Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns

[Kuya]

It is interesting that it is situations just like this, the policies of local State institutions populated with fucking idiots, that leads to the federal government having to intervene on local government, and leading to the collective BAWWWING of State's rights dipshits.

[Beckwin]

^pretty much

fuck state's rights

[aduidarnenye]

What is meant by "states rights"? I always think of the USA as being rather homogeneous. Sure, some areas have reputations, like Texas or the south or the northeastern seaboard or California, but it seems to me that Americans are pretty much the same from state to state.

Or do you mean like how Canada has some things falling under provincial authority (education, health, welfare) and other things federal (defense, post office, criminal law, banking)?

[Plow]

What is meant by "states rights"?

the south wins the civil war

[Kuya]

What is meant by "states rights"? I always think of the USA as being rather homogeneous. Sure, some areas have reputations, like Texas or the south or the northeastern seaboard or California, but it seems to me that Americans are pretty much the same from state to state.

Or do you mean like how Canada has some things falling under provincial authority (education, health, welfare) and other things federal (defense, post office, criminal law, banking)?

It's a complicated mess of history, ideology and practicality. To the rest of the world, and more concretely speaking, State's right is exactly what you said. Provincial authority over some matters because it's more efficient that way.

But in American history State's rights has base in the anti-federalist movement that argued that the US Constitution gave way to a far less democratic entity than what had existed and that it could lead to the institution of a monarchy. Fast forward to now, and State's Rights has become a marker for conservative ideology in the US, wherein, if you're conservative, you believe in State's Rights, but that's not to say there are not some practical considerations. For example, you might want the federal government out of the way so you can insitute some really draconian conservative law, but the feds won't let you, in that case you might be for State's rights. This ideology gained bad fame amongst liberals because it was used to oppose the Civil Rights act of 64.

[aduidarnenye]

Thank you for the very clear, concise explanation! I now know more about the USA.

[Kuya]

Also, constitutionalists might also insist on State's Rights, but that's an issue of chicken or egg.

[Amiricle]

On a related note, I just started taking a comparative religion course online, where most of the participation is thru message boards. Some loling already, but I think most of them mean well, as trolling or preaching would likely result in a poorer grade. Still it is interesting seeing that almost all of the discussion on the boards is about how any one person practices their religion and how foreign the religions were studying seem. Ethnocentrism is a fucking bitch.

On a related note to that, anyone read The Lucifer Principle. Explains the Us vs Them mentality prevalent to people quite well. Excellent book imo and dont let the title fool ya (its not about the devil).

http://howardbloom.net/lucifer/lucifercover.jpg

online version I found:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=YctW...page&q&f=false