When American Gullibility met Indoctrinated Stupidity

[carolina73]

It first struck me when I was watching the Zimmerman trial and I saw Trayvon's girlfriend on the stand and she was incapable of reading after she just told the attorney that she was accepted into college.

I realized that no kid left behind meant the elimination of standards.

There was a great deal of speculation that the education standards of the early to mid 1900s were set to make sure that kids could grow up and be workers but they should not learn enough to allow them to compete with the elites in private schools.

[Refugee]

It first struck me when I was watching the Zimmerman trial and I saw Trayvon's girlfriend on the stand and she was incapable of reading after she just told the attorney that she was accepted into college.

I realized that no kid left behind meant the elimination of standards.

There was a great deal of speculation that the education standards of the early to mid 1900s were set to make sure that kids could grow up and be workers but they should not learn enough to allow them to compete with the elites in private schools.

No kid left behind, race to the top … Was always political, not about education. If not everyone can be bright, you need to lower the standards to the lowest common denominator so that everyone succeeds. Everyone then becomes ‘bright’ and no one fails. That’s equality.

[Refugee]

I explain stuff. Some get it some don’t and stick to beliefs. On a recent thread I had to explain that acts of civil disturbances are not declarations of war. That the Hormuz Straits is not the Persian Gulf and that invading or bombing countries that abandon the dollar is a form of control and coercion. Some even suggested America unleash nuclear war on Iran, which apart from leaving millions dead would end the oil supply of the world and someone else says having troops in another country against its will is not an occupation. It’s not as if those opinions are even remotely factual, it’s that they border on the bizarre through lack of information and critical thinking about the outside world.

The US is a polarized belief society, with some exceptions. Beliefs become facts depending on which side of the fence the believer adheres to. Obama was a Messiah, Trump is God, Hillary is a Witch and angels protect America. What I ascribe this too is the reliance of mass media to provide answers, but those answers rarely explain and are suited to those who engage in opposing polarized beliefs. That’s very apparent in the current Iran uproar and previously in the North Korea episode.

Politics reflects how societies think, often here referred to as ‘group think.’ That’s visible right across the forum and especially from those who have bought into the current Trump ‘group think.’ I mean, surely the greatest president who ever lived and an asset to the world can’t be wrong? Previously, Obama the Messiah couldn’t be wrong either? They were both wrong on occasions in equal measure because they sold ideas of what the majority population wanted to hear and not those based on facts or reality, or what could be achieved.

World events are often predictable, because they’re based on political science and not beliefs. You had to be blind not to see the 2008 recession approaching and equally more recently, that Trump would outsmart the North Koreans, with the Chinese advising them, in diplomacy. The Chinese economy has been predicted to collapse for decades according to the media and the idea that Russia is set to invade Europe any day now is so old it’s becoming a historical belief.

Political science doesn’t take sides and uses objectivity and facts. Conversely, nationalism focuses on the belief of superiority and when it fails it comes as a shock to many who simply refuse to believe it. The recent events in the Middle East are now destroying that superiority ideal, but the excuses based on beliefs continue.