2.8.05

Bush calls for ID in Education

The US is not a place I would ever want to raise kids. How can Americans stand for this? First they take the US military and grant them the right to use medieval torture methods on potentially innocent people captured by their troops, then he topples Iraq and plans to help them install a government that is openly hostile to equality between men and women, and now he wants to roll back the Education system to a pre-enlightment age.

What a sad place it is south of the border.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rhetorical quibbles:

#1 The US is using only the most-advanced psychologically proven torture techniques requiring the least amount of effort on the torturers part, and leaving no marks on the tortured; hardly medieval. Certainly more advanced than what's being used by the opponents.

#2 Read what Bush said: "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

Should one assume that, staunchly opposing Bush, you believe in teaching a single dogmatic truth in the schools?

And you have a rather odd definition of historical epochs if you consider the theory of evolution to be part of the "enlightenment."

--Richard.

13:12
Cameron said...

Hey Rich,

Ok, in order;

#1 Among the torture techniques the US admits to having used;

-pissing on/near the Koran/mishandling the Koran
-waterboarding
-prolonged restraint in uncomfortable positions
-beatings
-sodomy and rape
-dogs
-wiping menstrual blood onto the prisoners
-prolonged sensory deprivation, including hoods, and round the clock darkness
-threats of harm to family members

To date there are at least 12 deaths from interrogations in US facilities since the 'war on terror' began.

Describing anything the Bush regime does as 'modern' would be a stretch unless its a referrence to the year it occurrs in. I used 'Medieval' in the 'Torquemada' sense, but also especially in the Marcellus Wallace 'Pulp Fiction' sense. As for the methods of torture being less gruesome than their enemies, is that really the best argument that they have left? That they violate the geneva conventions but 'not as bad as the other guy'? Isn't bankrupt moral relativism supposed to be the drug of the left?

#2 You are being disiengenuous, and you know it. Creationism and ID are not valid in any way, and on their face cannot be so (they are theological, not scientific constructions). Should we expose students to 'Flat Earth' beliefs in the context of science courses? Should we teach Lamarckian evolution even though it is thoroughly discredited? Don't be obtuse. ID and creationism are religion, by all means teach it at Sunday school, but lets give kids an education, not an indoctrination.

15:54
Anonymous said...

Okay then

Torture:

This is taking place in the context of a war. Let us recall that the 'side' the Americans are fighting are the ones targetting moderate muslims, children, tourists, people at prayer, those unfortunate enough to be in the marketplace, or transportation system... innocent bystanders in general. They also aren't recognising an 'arena of battle.' They're fighting globally.

Their questioning techniques have involved the publicized executions of aid workers, hanging soldiers from bridges, and detonating explosives in packed commuter trains.

Yes, it's unfortunate that the Geneva convention has taken to being an arm-chair hockey coach during this war. Though let's not forget we were equally willing to let it do so in World War two when it suited us. We did bomb civilian targets in Germany long after they had stopped bombing England and were leaving Russia. We did execute German POWs. We encarcerated our own civilians, because they were suspected of having enemy loyalties due to being immigrants and the children of immigrants. And we used weapons of mass destruction over cities that had no military capacity.

But why is it that those grievous sins on the part of the allies aren't dwelt on so much as the 'moral' lesson of what evil was done in the second world war? Because when you look at what, say the Japanese were up to at the same time... it kind of disappears as an issue.

I'll put it to you this way you're an innocent. Tomorrow, you will be seized by either Muslim Wahabbi extremists, or the CIA. Both are going to subject you to the very worst things their policy manual will let them get away with in order to get you to answer questions to further their nefarious schemes of world dominion. But the good news is you get to pick which side... who are you going to opt for?

Frankly, I use mass transit to get to work every day, I approve of CSIS using all of the techniques you outlined above, with the exception of rape, if it keeps a suicide bomber off of my train. And I would be comfortable being neighbours, or friends, with a person who did it for a living.


Liberal Education:

Yes, wrong ideas should be taught in school. The basis of Western liberal education is critical thinking and debate. This comes to us through Plato, the great universities of the Caliphates, and the Western tradition of theology, medicine and law.

If you fail to present a student with competing notions of what may be possible, then there is no way for them to come to their own conclusions about the world, embark on their own investigations, and be able to sustain debate.

Education should not be about passing on dogma from one generation to the next, even if it's "true" dogma. Education should be about creating the next generation of thinkers, and that means exposing them to as many ideas as possible, even the ones you happen to disagree with, and let them decide for themselves.

In this case, Bush is right.

--Richard

20:44
Cameron said...

Hey Rich,

You are spectacularily wrong on both accounts.

War is not an excuse for bad behaviour. Thats the whole point of the GC's - to maintain a level of civilization in the face of monstrous evil - sometimes willingly committed by our own people. We don't poison Iraqi wells, dose them with mustard gas or murder their children in front of them as part of our interrogations - and the reason is that even in war there are things we won't and should not do.

Let me add here too, that in WW2 we were at 'total war'. There is a distinction between total war, the war of occupation being fought in Iraq, the hunt for Bin Laden, and the attempts to preven terrorism. They are related but not equivalent things.

9-11 didn't give Bush a carte blanche to torture people (though he has taken it to be exactly that - claiming it as an executive power of war), and while I sympathize with the desire to minimize future terror attacks, you should understand that torturing suspects will never prevent them. It is too easy to build a pipe-bomb and step onto a commuter platform. All that is required are a few simple ingredients, and a lot of motivation. Torturing people, be it in the name of war or otherwise, merely gives fuel to that motivation.

As for Bush and his miseducation, let's clear something up right away - creationism and ID theory, ARE NOT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. They therefore do not belong in science classes. I have no issue with religious education (when chosen, I oppose it when it is imposed), but religion has no place in the secular school system - except as an area of inquiry (i.e. not an area of worship - that's what churches are for). Further, science in particular has little place for theology like ID - as science is operationally atheistic. If you want an engagement of the ideas involved in ID to take place, they belong in the debate clubs, social studies, and sunday school discussions.

They do not belong in the science classes.

08:34
Anonymous said...

I'm wrong on neither count.

We're fortunate to belong to a civilization large enough and prosperous enough that we don't have to engage in 'total war' when faced with a murderous lunatic fringe. But, the Wahhabi's are very much engaged in a 'total war', and they are prepared to attack us in our hospitals, our schools, our trains and our offices in order to wipe us out.

Do you suppose that just because you draw a geographical distinction between American's arresting guerrila fighters in Iraq, and what is and isn't appropriate there and here, the Wahhabi's are going to share your point of view? Unfortunately the nastiness of war means you have to play at the level of the lowest common denominator... hockey's the same way, isn't it?

Moreover, while it is possible for a single sociopath to construct and execute a pipe-bomb, reality and experience tell us that this is not what we are up against. There are communities of people, developing the psychological rhetoric, designing the weapons, purchasing the materials, executing the deeds, and taking credit for them. They don't take place in isolation. people know about them, before they happen, and choose to do nothing to warn society. They also know when the next wave of attacks are coming, and again, choose to do nothing.

If you do not believe it is appropriate to wage war against those who seek to undermine and destroy liberal western civilisation, do you subsequently not believe it is appropriate to use the means available to us through law to prosecute and prevent attacks against us in our cities? Do you defend their right to remain silent in the face of another attack killing 50 or so people?

Well, perhaps it's just an issue between them and their maker. It's not our place to seek to bring about justice, surely, they'll face it when they eventually die.

As for Bush and Education, once again, Bush didn't say anything about science class, he said: "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

Liberal education requires exposure to all kinds of ideas in order to let people draw their own conclusions.

Now, I'll admit Bush is playing semantic word games, and what he's implying is different from what he's saying. But, ultimately, you can only hold what he said against him, and frankly I suspect you'd play the exact same game, were you running the world, and owed your power in part to a group that endorsed some crazy ideas. (For example, progressive Christian leftists include a lot of people who are pro-public health, pro-welfare state, but anti-abortion. If you needed to accomodate them, I'm sure your rhetoric would include statements like "the need to ensure that every American has the opportunity to live a full and rewarding life.")

--Richard

11:39

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