I have been writing a series of humorous (at least to me) NRA profile stories about bad shootings by individuals who match what appears to be the NRA membership demographic - old, white, flabby and crabby (my definition of crabby - wanting to be allowed to shoot people over minor infractions and then call it self-defense).
I came across two ostensibly scientific studies by academically credentialed researchers that piqued my interest. One was the web site
"What is a Red State" Verification of Bush State Stereotypes, by Associate Professor of Cognitive Science Benjamin K. Bergen, and the other was a more dubious ALEC
'Report card on American education. K-12" by a Dr. Matthew Ladner, which had a very dubious ideological premise for awarding high ALEC marks in education.
I had been thinking about returning to writing about the differences between red states and blue states after the passage and signing in Wisconsin of more of the failed abstinence only; ignorance only sex ed that seems to characterize conservatives repressive attitudes towards sex. That dovetails with the trend to educated Republicans (and other conservatives) distrusting science and experts.
States with abstinence only Sex ed have double the rate of unplanned teen pregnancies of states with real education.
Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”
So clearly, when conservatives push so very strongly for ignorance only sex ed, it's because they think that if you don't tell kids how sex happens, and if you don't tell them about how to prevent pregnancy, they just won't have sex...........never mind how much evidence that is not true accumulates. Conservatives are repressive prudes about sex, they want to control people's sexuality and they demand that the rest of the world thinks it is bad, disgusting, and dirty like they do (apparently).
The criteria in the ALEC 'report card' on education reform was not higher graduation rates, better test scores in standardized testing or SAT/ACTs, or achieving a higher level of education. The standard that was being measured by the ALEC grade was a disturbing dog whistle term of responsiveness to "parental choice in education". In looking at what ALEC rewards with high marks, the real measurement is how well conservative parents are doing in taking control of the education of children away from teachers and experts and standardized criteria of education, and instead putting a priority on teaching subjects like creationism instead of evolution, an anti-science, anti-education, pro-conservative measure. This is an attempt to exalt the idiot conservatives on the Texas School board who tried to politicize their text books in ways which were fact averse, and to encourage the dumbing down of our education nation wide by the terrifyingly ill-educated Tea Partiers of Tennessee who wanted to require the worst kinds of revisionist history (and science, economics, literature, ad infinitum) to their curricula. This is not about REAL ACADEMIC achievement. This is entirely about promoting the anti-education policies of the far right. Policies like those espoused by Mr. Potatohead wannabe Rick Santorum who believed that we shouldn't encourage students to go to college because they might learn things which contradict conservatism - no surprise, given how fact-averse conservatism so often is - and because it might cause students to QUESTION THEIR BELIEF IN GOD. So........the far right conservatives, notably including those in the Tea Party, would much prefer the American public to be dumb, ignorant, ill educated but GOD FEARING sheep who do not learn facts which are inconvenient, and who do not question, ever, what they are told to believe. This is the classic
Right Wing Authoritarianism which is defined by three things:
Right-wing authoritarianism (
RWA) is a
personality and
ideological variable studied in
political,
social, and
personality psychology. It is defined by three
attitudinal and
behavioral clusters which
correlate together:
[1][2]
- Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
- Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
- Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one's society should also be required to adhere to these norms.[3]
Right wing politics appears to be entirely about promoting fact averse ideological conformity. Where conservatism intersects with education, that appears to be entirely about finding ways to gain control of the education system to teach biased and badly flawed ideology that has the greatest chance to produce badly educated non-critical thinking conformists who don't ask uncomfortable questions or challenge those biases. When I look at some of the statements and beliefs espoused by our conservative Minnesota legislators, views which are NOT challenged by other conservatives, my mind boggles. A classic example is anything said by the far right wing conservative dullard, drunkard, and Minnesota Majority stooge, State Rep. Buesgen, who appears to be one of the most bone ignorant, ill educated individuals ever to hold elective office - shame on the electorate who voted him into the legislature!
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