Tuesday, April 3, 2012

History Lesson

As both Rachel Maddow and Booman note, Rick Santorum makes the demonstrably false claim that the University of California system doesn’t teach a course in American history.

I was just reading something last night from the state of California. And that the California universities – I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.

Actually, they do. It’s a degree requirement.

What he’s really saying is that they don’t teach American history the way he sees it. His vision of American history goes along the lines of Jesus Christ and the Founding Fathers defeating the heathen Indians and British to carve out a nation from the wilderness to make the world safe for white men who didn’t like paying taxes. Then, after winning the Revolution (with Jesus on a dinosaur), the Son of God sat down with Ben Franklin and the guys in Philadelphia and wrote the bible-inspired Constitution. Women didn’t need to vote — that’s what the men were for — and don’t get him started with the queer folk.

Anyone who says anything different is distorting history, so it’s not really history at all. And that’s why they don’t teach it in California.

One bark on “History Lesson

Comments are closed.