Letters to the Editor
David Larry D
Published Letters: 216 Editor's Choice: 17
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Commentors younger than you...
[Read the article: The right-wing understanding of Government]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do they teach Constitutional Civics in school anymore? When I was in High Scool in the seventies, they wouldn't let you graduate until you had taken and passed a "Constitution Test" I seem to remember having to pass an easier version in 8th grade as well. Did they discontinue that practice? If so, when?
I graduated HS in '98. My civics class, (called government) was terrible, but that was mostly the fault of the teacher. This was an AP level class (the regular kids didn't even have a gov't class), and ostensibly geared toward the AP exam. There were no qualifying exams, and most viewed the class as a joke. Classes such as chemistry or calculus were seen as much more important to personal success (which is all that mattered).
My HS was a private-catholic institution, and the teacher of this course was a clergyman from a teaching order. He had an axe to grind regarding his own, twisted political leanings, and used the class for his own personal soapbox.
As you might imagine, we got very little out of the class, other than a vocabulary lesson about the system of checks and balances, and how a bill becomes a law. There wasn't much in the curriculum regarding the constitutional framework, other than learning it as terminology. The dynamics regarding the framework of the Constitutional and how that effected our laws, and our rights weren't really examined, and in my opinion, that's the whole key to being an informed citizen of a democracy right there.
I also remember the teacher explicitly saying that we didn't need to know any Supreme Court cases for the AP Exam, and then, lo and behold, "Marbury vs. Madison," "Plessy vs. Ferguson," "Brown v. Board of Education" were all essay questions.
I worked on the Exam, sorely lacked the instruction needed to take it, and got a 2... no college credit. The only kids who did well on the exam from our class were the ones who smuggled their gov't books into the exam and cheated...
God Bless America, eh?
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Sorry, so to answer your question...
[Read the article: The right-wing understanding of Government]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not really sure what are the current requirements regarding teaching government at the High School level in the US.
Like I said, my personal experience (from 12 years of catholic school) was that it was seen as more of an annoyance, similar to having to take gym class. It was an elective class, I believe. At public schools, it's probably required; I can't imagine the instruction being any better at public school, than private school. Although I suppose the catholic basis of my school meant more that "public" concepts such as government and civics were not emphasized as much. We were a college prep school and the emphasis was on language, science, literature, etc.
Any constitutional knowledge I picked up prior to law school generally came from history classes, and like I said, was taught from the same perspective: a static bunch of vocabulary words that people fought over in the past, but no longer affected us. The general vibe I got was that "We were America, the greatest country in the world," and had nothing to worry about anymore. Our gov't was firmly established as "Good" and therefore, there was no reason to scrutinize it.
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Government / civics education
[Read the article: The right-wing understanding of Government]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, seems that barring some spectacular situations (my dad was my civics teacher...), proper instruction in the U.S. Constitution, and the system of government it establishes, so necessary to the proper functioning of a democracy, is largely defunct nowadays. I think we can safely presume that educational standards have only fallen since 2000...
I guess in a lot of ways, this is the root of the problem. It also explains the reluctance of politicians to support better education not only in general, but also in respect to government/civics. No surprises here, but a lot people seem to forget how critical education is to the overall governance and functioning of a civil society.
It's all based on trust and respect for property and civil rights, two very unnatural concepts that must be taught: they will not be gleaned by following the laws of the jungle.
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Golly Gee, Shooter!
[Read the article: The right-wing understanding of Government]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The left-wing understanding of Government....
Is that compared to Bush, Robert Mugabe, (you know the guy that grabbed the wife of an opposition party member, had her feet hacked off, and then set her on fire) is not so bad.
http://tinyurl.com/46fou5
Aw, shucks, going after the wife of the opposition sure sounds more like a right-wing political technique.
You know, like revealing she's a undercover CIA operative (treason?), just because her husband had the nerve to question your highly questionable "evidence" for war. Just so you could invade another country and give your buddies lots of money to "rebuild" it...
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THE MONEY gives me pause...
[Read the article: How big will Democratic gains be this fall?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just to echo a few of the sentiments here, I take particular issue with a certain point noted by the panel: the Republican Party is the one with the money problems in 2008. Obama, the DNC, et. al. are awash in green.
I assume the majority of this money is not being given by The People. Therefore, the newly elected democrats in 2008 will NOT be accountable to The People. As usual, the brains and the well-organized machine senses the political sea-change before it hits, and re-routes the gravy train to the New Boss.
We've seen the meaninglessness of the "D" or "R" after a name, as Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, et. al. handed the Bush Administration everything he wanted on FISA.
You'll see more impotence in 2009 from the Democratic majority, as they wallow in their new-found crapulence enabled by big corporate money... an increasingly despairing population, and a shift back to the Republicans in 2010 will follow, as they are the only "opposition" in our two-party system. Then we can take another big leap toward a more regressive, reactionary, military state.
Pete Townshend was all wrong... We've been Fooled Again many times since 1970, and we're about to be Fooled YET AGAIN.