"Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading." --G. M. Trevelyan
I put an extremely high premium on education. Unfortunatley, I am one of the few. Americans have taken their FREE education for granted. Teacherts have become selfish and care more about their own benefits than they do about their own students. It has become a battle to educate our children. Which is insane. There needs to be a complete overhaul of the educational system in this country. Sure we have a higher literacy rate than most countries in the world. But, like G. M. Trevelyan said, it is one thing to KNOW how to read, but another to know what to read. I am appalled at how many ignorant people there are who can't even be bothered to pick up a newpaper to know what is happening in the world around them. In stead it is all about them and what it easy. I am sick of it. This country was founded upon the principle that everyone has the right to think freely and everyone has the right to an education. We still do, however we don't utilize this amazing privilege.
I am over it. I am over it all. The quest for knowlede has been trumped by greed and sloth. This country is literally deteriorating because we are too fucking lazy to do anything about it or lack the correct amount of knowledge to even know what to do. It is pathetic. It is time for a change, a revolution. The entire way this country handles educations needs to change.
Starting with the teacher union. It is extremely enervating to even think about. The point of being a teacher is NOT to get more benfits and NOt to get paid more. it is to TEACH. It is to teach children and plant the seeds of knowledge so they can sprout and become upstanding members of our community. It all begins with teachers at a very early age. If pre-schoolers and kindergarteners are not taught from the second they enter the classroom how important it is to learn, they will NOt succeed in life. Shitty teachers, get the hell out of the school systems. I am tired of sitting through classes where the teachers just don't give a shit if their students are actually learning, just as long as they get their benfits then it is all ok. FALSE! We need to reform the whole thing. We need to have ways to test the effectiveness of EVERY teacher. It is not fair to let the selfishness of these adults take advantage of their students. There is a difference between self-interest and selfishness. Self-interest means you want yourself to survive which is admirable and of course, necessary. Selfishness is haveing no regards for those around you as long as you get what you want. It is carelessness. There is no room for carelessness in the educational system. i dont care how much money a school has or doesn't have. THese teachers need to be teaching because they know that they are doing something great. Every kid starts with the same amount of potential to learn. How can this country survive if a bunch of illiterate bumpkins are running this country. This country was created for WE THE PEOPLE. Act like the decent citizens you should, teachers. It's like, we give you an inch, so you have to take a fucking mile. Now, don't get me wrong I do think teachers need somekind of financial protection, because they can't always be successful with every student. But they just don't even have an incentive to TRY. Because they are basically set for life. I am SO lucky that I was given the teachers I had. I have only had a few bad teachers, but most people aren't that lucky... It is time for a change. I am all for minimal government, but if itcomes down to it, I will put a fucking video camera in every damn classroom to make sure the teachers are doing what they are supposed to be doing. I mean, if your were an accountant, and you don't try and consistently make errors which cost your company money, what is going to happen to you? You will get fired. SImple. and no one would even question it. However, it doesn't work like that with teachers, a teacher can be horrible. For years, which costs this country more than just money... We loose well educated citizens who vote, who are involved, who are have steady jobs and pay their bills. How can anyone possibly do that if, when they are in 2nd grade are given the tools to learn how to be successful farther in life. Each year is a building block upon which we learn more and are able to apply it more and more to the real world, until eventually you are in the real world. Either you have a stable and solid structure with which you eneter in to the real world. Or you are missing those essential building blocks, and eventually you and risk a total collapse. And its all because in Second grade you had a teachert who didn't care. Well, I'm done with it. I don't care how popular it is or what anyone says. It is time we put our public school teachers under some scrutiny. It is time we turned the pressure on. All these strikes are BULLSHIT. How dare you take away from a child's education because you didn't every cent you think you deserve. How can you stand to look at yourself in the mirror? How is it in anyway fair to the children? Didn't think abouyt that did you? No, because you are so busy thinking about yourself. Selfishness and ignorance go hand-in-hand.
However, all the blame can't and shouldn't be put on the teachers, because fortunately there are many teachers out there who care so much about the success of every child they teach. A lot of the blame must be put on the parents. To a young child, parents are god. They are the ultimate authority. If the parents don't instill how important education is into their children from the day they are born, then all the efforts these teachers put in are meaningless. It is sad how many parents out there couldn't give a rat's ass about their children and their education. They barely work and sit around waiting for their welfare check. While the children are not learning how to break the cycle, but merely learning how the government will take care of them. Ultimately saying, whats the point of school? Who cares? The government will take care of me. FLASE. It is horrible whatr so many of these parents are doing today. Rich and poor. The richest parents are just as guilty. Trust fund babies can have the same lack of responsibility or urgency to learn as a kid on welfare. It all stems from the parents. If they are not involved in their children's education, it all goes to shit. Parents need to become more informed about how important it is for their kids to be educated. Obviously, not everyone can go to college, but at least fucking finish high school. Americans have become SO DAMN LAZY. The everage American school is in session for 180 days out of the year. In Japan, the kids are in school for somewhere around 220. It's like we really can't be bothered to go to school a little bit more? It makes me SO angry to think about how many kids just dont give a shit about school because their parents don't. It is sad and it is deteriorating our country.
It is time we taught the next generation how important it is to have a basic understanding of how the world works. People need to know how our government works, they need to know how to read and write at a high level. We need to be able to know what happens in the world around us. What I am asking isn't even that hard to do. All it takes is a campaign for education from the very beginning. Every child deserves to make something out of their life, that is th beauty of this country, but if they aren't given the tools with which they can flourish, how can we possibly expect them to be successful?
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Religion
I chose to talk about Religion because it is probably one of the things I am most passionate about. HOwever, it is NOT because I put any stock in a higher being or because I have some deep spiritual connection with a Divinity that cannot be explained. It is because I put my stock in science. In fact, I have so much thoughts going through my head that I want to say I don't even know where to begin. So, I am going to start with a quote from Karl Marx which goes like this, "Religion is the opiate to the masses." Although, I am in no way a fan of communism, Marx makes an excellent point. Religion is addicting and mind-numbing. It is a structure in which the elite have the ability to control the masses because they make promises that they cannot keep. They say by following God's rules, you will be given a reward. Whether it be heaven, reincarnation whatever, the point is, the people in charge make the rules.
I can understand the need for religion thousands of years ago when nothing could be explained. It filled the void that people could not understand. For example look at the Greek and Roman Gods, each god represented a phenomenon that couldnt otherwise be explained. Zeus throws lightening bolts, hence we have lightening. Yet, we now know what causes lightening and therefore, no longer need Zeus as an explanation for it. Yet, somehow religion still plays has an enormous influential effect on the people in this modern world.
I believe that, like everything else religion SHOULD evolve. Eventually, it should evolve into science. Once we explain everything, why is there a need for religion to begin with? While were on the subject, let's take human evolution as an example. It has been scientifically proven that today's homosapians were not the same 10 million years ago. Throughout time, the human race has and continues to evolve, physically, emotionally, mentally etc. It is insane to dispute evolution because we have cold, hard evidence. Yet, still there are people whose religions won't allow them to accept the "theory" of evolution. Some say the world is but 6,000 years old and that a man in the sky pointed his finger and magically the extremely complex humanoid appeared, essentially out of thin air. Now tell ME what sounds crazier? Over millions and millions of years humans, plants, animals have evolved from a tiny little protein in the sea to a diverse world of various species. OR that a man pointed his finger and suddenly there was life on this planet. Hm. Curious. But I digress.
Religion was also good when there was a time where morals and social structure didn't exist. It was a good way to set up a code on conduct to fraw the lines between what was right and wrong. A black and white sort of thing. Now, there is more grey than black and white. I know it is wrong to murder someone. But even this can be blurred:
--I know it is wrong to murder someone, unless they were trying to kill me, unless they were trying to rob me, unless they threatened my family, unless they raped me, unless they.... and the list goes on.
As the human race develops and our thoughts and ideas become more progressive and complex, it is harder for that black and white to stay black and white. Which is exactly what religion does. Now, various religious bodies try desperatley to "restore balance" where there is no unbalance. Lets take homosexuality as an example. According to the Christian Bible, Leviticus 18, when loosely interpreted says that homosexuality is wrong and immoral. Maybe it was back then, when they were trying to repopulate a tribe that's numbers had been severely lessened by years in the desert. Maybe, then it was ok to say that man and man, woman and woman shall not have sex because we will get no offspring from such relationships and right now, we need to repopulate. Now in a world where we have over 5 billion people, over 1 billion of them are christians, I don't think lack of offspring is an issue. Furthermore, how is homosexuality in anyway wrong? I can't seem to comprehend it. O yeah, that's right because the BIBLE says it isn't. Well, no offense big guy in the sky, but who the fuck are you to tell someone how to live their life? If you, God, are truly the creator of man, why even create homosexuality in the first place? I'm sorry, but I think your followers have gotten it a little confused. Especially when they go on about it being a choice. I have plenty of gay and lesbian friends. NOt one of them woke up one day and said Hey! I'm gonna be a lesbian. THey all say that they have always been a lesbian even if they denied it to themselves. And what kind of world do we live in where we discriminate against someone because of who they love. Love is such a rare and fragile thing, why try and take away what little there already is?
People are SO IGNORANT to think that because someone is in anyway different from you, it is bad. BEcause one person believes Jesus was magic and the other believe that their sorceror hasn't yet come does NOT make one better than the other. Ignorance sprouts from religion because the followers are taught that their way is the only way. There is no room for inquiry. Which I find to be one of the most aweful qualities I can find in a human being. The unwillingness to listen to another opinion because you thinks it isn't correct.
There are no words to describe how angry I get when people refuse to even listen to the other side. Just because I want you to know my opinion, in no way means that I am going to try and change yours. But I can educate you to what other people think.
Religion dulls that sense that, "gee maybe there IS more than one way to look at this."
If you can't already tell, I don't associate myself with any religion due to the fact that I only believe what can be proven. I do not believe in a "God" of any kind. I believe that science happened. As a result of science, our planet formed, and because we had the right conditions, proteins were able to form and build on one another and turn into creatures which eventually evolved into a diverse world of living creatures.
I will later blog on the hypocrisy in religion today, but that is for a later time. I just wanted to get a basic foundation on my thoughts about religion, considering there is so many of them.
I can understand the need for religion thousands of years ago when nothing could be explained. It filled the void that people could not understand. For example look at the Greek and Roman Gods, each god represented a phenomenon that couldnt otherwise be explained. Zeus throws lightening bolts, hence we have lightening. Yet, we now know what causes lightening and therefore, no longer need Zeus as an explanation for it. Yet, somehow religion still plays has an enormous influential effect on the people in this modern world.
I believe that, like everything else religion SHOULD evolve. Eventually, it should evolve into science. Once we explain everything, why is there a need for religion to begin with? While were on the subject, let's take human evolution as an example. It has been scientifically proven that today's homosapians were not the same 10 million years ago. Throughout time, the human race has and continues to evolve, physically, emotionally, mentally etc. It is insane to dispute evolution because we have cold, hard evidence. Yet, still there are people whose religions won't allow them to accept the "theory" of evolution. Some say the world is but 6,000 years old and that a man in the sky pointed his finger and magically the extremely complex humanoid appeared, essentially out of thin air. Now tell ME what sounds crazier? Over millions and millions of years humans, plants, animals have evolved from a tiny little protein in the sea to a diverse world of various species. OR that a man pointed his finger and suddenly there was life on this planet. Hm. Curious. But I digress.
Religion was also good when there was a time where morals and social structure didn't exist. It was a good way to set up a code on conduct to fraw the lines between what was right and wrong. A black and white sort of thing. Now, there is more grey than black and white. I know it is wrong to murder someone. But even this can be blurred:
--I know it is wrong to murder someone, unless they were trying to kill me, unless they were trying to rob me, unless they threatened my family, unless they raped me, unless they.... and the list goes on.
As the human race develops and our thoughts and ideas become more progressive and complex, it is harder for that black and white to stay black and white. Which is exactly what religion does. Now, various religious bodies try desperatley to "restore balance" where there is no unbalance. Lets take homosexuality as an example. According to the Christian Bible, Leviticus 18, when loosely interpreted says that homosexuality is wrong and immoral. Maybe it was back then, when they were trying to repopulate a tribe that's numbers had been severely lessened by years in the desert. Maybe, then it was ok to say that man and man, woman and woman shall not have sex because we will get no offspring from such relationships and right now, we need to repopulate. Now in a world where we have over 5 billion people, over 1 billion of them are christians, I don't think lack of offspring is an issue. Furthermore, how is homosexuality in anyway wrong? I can't seem to comprehend it. O yeah, that's right because the BIBLE says it isn't. Well, no offense big guy in the sky, but who the fuck are you to tell someone how to live their life? If you, God, are truly the creator of man, why even create homosexuality in the first place? I'm sorry, but I think your followers have gotten it a little confused. Especially when they go on about it being a choice. I have plenty of gay and lesbian friends. NOt one of them woke up one day and said Hey! I'm gonna be a lesbian. THey all say that they have always been a lesbian even if they denied it to themselves. And what kind of world do we live in where we discriminate against someone because of who they love. Love is such a rare and fragile thing, why try and take away what little there already is?
People are SO IGNORANT to think that because someone is in anyway different from you, it is bad. BEcause one person believes Jesus was magic and the other believe that their sorceror hasn't yet come does NOT make one better than the other. Ignorance sprouts from religion because the followers are taught that their way is the only way. There is no room for inquiry. Which I find to be one of the most aweful qualities I can find in a human being. The unwillingness to listen to another opinion because you thinks it isn't correct.
There are no words to describe how angry I get when people refuse to even listen to the other side. Just because I want you to know my opinion, in no way means that I am going to try and change yours. But I can educate you to what other people think.
Religion dulls that sense that, "gee maybe there IS more than one way to look at this."
If you can't already tell, I don't associate myself with any religion due to the fact that I only believe what can be proven. I do not believe in a "God" of any kind. I believe that science happened. As a result of science, our planet formed, and because we had the right conditions, proteins were able to form and build on one another and turn into creatures which eventually evolved into a diverse world of living creatures.
I will later blog on the hypocrisy in religion today, but that is for a later time. I just wanted to get a basic foundation on my thoughts about religion, considering there is so many of them.
An Introduction
My name is Ryan. I am going to be a Sophomore in college this fall. Over the past several years, it has come to my attention how ignorant most of America really is. During my junior year in high school I participated in a competition based on the United States Constitution and everything that surrounds it, from the documents that most influenced the writing of it, to the events that forced the Framers to write it, to the arguments surrounding it at the time and how the Constitution has been molded, interpreted, amended throughout it's history and finally how it applies to us as Americans today. At the time, I was a good little student and did his homework and learned what he needed to. It wasn't until I got to college that I really began to realize how important it is that we as citizens of the United States who are contractually bound to the Constitution, understand what it means for us and to at least have a basic knowledge of how it was created, where it came from etc.
Now, let me be clear, this blog is NOT to just rant about the ignorance of Americans when it comes to their government. No, no, it is a blog to rant about the ignorance of Americans as a whole. My eyes have been opened to understand how dumb this country really is. From religion, to history to health to basic common sense I mean everything. Let's take McDonald's as an example. It has been proven to be unhealthy and bad for your body. Yet, the line in the drive-thru when I pass by any given McDonald's is still at least 10 cars long during Dinner or lunch time and almost never has less than 3 cars throughout the day. I understand it tastes good and is cheap, but really? You cant find a better alternative? I mean it is pathetic that no matter what studies say, we take the way that is easiest and cheapest. I mean we can't even walk into the fucking building, we have to pull our cars up to the window. How about since your eating a 2,000 calorie burger, you WALK into the building and burn at least 20 of those thousands of calories you will be in-taking. But no, common sense flies out the window because it's a little bit harder to park, exit your vehicle, walk 20 steps to the entrance, open the door and stand in line. Ironically enough, doing so usually takes LESS time than sitting in the drive thru. But it gets better, because once you have received your burger and fries (lets not discuss the amount of sodium one finds in the fries alone...) you take it home to your house and sit in front of your brain rotting television watching mindless tv while you stuff your face with enough calories to last you an entire week and enough sodium to to make another Great Salt Lake. So in the hour that you have spent getting and consuming your burger you have lessened your health and rotted your brain. Congratulations, but hey! at least it tastes good!
That McDonald's rant is only a glimpse of what I plan to discuss on this blog. Believe me, I could go on for pages at a time about the fast food industry alone.
Ultimately, this blog is to discuss ignorant Americans and share with the world my astonishment at how logic and rationality seems non-existent to 90% of the United States population. Instead they let meaningless emotions and feelings like greed, hatred and lethargy control their lives.
I want to to invite any and all comments as long as they are well thought out and make a valid point. As I have made clear, ignorance is not a virtue that I hold with high esteem. I would love to hear all sides of every argument I make.
Now, let me be clear, this blog is NOT to just rant about the ignorance of Americans when it comes to their government. No, no, it is a blog to rant about the ignorance of Americans as a whole. My eyes have been opened to understand how dumb this country really is. From religion, to history to health to basic common sense I mean everything. Let's take McDonald's as an example. It has been proven to be unhealthy and bad for your body. Yet, the line in the drive-thru when I pass by any given McDonald's is still at least 10 cars long during Dinner or lunch time and almost never has less than 3 cars throughout the day. I understand it tastes good and is cheap, but really? You cant find a better alternative? I mean it is pathetic that no matter what studies say, we take the way that is easiest and cheapest. I mean we can't even walk into the fucking building, we have to pull our cars up to the window. How about since your eating a 2,000 calorie burger, you WALK into the building and burn at least 20 of those thousands of calories you will be in-taking. But no, common sense flies out the window because it's a little bit harder to park, exit your vehicle, walk 20 steps to the entrance, open the door and stand in line. Ironically enough, doing so usually takes LESS time than sitting in the drive thru. But it gets better, because once you have received your burger and fries (lets not discuss the amount of sodium one finds in the fries alone...) you take it home to your house and sit in front of your brain rotting television watching mindless tv while you stuff your face with enough calories to last you an entire week and enough sodium to to make another Great Salt Lake. So in the hour that you have spent getting and consuming your burger you have lessened your health and rotted your brain. Congratulations, but hey! at least it tastes good!
That McDonald's rant is only a glimpse of what I plan to discuss on this blog. Believe me, I could go on for pages at a time about the fast food industry alone.
Ultimately, this blog is to discuss ignorant Americans and share with the world my astonishment at how logic and rationality seems non-existent to 90% of the United States population. Instead they let meaningless emotions and feelings like greed, hatred and lethargy control their lives.
I want to to invite any and all comments as long as they are well thought out and make a valid point. As I have made clear, ignorance is not a virtue that I hold with high esteem. I would love to hear all sides of every argument I make.
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