Texas Removes Thomas Jefferson from Textbooks

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(March 12) -- Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education. The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

Texas has decided that Thomas Jefferson, one of the most important men in American history, is no longer considered a great political thinker. Gotta love Texas, eh?

Source

Most patriotic state in the union.

Wow that is terrible! I think it is kind of drastic how many changes they are making at once for this. There is quite a large list and you should read the full article if you haven't. A lot of what we studied in History will not be taught to our children anymore. They are actually changing a lot of the important lessons we have been taught. The reason this is allowed to happen is because Texas is the biggest customer of the text books, and so they dictate what is contained in them. Then other states are pretty much forced in to using them, and as they describe this will most likely end up nation wide eventually.

"they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution."

"students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation."

And here is the video in case you wanted to see it.

Rewriting History or Teaching the Facts?




Edit - went back and read a lot more about this

[edit on 13-3-2010 by Smell The Roses]

reply to post by guillotinegleam


Well we wouldn't want any people to hear any of these quotes!
Especially are children!

Frelling IDIOTS!


A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Never spend your money before you have earned it.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

These quotes came from this site-Thomas Jefferson Quotes

If you want to see something sickening, look who the first related author is!

reply to post by guillotinegleam


Yep, its astounding isnt it?

Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. cont.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Thats Texas for you I guess. What a bunch of hypocrites, and I'd bet my bottom dollar most these folks participated in the tea party rallies.

Texans hate Christian Deist like Thomas Jefferson and what they did to the US constitution.
www.deism.com...

They also hate the Jefferson bible and any mention of it.
en.wikipedia.org...

Interesting fact is that Lincoln's Bible may be a copy of the Jefferson bible.

and Lincoln's Bible was used to swear in Obama.
was this the bible that was used to swear in Lincoln. or Lincoln personal bible

Lincoln was not sworn in with his own bible as it was still in transit from Illinois.

and Abraham Lincoln was a deist.
For much of his life, Lincoln was undoubtedly Deist . In his younger days he openly challenged orthodox religions, but as he matured and became a candidate for public office, he kept his Deist views more to himself, and would sometimes attend Presbyterian services with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. He loved to read the Bible, and even quoted from it, but he almost never made reference to Jesus, and is not known to have ever indicated a belief in the divinity of Jesus.

As a Christian Deist Lincoln would have used the Jefferson bible.

Was Lincoln's bible a Jefferson bible or the bible he was sworn in with.
(most likely a king James version.)

reply to post by ANNED


Let us not forget that it was Jefferson who actual wrote The Declaration of Independence HIMSELF!! After several trips to France and having spent much time with the Iroquois, he studied the "Six Nations of the Iroquois" with Ben Franklin and John Adams. From the book "Founding Fathers, Secret Societies". They can not do thisd, the truth will be told by the parents of these kids I would hope. I teach my nieces and nephews all the time, the truth and what the government is covering up. They have seen all the documentaries regarding taxes, 9/11, shadow government and the like. They are very intelligent. Home school is the rule!!

Having been in Texas schools not to long ago, I can say that we were not taught much about Mr. Jefferson before hand. On that same note, we were not taught much about any political figure. Nothing outside of the normal things you get on TV.

On the same note, after 7th grade, there was very little, if any, focus on Texas History.

I think that, regardless of your state, every student should have a few years of "The History of (insert state here)" I loved Texas history, it's storied, its interesting and my favorite of all classes I have ever taken. But if I was in New York, New Jersey, Wyoming, or any state, I'd want to know what happened to make my state a state.

I think, in general, "they" don't want us to know much of our history. Just think if everyone knew the ideals of the founding fathers...most of the things happening today wouldn't be.

reply to post by endisnighe


Amazing quotes. One can only understand that Jefferson was extremely wise, or better word- a visionary. His quotes do speak to what I hope most Americans hold dear.

SUmmary: limited govt, preserve liberty, an armed community is the best offense and one that hopefully will never have to defend, fair trade not Free trade.

Fools and morons.

No I take that back...that is insulting to fools and morons.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


Well you know iMac, they had to make room for important figures like.............I do not know.

Rewriting history, or just forgetting the whole frelling thing.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.
Anon.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Sir Winston Churchill

An unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. –Unknown

Now that is a real shame. After all it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of independence, based off of those works. Course the founding fathers did not like those authors at all. I guess doing stuff for the country for the majority of your life and beyond is not worth mentioning, after all like Ben Franklin, he was an inventor, and a prolific reader. It was his library that started/seeded the Library of Congress, a big time supporter of education, especially for women, in fact he was a big supporter of higher education for women, but I guess that point is lost on alot of the board of education, or the creator of the modern navy, or any of the other achievments that he did. Oh and lets not forget the original Lousiana purchase, we really did not need the center of the country, that he propsed and got, or the fact he backed the Lewis and Clark expedition.

this just goes to show the naysayers that government very much so play a dominant role in what gets taught and not tuaght in our education system. Its a propaganda machine producing "bodies" (as we called human beings in the army) for the capitalist banker fascists wars....

This is just horrible, but as usual, typical. I'm sure Alex Jones will S-A-B over this one.

I don't think it happened.
Wasn't it stopped?
Third line.

I have noticed this sort of thing here on our side of the pond.

The schools are taking great chunks of history and not teaching it, or are picking bits and discarding others. A while ago some schools over here said they would not be teaching anything about the 1st or 2nd world wars in history.

Some schools are even talking about completely dropping history from the school teaching lists.

Im know a lot of history is written by the victor, but be it good or bad. We should teach our children about all history.

Maybe just maybe, the can learn and do a better job than we have.

I cant believe a state in america would not teach about Thomas Jefferson..

reply to post by AmericanDaughter


not according to the source in the OP

"The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, "Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."

Also in that article, they have a link to the group that directly opposes this, Texas Freedom Network, they have a break down of the day.

I spoke to my mother just a bit ago, told her to start teaching my brother who is about to hit highschool all about Thomas Jefferson. She mentioned that she heard that Texas is the largest producer of text books in the country, is this true, and if it is, does anyone know what effect it has on the rest of the country. She seemed to think that our state pretty much controls what the rest of the country learns...I found that kind of a stretch, anyone with insight?

Originally posted by TheCoffinman
this just goes to show the naysayers that government very much so play a dominant role in what gets taught and not tuaght in our education system. Its a propaganda machine producing "bodies" (as we called human beings in the army) for the capitalist banker fascists wars....

Except this isn't the government doing this. The board of education members are elected by the people. Sadly, they also tend to have their elections at odd times in the year when there is very little turnout. So, a small minority of the general population can make a huge change in who gets elected. Highly motivated religious groups have used that to their advantage.

So, what we see here isn't the government trying to brainwash your kids through propaganda, but the religious right trying to do so.

The sad thing is that these same groups are oblivious to the fact that separation of church and state protects religion from the government. That when government gets involved with religion it tends to suppress religions that don't match the official religion. That the very thing they hope for is what the early Christian American settlers were trying to get away from in order to worship in freedom.

reply to post by iamsupermanv2


Texas is one of the largest consumers of textbooks in the US. This has gone on for quite awhile.

Here is an article-How Content Is Decided For Textbooks

reply to post by muons200



These higher boards of education really think they are hot stuff. Objective and critical thinks my #. Little group of oligarks. This is what happens when power is centrialized.