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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThey're Actually Serious
The problem is that it's getting very hard to find that line with Republicans. There are certain things that most of us probably consider to be inviolate. For example, we probably expect that we can watch Sesame Street with our kids without being subjected to a bunch of paid advertising. We might realize that the Supreme Court only needs one more anti-choice Justice to overturn Roe v. Wade, but we probably don't realize that Rick Santorum opposes Griswold v. Connecticut, the ruling that established a constitutional right not to have the state or federal governments ban access to birth control or punish its use as a crime. We probably think that the country will still expect all children to get an education. It's becoming less and less clear that the Republicans who are pushing these radical policies aren't sincere about trying to implement them.
The measure is so extreme that even the conservative Union-Leader editorial board denounced it in April.
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2012/01/05/397818/new-hampshire-end-education/
Passing such a bill through both houses of Congress certainly appears to be a sincere effort to implement the policy. Call me crazy, but we're not playing the same old game. We've already seen attacks on public service unions. Republicans want Indiana to become a right-to-work state. The GOP is not about tinkering. They're about fundamentally changing things about our country that most people take for granted. You thought we wouldn't torture people, didn't you? Did you think home schoolers could get a bill passed in New Hampshire to end compulsory education?
It's time to pay closer attention to the Republicans' heated campaign rhetoric. They're closer to really fucking things up than you may realize. And they're serious. You thought you could rely on Medicare, but they want to voucherize it. You thought you could rely on Social Security, but they want to slash the benefits. You thought you had a right to privacy. You thought your family planning decisions were your own business. You thought we all agreed that every child needs an education. You thought PBS was here to stay in its current public/private form. There's really nothing on the Republicans' agenda that I would consider an improvement. Absolutely nothing. But there's a lot of stuff they want to change about America that doesn't need changing.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/1/5/10192/80123
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)the public school system by forcing them to cater to each family's whims on all lessons and classes taught. What I don't get is that there is already some control over what gets taught (beyond basic state subject requirements), it's called the local school board, and members are voted in by the public. If people object to the curriculum, they go to a school board meeting and complain, I thought. Off topic, but I see that Think Progress no longer hosts its own comments--another site that only wants Facebook users to participate.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)hosting your own comments is rather difficult and technically challenging to distinguish spam from genuine comments. For most folks with a blog, the spam to legitimate comment ratio was and probably still is something like 1000:1.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)BadgerKid
(4,552 posts)Can't wait to see how conservatives try to inject religion into education. Will they finally get their public funding of such?