Their goal is to put all Democratic city representatives to be represented by 1 district and have 37 Republican representatives representing empty land.
It's a cute idea, but the leaders of those metros and blue states just won't release the tax money.
Like all MAGA ideas and talking points, they will lead to extreme poverty for those that support them most.
It will make the youngest turn... I would know, I'm a product of that type of political area, I'm as far left as a person can safely go without becoming a whackadoo.
I dunno man there's goofy people everywhere.
How about vegans that feed their dog a vegan diet?
Antivaxx people refusing to give their kids the basic vaccines that have been around for years that keep us all safe after we are born?
Yep. Pre-Covid, Santa Monica and San Francisco were hotbeds of the anti vax movement. It’s less pronounced now because the Right took over as the preeminent anti vaxxers. And the yoga moms don’t want to be seen as conservatives.
How about liberal affluent white people going to inner cities and speaking for minority communities around police relations...
It's what happened in New York and is why New York moved from left to center left.
forcing us into cities so they can point at us and laugh while LAND gets a vote in congress.
the constitution doesn't start with the "We the land area"
This is the exact argument against vouchers liberals have been making all along. Of course conservatives only understand it once the consequences hit them between the eyes.
It's insane to me.
Republicans actively punch their voters in the face and take their money all while saying "Hey! Those Democrats *might* punch you in the face andwant to take your guns and trucks and bibles!"
The Democrats say "hey uh...no.. we're not gonna do any of that. You can have that stuff but we're not gonna force your neighbor to have it if they dont want it. Oh and maybe we could kinda be nicer to everyone? Like, in general?"
And the voters still go "Oh shit! Punch me harder! That'll learn em real good!"
It's religion. Religious faith in things that can't be proven and religious faith in things that are almost fairy tales primes those voters to believe stories/lies/ fairy tales from politicians. It's really easy to believe in things that don't make sense when your whole religion is believing in something that doesn't make sense like a virgin birth and that someone can simultaneously be a father, son, and the holy spirit.
As someone whose Christian its insane to me how easily other Christians are led.
I'm sorry, but if you support the current Republican party you are not representing Christianity as it says you should.
It says over and over again not to hate others, it says it so much I wonder how these Republicans who hate gay people so much have even read the bible.
You are against God if you hate others like that, stop hiding behind God, he told you how he feels about that.
You are using God's name in vain, the real definition of the word and not swearing like its sometimes used for.
It's no coincidence that a lot of these more hard line churches etc., or those with an agenda, also tell their congregations "The Bible is very complex to read and you should only really attempt to do so in coordination with your Pastor, or better still, don't read it, and let him read it to you."
It is fascinating how easily people are led down a certain path. I think it has to do with the American version of Christianity. There's a uniquely American fervor to our brand of religion that doesn't exist in other places around the globe. For example, One question the pew center asked to tens of thousands of respondents around world was "how certain are you that God exists?" In America, 94% of people who identified as religious and 60% of the population as a whole said that they were "absolutely certain that God exists without any doubt". In southern states, think Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 70% to 82% of the entire population is "absolutely certain that God exists".
I think that is the key thing, the absolute certainty that exists in America's religious population that doesn't exist elsewhere. In other countries, even countries that are much more religious in general, don't come even near to our 60% of the population being certain that God exists. In countries like Italy and Spain and Russia, that number approaches 30%. In fact, there's no country in the whole of western europe where that percentage is above 29%.
In other faiths, this absolute certainty doesn't exist at all. In the jewish and Muslim faith, the number of people who said they were "absolutely certain God/ Allah exists" was less than 2%. That's fascinating.
Other countries and other faiths leave room for doubt. In America, there is no room for doubt when it comes to faith. That's what I mean when I say it's so much easier to lead those people who are absolutely certain of whatever it says in the Bible without any doubt, it's much easier to lead those people astray to vote for politicians who invoke the name of Jesus, but don't follow any of his teachings as you so aptly noted.
It's that American absolute faith and turning off of critical thinking that allows Christianity to be hijacked by people who speak the language of God, but whose actions are much more closer to Hades.
The biggest reason behind that is the US, when it was still the 1-13 colonies, was a haven/dumping ground for the religiously divergent. This is also the origin for why the US has Freedom of Religion so prominent in the Constitution. The US was founded by people who had friends, family, and ancestors that were persecuted for their religion. To be fair, sometimes because they were actually batshit crazy, for their time.
I despise religion in all forms, and especially Christianity. The hypocrisy of oppressors pretending to be persecuted victims is absolutely vile, and I won't even get into the aesthetics of hanging the image of a dead body everywhere as an object of worship.
That all said, if all religious people were like you I would think that it is nothing but good, in the way it was intended by it's creator.
I think Jesus was a super cool dude who said some really meaningful things, but the fake followers give it a really bad look.
If you look at what they actually do and think they couldn't be any further away from Christ, only worshiping themselves.
I digress, but the point is I'm glad there are at least a few like you.
Yeah see but the kind of Christians that use the bible as a cudgel don't actually care what it says. They don't intend to use it to walk with God, just to back up their preexisting beliefs.
The same way that exact group loves to wave the Constitution around like its a one page document that reads "1. Whatever you want to believe is true, 2. The government shall not infringe on your right to own guns, 3. Taxes are evil, 4. Queer people are evil, 5. America is a Christian nation -Sincerely, the Founding Fathers"
I say it as a joke but honestly, that seems to be the level of understanding
Yeah except we are all forgetting the best part about religion: it tells you that you can search inside yourself for an answer from god, directly saying you get to decide for god based on your own feelings or psychosis. So if the bible says one thing but you look inside and you feel uncomfortable about something, suddenly you just found god saying that thing is against god.
>I wonder how these Republicans who hate gay people so much have even read the bible.
Many Americans never read a book after high school
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/24-percent-of-american-adults-havent-read-a-book-in-the-past-year--heres-why-.html
"You can't reason with someone who claims to be a monotheist while worshipping a trinity."
-Robert Heinlein, 'Book of Job'
A somewhat... problematic author, but he makes a good point every once in a while.
I'm religious, and so is a lot of my family and were all pretty very liberal. Most of our religious friends are liberal as well. It's mostly the televangelist and people unwilling to actually think for themselves that are conservative. Sadly, it's those same ones who give the rest of us a bad name.
its not just religion. most peoples political views are determined by family, gender, race and ethnicity, region, culture, etc… not critical thinking skills. And also, kinda weird that you’re attacking religion like that, there is no objective truth and not to mention that people don’t always use religion as a foundation for their hatred upon others and there are genuinely good religious people who want the best for everyone
I'm not saying that people's political views are determined by religion, I'm just saying that people who are faithful and believe in religion are much more likely to not use their critical thinking skills. I'm not saying that people use religion as a foundation for hatred, I'm saying that believing in religion sets you up to be lied to by bad actors, in this case, conservative Republican politicians.
I'm trying to answer a question about why people would vote against their interests and why people would elect politicians who pursue policies that are against the interests of the voters who elect them. One of the main reasons is religion. Religious voters are much more likely to believe a story that doesn't make sense or to endorse a policy that has no evidence behind it because they already do that in their daily religious lives. Religious people are not a monolith, but without doubt, we can say that they center their lives around believing things that are not true and can't be proven. Their faith in things unseen and unknown is what allows them to be taken advantage of by Republican politicians. When you believe that life isn't controlled by your actions or by the reality of the world, but that life is instead controlled by prayer or by a magical mystery man who lives in the sky, you're much more likely to be led astray in other paths politically here on earth.
It's impossible to deny the massive overlap between religious faith and people who believe in q anon. There's got to be a reason for that. There's also a giant overlap in religious people and people who voted for Donald Trump. There's also a huge overlap in religious people and people who believe that January 6th was a hoax and didn't happen. This isn't me saying this, this is studies done by AP/ Reuters and studies done by the Pew charitable trust and their ongoing study on religion in American life.
Problem is it’s not just politicians. It’s their religious leaders. There was a video while Obama was president (or maybe right before he got elected) where a vlogger was visiting a random family while on a road trip. When they asked the matriarch of the family why she believed some of the wild, disproven facts about Obama she immediately responded it was, “because my minister told me.”
There are actual studies that show his point about religion.
People that are heavily religious tend to not question their chosen leaders, whover they may be.
The people arguing for those sorts of things don't think what they're arguing for counts. Generally they handwave the idea away by saying they aren't proposing to take everything just yet or they think it's a good thing. Most don't even know what the existing gun laws are like or what they're proposing would actually do.
Authoritarians don't think of policies in terms of consequences. They think of whether supporting a policy signals obedience to the right authority.
If you are in God's and the king's favor, good consequences will automatically accrue to you. Therefore, you don't need to explicitly think about consequences at all, just about whether you are supporting God and the king. (The prosperity gospel is one iteration of this mindset, yes; but so are "you're either with us or against us" and "only I can fix it".)
After all, in the authoritarian mindset, *everyone is always obeying someone.* If you're not obeying God and the king, then who *are* you obeying? Darwin? The Temple of Woke? Fauci? Hillary Clinton? Could it be ... *Satan?*
(A corollary: If things are going well for you, but you're not obeying God and the king, you must have *stolen* whatever you have, or been given it as a bribe by some wrong authority like Obama or Satan.)
As a Christian myself, such religious people have always baffled me. They do such horrendous crap and then go to church thinking they're the greatest thing to walk the earth. They're praying that people see the light, and I'm praying that themselves wake up and realize they're still stuck in the cave and need to find the light themselves.
They act as if Jesus came down and told everyone to be judgemental pricks.
No they will still blame democrat for it. This is the go to for Republicans.
Pass horrible laws that take a few years to realize their awfulness. Blame democrats for how bad things are. If the democrats have power in any branch of government, the republicans will easily blame them.
And they won’t even see the consequences. They are so deeply manipulated that they would rather risk schools collapsing and kids not being educated, just to guard against “them liberals making my kids gays and marry minorities” or whatever.
GOP's plan is TO DOOM PUBLIC SERVICES!
This is not surprising to anyone that hasn't been living under a rock. GOP wants to privatize everything so they can make money.
Schools have been leaning towards privatization (religious and commercial) for decades.
Sadly, lots of Christians act this way. When I go to church and hear about the love that Jesus had for us all. I take his teachings to heart and care for others as best as I can. However, so many Christians hear those same words and decide that banning drag or hating some who is LGBTQ+ is what Jesus wanted.
Personally, I blame Paul. The whole 'salvation comes through faith alone, the law or good deeds don't matter' narrative of his kind of negated most of Jesu actuals ethical and theological teachings. The only thing left of Jesus nowadays is usually a naive belief in magic and a vague sense of moral superiority.
The article says that R's were carrying that district by a margin of 9-1. Say you piss off 30% of the voters and they switch, R's still win 6-4. There's no downside, only the upside of profit for the network of lightly regulated religious charter schools you own.
Even more nefarious, now that the district is more competitive because you pissed off 30% of your everyday reliable voters by forcing them into 1-hour round-trips (article says closest private school was 30 min away) for pickup, drop-off, and sports, now the candidate will have to take your PAC money to win and you *will* own them for every other vote that can benefit you in the state.
Ultimately they want to privatize everything so it's only available to those with money.
Ignorance, Starvation, exposure, terror and disease have always been the authoritarian fundementalist's best means of keeping the pest population down.
This would have been somewhat okay 70-80 years ago when plenty of religious schools were non profit. But most modern non catholic religious schools are following the charter school ideal which is that they end up being for profit institutions (they get profit from the local government and taxpayers). So if the rural communities are too small to turn a profit in, those religious and charter schools won’t last long. Those schools get shutdown with a quickness.
I'm a Christian, and I've voted blue pretty much my entire life. I'm not your enemy. There's a lot of very liberal Christians such as myself who fight against the Republicans and their evil ways.
Well then you 'good' xtains need to get tf off your asses and reform your damn book club so that it is compatible with modern society or else bugger off to your own communities like the Amish do!
I wish it were that easy. A definite reform of the religion as a whole is needed because, in my mind, a lot of the parables in the Bible were a guidebook to surviving 20 AD. Which is not needed in today's society.
You are losing. To me, a non Christian American, your voice is completely lost in a sea of screaming hate. Your "a lot" is losing to a fascist takeover and the only sane seeming people left are pretending not to notice. As far as I'm concerned Christianity is the problem, and the few like you who are not gibbering insane murderous morons are basically a rounding error. The fact that you still identify as the same religion as them speaks volumes.
What you call evil has completely co-opted and replaced your religion, so you materially support evil by remaining with them.
Religion isn't what's in your heart, it's what you do to other people.
Jefferson county Florida got rid of public schools in favor of charter schools and gave them more resources. They did not perform better than public schools and after 5 years the county returned to public school and was allocated less money than the charters were given.
To me, everything a republican does is for the grift, to put money in *their* pockets, skim a lil of the top here and there.
Because money make you happy? But, by the looks of today's R's it makes you bitter, angry and afraid.
But, they gotta get their cut before anyone else does.
High school sports, specially football are sacred in Texas. In small towns football games are a very big deal. Forcing consolation is not going set well if neighboring districts are forced to merge. Merge with our rivals? No way.
People have died fighting over fucking kids sports. Really sad we have to feel this way. Why cant we go back to loving our neighbors uniqueness? Thanks Trump.
Consolidation is fiscal prudence. There's absolutely no reason to effectively double the administrative, athletic, and facility needs to operate two 1,200-student districts when they can consolidate and benefit from economies of scale.
However much rural Texas feel about their high school football team, maintaining independent school systems for pride's sake has tangible, negative impacts on the academic opportunities afforded to rural students.
The issue is not the the size, it’s the distance. Yes it would save money, but would it make sense? Are teachers now expected to drive 3 hours to work? Are the students expected to leave their homes at 4am to go to school? Cause don’t think for a moment that when the districts combine that this wouldn’t be an end result.
Ooop, you got a point. But housing in cities would need reform, like we would need to start allowing massive towers like the ones seen in Singapore to help with that type of population increase.
Think this is bad? Read up on Iowa. Our governor is determined to out do any other conservative out there. I'm actually kind of shocked how the media hasn't started to take notice. She isn't being covert about it at all.
Welp I feel bad for any Democratic voting deep red rural Texans. Hope you make it out. The rest of you chicken fuckers can stew in it. Hee Haw freedom yall.
Just the way republicans want it - an utterly uneducated population to more easily manipulate like meat puppets.
But hey... *bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe* (also an ignorant opinion, based on feelings and not on objective and holistic reality, actively pushed by the more machiavellian minds if the right wing, btw).
Public edumacation ain’t nuttin’ but socialism! Make those kids work the farms to feed the rich! That’s the way it’s supposed to be cause god says so! /s
This isn't on accident. They *want* to doom public schools.
They *hate* all forms of public secular education.
They want your only option to be private religious education.
Have at it. My kids (which I don’t and never had… but paid school taxes for decades) don’t go there. It’s the local voters who will suffer and have their very own elected officials to blame, although they won’t.
Nah, you're right. They'll blame the Democrats, Biden, immigrants, Zelensky, the price of eggs, they'll blame *everyone* and *everything* but themselves. As usual.
According to the article, this is exactly what 90% of the voters in those rural school districts voted for. It's not like this is a new effort by the GOP. It is decades old. One of the OG efforts to cut public school funding and hurt the poor. Not only that, but opposition has been warning about these exact results from the very begining. And even more than all that, the voucher programs have been around so long that we have actually had time to see and measure the longer term effects.
I feel a little bad for the 10% who vote against the politicians attacking their schools. But the rest are getting exactly what the voted for.
Just when you thought a rural area in a southern red state couldn't get worse in a metric, the GOP brings you worse. And the people that live there will vote for them.
> "It’s all in how you ask the question"
It must be hard to live with people that have so many contradictions.
Do you like schools? Yes Do you like taxes? No. Then where should schools get the money from? From the goverment. Where the goverment gets the money from? Not from me.
When the questions are asked in terms of actual services and funding, it turns out that most "conservative voters" are actually 100% in favour of full on mixed economy socialism *provided* it can be ensured that no black, mexican, liberal or unchristian people benefit from those services and support programs.
I mean, isn't there a phrase that encompasses all? "F around and find out"? I think it's that.
It's sad. All of those people are going to struggle even more with their lives.
"Backed by a surge of campaign spending from far-right Christian megadonors, Republicans in Texas and nationwide are pushing legislation that would siphon money from public education under the banner of “parents’ rights.” These plans, commonly known as vouchers, would give parents the money the state would have spent educating their children in public schools — between $8,000 and $10,000 per child per year in Texas — and allow them to put it toward homeschooling expenses, private school tuition or college savings accounts."
We need to rip the money out of politics and never let a single dime of it back in. It's not controversial or partisan to expect that the government *should* be working in the public interest.
It’s okay, republicans want to live in squaller without medical treatment, social security, or education.
They can pull up their boot straps and do those things alone.
Dude is playing it all wrong. He just needs to go the closest fox affiliate station and tell everyone that the woke libs are trying to tear down his school because it’s named after Robert E. Lee (for fucks sake). Bingo bango infinite donation cheat unlocked.
The fact that these fucking clowns don't even want their children to be educated should be criminal. Setting this country even further back than we already are, they won't be happy until we are living in mud huts and stoning someone publicly for being too effeminate/masculine.
In other words, things are going according to the plan.
It really is a race to the bottom with these red states. If it wasn't for oil in Texas and tourism in Florida, every red state would be broke or close to broke.
That's the plan. The Texas GOP relies heavily on rural uneducated voters.
Dooming the Texas economy is a price they are willing to pay to maintain power
It's past time to reorganize schools from Victorian models to online classrooms.
A kid in rural Texas or downtown Detroit have equal access to and can receive education from a doctorate holder at Yale at a fraction of the cost of a building, administration, transportation and an admin school d graduate student. Nvm the various...issues public schools concentrate, between pedophiles, targets for extremists, illicit substances and bullying.
Geography no longer determines accessibility.
isn't that their plan?
why is anyone shocked to learn this?
they have been saying this was their plan since the 1980's and only now that they are nearly done are the press taking notice?
ffs.
Oh, now deep red conservativesare gonna cry when they pushed the charter school and voucher programs that will harm rural public schools. It's a bit late to catch on.
“…allow them to put it toward homeschooling expenses, private school tuition or college savings accounts.”
How the heck is an under-educated child supposed to get into college?
They don't care.
Women are expendable.
Kids are expendable.
Minorities are expendable.
All that matters is they consolidate their power and move the state closer to a theocracy.
Dooming public schools - rural and otherwise - is the point. Institutions that support a civil society and serve all its citizens in their colorful diversity are the christo-fascists' enemy #1. They *want* an ignorant, compliant populace.
According to the story, this district went 90% for Trump. It will be sad when their town (and many like it) die for lack of a school, but they'll have only themselves to blame. They fell for the scam.
Woah.
*"...Metzl found that some vulnerable white Americans would rather die than betray their political views that have become enmeshed with their own sense of white identity."*
That's what's happening.
**[Dying of Whiteness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness)**
>Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland is a 2019 non-fiction book written by Jonathan M. Metzl, a Nashville, Tennessee Vanderbilt University professor of sociology and psychiatry, based on research undertaken in Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas from 2013 to 2018.
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They have already doomed rural hospitals.
They want to force people to move to where the resources are instead of saving American towns.
Jokes on them. That will just make them more liberal.
And that won’t mean shit when land votes and not people.
Their goal is to put all Democratic city representatives to be represented by 1 district and have 37 Republican representatives representing empty land.
It's a cute idea, but the leaders of those metros and blue states just won't release the tax money. Like all MAGA ideas and talking points, they will lead to extreme poverty for those that support them most.
"We the land area..."
True. I just meant for those individuals.
Ehhhhhh idk. I would hope so butttttt
It will make the youngest turn... I would know, I'm a product of that type of political area, I'm as far left as a person can safely go without becoming a whackadoo.
Which liberal progressive ideas are too "whackadoo" for you? I'm curious where the line is.
I dunno man there's goofy people everywhere. How about vegans that feed their dog a vegan diet? Antivaxx people refusing to give their kids the basic vaccines that have been around for years that keep us all safe after we are born?
Pretty sure the republicans took over the anti-vax territory.
There are definitely anti-vax liberals. Not as many as conservatives but I've met a couple.
Ohhhhhh they definitely exist. I used to date one til he made a comment about vaccines. Then I was like oh you’re CRAZY crazy…bye
They have mostly all switched to Q Camp.
The yoga, vegan, homeopathic crowd is just as anti vax as the q anon crowd, if not more so
Yep. Pre-Covid, Santa Monica and San Francisco were hotbeds of the anti vax movement. It’s less pronounced now because the Right took over as the preeminent anti vaxxers. And the yoga moms don’t want to be seen as conservatives.
It's not so much a line from left to right, it's a circle.
I like this, it makes sense.
How about liberal affluent white people going to inner cities and speaking for minority communities around police relations... It's what happened in New York and is why New York moved from left to center left.
forcing us into cities so they can point at us and laugh while LAND gets a vote in congress. the constitution doesn't start with the "We the land area"
This is the exact argument against vouchers liberals have been making all along. Of course conservatives only understand it once the consequences hit them between the eyes.
They understood it. They either didn't care or actively wanted this result.
I didn’t think the leopards would eat _my_ face
That should be the motto for conservatives here in Texas
Obligatory r/leopardsatemyface
Yeah. It's crazy that people think their plan is something other than to keep them stupid and Republican.
and sick
I'm from OK and people here vouch for homeschooling
Nazis love homeschooling
It's insane to me. Republicans actively punch their voters in the face and take their money all while saying "Hey! Those Democrats *might* punch you in the face andwant to take your guns and trucks and bibles!" The Democrats say "hey uh...no.. we're not gonna do any of that. You can have that stuff but we're not gonna force your neighbor to have it if they dont want it. Oh and maybe we could kinda be nicer to everyone? Like, in general?" And the voters still go "Oh shit! Punch me harder! That'll learn em real good!"
It's religion. Religious faith in things that can't be proven and religious faith in things that are almost fairy tales primes those voters to believe stories/lies/ fairy tales from politicians. It's really easy to believe in things that don't make sense when your whole religion is believing in something that doesn't make sense like a virgin birth and that someone can simultaneously be a father, son, and the holy spirit.
As someone whose Christian its insane to me how easily other Christians are led. I'm sorry, but if you support the current Republican party you are not representing Christianity as it says you should. It says over and over again not to hate others, it says it so much I wonder how these Republicans who hate gay people so much have even read the bible. You are against God if you hate others like that, stop hiding behind God, he told you how he feels about that. You are using God's name in vain, the real definition of the word and not swearing like its sometimes used for.
As a southerner, I can't tell you how clear it is to me that folks have no idea what the Bible says. They don't even "read" it on Audible.
It's no coincidence that a lot of these more hard line churches etc., or those with an agenda, also tell their congregations "The Bible is very complex to read and you should only really attempt to do so in coordination with your Pastor, or better still, don't read it, and let him read it to you."
It is fascinating how easily people are led down a certain path. I think it has to do with the American version of Christianity. There's a uniquely American fervor to our brand of religion that doesn't exist in other places around the globe. For example, One question the pew center asked to tens of thousands of respondents around world was "how certain are you that God exists?" In America, 94% of people who identified as religious and 60% of the population as a whole said that they were "absolutely certain that God exists without any doubt". In southern states, think Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 70% to 82% of the entire population is "absolutely certain that God exists". I think that is the key thing, the absolute certainty that exists in America's religious population that doesn't exist elsewhere. In other countries, even countries that are much more religious in general, don't come even near to our 60% of the population being certain that God exists. In countries like Italy and Spain and Russia, that number approaches 30%. In fact, there's no country in the whole of western europe where that percentage is above 29%. In other faiths, this absolute certainty doesn't exist at all. In the jewish and Muslim faith, the number of people who said they were "absolutely certain God/ Allah exists" was less than 2%. That's fascinating. Other countries and other faiths leave room for doubt. In America, there is no room for doubt when it comes to faith. That's what I mean when I say it's so much easier to lead those people who are absolutely certain of whatever it says in the Bible without any doubt, it's much easier to lead those people astray to vote for politicians who invoke the name of Jesus, but don't follow any of his teachings as you so aptly noted. It's that American absolute faith and turning off of critical thinking that allows Christianity to be hijacked by people who speak the language of God, but whose actions are much more closer to Hades.
The biggest reason behind that is the US, when it was still the 1-13 colonies, was a haven/dumping ground for the religiously divergent. This is also the origin for why the US has Freedom of Religion so prominent in the Constitution. The US was founded by people who had friends, family, and ancestors that were persecuted for their religion. To be fair, sometimes because they were actually batshit crazy, for their time.
I despise religion in all forms, and especially Christianity. The hypocrisy of oppressors pretending to be persecuted victims is absolutely vile, and I won't even get into the aesthetics of hanging the image of a dead body everywhere as an object of worship. That all said, if all religious people were like you I would think that it is nothing but good, in the way it was intended by it's creator. I think Jesus was a super cool dude who said some really meaningful things, but the fake followers give it a really bad look. If you look at what they actually do and think they couldn't be any further away from Christ, only worshiping themselves. I digress, but the point is I'm glad there are at least a few like you.
Yeah see but the kind of Christians that use the bible as a cudgel don't actually care what it says. They don't intend to use it to walk with God, just to back up their preexisting beliefs. The same way that exact group loves to wave the Constitution around like its a one page document that reads "1. Whatever you want to believe is true, 2. The government shall not infringe on your right to own guns, 3. Taxes are evil, 4. Queer people are evil, 5. America is a Christian nation -Sincerely, the Founding Fathers" I say it as a joke but honestly, that seems to be the level of understanding
Yeah except we are all forgetting the best part about religion: it tells you that you can search inside yourself for an answer from god, directly saying you get to decide for god based on your own feelings or psychosis. So if the bible says one thing but you look inside and you feel uncomfortable about something, suddenly you just found god saying that thing is against god.
>I wonder how these Republicans who hate gay people so much have even read the bible. Many Americans never read a book after high school https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/24-percent-of-american-adults-havent-read-a-book-in-the-past-year--heres-why-.html
But my friend, belief is something clearly not real, is sort of insane too. Just saying…
"You can't reason with someone who claims to be a monotheist while worshipping a trinity." -Robert Heinlein, 'Book of Job' A somewhat... problematic author, but he makes a good point every once in a while.
I'm religious, and so is a lot of my family and were all pretty very liberal. Most of our religious friends are liberal as well. It's mostly the televangelist and people unwilling to actually think for themselves that are conservative. Sadly, it's those same ones who give the rest of us a bad name.
They are giving you a very bad name.
its not just religion. most peoples political views are determined by family, gender, race and ethnicity, region, culture, etc… not critical thinking skills. And also, kinda weird that you’re attacking religion like that, there is no objective truth and not to mention that people don’t always use religion as a foundation for their hatred upon others and there are genuinely good religious people who want the best for everyone
I'm not saying that people's political views are determined by religion, I'm just saying that people who are faithful and believe in religion are much more likely to not use their critical thinking skills. I'm not saying that people use religion as a foundation for hatred, I'm saying that believing in religion sets you up to be lied to by bad actors, in this case, conservative Republican politicians. I'm trying to answer a question about why people would vote against their interests and why people would elect politicians who pursue policies that are against the interests of the voters who elect them. One of the main reasons is religion. Religious voters are much more likely to believe a story that doesn't make sense or to endorse a policy that has no evidence behind it because they already do that in their daily religious lives. Religious people are not a monolith, but without doubt, we can say that they center their lives around believing things that are not true and can't be proven. Their faith in things unseen and unknown is what allows them to be taken advantage of by Republican politicians. When you believe that life isn't controlled by your actions or by the reality of the world, but that life is instead controlled by prayer or by a magical mystery man who lives in the sky, you're much more likely to be led astray in other paths politically here on earth. It's impossible to deny the massive overlap between religious faith and people who believe in q anon. There's got to be a reason for that. There's also a giant overlap in religious people and people who voted for Donald Trump. There's also a huge overlap in religious people and people who believe that January 6th was a hoax and didn't happen. This isn't me saying this, this is studies done by AP/ Reuters and studies done by the Pew charitable trust and their ongoing study on religion in American life.
Problem is it’s not just politicians. It’s their religious leaders. There was a video while Obama was president (or maybe right before he got elected) where a vlogger was visiting a random family while on a road trip. When they asked the matriarch of the family why she believed some of the wild, disproven facts about Obama she immediately responded it was, “because my minister told me.”
There are actual studies that show his point about religion. People that are heavily religious tend to not question their chosen leaders, whover they may be.
Well, they do take the guns as much as they are able.
The people arguing for those sorts of things don't think what they're arguing for counts. Generally they handwave the idea away by saying they aren't proposing to take everything just yet or they think it's a good thing. Most don't even know what the existing gun laws are like or what they're proposing would actually do.
Authoritarians don't think of policies in terms of consequences. They think of whether supporting a policy signals obedience to the right authority. If you are in God's and the king's favor, good consequences will automatically accrue to you. Therefore, you don't need to explicitly think about consequences at all, just about whether you are supporting God and the king. (The prosperity gospel is one iteration of this mindset, yes; but so are "you're either with us or against us" and "only I can fix it".) After all, in the authoritarian mindset, *everyone is always obeying someone.* If you're not obeying God and the king, then who *are* you obeying? Darwin? The Temple of Woke? Fauci? Hillary Clinton? Could it be ... *Satan?* (A corollary: If things are going well for you, but you're not obeying God and the king, you must have *stolen* whatever you have, or been given it as a bribe by some wrong authority like Obama or Satan.)
As a Christian myself, such religious people have always baffled me. They do such horrendous crap and then go to church thinking they're the greatest thing to walk the earth. They're praying that people see the light, and I'm praying that themselves wake up and realize they're still stuck in the cave and need to find the light themselves. They act as if Jesus came down and told everyone to be judgemental pricks.
>only understand it once the consequences hit them between the eyes. Then blame the "woke liberals"
Reality and modern conservatism don't mix. It's like oil and water.
No they will still blame democrat for it. This is the go to for Republicans. Pass horrible laws that take a few years to realize their awfulness. Blame democrats for how bad things are. If the democrats have power in any branch of government, the republicans will easily blame them.
And they won’t even see the consequences. They are so deeply manipulated that they would rather risk schools collapsing and kids not being educated, just to guard against “them liberals making my kids gays and marry minorities” or whatever.
and it’s exactly why “school choice” is killing our education system.
The God People are eating themselves.
Let's hope they have huge appetites
No doubt!
GOP's plan is TO DOOM PUBLIC SERVICES! This is not surprising to anyone that hasn't been living under a rock. GOP wants to privatize everything so they can make money. Schools have been leaning towards privatization (religious and commercial) for decades.
What gets me is these rural rubes are voting in the people that are doing this. Doesn't make any sense.
And they wonder why their children move away as soon as possible
It makes perfect sense to people for whom nothing matters except hurting the people they hate.
Hey, you just described Christianity!
Sadly, lots of Christians act this way. When I go to church and hear about the love that Jesus had for us all. I take his teachings to heart and care for others as best as I can. However, so many Christians hear those same words and decide that banning drag or hating some who is LGBTQ+ is what Jesus wanted.
Personally, I blame Paul. The whole 'salvation comes through faith alone, the law or good deeds don't matter' narrative of his kind of negated most of Jesu actuals ethical and theological teachings. The only thing left of Jesus nowadays is usually a naive belief in magic and a vague sense of moral superiority.
And guess who they will blame when they have to drive two hours to go to a hospital or have 60 kids to one teacher...
*"That frickin Biden and all them thar libruls with their frickin books!"*
When voting to hate a political party outweighs voting for your well being
The article says that R's were carrying that district by a margin of 9-1. Say you piss off 30% of the voters and they switch, R's still win 6-4. There's no downside, only the upside of profit for the network of lightly regulated religious charter schools you own. Even more nefarious, now that the district is more competitive because you pissed off 30% of your everyday reliable voters by forcing them into 1-hour round-trips (article says closest private school was 30 min away) for pickup, drop-off, and sports, now the candidate will have to take your PAC money to win and you *will* own them for every other vote that can benefit you in the state.
All they have to do is feign a voice like they're telling it like it is and these bozos are sold. Be a Man, right......
They've been getting their information from the same places for decades. That never goes well.
And it never changes… How interesting, how bizarre
Ultimately they want to privatize everything so it's only available to those with money. Ignorance, Starvation, exposure, terror and disease have always been the authoritarian fundementalist's best means of keeping the pest population down.
That IS the plan.
This would have been somewhat okay 70-80 years ago when plenty of religious schools were non profit. But most modern non catholic religious schools are following the charter school ideal which is that they end up being for profit institutions (they get profit from the local government and taxpayers). So if the rural communities are too small to turn a profit in, those religious and charter schools won’t last long. Those schools get shutdown with a quickness.
No, they want to privatize it so "they" and thier "friends" who donate to thier campaigns can make money. JFC, I thought everyone knew this. /s
The uneducated are easier to manipulate.
You spelled MAGAs wrong....
Christians and republicans are destroying this country. Fuck ‘em!
I'm a Christian, and I've voted blue pretty much my entire life. I'm not your enemy. There's a lot of very liberal Christians such as myself who fight against the Republicans and their evil ways.
Well then you 'good' xtains need to get tf off your asses and reform your damn book club so that it is compatible with modern society or else bugger off to your own communities like the Amish do!
I wish it were that easy. A definite reform of the religion as a whole is needed because, in my mind, a lot of the parables in the Bible were a guidebook to surviving 20 AD. Which is not needed in today's society.
You are losing. To me, a non Christian American, your voice is completely lost in a sea of screaming hate. Your "a lot" is losing to a fascist takeover and the only sane seeming people left are pretending not to notice. As far as I'm concerned Christianity is the problem, and the few like you who are not gibbering insane murderous morons are basically a rounding error. The fact that you still identify as the same religion as them speaks volumes. What you call evil has completely co-opted and replaced your religion, so you materially support evil by remaining with them. Religion isn't what's in your heart, it's what you do to other people.
It's a feature not a bug
Jefferson county Florida got rid of public schools in favor of charter schools and gave them more resources. They did not perform better than public schools and after 5 years the county returned to public school and was allocated less money than the charters were given.
To me, everything a republican does is for the grift, to put money in *their* pockets, skim a lil of the top here and there. Because money make you happy? But, by the looks of today's R's it makes you bitter, angry and afraid. But, they gotta get their cut before anyone else does.
That is, after all, the plan.
High school sports, specially football are sacred in Texas. In small towns football games are a very big deal. Forcing consolation is not going set well if neighboring districts are forced to merge. Merge with our rivals? No way.
People have died fighting over fucking kids sports. Really sad we have to feel this way. Why cant we go back to loving our neighbors uniqueness? Thanks Trump.
When exactly did Americans love their neighbors who were different from them? Asking for a friend.
Consolidation is fiscal prudence. There's absolutely no reason to effectively double the administrative, athletic, and facility needs to operate two 1,200-student districts when they can consolidate and benefit from economies of scale. However much rural Texas feel about their high school football team, maintaining independent school systems for pride's sake has tangible, negative impacts on the academic opportunities afforded to rural students.
The issue is not the the size, it’s the distance. Yes it would save money, but would it make sense? Are teachers now expected to drive 3 hours to work? Are the students expected to leave their homes at 4am to go to school? Cause don’t think for a moment that when the districts combine that this wouldn’t be an end result.
That's the appeal of living in the sticks, no? Being far away from everything? Don't see why it should be subsidized to be antisocial.
Ooop, you got a point. But housing in cities would need reform, like we would need to start allowing massive towers like the ones seen in Singapore to help with that type of population increase.
I'm down for that, tbh. We can start by abolishing exclusionary zoning and allowing multifamily infill instead of endless SFH suburbia.
1,200 student districts lol, those are huge for rural standards. My girl's graduating class was roughly 50.
That's the whole point you libtwat. -some Texas based GOP rep
*cries in American*
That's the gop working as intended
This is by design.
They need to face the consequences finally for always voting red in this state, since i and everyone else always have had to.
Ah, but they're brainwashed. They're gonna put all the blame on the "other side".
They will blame the woke teachers and drag queens.
They keep electing the same people who keep their lives in a shambles. At this point, they deserve what they get.
In other words, the plan is working as designed.
Robert Lee, Texas. Named the city after a traitor. Shocking they would be “deep red”.
Well, that's because the GOP hates America.
…because Texas Republicans are Dixiecrats who never got over Brown V Board. So now they just want to kill public ed altogether.
Pretty sure they never got over their failed attempt to create a confederacy. Brown vs board was just the latest thing to make them screech.
Umm yeah. Rs don’t think you should have ANY service you don’t pay for point-of-sale, you freeloading motherfucker….BOOTSTRAPS!
I guess if the rural people don't want schools or hospitals, then they don't have to have them.
This is just sad. Public schools are essential. I don't want my tax dollars going to private education or home schooling.
As long as they have a football program, they really don’t care.
I read a couple years ago that Texas was no longer resurfacing rural roads and letting them turn back to dirt.
Lovely. “Here’s some money parents. Teach your kids at home.” “Science class. Open your bible to page….”
Think this is bad? Read up on Iowa. Our governor is determined to out do any other conservative out there. I'm actually kind of shocked how the media hasn't started to take notice. She isn't being covert about it at all.
Texass just plain sucks
Welp I feel bad for any Democratic voting deep red rural Texans. Hope you make it out. The rest of you chicken fuckers can stew in it. Hee Haw freedom yall.
Just the way republicans want it - an utterly uneducated population to more easily manipulate like meat puppets. But hey... *bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe* (also an ignorant opinion, based on feelings and not on objective and holistic reality, actively pushed by the more machiavellian minds if the right wing, btw).
Public edumacation ain’t nuttin’ but socialism! Make those kids work the farms to feed the rich! That’s the way it’s supposed to be cause god says so! /s
“Wait— what do you mean: this election comes with consequences?!”
This isn't on accident. They *want* to doom public schools. They *hate* all forms of public secular education. They want your only option to be private religious education.
Have at it. My kids (which I don’t and never had… but paid school taxes for decades) don’t go there. It’s the local voters who will suffer and have their very own elected officials to blame, although they won’t.
Nah, you're right. They'll blame the Democrats, Biden, immigrants, Zelensky, the price of eggs, they'll blame *everyone* and *everything* but themselves. As usual.
Best way to create permanent underclass of debt slaves, making money for the shareholders.
It's a feature not a flaw.
I don’t think they care
They will care when they realize without schools, no one will stay in their little towns. By then it will be too late.
So maybe start thinking a little more about how you vote.
According to the article, this is exactly what 90% of the voters in those rural school districts voted for. It's not like this is a new effort by the GOP. It is decades old. One of the OG efforts to cut public school funding and hurt the poor. Not only that, but opposition has been warning about these exact results from the very begining. And even more than all that, the voucher programs have been around so long that we have actually had time to see and measure the longer term effects. I feel a little bad for the 10% who vote against the politicians attacking their schools. But the rest are getting exactly what the voted for.
Just when you thought a rural area in a southern red state couldn't get worse in a metric, the GOP brings you worse. And the people that live there will vote for them.
Rural America can sometimes be a battered spouse.
> "It’s all in how you ask the question" It must be hard to live with people that have so many contradictions. Do you like schools? Yes Do you like taxes? No. Then where should schools get the money from? From the goverment. Where the goverment gets the money from? Not from me.
When the questions are asked in terms of actual services and funding, it turns out that most "conservative voters" are actually 100% in favour of full on mixed economy socialism *provided* it can be ensured that no black, mexican, liberal or unchristian people benefit from those services and support programs.
Rolling around naked in the mud, firing on live human targets, legalized slavery and cannabilism is the GOP platform and plan. They have NOTHING.
Dumb them down, that's the GOP plan.
That’s what they want.
I mean, isn't there a phrase that encompasses all? "F around and find out"? I think it's that. It's sad. All of those people are going to struggle even more with their lives.
"Backed by a surge of campaign spending from far-right Christian megadonors, Republicans in Texas and nationwide are pushing legislation that would siphon money from public education under the banner of “parents’ rights.” These plans, commonly known as vouchers, would give parents the money the state would have spent educating their children in public schools — between $8,000 and $10,000 per child per year in Texas — and allow them to put it toward homeschooling expenses, private school tuition or college savings accounts." We need to rip the money out of politics and never let a single dime of it back in. It's not controversial or partisan to expect that the government *should* be working in the public interest.
Here’s a thought: stop electing the GOP
It’s okay, republicans want to live in squaller without medical treatment, social security, or education. They can pull up their boot straps and do those things alone.
They don't care. The people will vote against their self interest every time.
“Keep them stupid and poor” ~Texas GOP
This is a feature not a bug.
I think that's the point.
Dude is playing it all wrong. He just needs to go the closest fox affiliate station and tell everyone that the woke libs are trying to tear down his school because it’s named after Robert E. Lee (for fucks sake). Bingo bango infinite donation cheat unlocked.
r/leopardsatemyface
Anyone sad if the Robert Lee Independent School District has to close down or cut down programs? They can go to hell, confederate losers
Republicans want to screw over their own constituents, more at 8:00...
Not sure why this hypothetical “could” is being used. Should be “will” and “are”
Pretty sure that's the idea
I thought that was the plan, though.
let them have it.. they voted for it.
Fuck em, good luck
Talibangelicals.
The GOP wants these small rural schools to close so the kids can go to work instead.
The fact that these fucking clowns don't even want their children to be educated should be criminal. Setting this country even further back than we already are, they won't be happy until we are living in mud huts and stoning someone publicly for being too effeminate/masculine.
The stupider the population the more you can indoctrinate them into your sky god cult.
In other words, things are going according to the plan. It really is a race to the bottom with these red states. If it wasn't for oil in Texas and tourism in Florida, every red state would be broke or close to broke.
It's what they want. Stupid people are easier to influence and control. That's why all of the book banning
That's the plan. The Texas GOP relies heavily on rural uneducated voters. Dooming the Texas economy is a price they are willing to pay to maintain power
Republicans understand that educated people tend not to vote for them. They have been successfully undermining public education for decades.
"And the deep red, toothless masses applaud " (Want to insert some Monty Python cartoon here, probably from the Holy Grail)
That is a feature, not a bug
Wasn't that the plan anyway?
That's the plan.
Mission accomplished
Fuck them kids
But but what about transing the kids..
"Ow, my foot!" screams the Aiming Downwards Party.
Children of the corn
It's past time to reorganize schools from Victorian models to online classrooms. A kid in rural Texas or downtown Detroit have equal access to and can receive education from a doctorate holder at Yale at a fraction of the cost of a building, administration, transportation and an admin school d graduate student. Nvm the various...issues public schools concentrate, between pedophiles, targets for extremists, illicit substances and bullying. Geography no longer determines accessibility.
isn't that their plan? why is anyone shocked to learn this? they have been saying this was their plan since the 1980's and only now that they are nearly done are the press taking notice? ffs.
Isn't this their goal?
Texas rural public are mostly idiots who will always vote Republican even when Republicans burn down their lives.
I think that’s the idea
Oh, now deep red conservativesare gonna cry when they pushed the charter school and voucher programs that will harm rural public schools. It's a bit late to catch on.
“…allow them to put it toward homeschooling expenses, private school tuition or college savings accounts.” How the heck is an under-educated child supposed to get into college?
If we educate 'em, then they'll be smarter than us. Can't have that.
Well that would be a form of justice I guess.
They don't care. Women are expendable. Kids are expendable. Minorities are expendable. All that matters is they consolidate their power and move the state closer to a theocracy.
I do believe that it's a feature, not a flaw in their plan
Dooming public schools - rural and otherwise - is the point. Institutions that support a civil society and serve all its citizens in their colorful diversity are the christo-fascists' enemy #1. They *want* an ignorant, compliant populace. According to the story, this district went 90% for Trump. It will be sad when their town (and many like it) die for lack of a school, but they'll have only themselves to blame. They fell for the scam.
>~~In deep-red Texas, officials warn~~ GOP ~~plans could~~ doom ~~rural~~ public ~~schools~~ FTFY
This is the most leopardatemyface shit ever. Fucking Republicans....lol.
This reminds me of the book [*Dying of Whiteness*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness) by J. Metzl.
Woah. *"...Metzl found that some vulnerable white Americans would rather die than betray their political views that have become enmeshed with their own sense of white identity."* That's what's happening.
**[Dying of Whiteness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness)** >Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland is a 2019 non-fiction book written by Jonathan M. Metzl, a Nashville, Tennessee Vanderbilt University professor of sociology and psychiatry, based on research undertaken in Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas from 2013 to 2018. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/inthenews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Schools were already doomed for many years now
I think private school tuition would increase.