More American jingoism/paranoia at hand in government

[Simon_Cowbell]

I swear, these legislatures are a boil in need of lancing.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0620international0620.html

Global studies bid dies
Legislators describe plan as un-American

Pat Kossan
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 20, 2007 12:00 AM

Everyone agrees: The world is shrinking.

Businesses need people skilled in world languages and economics. The government has gaping holes in diplomacy and intelligence. Universities are begging for more students with sophisticated learning.

It all gives credence to a bill in the Arizona Legislature to create international schools to help make students globally competitive.

But, in the end, the bill died. As its supporters learned, "international" is a dirty word among some at the Capitol.

Key leaders there suggested the bill was un-American and part of a slippery slope to a U.N. takeover and the end of U.S. sovereignty.

 

[Big Chee]

Great post!!!!

 

[alleyallen]

Interesting story, but it's amazing the length to some of these people -- many of them Republicans, it appears -- are going to discredit the program without any hard evidence. Or perhaps the story just failed to include any hard evidence.

From the story: It teaches students to see the American system of government as one of many, not as the only one that protects universal and God-given rights to property, to bear arms and free speech, Quist said.

Yeah, because heaven forbid our students learn that there are other forms of government in the world besides our own. And heaven forbid they actually learn another language. :

 

[Pastor]

"Our schools ought to be focusing on education that we, as Americans, espouse," Pearce said. "We ought to concentrate on United States history and United States heroes."
[snip]
It teaches students to see the American system of government as one of many, not as the only one that protects universal and God-given rights to property, to bear arms and free speech, Quist said.
[snip]
"There's a lot of us here who are not internationalists. These schools actually have kind of a United Nations flavor to them, and we're actually into educating Americans into Americanism, not internationalism[," said Gould]

It is quotes like this that allows me to know how utterly stupid a lot of people making decisions are. Do they not understand that learning more is a good thing? Do they realize that the entire world doesn't speak English?

Essentially, they want a nationalist system that says "Everything America does is perfect. The rest of the world is ****."

Talk about a really dangerous way of going about your educational system. Then again, when Arizona can't even get 70% of their students to graduate high school, well, I guess you continue forward in a state of ignorance.

 

[alleyallen]

I understand people don't want to give up American sovereignty, but this free-for-all, every-country-for-itself attitude is one of the most reckless concepts I can imagine on a planetary scale.

 

[DanOregon]

I gather Arizona does not have flouridated water...