A Few Words From the Birthday Boy

THE GROUND OF LIBERTY IS TO BE GAINED BY INCHES. WE MUST BE CONTENTED TO SECURE WHAT WE CAN GET FROM TIME TO TIME AND ETERNALLY PRESS FORWARD FOR WHAT IS YET TO GET.

IT TAKES TIME TO PERSUADE MEN TO DO EVEN WHAT IS FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.

- to Rev. Charles Clay, January 27, 1790

EDUCATE AND INFORM THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE. ENABLE THEM TO SEE THAT IT IS THEIR INTEREST TO PRESERVE PEACE AND ORDER, AND THEY WILL PRESERVE THEM.

ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE GENERALLY, AND TYRANNY AND OPPRESSION OF THE BODY AND MIND WILL VANISH LIKE EVIL SPIRITS AT THE DAWN OF DAY.

- to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (first two sentences);

- to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 18l6 (last sentence).

THE PEOPLE OF EVERY COUNTRY ARE THE ONLY SAFE GUARDIANS OF THEIR OWN RIGHTS, AND ARE THE ONLY INSTRUMENTS WHICH CAN BE USED FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION.

IT IS AN AXIOM IN MY MIND THAT OUR LIBERTY CAN NEVER BE SAFE BUT IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES, THAT, TOO, OF THE PEOPLE WITH A CERTAIN DEGREE OF INSTRUCTION.

- to John Wyche, May 19, 1809 (first sentence);
- to George Washington, January 4, 1786 (second sentence).

Signature ~ Thomas Jefferson

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

- Thomas Jefferson.

THIS is Why Education is important. Well, ONE Reason Anyway.

[T]he entire faith we put in democracy as a form of governance rests on the fragile assumption that, in the realm of free and open debate, conscientious thought will more often than not carry the day. And that assumption, as Thomas Jefferson saw more clearly than the other founding fathers, rests in turn on a viable system of public education. ...

Citizen education “was the central, defining moment of [Jefferson’s] political and moral philosophy,” wrote political theorist Benjamin Barber. “Everything else turned on it.” Throughout his correspondence, Jefferson maintained that only an educated citizenry can practice true self-governance. ...

The Schools We Need:
When public education fails, democracy fails with it

by Erik Reece

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake," 

- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, June 4, 1798.

SOME RETHOUGHT THOUGHTS WORTH RETHINKING

from: The Preface to Leaves Of Grass
 - Walt Whitman

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem."

The original 10, and some thoughts, by Christopher Hitchens, including:

"Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form."

Thomas Jefferson, himself, did some thinking and the result of this thought is today known as "The Jefferson Bible." This bible consists of the words, deeds, and morals of Jesus by which we, supposedly, were meant to live. Jefferson removed the genocide, xenophobia, and other things that he felt in conflict with the words of Christ. Here are several links if you are interested: here, here, and here.

REWRITING HISTORY, TEXAS STYLE, ctd.

Just yesterday I posted about the Texas Board of Education rewriting history. If you are interested in learning more about this intrepid board here is a link with a PROFILE written by Mariah Blake. It is worth reading in its entirety, but I've included a few bits below.

And if you wonder why you should care about this, not being in Texas and all, I suggest you pay particular attention to the passages I have made bold.

DON McLEROY - “Evolution is hooey.” “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years . . .”

Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy . . .  As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced . . . by California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.

CYNTHIA DUNBAR (Remember, she kicked out Jefferson) - rails against public education, which she dubs “tyrannical” and a “tool of perversion,” and says sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” (More recently, she has accused Barack Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer and suggested he wants America to be attacked so he can declare martial law.)

PETER MARSHALL - has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays. . .

DAVID BARTON - argue[s] that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth. . .

[W]hile they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men. . . .

The ultraconservatives argued that [the English language arts] were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled DAVID BRADLEY. . .

[T]he next generation of textbooks will likely bear the fingerprints of the board’s ultraconservatives—which is just fine with McLeroy. “Remember Superman?” he asked me, as we sat sipping ice water in his dining room. “The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

~

[ADDED: It might be worth noting that while Texas reported that 85 percent of its students in grades four and eight were proficient readers based on year-end state testing in 2008, on the federal assessments (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP), only 29 percent actually were. - Diane Ravitch]

REWRITING HISTORY, TEXAS STYLE

from a Live-blogged transcript:

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.

ALSO:

12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight offers the following amendment: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Knight points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.

12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”
12:35 – Knight’s amendment fails on a straight party-line vote, 5-10. Republicans vote no, Democrats vote yes.

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.

[ADDED: Jefferson had explained the actions of his own VA legislature thus: “…an amendment was proposed by inserting the words, ‘Jesus Christ … the holy author of our religion,’ ” which was rejected “by a great majority in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindu, and the Infidel of every denomination.” — Thomas Jefferson.]

CAN'T HAVE THAT!

What? You think I'm being rude?

TO READ TRANSCRIPTS OF THE DEBATE CLICK HERE FOR THE TFN INSIDER. [Note: There are several other sections of transcript.]