My comments are not intended to challenge or criticize your comments. I simply want to identify who has this Constitutional duty so that the responsible individuals are the folks encouraged to fulfill that duty.
Joe, I don’t deny that, as a teacher, I apparently failed to teach enough kids not to fall for a tyrant. Mea Culpa.
I agree that “Trump did not create the soil from which he sprung, and we need to address the bad soil and the agents that seed and cultivate politicians like Trump.” However…
(1) Trump chose to exploit that soil, as surely as a thief chooses to exploit an unlocked door. We need better locks, but only because some SOBs don’t respect property.
(2) The bad soil has a lot of bad elements. Public schools spent too much time drilling kids for standardized tests and not enough time teaching civics, history, philosophy, and rhetoric. Fix that. But you, Joe, acknowledge that homeschoolers voted for Trump, too. So, I’m sure, did some DeVos private school fans. Donald mentions religion and parents. We can apply blame to all sorts of bad educators, public, private, parental, and priestly. It’s like the end of Romeo and Juliet: All are punishèd!
Every day I get to go to classrooms, I’ll look for ways to work in good citizen training. I’ll continue to tell my daughter that Trump is a menace and that we must never elect a menace like him again. (No need to work hard—she already gets it.) What reforms do you recommend for our schools? What reforms do you recommend for the private schools and homeschools that failed? What new parenting and preaching techniques do you recommend?
I do not question your premises, Joe, other than to say that are incomplete in listing the culpable parties who need to do better.
Thank you, bcb, for going back to the language of the SD Constitution.
Joe, you did imply a duty that was not there in the first place.
bcb and Darin, I think you are right. The Constitution does say that it is the duty of the Legislature to create the public school system. So my premises need work. After looking at all State Constitutions, many of them have the language of “the Legislature shall establish”, with Iowa, Hawaii, Florida, and others saying “the State has the duty to establish”. I think this language is used, because the big L is the branch that makes and establishes the laws that govern all aspects of society, and the creation of any agency is done via the Legislature. Of note though, is that because of the State’s Administrative Procedures Act, per S.D. Codified Laws § 1-26, the Department of Education is given the authority to enact rules, laws, etcetera…
But, the LRC website also sucks, and it is stupidly difficult to navigate through codified law, with it’s labyrinth of links, multiple Obsolete, Repealed, or Transferred codes (with no easy link to get to the code’s new location). Grr, but I have already e-mailed them about my displeasure with the site.
Back to the topic, Premise 1 shall be rewritten. Premise 1:The State public school system, constitutionally and legally established by the Legislature, has a duty and responsibility of producing educated and moral citizens.
Cory, my quick take:
What reforms do you recommend for our schools?
-Focus on academics by the elimination of school sports, adopting a European model of community club sports
-the immediate cessation of missing school days or classes because of sports.
-elimination of grades determined by age. Classes should be taught by level of ability, not because a child happens to be 11.
-heavy curriculum emphasis on ethics, civics, logic, political science, critical thinking, rhetoric, and duties to society.
-emphasis on people from history who were models of virtue and good citizenship.
-implement a system of learning from affordable mistakes at the early ages to prevent un-affordable mistakes at later ages.
-establish an educational and moral standard for discharging children from the public school system, similar to the military (honorable, general, dishonorable, bad conduct, etc…)
-de-emphasize individualistic ideologies.
-implement programs to ensure emotional and physical resiliency.
-emphasize and cultivate a love of and desire to learn.
What reforms do you recommend for the private schools and homeschools that failed?
-heavy curriculum emphasis on ethics, civics, logic, political science, critical thinking, rhetoric, and duties to society.
-emphasis on people from history who were models of virtue and good citizenship.
-implement a system of learning from affordable mistakes at the early ages to prevent un-affordable mistakes at later ages.
-de-emphasize individualistic ideologies.
-implement programs to ensure emotional and physical resiliency.
-emphasize and cultivate a love of and desire to learn.
What new parenting and preaching techniques do you recommend?
-I am a big fan of “Love and Logic” style parenting, which seeks to produce adults who can make rational, non-emotionally charged decisions, and accept the responsibility and consequences of those decisions.
But those are just some quick thoughts on the matter. I could go on and on and on. I also see a lot of good ideas from John Taylor Gatto.
Gatto! I’m with you. I also see nothing objectionable in what you propose for public school reform. Academics > athletics, always.
But do I still get to take kids out of school for debate tournaments and one-act play contests?
Discharging misbehaving students is tricky, in that we do have an obligation to educate every child. Is the current system of suspension and expulsion insufficient to address your concerns?
Cody, debate yes,!one act play no (community theatre)
And the discharges are not for misbehavior; they are for when a child eventually leaves the education system. An attempt to somehow address students that flat out refuse to learn; I would hope the new curriculum would prevent this strain of thinking, but we still have to respect an individual’s choices. Don’t want to learn, okay then at 18 you get dishonorably discharges from high school, no diploma. It is a work in progress.
Ah, Joe, I misread your “discharge” concept. Sorry about that! “Dishonorable discharge”—an interesting idea, emphasizing the idea that a diploma is something one earns.
I’m really digging into your weeds, but I’m curious: what criteria move you to say that we can meet the need for theater with community theater but that debate is worth school/public subsidy?
Cory,
I see debate worthy of public support, because understanding an argument, knowing how to research and understand both/multiple sides of an issue, and effectively communicating your opinion or position on a topic are things that an educated citizen should no how to do. It will aid in better and more effective public discourse, as well as better policy decisions. In the short term, it also will make them better students and benefit them in their other academic pursuits.
One act play and drama are activities that I consider important, worthwhile in many regards, and a benefit to society when done well. However, the time and money needed to develop acting abilities , singing abilities, set design, music, audio, etcetera… such an effort would be better provided by the community writ large, where you can pull from the experiences and skills of the entire community. I am also a bit anti-specialization when it comes to kids and teenagers, and would avoid any extracurricular activity that would dominates their time and energy.
Having done both theater and debate (and wanting both to be provided by every school), I would note that in our fair state, almost every high school puts on some sort of school play, and several dozen compete in the SDHSAA One-Act Play contests, while maybe only 20 compete in debate. Does that indicate that debate requires more time and money to do than theater, and that we should reverse your program recommendation?
No reversal of policy. The facts you mention further illustrate public educations aversion to rigorous academics, and are descriptive of the situation but not normative. Every high school does football, but I am all for eliminating it. It may also be indicative of what the tax payers find entertaining and hence valuable; their tastes are for football and Bye Bye Birdie, not informed discussions and debates; but in an era of people voting in Trump, this should. It be surprising.
Good debate can be researched and conducted for little cost, as opposed to one act play or drama which require sets, make up, lighting, as well as buying of scripts.
FYI, I am typing this all on an iPhone, so please excuse spelling errors or weird sentence formats.
Sensible—we’re challenging community priorities as applied to school. I’m all for that.
Offering me a plan to institute extracurricular debate in every school buys you all sorts of compromises from me. besides, directing plays will kill me faster than coaching debate.
However, in my directing an coaching roles, I spent more on debate research materials, supplies, and travel to tournaments than I did on my play sets, scripts, and costumes. You, Joe, would apparently be one of those extravagant directors with all sorts of fancy tech. I’m a script and character guy… and I’m darn cheap. :-)