This feudal revisionist would-be King could be your president

A new civics training program for public school teachers in Florida says it is a “[b]misconception[/b]” that “the founders desired strict separation of church and state,” the Washington Post reports.

The Constitution explicitly bars the government from “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Scholars interpret the passage to require a separation of church and state.

In another example, the training states that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were against slavery, while [i]omitting the fact that each owned enslaved people.[/i]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has decried what he has branded "indoctrination” in public education.

DeSantis has instituted new civics curriculum since taking office, and this summer is offering optional “civics bootcamps” on how teachers can implement it. Teachers who participate get paid.

What he's saying: “[b]We’re unabashedly promoting civics and history that is accurate and that is not trying to push an ideological agenda,[/b]” DeSantis said at an event earlier this week.

Students in Florida are “learning the real history, you’re learning the real facts,” he added.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

redredred · M

The term “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the foundation documents of the US, not anywhere in the Constitution. It is an excerpt from a letter from Jefferson to a Baptist community.

It’s is true that both Jefferson and Washington owned slave. Decades later, the Union General Grant too owned slaves but the Confederate General Robert E Lee did not.

The US didn’t invent slavery but they did end it before most countries did. The Brits ended it in 1833 but kept up the offshore slave trade for quite a few years afterwards. Neat trick, that.

There are TODAY more black African slaves in Africa than there ever were in the US. One would almost think that should command more attention than the wrongs of a century and a half ago but I don’t get to set the outrage agenda.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@redredred all legitimate nations guaranteed freedom of religion in the intervening years, since the eighteenth century founding of the US by force.

redredred · M

@Roundandroundwego There is a small but very significant difference between freedom of religion and expunging and forbidding any religion in the public sphere.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@redredred it's still not legit to be a theocracy.

redredred · M

@Roundandroundwego I know of no theocracies in the western world outside of Vatican City.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@redredred the USA flirted with becoming a"Christian nation", you're the one who seems the least likely in the West to protect freedom from religion.

redredred · M

@Roundandroundwego I am an atheist of at least fifty years standing. Given that, religion doesn’t scare me any more than peoples irrational belief in collectivist economics. They and the religious are simply stones on the path.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@redredred [quote]the Union General Grant too owned slaves but the Confederate General Robert E Lee did not.
[/quote]
Actually both Grant and Lee were slaveholders; both in the same manner. Their wives inherited them. Grant freed his. Lee was not a supporter of slavery, but found no opportunity to free his before they were emancipated by Lincoln.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@redredred[quote] The US didn’t invent slavery but they did end it before most countries did[/quote]

While it is true that a number of countries did not abolish slavery until after the U.S. did as a whole and that slavery still happens in parts of the world, it is quite a stretch to say the U.S. ended slavery "before most countries did". More the middle of the pack.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@redredred [quote]I know of no theocracies in the western world outside of Vatican City.
[/quote]

Well, technically the Anglican Church is still the official state church of Great Britain which pretty much meets the definition of a theocracy. The Catholic Church is pretty much a de facto state religion in large swaths of the Western world although less so in Europe and some Latin American countries than before. Israel IS a theocracy by its own constitution. Technically, it is an Asian nation, but culturally considered more Western. And when you find In God We Trust on the money and court walls, and monuments to the Ten Commandments in front of court houses, it is difficult to pretend that Christianity is not a de facto state religion in the U. S.

redredred · M

@dancingtongue Show me where the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury or any rabbi directs the state policy of any country outside of the Vatican. Santa Claus has more influence over the domestic policy of those countries than any cleric or religion in the form of annual domestic spend.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@redredred the US was nearly dead last in outlawing slavery.

redredred · M

@Roundandroundwego Not true, it’s STILL legal in many muslim countries, Mauritania, India, China, Uzbekistan, Libya and North Korea. Serfs were a fact of life in Russia until 1917. As late as 2016, an estimated 24.9 million men, women, and children were living in modern slavery in Asia and the Pacific. The region had the second highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world with 6.1 per 1,000 people.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@redredred England went before the USA, it was illegal in zero AD in Catania.

redredred · M

@Roundandroundwego Yes England outlaw slavery in the British isles but still supported the slave trade to their colonies for decades after 1833. It was snd gas been illegal in Hungary since its founding in about 900 AD