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Civics Education in the US

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what has happened to our education system in this country, the Common Core education teaches a bastardized form of civics. This is done in a wholesale way to mold the minds of the young. Example: In one of my grand daughter history books, talking about the Bill of Rights, it explains the 2nd amendment like this: "This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison. The founding fathers included this amendment to prevent the United States from acting like the British who had tried to take weapons away from the colonists." In another paragraph it states: "Second Amendment “grant citizens the right to bear arms as members of a militia of citizen-soldiers.”" It also makes this statement: “The Government of the United States is currently revisiting The Bill of Rights. They have determined that it is outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer.” Needless to say I took this up with our local school board and was told that this is the curriculum approved by the State and I should address it to them.
 
We must as citizens of America, RE-Invest ourselves in "Civic's Education". Which means we muse modify our educational system to be one that is designed to promote a better future for all. When we do so, we will modify how our Education System is focused and what it teaches, to better improve the society and its ability to work to build the Future that America is to become.


Our Need for Civics Education In America is greater than many even consider to become aware of.

The Changing Tide- America will Reclaim its Democracy
 
From the Center for American Progress: The State of Civics Education

Excerpt:


No modern nation on earth can claim to be a Real Democracy if Civics Education is not a key element of secondary-schooling. People must know not only the political history of the US, but also how politics runs the country today. I suspect personally that most people get a notion of political activity off the BoobTube (TV).

That's just not good enough. The notion of Liberty being the foundation-stone of our nation is fine but neither is it good enough. Americans must be taught also that the Electoral College that MANIPULATES THE POPULAR-VOTE before conveying the results to Congress and Gerrymandering are both manipulations of the popular-vote to favor either side of a basically two-party system!

Both the above election-voting connivances have been in place since 1812 - when the 12th Amendment instituted the Electoral College and a Massachusetts governor (Gerry) carved out voting districts to assure that his party would win them.

What are a people to do when their democracy has been infected by such complicities?

Simply not put up with them!

Establish a system where there is "federal and state campaign financing.... AND set up a CITIZEN PANEL, with 2 persons from each state, to 'receive and review "any" proposal that "any" lobbyist present.. and if it passes this panel, this panel has to contact their representatives and their representatives are mandated to bring it to the Senate Floor for Vote.
This removes Lobbyist from having any contact or influence with or upon the Elected Senate Representatives. The Elected Representative will have to vote the voice of the people who sent them there, and what comes from this panel.. will be reflected in the Senators Vote... this means the senator cannot vote based on outside influence from any lobbyist.

We take back the voice of the people and this is how we get control of those whom we elect!!!!
 
Have you ever met an electoral college voter? Am just curious. I don't believe I have ever met one of these far superior intellects.

By your reasoning we need the electoral college is because everyone is too stupid then why does this smaller group of stupids need more electoral voters then this larger group of stupids?

As long as these electoral voters are superior in intelligence then they should be capable of representing the same number of people. This whole thought process is ludicrous.




Donald Trump once called Electoral College "a disaster"; now says it's "actually genius" - CBS News

FANTASTIC REPLY !!!!!! :agree :applaud
 
The honest to goodness truth about what "Willful Ignorance" produces -- It has damaged America and various places around the world for Centuries.


There were two kinds of people that came to America for European Lands.

1. The Democracy Loving People, who respected the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, Regulatory Governance and the Principles of Democracy and the Republic Form of Representative Governance, and they have respect for the system of Capitalism, not to abuse it, fleece it, and degrade it, They are the people who know and understand that "Currency" is a governmental instrument, designed to facilitate "exchange", to support the flourishing of a nation and its people... Not to chase it by any vile one can imagine, not to bury it off shore in acts of economic subversion against the economic systems of America, and not to be driven by Avarice. such ones who pursut that point and fact; is the types who have no sense of decency, dignity, integrity and honor, or respect for the American System of economics and the principles of Democracy.

2. The " Savage(s)"", who live by the edicts of savagery, act by the most vile of conduct and will engage any atrocity for money, and will disrespect the Governance, the Laws and the system of Justice; they have no respect for the system of Republic design of Representative Governance, and they have no regard for humane or environmental concerns. They have an obsessive drive to engage savagery, because a savage will be what makes a savage. They will contort Religion, for the sake of a savage angle, in their obsession of greed, and they will seek to usurp and undermine any and every system of governing decency, and have an obsessively savage drive to try and create a system of Serfdom, while pursuing to disgrace Democracy, by trying to supplant it with Plutocracy.

Savage = a people regarded as primitive and uncivilized, fierce, violent, and uncontrolled - one who attack ferociously!!!!

Avarice = extreme greed for wealth or material gain, drive by greediness, acquisitiveness, cupidity, covetousness, rapacity, materialism.
 
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Ethic's before money has to become a higher concern for mankind. Nothing in the principle of God based goodness has ever said that a people cannot profit and live fair, when Ethics lead our pathways.

We have much to "RELEARN" and how to re-groom ourselves and our society, As To and About; how to live as honorably people, who are just and to build a system of ethnic based justice.

In the 1970's our schools were damaged greatly when legislation's impacted our society, which led to the diminishing of "Civic's" being taught in our schools. We lost that education value of what it is to be a "Citizen" in this Democracy and this United States.
The Far Right - wanted it removed, because it was post Civil Right Era, and for that learning to be promoted for a non segregated people, to learn how to further fight for rights and liberty in this nation, it did not like the move of Civil Rights nor of Women Rights, and the Many Rights of the Previously disenfranchised. IF people were to be unlearned about our system, they too were to be unlearned about our voting rights, unlearned about how voting districts function and unlearned about how our political and Civic system functions. Those of the Far Left moved as well, to avert the learning of Civics with a claim of wanting unconstrained freed without Civic responsibility as they considered people were being groomed for War Services. The element of the Vietnam War was a great impacting tragedy upon the American people, and people were distraught at the many lives were being destroyed and taken away in a war no one could explain. Later, the Pentagon Papers surfaced, exposing the mess, it future impacted the minds of people, and moved us even further from the education of Civics. On the Far Right, they become more enraged and wanted to lay blame upon the elements of cultural and ethnic integration. when bare premise and fact is, 'we ceased to "teach coming youth and the next generation about what it is to be of Civic Understanding and Learning in how to learn Civics as to the individual in a Democracy System of these United States.

Civics is about more than just how our System is designed, it is about the civil nature of what it takes to live within a Democratic system.
Former Senator Bob Graham has long championed a push for Civic Education to be Returned to Our Schools.
Since the removal of Civics from being centered in our Educational System, we've seen a continual erosion of our society and a widening disintegration of our social continuity. One does not grow up with inherent learning as to how to live in Civil society, it is a process of learning. We seem to have forgotten that very important point.

instead we have allowed money to become our focus in every aspect, and as a result, EVERYTHING in America has declined. Ethics have been disregarded and eroded and made void.

If we want to fix American we have to start at these levels of Education, and move back to what we once knew, and education our young in what is American Democracy and Teach the Civics, to education people how to live in a Civic system as civil beings in a Democracy.
 
... not only is a degree not a signal that a person is educated, it is a sign that they have had their brain warped by the brain molders, and are likely too ignorant to know that this has happend.

This is untrue!

There are certainly different political currents, but the choice of which to follow is for each of us to make. In fact, what has happened over the recent past is that Americans have become even less attached to political parties.

Donald Dork lost the popular-election but won election by means of an antiquated Electoral College that America never had the courage to fix (meaning institute legally the fact that the EC must report ONLY THE TOTAL POPULAR VOTE IN THAT STATE.)

Why is it too difficult for people to understand that simple rule? Why is it that some blockheads still repeat the inanity that "smaller states deserve more of a voice". A truly fair and unbiased vote for the presidency is that of the simple popular-vote on most democracies on earth - with the unique exception of ours ... !
 
This is untrue!

There are certainly different political currents, but the choice of which to follow is for each of us to make. In fact, what has happened over the recent past is that Americans have become even less attached to political parties.

Donald Dork lost the popular-election but won election by means of an antiquated Electoral College that America never had the courage to fix (meaning institute legally the fact that the EC must report ONLY THE TOTAL POPULAR VOTE IN THAT STATE.)

Why is it too difficult for people to understand that simple rule? Why is it that some blockheads still repeat the inanity that "smaller states deserve more of a voice". A truly fair and unbiased vote for the presidency is that of the simple popular-vote on most democracies on earth - with the unique exception of ours ... !

Your baseline quote is excellent:

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them; then neither persons nor property will be safe". (Frederick Douglass)

It very well enforces the fact that the E.C. should be abolished... I had those thoughts when I was 10 yrs old.... because it never made sense in this day and time that people vote, and the E.C. Comes In and over-ride it and install a President based on the voice of a few, over the voices of many.

American Democracy is to be "One Man", "One Vote".. does not matter what material holding, land holding, monetary holding, or office or position one holds... "One Man", "One Vote". E.C. amounts to nothing more than the wealthy establishing such a system as E.C. because they had little respect for the general population, and considered the general population too uneducated to over-ride what their money had installed as a mechanism to control the usurp the vote of voice of the people. It was pretended, that it was to give the lesser populated states a higher voice. When fact is... the voice of vote, should only concern itself with the "One Man", "One Vote". without concern or regard for the population size within a state, because people are free to live where they choose and in doing so, get the results of what the "One Man", "One Vote" brings into deliverance.

There is not much in America that was not perverted by the wealthy in their aims to control and dominate, from the point of class divisiveness, into and thought salver and indentures and the biased gaming of playing people against one another based on their monetary status of rich or poor. (That reeks of "Plutocracy", which is an abomination upon and against the very principles the American Democracy was Established. It could only have been done upon and against an uneducated mass, that is why "education is premier in a Democracy", and Civics Education should never be made to play second class to the teaching of history, when that history itself is adulterated)

Federal and State Campaign Funding Should have always been the system... and to get that funding a Candidate should be mandated to have demonstrated some civic achievement in governmental performances of serving the people in some capacity that represents their devotion to the principles set forth in the governing princeliness of our society.
NOT... which wealthy family one hails from, or which family has established itself as some political dynasty or who can accumulate the most money.

Today, we have people placed in office, who can't do the job of the office, for the incessant campaigning of raising money for the next campaign cycle. No man should think himself guaranteed for re-elections. Only the performance and services of the duties of the job, Nothing should give a man the thought or conclusion as if consideration is guaranteed; or implied or mandated they get re-elected.

What service is it to the people, if a President spends 2 yrs of a 4 year term, posturing and campaigning to get re-elected, when the role and work of the jobs is slated for a term of 4 yrs. Only overwhelming achievements that advance and uplift society and establish policy that protects and advance the future should be considered if such a one throws their hat in the ring for the next election cycle.

We have No Kings, No Queens, No Kings Court, No Monarch's --- we are a nation of American Citizens, " "One Man", "One Vote", and all are to be equal in civic and civil matters in this American Democracy. One's economic or monetary holding has no bearing on giving any man, more than the power of "One Man", "One Vote".
 
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We have No Kings, No Queens, No Kings Court, No Monarch's --- we are a nation of American Citizens, " "One Man", "One Vote", and all are to be equal in civic and civil matters in this American Democracy..

But we do have an upper-class quite prepared to fund whatever is necessary to get their person elected. And how is that done?

Election funding expenditures are most spent upon TV-adverts. Because we Yanks are the people who watch the most TV. So, the BoobTube is the place where most election promotion money is spent.

Does it have any effect? That is, the two major parties throwing paid-for adverts at one another? There is nothing more stoopid than an advert. It condenses everything to its simplest form and pitches it to you. Whether you "buy it" or not is your business. But given that TV commercials are a Very Profitable Business, it is likely to remain that way for political commercials.

So, we are, in fact, selling our political representatives like they were packaged dog-food!

Every now and then there is a TV-debate, and it does attract millions of Americans. I've watched a couple and such debates are mind-blowingly childish. From what I gather, the politicians asked to "KISS" - that is, Keep It Simple to Sell - which also means making an idea so simple it is nothing more than a lie.

I know of no sphere of politics that is simple. But, I also think that Americans are not especially well trained in Civics and their Civic Duty (which means voting) - aside from a general description of local, state and national government functions. Which really does not say anything about "What are or should be the goals of a political party?"

That can be answered very clearly by each party, most often with opposite opinions that are debated. The Right is going to insist upon "unlimited ability to obtain as much wealth as is humanly possible" and the Left will bore us silly about "Sharing it all fairly". Which is why I suggest that more and more Americans are voting in the middle! They can easily flip-flop to either side.

Unfortunately , they do not concentrate on True Value from their political leadership, which is why there is such Income Disparity in America. Nobody should want that we all earn the same salary. Our abilities are all different, and it is "ability" (along with some luck) that determines financial outcomes.

What is nevertheless of key importance, however, is the fact that 15% of Americans (more than 40 million men, women and children) - living in one of the richest nations on earth - can't go to a doctor when they are sick and don't know from where their meals next week are coming ...
 
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Thank you, Post #34, should awaken those from the tribal trance of drama antics... unfortunately....

What we get when apathy and raw ignorance prevails, wrapped in self centered greediness... is: The mess that exist today in our Political System... The Rabid Mentality of Republican Savagery, headed by the Master Savage of the Decade.... "Trump"!

Plutocracy is made up of "Savages Driven by Avarice".... It is supported by the savage mentality of the under educated and the uneducated, and they are embolden by the ignorance born of lack of knowledge, and void of the capability and ability of understanding the Civics of Democracy. They function by "Tribalism, based on skin color, race, and greed seeking, while they bond themselves together in an incessant aim to pursue denying society from having systems that care for/of its people and their communities. Such savage driven madness has no regard for the environment, nor the concern for the youth of today, who will become the inheritors of all that exist. They have no interest to learn the ethic's and morality that is core within the composition of Democracy, and certainly no concern for the Civics Educations of how to live and respect the systems that American Democracy has created. They pervert even the principles of Religion, for the vanity of their own lust-fullness to indulge in the pridefulness of what makes fools of mankind. thus producing what is savagery.. They seek to wrap their bias and bigotry, in the words they have bastardized into making their ideals and abomination unto the very Bible they have used for the sake of abusive self aggrandizing delusions of superiority. Thus rendering them as the most inferiority before the eyes of God. They think "hoarding guns and slinging out put down commentary, will uplift them, when it only exposes the elemental make up of what is "savages".

Democracy was designed for those who embrace Dignity, Ethics, and Humane Concerns and Respect for Civil Society, and the Civics which educates on how to live within the systems Democracy Created.

Civics Education is what promotes the understanding as to how to live in a Civil Society, what is it's structure and what and how the composition that makes up that structure is designed to function, as well as the rights and responsibilities of the persons, as individuals, who make up what is "We The People".

Those who rail and scream about Freedom... are often the greatest abusers of everything the principles of Freedom stands for. They are void of knowing that "Freedom is - only gained through Adherence to Responsibility".... and to be Responsible on has to know what the pare meters are that preserves what Responsibility Makes into Freedom.

The Truly Ignorant, think "Freedom" means to do any thing, any way at any time, by any means.... willfully unaware that such conduct is that of a "Savage".
 
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Right Winger's avoid the subject about "Civics Education" , as if their mindset cannot digest what it is, and they certainly are averse to knowing the value basis that it is unto American Democracy.... Yet, they want to wave the flag, followed by their idiocy of wanting to dictate to society as if they are some model to emulate.

they look for post they can go to with aim to feed their drama lusting with a drama spin fix, and within their giddy foolishness, sling out their "one liner" imbecilic "go to phrases"...

America has to survive this madness for at least a decade as the old heads pass on and the new generation of young educated and civics aware people can move into positions and change the paradigm.

The damages which Trump has done and continue doing, is amplified by the vile of the Republican Led Senate... doing all they can to try and hang on to the "white nationalistic plutocratic agenda, of trying to prolong the damaging system of white nationalism of wealthy white male domiance. Of which, we've seen damage America for Centuries and Decades....

Time - Continues to march us forward... in this case we move forward, but through the madness and vile of these types acting like savages, trying to further their savagery. Unfortunate as it is, the contempt and rage will cause damages within society, as society of liberal minded people who understand that the premise and principles within and of Democracy is based in Liberalism, which is constituted by Majority Rule... Therefore, through it all, Democracy's Principles will stand and in doing so continue its move to eradicate such savagery from infecting and damaging the coming generations.
It took 100's of yrs to demolish the system of slavery from the perversion that led to it being sanctioned by and within government policy, then it took another 100 yrs for the segregation it spawned... and now we are only 55 yrs since the Civil Rights Act... Therefore.. within the next 10-25 yrs... and it may be far less, considering the advanced level of the spread of information and the learning curve which has been improved within and through the age of information, which technology has bought... It will become a taming of social media, from the wild west days it has demonstrated in its newness.... it is at a point and time it has to mature... and that maturity is taking place more and more each day...!

Watch what happens as Trump attacks "ACA"... when the poor and working poor whites that now back Trump come face to face with the devastation his attack is pursuing, they will be forced to awaken, by the only thing that can awaken them... and that is "coming face to reality" of not only their pockets being cleaned out, but when the death cycle increased due to their lack of access to health care. Then when he attacks Social Security, they will become rabid, and forced into facing the truths they have long worked hard to avoid, which is the truth, they have been "hoodwinked" and "betrayed"... !!!!! They will learn the value of what is Public Services and Public Assistance... and they will be liken to a person stranded in the desert in 100 degree temperatures with no water.

Then they will come to learn what "The Preamble" and its intrinsic value within American Democracy.

They will try every means they can to fight off that truth.... but that truth will cover them and the more who fight it will simply smother the life out of themselves.
 
Right Winger's avoid the subject about "Civics Education" , as if their mindset cannot digest what it is, and they certainly are averse to knowing the value basis that it is unto American Democracy.... Yet, they want to wave the flag, followed by their idiocy of wanting to dictate to society as if they are some model to emulate.

they look for post they can go to with aim to feed their drama lusting with a drama spin fix, and within their giddy foolishness, sling out their "one liner" imbecilic "go to phrases"...

America has to survive this madness for at least a decade as the old heads pass on and the new generation of young educated and civics aware people can move into positions and change the paradigm.

The damages which Trump has done and continue doing, is amplified by the vile of the Republican Led Senate... doing all they can to try and hang on to the "white nationalistic plutocratic agenda, of trying to prolong the damaging system of white nationalism of wealthy white male domiance. Of which, we've seen damage America for Centuries and Decades....

Time - Continues to march us forward... in this case we move forward, but through the madness and vile of these types acting like savages, trying to further their savagery. Unfortunate as it is, the contempt and rage will cause damages within society, as society of liberal minded people who understand that the premise and principles within and of Democracy is based in Liberalism, which is constituted by Majority Rule... Therefore, through it all, Democracy's Principles will stand and in doing so continue its move to eradicate such savagery from infecting and damaging the coming generations.
It took 100's of yrs to demolish the system of slavery from the perversion that led to it being sanctioned by and within government policy, then it took another 100 yrs for the segregation it spawned... and now we are only 55 yrs since the Civil Rights Act... Therefore.. within the next 10-25 yrs... and it may be far less, considering the advanced level of the spread of information and the learning curve which has been improved within and through the age of information, which technology has bought... It will become a taming of social media, from the wild west days it has demonstrated in its newness.... it is at a point and time it has to mature... and that maturity is taking place more and more each day...!

Watch what happens as Trump attacks "ACA"... when the poor and working poor whites that now back Trump come face to face with the devastation his attack is pursuing, they will be forced to awaken, by the only thing that can awaken them... and that is "coming face to reality" of not only their pockets being cleaned out, but when the death cycle increased due to their lack of access to health care. Then when he attacks Social Security, they will become rabid, and forced into facing the truths they have long worked hard to avoid, which is the truth, they have been "hoodwinked" and "betrayed"... !!!!! They will learn the value of what is Public Services and Public Assistance... and they will be liken to a person stranded in the desert in 100 degree temperatures with no water.

Then they will come to learn what "The Preamble" and its intrinsic value within American Democracy.

They will try every means they can to fight off that truth.... but that truth will cover them and the more who fight it will simply smother the life out of themselves.

Now that you've had your rant, do you have anything substantive to say about civics education in America?
 
From the Center for American Progress: The State of Civics Education

Excerpt:


No modern nation on earth can claim to be a Real Democracy if Civics Education is not a key element of secondary-schooling. People must know not only the political history of the US, but also how politics runs the country today. I suspect personally that most people get a notion of political activity off the BoobTube (TV).

That's just not good enough. The notion of Liberty being the foundation-stone of our nation is fine but neither is it good enough. Americans must be taught also that the Electoral College that MANIPULATES THE POPULAR-VOTE before conveying the results to Congress and Gerrymandering are both manipulations of the popular-vote to favor either side of a basically two-party system!

Both the above election-voting connivances have been in place since 1812 - when the 12th Amendment instituted the Electoral College and a Massachusetts governor (Gerry) carved out voting districts to assure that his party would win them.

What are a people to do when their democracy has been infected by such complicities?

Simply not put up with them!

The fact that you use the term "Democracy" indicates your own poor civics education. If you can't be precise and correct, don't come in here complaining about the education system. And then your commentary on the EC, is not useful to an objective discussion on civics education. You already appear partisan from the start, if that's your intent, you're a success.
 
the fact that you use the term "democracy" indicates your own poor civics education. If you can't be precise and correct, don't come in here complaining about the education system. And then your commentary on the ec, is not useful to an objective discussion on civics education. You already appear partisan from the start, if that's your intent, you're a success.

blah, blah, blahhhhhhh ...
 
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