Public Education
This from the fellow pictured here, often called “the father of American education,” Horace Mann: Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark, all is deluge.
That’s a poetic way of expressing an idea that’s very much a part of the social discourse today, in an era in which our public schools are systematically being torn apart. A more prosaic phrasing goes like this: No one wants to live in a country surrounded by fools. It’s unpleasant, and, as Mann pointed out, it’s dangerous.
In what sense is it dangerous? Well, uneducated people tend to turn to crime more than their counterparts, but they are also less capable of changing their minds when they come across new facts. Also from Mann: Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
This mental fixity is the phenomenon that gives us the modern-day Trump supporters, anti-vaxxer, etc.
It makes one wonder what oaths the Oath Keepers actually pledged. Wasn’t loyalty to one another among them?
With each passing year, as the ignorance of the average American becomes ever more profound, products are being put on the market, designed to extract money from their wallets.
This seems self-evident, doesn’t it? American conservatives believe, if nothing else, that the United States is an almost holy nation, that God smiles on our endeavors, that rule of law lies at the core of what makes our nation the greatest in the world.
The assertion in the meme here is true, but it raises an importation question: how well equipped is our species to deal with events that were unthinkable just 10 years ago? I’m referring to things like massive disinformation campaigns and the rejection of science, world fascism, environmental collapse, uncontrollable pandemics, and perhaps even nuclear war.
At a certain level, this is a private joke between my wife and me. She is quite frustrated by the pace of the Justice Department’s actions against the architects of the insurrection, and tells me, “Just let me know when the first indictments are unsealed.”
Republicans say that most Americans are no longer interested in the insurrection (or whatever euphemism you prefer) of January 6th, 2021.
Yes. It’s called being “woke.” It’s a word that hateful people use to describe those who care about anyone but themselves.
“If (Republicans) ever run the country again, it’s going to be a disaster for America.”
Charismatic and free-thinking pastor John Pavlovitz writes: People deserve a God who is bigger than Franklin Graham’s and Marco Rubio’s and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and the GOP’s God. Their God is small and terrified—and it suspiciously resembles them. 
