Read comments for:
Red Fish, Blue Fish
A view of Conservative vs. Liberal values in America's classrooms.
Par.1, sent.1: Absolute statements like this only feed division and do not create helpful dialogue.
p.3: Can you come up with a non-inflammatory (and therefore legally actionable) active voice sentence. And is your Lincoln sentence an actual quote? If so, the facts are incomplete there. Lincoln freed the slaves in the Union states (not Confederate) if I remember correctly, which means his declaration had little actual effect.
p. 4: The two biggest controlling forces in educational publishing are the states of Texas and CALIFORNIA, not Florida. Because of 1) population, and 2) legislative requirements for state approval of texts, they drive much of what gets published and how it is said. In fact, many conservatives blame the CA requirements for the "liberal bent" of textbooks today.
On John Brown: 1) Bring me an actual quote from a text (name the text) calling him a murderous lunatic, or even words to that effect. Lincoln himself denounced Brown. From Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, p. 288 "He [Lincoln] acknowledged that Brown had displayed 'great courage' and 'rare unselfishness.' Nonetheless, he concluded, 'that cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right.'"
p. 5 on electoral mapping: Lincoln was also first elected in, essentially, a 4 party race. The Republican party held strength mainly in the North. The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas (also of Illinois), who was supported in the North but not the South. Then the Southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge of KY. Then the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell in an attempt to ignore the slavery issue. Frankly, had it not been for a very poweful Republican organization under Thurlow Weed in New York, Lincoln might never have been President. Without NY, he would not have had an electoral majority, and the vote would have fallen to the chaotic House of Representatives.
p. 7: Evolution is a THEORY, not a law. And it is a theory which, while reliable in the micro- sense (the sense in which it operates in breeding horses or dogs), it does not seem to stand up to intense scrutiny on the macro- level (the idea that both the dog and the horse, and the amoeba and the human come from the same abiotic soup).
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist, but Francis Bellamy was a CHRISTIAN Socialist. And also a Mason, which requires a belief in a single God. And yes, he did not write, "under God," but it was added by the House of Representatives in 1954, under pressure from the Knights of Columbus. I have a feeling that, if you put it to a vote in the House now, or if you had put it to a vote in the House in 1993 (when it was still under Dem. control), I think it would still have passed.
Prove to me one instance since, say, 1990, where either Republicans or the religious right have suggested that we should allow TEACHER-LED PRAYER in schools. Most arguments that I've heard focus on student-led instances, that obstructing these is denying the students their freedom of speech.
And yes, that Florida statute is inane. I don't think American culture superior--we're too focused on stuff and not focused enough on substance. As such, we, as a nation, are prone to believe the dumbed-down, inaccurate, hysteria-inducing propaganda handed down by BOTH political parties.
Final P.: Actually, most conservatives are pretty soundly in favor of free speech and assembly. This is one of the many points at which I point out that Bush is NOT a conservative.
Conservatives like Teddy Roosevelt were strongly in favor of conserving nature in the first place.
Corrupt, self-serving scumbags? I think we can pretty easily populate the list on both sides there. Any time a political party gains power, the end up trying to do whatever they can to maintain that power. And some people go too far. And the results are always detrimental to the nation as a whole. And if you bring in those whose power may involve politics but did not involve elections, you definitely get people on both ends of the political spectrum.
Posted by: Regina | Apr 26, 2006 22:06
well i certainly have to commend you for nicely setting up your evil, bugaboo straw men and tidely knocking them all down. an even fancier trick might be to see you write a justification of how the post modern assualt on truth and meaning has improved our lives; how the mantra of the academic left that humans are just moderately evolved ooze, that we all live in a cold, uncaring universe totally deviod of reason, compassion, meaning, or purpose has made our children or society better off.
i seriously doubt that you and i could come to even a basic agreement on the social ills of our day are but i don't recall it being necessary in the generations preceding the hegemony of the liberal mono-culture in academia for the wholesale chemical sedation of children, metal detectors, and security guards to be common necessities in order for education to take place.
i will happily concede to the left a more even handed look at history when they are willing to allow a more even handed look at some of their pet subjects like the topic of origins theory. you contend that history is a politically manipulated subject and i'm certainly not going to argue that but so is a good deal of "scientific" theory. dare to ask a liberal devotee of darwinian incremetalism on origin of life to actually defend a theory that violates the fundamental principles of thermodynamics and which is built on a series of mathematical implausible assumutions about the causal power of random chance and you'll get all sneering derision and more that you'd get if you ask a hannity or limbaugh type to allow more critical discussion of the historical foundations of this nation and the colonization of the western hemisphere.
i personally have become quite sick of the self serving elites on both end of the political spectrum. i find it excedingly tiresome to listen the endless prattle of the types whose true vested interest appears to lie not in reaching meaningful, productive compromise and actually solving the problems of our day but in perpetuating the debate in order to guarntee their continued political security with their respective constituencies.
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 26, 2006 23:05
Regina:
Why do I need to use "non-inflammatory" language when describing evil, oppressive people? Just because they are white Americans that are still admired by many of their descendents? Screw that.
I'll grant you that without California's influence, there would likely not even be the intermittent "brief viewings" of American "dirty laundry" I spoke of. But it's far too timid and incomplete. And the fact that conservatives COMPLAIN that textbooks have a "liberal bent" just underlines my point, that they'd like to "go back to the comfortable, fictive pabulum they were taught as children".
On John Brown, I'll have to get back to you (I'm teaching a U.S. History class later on today, in a different classroom, so I ought to have a reference for you afterwards). As for Lincoln's disapprobation of Brown, that only confirms my sense that he was too timid when it came to the issue of slavery (he also is on record as saying that his "personal belief" was that slaves should be free, but that he'd keep them all in chains if it would save the Union, a morally untenable position). Grant was actually our best civil rights president before LBJ, especially early in his presidency.
Your points on the electoral map provide interesting detail, but I fail to see how they contradict my point that the regional differences we see today are strikingly similar to those of 150 years ago, with blacks and other civil rights proponents on one side and Southern whites on the other.
Your statements on evolution frankly just make me roll my eyes. I'll quote Richard Dawkins, from a UK Guardian op-ed that I suggest you read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html
"The weight of the evidence has become so heavy that opposition to the fact of evolution is laughable to all who are acquainted with even a fraction of the published data. Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system."
On school prayer--this letter from Pat Robertson, inserted into the Congressional Record in 2002, does not use the words "teacher led" but it does say "our children should be taught..." and I think it's pretty clear what he has in mind:
http://www.patrobertson.com/PressReleases/schoolprayer.asp
And yes, atheism is not well represented in the Democratic Party either. It's a damn shame.
Most conservatives are NOT for free speech and assembly. Look at Ashcroft et al.
Bell rung, gotta go.
Posted by: Alan Thomas | Apr 27, 2006 11:41
Colin:
You complain about strawman arguments, but you might want to keep in mind the maxim "those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". What do you call the assertion that "we all live in a cold, uncaring universe totally deviod of reason, compassion, meaning, or purpose" I don't think most on the academic left agree with this at all. They just don't believe anything more than a biological, evolved brain is required for reason, compassion, meaning, or purpose.
As for the idea that education in the "good old days" was an idyll, I don't buy it. I'll take a few metal detectors and security guards over prayer in schools, segregation, and blatant jingoistic lies any day.
And evolution does not violate the fundamental principles of thermodynamics--that's a canard. If the Earth were a closed system, you'd be right. But it is not, as it gets a tremendous input of energy from an outside source (we call it the sun). Just as your fridge can keep your food cold, despite the fact that its overall effect as it uses energy is to accelerate entropy by converting usable energy into waste heat, the huge amount of solar energy that hits our planet allows us to have localised "reverse entropy". If you broaden the scope and look at the solar system as a whole, we're following Newton's laws just fine--but for the next few millions of years the sun will have plenty of hydrogen atoms to fuse and thus the entropy will not be apparent.
Posted by: Alan Thomas | Apr 27, 2006 16:39
well i suppose that most on (athiest) left are unlikely to characterise the universe exactly as i have but my characterisation is simply a non-waffling way to describe a universe devoid of absolute truth. no God equals no absolute truth. a universe that is merely a by-product of random chance is a universe in which no truth, meaning, or permanency can exist. all of man's grandest accomplishments, greatest thoughts, all its art, beauty, love, heroism and compassion will, sooner or later vanish into a puff of smoke, crumble to dust, and be lost in the all consuming, irreversible heat death of the universe. the faith of the left is nothing more or less than a faith that man is a meaningless accident of an undirected, thoughtless, uncaring universe and that all of man pretenses such as love, compassion, duty, honor, etc are nothing more than the empty hubris of feral beasts howling up at the dark lightless void of nothingness.
i follow your argument on the notion of thermodynimics as they regurd the earth (or any similar planet i suppose) but you miss the broader implications of my point. matter and energy don't just pop into existence because they feel like it. that defies the 1st law of thermodynamics. as to the 2nd the universe as a whole strikes me as fairly closed system. nothing is coming into it from the outside according to my understanding of orthodox philosophical naturalism. i find the formation of the modern universe to be a fairly stirking movement of energy and matter in a closed system moving towards greater order and concentration. hence my problem with a purely naturalistic explanation of the universe and the relationship of those explanations to the laws of thermodynamics.
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 27, 2006 18:49
That's why atheists value life on this planet the most -- we realize it is finite. Atheists are also the most moral -- we do good things for the true betterment of our fellow man, not for the hopes of a future reward like Pavlov's dog.
I find it cute that you denounce science, but then try to use it to your advantage. As if the existence of an extreme being doesn't violate any scientific laws!!
Also, keep in mind the huge difference between science and religion. Science is open to -- even encourages -- being proven wrong. How often do religious leaders do the same? It took them 500 years to absolve Copernicus...
Posted by: mr. wizard | Apr 27, 2006 20:01
well i suppose that most on (athiest) left are unlikely to characterise the universe exactly as i have but my characterisation is simply a non-waffling way to describe a universe devoid of absolute truth. no God equals no absolute truth. a universe that is merely a by-product of random chance is a universe in which no truth, meaning, or permanency can exist. all of man's grandest accomplishments, greatest thoughts, all its art, beauty, love, heroism and compassion will, sooner or later vanish into a puff of smoke, crumble to dust, and be lost in the all consuming, irreversible heat death of the universe. the faith of the left is nothing more or less than a faith that man is a meaningless accident of an undirected, thoughtless, uncaring universe and that all of man pretenses such as love, compassion, duty, honor, etc are nothing more than the empty hubris of feral beasts howling up at the dark lightless void of nothingness.
i follow your argument on the notion of thermodynimics as they regurd the earth (or any similar planet i suppose) but you miss the broader implications of my point. matter and energy don't just pop into existence because they feel like it. that defies the 1st law of thermodynamics. as to the 2nd the universe as a whole strikes me as fairly closed system. nothing is coming into it from the outside according to my understanding of orthodox philosophical naturalism. i find the formation of the modern universe to be a fairly stirking movement of energy and matter in a closed system moving towards greater order and concentration. hence my problem with a purely naturalistic explanation of the universe and the relationship of those explanations to the laws of thermodynamics.
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 27, 2006 20:02
hmm.. sorry didn't mean to send that last post twice.
1. funny i seem to remember atheists killing say 100-120 million people in russia, china, and the rest of the communist world during the 20th century. the most misbegotten religious crusade never touched even the tiniest fraction of that number.
as to the benevolence of atheists i've not seen many athiest founded leper colonies or shelters for the homless or refugee camps for aids orphans in africa. when the most tremendous disasters hit the nation or the world and the u.n. sits around and dithers, and government entities like FEMA send internal emails to one another while people starve and die, its christian relief organizations who are on the ground and saving lives. i've yet to ever see a purely athiest organization handing out food to the hungry, clothing the naked, or serving the needs of humanity the way Jesus commanded christians to do out of nothing more than love for Him.
2. i have no need to reconcile the empirical and the metaphysical. however those who adhere exclusively to the standards of empiricism as the measure of truth and who describe their beliefs as "scientific" yet cannot even surpass the self contradiction of their own arguments confuse me.
3. so far as your final assertion goes i'm intirgued but i've certainly never personally experienced much more than "eye-rolling" as noted above when i try to debate the issue on its scientific merits. worse yet individuals far more educated and credentialed than myself are routinely rebuffed, ad-hominimed, and stifled with surprising vehemence when they dare to bring educated criticism to the topic. the shrillness and anger with which critics or questioners of evolution are met by the supposedly open-minded scienific community perplexes me. if all the proof and all the facts are on their side why do they protest so loudly when someone questions them?
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 27, 2006 20:31
I highly question your numbers -- hundreds of millions killed just in the 20th century?? -- but regardless, the inference that any atrocities were driven solely by atheism is spurious. Making the claim, "well, you killed way more people than we did" is misguided.
I'm pretty sure the Red Cross would not classify themselves as a "Christian", or even religious, organization. Your implication that atheists do not volunteer, or donate money, or create charitable foundations is childish. Grow up.
Scientists "eye roll" when their strong evidence is refuted with tales of mystical beings and metaphysical nonsense that could never be proven or replicated. It's a no win debate. I pose to you that, actually, the earth was created by giant space turtle who hatched the earth from an egg! Prove me wrong!!
Posted by: mr. wizard | Apr 27, 2006 21:03
the red CROSS and the red CRESCENT are both organizations founded on religious principles. as was the SALVATION army. the catholic church and every mainline protestant denomination maintain extensive human relief organizations.
i cast no aspertions whatsoever on athiests as individuals. most of the atheists i know personally are brilliant generous folks but i take exception to your assertion that athiests as a corporate whole care about the temporal human wellbeing and the religious do not. please feel free to cite whatever organizations you like i'm open to corection on the subject.
as to the strong evidence, again please enlighten me. enlighten phd biologists like Micheal Behe for that matter. take me if you will to any place on earth-the deepest abyssal cravass, to the volcanic vent spewing out its chemical ooze, to the tidal basin of some distant swamp, anywhere you like and show me a single instance of inorganic chemicals combining of their own violition to form even the simplest single celled organism. in fact i will allow you the best funded, most modern laboratory and if under the most rigorously controlled intelligently guided process someone can evoke the simplest life from base elements i'll concede the entire evolution argument to you. persuade me with empirical, scientifically verifiable evidence as to where exactly the matter and energy that makes up this universe comes from. dispell my nonsense with the evidence, enlighten me.
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 27, 2006 22:06
I'm confused, I thought it was the liberal influence that sought (and continues to) stifle freedom of speech and accuracy in American history by way of politically correct influence. High schools and universities all over the country are replacing Shakespeare, The Consitution and even the Holocaust with watered-down, inaccuracies veiled as "multi-culturalism". Multi-culturalism seeks to rewrite history.
Thomas DeLorenzo writes, "Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Chicago inserted language in a Department of Interior appropriations bill for 2000 that instructed the National Park Service to propagandize about slavery as the sole cause of the war at all Civil War park sites. The Marxist historian Eric Foner has joined forces with Jackson and will assist the National Park Service in its efforts at rewriting history so that it better serves the political agenda of the far left. Congressman Jackson has candidly described this whole effort as "a down payment on reparations." (Foner ought to be quite familiar with the "art" of rewriting politically-correct history. He was the chairman of the committee at Columbia University that awarded the "prestigious" Bancroft Prize in history to Emory University’s Michael A. Bellesiles, author of the anti-Second Amendment book, "Arming America," that turned out to be fraudulent. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory and his publisher has ceased publishing the book.)
In order to accommodate the political agenda of the far left, the National Park Service will be required in effect to teach visitors to the national parks that Abraham Lincoln was a liar. Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861. Both Lincoln and the Congress made it perfectly clear to the whole world that they would do all they could to protect Southern slavery as long as the secession movement could be defeated."
Fox news reports on political correct word censorship, "Snowman? No more. Melt that image and replace with Snowperson. Want to sail away on a yacht? No, again. It’s too elitist.
And if you think grandpa is a senior citizen, guess what? You’re wrong. That’s demeaning, according to the new standards. He is now simply an "older person."
The laundry list of words and images banned or considered offensive is not a short one. The word "jungle" has been replaced with "rain forest." The word "devil" has disappeared entirely, with no replacement.
Many of the changes seem to represent a direct assault on historical accuracy. For example, the new guidelines dictate American Indians should not be depicted with long braids, in rural settings or on reservations. There are no suggestions on how they should be depicted, however.
The problem there, say historians, is that some American Indians did wear their hair in braids, and generally lived in rural settings before being relocated to reservations.
Some say the changes are needed to better reach out to today’s diverse student population. Others have a different name for it.
"It's outright censorship," said author Diane Ravitch, who has written extensively on the subject of how the nation's schools have dealt with the issue. "It dumbs down our textbooks, makes them bland, far less interesting than anything children might see in the movies -- even in G-rated movies or TV.
"The problems that have happened in education is that the textbook publishers and the test developers have become so sensitive to any controversy that whenever they receive a complaint it is very likely that they will remove the source of the complaint," explained Ravitch."
The article of most concern comes from The Washington Post (http://www.washingtontimes.com/specialreport/20040328-125027-5592r.htm):
Social studies textbooks used in elementary and secondary schools are mostly a disgrace that, in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism, fail to give students an honest account of American history, say academic historians and education advocates.
"Secondary and college students, and indeed most of the rest of us, have only a feeble grasp of politics and a vague awareness of history, especially the political history of the United States and the world," says Paul Gagnon, emeritus professor of history at the University of Massachusetts.
Most textbooks, produced by a handful of giant commercial publishers, are exposing generations of children to cultural and history amnesia that threatens the very basis of American free institutions and liberties, warn leading historians who are calling for better-defined, more rigorous state teaching standards.
Just 11 percent of eighth-graders show proficient knowledge of U.S. history on standardized tests — down from 17 percent in 2001, Mr. Gagnon noted in a recent study for the American Federation of Teachers.
"Less than half knew the Supreme Court could decide a law's constitutionality," he said in the Albert Shanker Institute study titled "Educating Democracy: State Standards to Ensure a Civic Core."
"Only a third knew what the Progressive Era was and most were not sure whom we fought in World War II."
Publishers acknowledge having buckled since the early 1980s to so-called multicultural "bias guidelines" demanded by interest groups and elected state boards of education that require censorship of textbook content to accommodate feminist, homosexual and racial demands.
The California State Board of Education was the first to adopt such guidelines in 1982, according to New York University education research professor Diane Ravitch in her latest book, "The Language Police."
The California guidelines instruct textbook publishers and teachers: "Do not cast adverse reflection on any gender, race, ethnicity, religion or cultural group." The board had informal "social-content standards" going back to the 1970s.
Publishers followed with their own editorial anti-bias guidelines, which banned words, phrases, images, and depictions of people deemed unacceptable — such
as "man," "mankind," "manpower," "men," said to be sexist. Also banned are "able-bodied," "aged," "babe," "backward," "chick," "fairy," "geezer," "idiot," "imbecile," "Redskin," "sissy," "suffragette" and "waitress."
The way I see it, liberals are the ones stifling eductation and rewriting history, leading to the current generation's lack of factual knowledge and truth. The liberals seek to dumb down American's intelligence in order to perpetuate a political agenda. It is wrong, both historically and ethically.
Posted by: Jill Stillwell | Apr 28, 2006 07:08
Jill,
No doubt the current crop of textbooks are not racist and right wing enough for your taste. That doesn't make them "liberal propaganda" by any stretch of the imagination, however.
Your Southern apologia makes me sick. Just to quickly refute your lies: it was technically not even secession that started the war, but the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. (The Confederacy had been formed months before, without leading to any invasion by the North.) But it can hardly be denied that the root cause of this attack was the secession of Southern states and the formation of the Confederacy (after all, Jefferson Davis gave the order for that attack); and furthermore, that it was slavery, abolitionism, and Southern antipathy toward the antislavery Republican party that led to their secession.
And hey, let's get you on the record, so we can really see your true colours: how do you feel about the Reconstruction period after the war? I think it was one of the few times in our history, especially before the last few decades, that justice was served in this country. You probably think of it as a bunch of Northern carpetbaggers coming down and telling you what to do and putting uppity Negroes in charge.
Honestly, sometimes I wish the North had just let you secede, though that wouldn't have been fair to all the black people who would have been stuck in the South. Certainly the Deep South is far from a positive influence on our country today: not only is it backward politically, but also in terms of health and development. Y'all are draggin' the rest of us down, y'hear?
Posted by: Alan Thomas | Apr 28, 2006 10:15
i tend to be tremendously skeptical of allowing anyone to manipulate history for political purposes. i have a bachelors degree in history and though i never went on to finish my education and teach the way i had originally intended i still have very strong feelings about attempts to pawn off political spin as history
to an extent i agree with you that in the past histories were written with an eye towards minimizing or outright ignoring the sins of the past for the purpose of creating a more pleasing images. my chief problem with your article is that you imply quite heavily that ONLY conservatives are guilty of this sort of thing. the chief message i left with after reading your article is that liberals NEVER distort the past, they NEVER lie about it, they NEVER marginalize or ignore groups of people and their contributions to history, they NEVER craft pleasing fictions in order to paint a wholly unrealistic image of the past.
it may be naive of me to say it but i beleive that history is an accumulation of objective facts and that the reporting of those facts should be done in as unbiased a fashion as possible. realizing that classroom time is a finite resource and that merely the choice of which facts one chooses to present creates certain impressions about the past but i think that in the end facts not politics ought to be what drives the presentation of history.
Posted by: colin corss | Apr 28, 2006 13:11
Colin,
I would never say that liberals (or any group) are perfect, with unblemished records of virtuosity. That's unrealistic. But I would venture to say they have a much BETTER record than conservatives do.
I fundamentally disagree with you that "history is an accumulation of objective facts". Were this so, it would be as dull a subject as many people unfortunately believe it is. History is hard to define, but if I took a stab at it I'd say that it does contain a few objective facts, but those are merely a skeleton underlying the meat of the subject, which is an ongoing series of debates. There are many debates about the facts themselves (a lot of historical disputes could be definitively solved if we had a time machine or just a kind of "hidden camera" that could give us a view of any time and place); but more importantly there are debates about the interpretation of history. I would, again, find it a very dull subject if it concerned itself merely with who did what on what date. The really interesting aspect of history is the interpretations: What social forces led these events to happen? Could things have gone another way if events had transpired slightly differently, or were historical forces making it an inevitability that would have changed only by a short period of time or a few names?
In short, history is about far more than "who", "what", and "when"--it is about "why" and "how". And any attempt to answer those questions is inherently political.
Have you read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the U.S.? He notes in the introduction that the standard texts on American history contain few outright falsehoods. And neither does Zinn's book, as much as right wingers might like to think otherwise. But the differences in the events they choose to talk about, and the interpretations they use, make them as night and day.
Posted by: Alan Thomas | Apr 28, 2006 14:54
i've read zinn and except for his account dragging a bit during his EXHAUSTIVE history of the labor movement in america i found it to be a fascinating work. i enjoyed reading it and it challenged my understanding of a number of issues but i also found it to be very, very lopsided on some issues which is exactly where i come across at you with the notion that liberal histories are a long way from "fair and balance".
i guess you and i just have a fundamental disagreement concerning what history is, i had that some disagreement with a number of my proffessors, hence the reason i grew more and more disillusioned with higher education. while certianly some aspects of history are only known through sources distant enough that interpretation is mandatory but ultimately history is a finite, concrete set of events that with effort can be narrowed in on through study.
i have a great deal of contempt for those folks who view history as an entirely subjective entity that should be treated as a fluid thing that can and should be all manner of different things to different people at different times. any one point in history is and was only one thing. it may have a different import to folks in different ages and if thats what you mean by interpretaion then i don't have a huge problem with that but if you mean history should be rewritten, revised, at the drop of the hat, depending on the need of the moment then i have no use for that sort of drivel at all.
Posted by: colin cross | Apr 30, 2006 17:59
Wow, Alan. Quick to jump to racist, aren't we? I'll grant Jill is wrong about the war starting with an invasion of the Confederacy, but racist?
Posted by: Regina | Apr 30, 2006 19:18
To Mr. Wizard, re: statistics:
victims of fascist Germany (basically atheistic, but willing to use the historic nationalism of the German churches) -- roughly 10 million
victims of Stalinist Russia -- est. 20-40 million
victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution -- 60-70 million
victims of Pol Pot -- 3-4 million
In North Korea, it is estimated that between 600,000 and 3 million people have starved because of the disastrous policies of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il, who chose to amass personal wealth and now nuclear weaponry rather than feed or educate their populace.
Posted by: Regina | Apr 30, 2006 19:30
I think your outtake on conservatives is a typical liberal mistake. I especially like the ending when you added that conservatives are against blacks, clean air ect. That was even more funny. See, I am a black person and a conservative. What made you think they (conservatives)are against a black person's civil rights? Where is your proof? This is just another typical ploy from your left wing thinking that things would be better if we allow cultural divisions, and special allowences to certain groups because of skin color within America white or black? Truth is...conservatives are not against black people's civil rights. Liberals are the ones who are against American civil rights and want Mexicans to have more rights who are not even legal. Liberals are against unborn children rights, but I guess that is ok with you? Liberals are against two parent household rights as they were the ones who exposed that pathetic welfare system into urban areas that destroyed black American families into a disporia of out of wedlock birth rates reignage. Liberals destroy what America is, not improve America. Their total value system is valueless as it is secular. They believe in divisive measures that have now destroyed the very fiber which once made America great such as a strong military, marriage, anti abortion, moralism through religion(prayer in schools), and a strong love of nation. If i had to choose, I would say conservative values are much better for American society than liberal ones.
Posted by: Marquis D. Canaday | Oct 18, 2006 17:35
Alan Thomas is a leftist airhead.
It was the democrats who fought for "black enslavement". The democrats or the dixiecrats fought against "black civil rights". This idiot is upset because conservatives as well as republicans do not believe in a welfare state (hand out system) which keeps people poor, abortion (which allows free baby killing reign), racism from Blacks or Whites, and love their country and history. The people he talks about are the paleo conservatives who are the racist ones. Republicans are great people as well as is conservatives. Liberals and democrats are both trash who hate American culture, capitalism and "one" nation. They want a balkanization of many nations which will fail.
Posted by: Marquis Canaday | Apr 09, 2007 18:09
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