I finished Vision of the Annointed by Thomas Sowell last month, and the book (written in 95) was his takedown of academic elites on many topics. One area he discussed was sex ed and questioned the obsession with discussing sex with children as young as kindergarten or discussing homosexuality with kids. Most of my life I’ve lived in Oklahoma or Texas in pretty red/Christian areas so my sex ed in 5th grade was slightly more than “boys have a penis and girls have a vagina”. I didn’t realize the heavy push for that was going on in the 90s but I guess in more left wing areas it was, plus he has been in academic circles for decades so o guess he has seen a lot of wild theories pushed.
One of my favorite lines from the book is “there is plenty of talk about the haves and have nots, but very little discussion about the doers and do nots”
True. Another one would be school lunches. Or some schools have bfast and dinner for kids. Obviously it’s not the kid’s fault for their parents irresponsible behavior but at this point you can’t get rid of those programs. My dad was born in 53 and he said that as a kid the schools sent them home for lunch because they didn’t view it as their responsibility to feed the kids
Great show. Only classic show I like more is Leave it to Beaver
a time in this country so universally beloved they're doing everything they can to tarnish and rewrite it.
It's creeping socialism. I'm not saying that studies showing that kids with good nutrition learn better are wrong- they're probably 100% correct- but where do we draw the line?
Basically, if you don't come from a wealthy family, doors are closed to you from the moment you are born. The only way to level the playing field is to make everyone the same.
For most of History, we understood that some things are the realm of the state and some things are not. Government in general, and the left in particular, just no longer respect those boundaries.
A lot of them would say what amounts to "Because I don't trust republicans to teach their children right", revealing two things: First, that they don't think republicans should be allowed to raise their own children the way they want, and second, that deep down, they know the left has such an iron grip over education in this country that there's no real chance of the right using that same authority to control how their kids are raised, despite how many of them have convinced themselves they're "fighting the man" and that conservatives are "the establishment".
Visions of the Anointed should be considered a must read for dealing with the left. So should Conflict of Visions, also by Sowell. Once you see what Sowell is talking about, you cannot unsee it, and you see it everywhere.
Visions is what I base my working theory of "racist" labels being moral terrorism on.
I have Quest for Cosmic Justice in my stack to read but I haven’t read Conflict of Visions yet
I've mentioned it here before, but there's a thirty year old episode of Adventures in Odyssey that's a dead ringer for the current "book burning" nonsense going on. From an explicitly liberal teacher decrying their removal as censorship, to the books implicitly being sexual in nature. Listening to it again recently, I was shocked how much of it went over my head as a kid even though I still got the overall message.
I haven’t seen Adventures Odyssey in years. My main annoyance is them saying they are bans. Determinig a book isn’t age appropriate wouldn’t be a ban
People managed to figure out how to have sex and what the consequences were without taking a class in school for 50000 years.
He makes a similar point in the book.
Is there a refusal to push him? He seems pretty universally liked in right wing circles by the people who actually know his work.
Probably because they don’t wanna get accused of tokenism
Yea, although he is 93 now but still doing interviews every now and then. Heritage Foundation has an archive of his great interviews
I first heard about him either through Larry Elder or Milton Friedman. I remember reading that he isn’t big on debating so that may be a reason. Also, I think Reagan offered him the Head of Dept of Education job but he turned it down
As a little kid I was a big fan (for as much as I could understand politics ). Got to see him speak when I was 8 as well. I guess I’ve been hesitant to re-examine him too closely because I was such a big fan at one point
Because Sowell is a well thought out man who writes books.
Most people on the Right are more interested in fuming and being angry, rather than sitting down and grappling with deep thoughts about society and the ramifications of its change.
So that's why all the people pushed by the Right are easily memeable, both through quips and actions, and talking heads instead of wordsmiths. Its easier to watch a Tucker segment, be angry, rant about it, and then keep going on.
I can verify this. I was in highschool during that time. Transferring from a school in Idaho to one in Seattle was a very weird experience. I went from owning an average amount of guns to an obvious murderer for even mentioning them.
Thankfully I never went to school in a blue area. When I was 8 my brother had to explain to me that everyone isn’t a Christian. lol
When I was a sophomore I found out I spoke French. Still don't fully believe it.
You’ve known how to speak French and you didn’t realize it? How was the memory triggered?
My mother is French, but hadn't spoken it to me since I started American school. I wasn't aware of this.
One day I was counting and someone asked me why I was saying it in French. I was really confused.
Check out the Days of Rage and the Red Scare. Lotus Eaters did a bit on it recently.
I knew a lot about it, but I'd forgotten how explicitly antiwhite it was...back in the 60's and 70's.
It's easy to look at a lot of this stuff and think it's recent, but a lot of this leftist rhetoric has been going on a lot longer than we realize.
Thanks. I recently subscribed to Lotus Eaters. Really good
There's a great South Park episode about this. "Proper Condom Use" S05E07.
I remember that one. Where Mr Garrison uses his mouth to apply a condom. At the time I thought they were being absurd. Now it wouldn’t surprise me if that was going on
In the book he was talking about the obsession with young kids and the obsession with homosexuality.
No need to apologize. I think you can have basic information for the appropriate age but as you know that isn’t enough for them
My sex ed, in the Dirty Swampy Backwoods South, was literally a day of labeling a penis, a day of labeling a vag, and then three days of reading a list of every known birth control method, its cost, side effects and effectiveness.
At the time, I thought that was useless (it still was for boys because we had condoms and then had 2 hours and 59 minutes of girl products), but now I realize it was the most to the point and noncontroversial sex ed possible.