Alou - I believe NC still has a law on the books that atheists cant hold office.

Only two states, Mass and Conn, had establishment past the time the federal constitution and Bill of Rights was ratified.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Note: Congress. Says nothing about state governments.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate.

the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State." [Emphasis mine.]

Note: Congress. Says nothing about state governments. In fact, half the states had an established churches. The point about this part of the First Amendment was to stop the feds trampling on the states' churches - and so, for instance, make the national religion Lutheranism, and screwing over the Catholics, Calvinists, etc. The Founding Fathers wanted to give the local Lutherans the "freedom" to discriminate to their hearts' content, they just couldn't do it federally, because then they'd all be arguing as to whose state church went national.

The last established church in the USA wasn't abolished until 1833. And even then, there were places where you had to be a Protestant to hold public office. I'm kinda amazed you didn't know this.

Remember that the Bill of Rights only originally applied to the federal government.

Of course, just because the Founding Fathers allowed something, doesn't make it right. The modern doctrine of separation of church and state, while imperfect, is far better than what they envisaged. On a personal level, I'm an atheist. But it's no use pretending that the Founding Fathers said or did things that they didn't.

There is, of course, some very clear language about the separation of church and state in Article 6 of the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, and in subsequent Amendments to the Constitution.

Just because the language used in our modern extremely diverse culture can be interpreted as ambiguous and encompassing, does not mean that it was seen so at the time.

"Almighty God" apparently refers to the Judeo-Christian God -- the Trinity. This Section would appear to have disqualifyied anyone who is a strong Atheist, or who followed a religion other than Judaism and Christianity from holding office in the State.

can we please stop with this meme? Specifically, the "Such-and-such state still has backwards-and-benighted law X on the books." Of course it does. Laws don't (unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions) evaporate over time; all laws are "still on the books" until expressly repealed. The claim is usually meant to imply that a particular state is itself backwards-and-benighted.

The 14th Amendment's fhe relevant one here, that 'no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States'.

I should apologise to David

The fact that the government can (allegedly) legally take your money and spend it on X does not necessarily mean that the government can order you to spend your own money on X

i would greatly appreciate it if you could try to use good manners at all times

But you're giving way too much deference to originalism here (and ignoring the 14th amendment). I know you're trying to be open minded about the position of the evil idiots, but emphasizing just the facts that support one political view in a textbook, to the exclusion of other relevant facts, is lying. Some people believe originalism is the only way to interpret the constitution. Others don't. If you put a note in a textbook that about the founders view on an issue without placing it in context, you're creating a strong inference that the originalist view is the correct view, especially if you fail to note that there are a whole bunch of other extremely important events (like the Civil War) that changed the way the issue came to be regarded. And not just how the issue was regarded by liberals - how the issue was regarded by the Supreme Court over the course of 100 years.

Using small words: the story I posted was not about "creationism," nor did I defend the conservatives on the Texas SBOE.

I haven't been much involved in this thread, but I have to call BS on this. "Brilliant" kids don't drop out of school b/c they don't like the tone of their textbooks. "Brilliant" kids know education is their way up in the world, and aren't going to piss it away in a fit of pique.

I doubt a "couple hundred" "brilliant" black kids drop-out in Houston every year for any reason. Unless your definition of "brilliant" is absurdly low.

Naive liberals seem to think that (a) if only the right people are in charge, then government will make "correct" decisions, rather than political decisions, and (b) there can or should be some guarantee that only the right people will be in charge, that the wrong people in charge represents some kind of breakdown of the system. The reality is that if government makes a decision, then that decision will be controlled by politics, and about half the time by people you disagree with.

As a normative claim, it's "liberal-baiting" only because liberals believe their positions are so self-evidently correct that nobody could ever question them in good faith. But it's not a claim meant to provoke, but a statement of principles: government shouldn't be in the business of deciding what children learn. It shouldn't be a centralized, top-down decision.

But, I doubt a really good HS with 1,000 students has more than 5 I'd call brilliant. And, I seriously doubt even the average students who are dropping out are doing so b/c of the textbooks.

In a rich school district we had none of this 25 years ago, and it didn't hurt education one iota. Anyone who argues schools need more than books, blackboards, pen and paper to educate is just out of their mind.

My perhaps naive view is that in David's world where schools would all be free to order their own textbooks/set their own curricula/etc this would lead to a measure of diversity, and that as parents could choose which school to send their children to, all parents would be free to choose which crazy ideology to ram down their children's throats.

On a personal level, I went to an independent school in England, which set its own curriculum. It was generally along the lines of the government's national curriculum (i.e. the one all state schools were obliged to follow) but differed sharply in places. The school's curriculum was aimed, essentially, to make us as attractive as possible to good univiersities.

In a rich school district we had none of this 25 years ago, and it didn't hurt education one iota. Anyone who argues schools need more than books, blackboards, pen and paper to educate is just out of their mind.

Your average school in 1960, with 40 students in a class, and no technology beyond paper outperformed our modern elite suburban schools that spend $25,000 per student and have technology coming out of their asses.

Anyone who argues schools need more than books, blackboards, pen and paper to educate (in history) is just out of their mind.

You also need a trained and engaged teacher who is not restrained by a curriculum that pretends John Calvin is more influential in American history than Thomas Jefferson.

He was also a huge hypocrite, never freeing his slaves, as Washington did.

"Almighty God" apparently refers to the Judeo-Christian God -- the Trinity. This Section would appear to have disqualifyied anyone who is a strong Atheist, or who followed a religion other than Judaism and Christianity from holding office in the State.
link

It seems to me that the intent was to prevent discrimination against any particular christian church. If you want to trumpet that as a shining beacon of tolerance, be my guest...

Yes, I do want to trumpet that as a shining beacon of tolerance, for its time.

I'm not ignoring the Fourteenth Amendment. It just has nothing at all to do with the Founding Fathers.

The 14th amendment is the vehicle through which the Bill of Rights applies to the states. Their is no valid method of constitutional interpretation which favors the view of the framers of the Bill of Rights over the views of the framers of the 14th amendment. Any textbook which implies otherwise is misleading, at best.

The arrangement won the support of a key bloc of anti-abortion House Democrats, whose leader, Rep. Bart Stupak D-Mich.), said at a news conference, "I'm pleased to announce we have an agreement."

Appearing with Stupak were half a dozen other holdout Democrats. With them on board, "we're well past" the 216 votes needed in the House to approve the health-care legislation, Stupak said.

As to the other issue, I think you are a Libertarian with strong GOP sympathies. Politics are about more than just policy, they ire also about sensibilities. Your spirited defenses of Sarah Palin demonstrate the point well.

Well, it's only been about 100 years, and better late than never.

There's little doubt that the founders were not trying to establish a "Christian nation" as the Texas SBOE people mean it. But there's also little doubt that the founders did not envision the complete secularism that, e.g., a Michael Newdow espouses.

Great day for justice, fairness, and the country.

On the other hand, what actually did pass — the "Christian nation" stuff — is demonstrably false

Well, it's only been about 100 years, and better late than never.

Supertankers take a while to change course.

Good example of why you are in over your head on education dicsussions. You have no functional knowledge base, so you use education to press your ideology and mock liberals. Like Tripon said, what the teacher does will play a much larger role than what it says in the textbook. If, for example, these schools are SMART-podium equipped and have decent labs, the students can find enough stuff on Latino role models and on Phyllis Schlafly to last them a whole semester. And, of course, parents are free to talk to teachers, and to use any number of digital and other resources to track down alternative views and expose their kids to them. Like you say, knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing.

What lies were liberals spewing about Palin? Saying she's ignorant or a narcissist isn't a lie, it's an honest interpretation that may or may not be correct. So I assume you mean something specific.

It doesn't work with that way. If all the schools went to local control and/or privatization models, you would still have power structures, based on who controlled the local levers of power and where the money came from, and you would still have decision-making bodies that decided what the kids learned, that would be controlled by certain cabals of local people. Now, you might argue that would be better in "principle" since it didn't involve the Feds, but in practice, as you would know if you actually knew anything about the specifics of the issue, it is not that important. There are good reasons that knowledge is the lowest rung on Bloom's Taxonomy and evaluation is the highest.

Where in the article is there any mention of "Christian nation" stuff being passed?

In the new guidelines, students taking classes in U.S. government are asked to identify traditions that informed America’s founding, “including Judeo-Christian (especially biblical law),” and to “identify the individuals whose principles of law and government institutions informed the American founding documents,” among whom they include Moses.

The new standards remove current requirements that students be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. Instead, teachers will be required to have students scrutinize "all sides" of the theories.

...Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.

Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership

The conservatives protesting on the Capitol lawn Saturday [say that] Health care reform isn't about contributing money for the sake of their own security; it's about having their money taken for the sake of somebody else's security. When they hear stories of people left bankrupt or sick because of uninsurance, they are more likely to see a lack of personal responsibility and virtue than a lack of good fortune. As my colleague Jonathan Chait has observed, theirs is an extreme version of a view common (although surely not universal) on the right: That individuals can fend for themselves, as long as they are responsible and as long as the government gets out of the way.

There's obviously a balance to be struck between these two world views. But, broadly speaking, conservative ideas about responsibility and vulnerability have dominated political discussion for most of the last four decades. That will change on Sunday, if health care reform passes. The bill before Congress may be flawed. And the process that produced it may be severely flawed. But it is, nevertheless, an expression of the idea that we--as as society--are not prepared to let people continue to suffer such dire consequences just because they’re unlucky.

But it is, nevertheless, an expression of the idea that we--as as society--are not prepared to let people continue to suffer such dire consequences just because they’re unlucky.

But it is, nevertheless, an expression of the idea that we--as as society--are not prepared to let people continue to suffer such dire consequences just because they’re unlucky.

This view once had something to commend it, but lost all credibility after the trillion-plus-dollar government bailouts of 2008-09. Tens of thousands of people were rescued from the consequences of fending for themselves poorly by picking such places to work.

What if they're unlucky enough to not have $695?

Of course, TARP was opposed by conservatives.

I've been flipping between MSNBC and Fox for the last couple of hours... the polarity between the two parties is incredible. I'm glad we're moving in the direction towards broader healthcare coverage, but overall I think this bill is pretty toothless and ineffectual.

Obamacare passes. Woohoo!!!

Glad you are finally coming around [ducks]

We always knew that Democrats didn't care about liberty, the Constitution, or economic sanity.

Today health care, tomorrow dental chips in every tea bag!

We always knew that Democrats didn't care about liberty, the Constitution, or economic sanity. But people thought that they at least cared about not passing a bill that the majority of the country doesn't want.

There are now a bit over seven months for the Republicans to make their case. The only poll that counts will be taken on November 2nd.

Seems like they'd fit in quite well with the left wing cheering section here.

and the smarter Republicans aren't deluding themselves with the idea that this bill will prove to be unpopular, even if they're afraid to say so out loud.