We are (becoming) the illiterates

Remember my earlier post about Douglas Bruce, the Colorado representative who called Mexicans "illiterate peasants?" And here and here before that I lamented how stupid the American people were. According to an op-ed by Bob Herbert in the NY Times, looks like I'm dead on:

A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900. ... nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.

Bill Gates calls the nation's high schools "obsolete," meaning that they cannot prepare their students for what they need to know today in order to be competitive in the marketplace. Nearly two-thirds of the high school students in America either drop out or graduate without the necessary preparation for the next stages of life -- meaningful work and/or post-secondary education.

And how much are you hearing from the presidential candidates about this? Not one iota. It's much more fun to read about Obama's gutter balls, or Clinton's beer drinking, or McCain's shoving a fellow legislator. Those are the real issues.

As a father, my commitment to my sons is that, no matter what, their education and preparation for life will be my primary job.

The definition of "Illiterate Peasant"

Colorado State Representative Douglas Bruce, a Republican, was ordered to leave the podium of the State House Monday for referring to Mexicans as "illiterate peasants."

"I would like to have the opportunity to state at the microphone why I don't think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in Colorado."

The Democratic chairwoman told Bruce that he was no longer recognized to speak. The GOP caucus said that they were trying to determine what kind of action to take against Bruce.

Outside the chamber, Bruce defended his remarks:

“I looked up ’illiterate’ in the dictionary and it means somebody who is lacking in formal education or is unable to read and write. I don’t think these people who are planning to come over here and pick potatoes or peaches are likely to have much of a formal education. I looked up the word ’peasant.’ The word ’peasant’ means a person who works in agricultural fields. These people, most of them, don’t speak English. Most of them haven’t had any formal education, that’s why they’re coming over here. I don’t blame them for trying, but I don’t think we should pave the way for more aliens to come here."

Technically he's correct in his definition of "lliterate peasant." But of course, the intent was not simply to refer to them as uneducated farm-workers. Thankfully, his subtext was not lost on the legislative body.

The only legislator I know of who has been more direct about his hate for a group of people is Jesse Helms, who in 1993 on the Senate floor commented that Bill Clinton's nominee for assistant housing secretary was a "damned lesbian."

Bruce has been censured by the Colorado legislature in the past for kicking a news photographer who took his picture during a prayer. I wonder what he was praying for...