This Week in Republican Crazy, Idaho Edition
Idaho State Senator John Goedde, chair of the Education Committee, introduced a bill requiring all high school students read, and pass a test on, Atlas Shrugged as a requirement for graduation.
Sadly, it seems that he’s just joking.
h/t John Neuharth
Cody:
February 6th, 2013 at 10:52 am
Why would a HS require online courses to graduate?
Wait – I’m going to hazard a guess – in some manner the people who sell these online courses to Idaho fund this Senators campaign.
What do you do if you don’t have internet access at home and don’t have reliable transportation to a library whenever you need?
Unless you allow kids to do the online courses at school (during class time), which would seem pretty dumb since you could just have the teacher teach.
Hogan:
February 6th, 2013 at 11:48 am
Making Atlas Shrugged required reading? Wouldn’t refusing to read it be the Randian thing to do?
JazzBumpa:
February 6th, 2013 at 11:52 am
Reading Atlas Shrugged made me a Republican
I was 17 at the time.
Then Richard Nixon happened, and slowly the scales fell from my eyes. Reagan. Clinton impeachment. Bush II. McShame. The Romneybot.
Now I wouldn’t vote for a Rethug at any level of government.
They are just that loathsome.
Icarus Wright:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:01 pm
I read Atlas Shrugged at 20 and it alternately bored, amused and nauseated me. Mostly bored.
SteveHinSLC:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:04 pm
I’ve taught law students in Idaho.
I don’t know if enough of them could actually read Atlas Shrugged.
c u n d gulag:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:16 pm
Forcing students to read that awful dreck, might actually have the opposite reaction that this moron might want.
Nothing will turn young students off more than having to read massive some book with an 80+ page self-aggrandizing monologue by some rich @$$hole, extolling about how his selfishness and greed were actually virtues.
Ayn Rand makes sense only to people who have the maturity level of a 3 year-old with emotional problems, and the ability to withstand a huge volume full of insipid writing, violent sex, and brutal and selfish cartoon characters.
trex:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:24 pm
“Herp, derp!” said Idaho State Senator John Goedde, angrily, waving his tiny pistol. “Derp dee hur’” he then said to relieved laughter, easing the tension in the room and giving assurances that this toddler with a loaded weapon wasn’t going to totally fvcking freak out on the state education system over his unresolved daddy issues.
FLRealist:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:25 pm
I love this quote.
delurking:
February 6th, 2013 at 12:53 pm
+1
wengler:
February 6th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
It might be interesting to actually have a critical reading of it, but that book is just too damn long and boring.
Jameson Quinn:
February 6th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Wouldn’t that be unconstitutional on 8th amendment grounds?
DrDick:
February 6th, 2013 at 2:08 pm
That was my reaction when I read it at 14.
DrDick:
February 6th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
I think it is under the 1st Amendment (freedom of religion), as well.
Phil Studge:
February 6th, 2013 at 5:15 pm
How vapid and empty was this fellow’s upbringing, that he needed fantasy fiction to acquire personal responsibility?
Alan in SF:
February 6th, 2013 at 5:18 pm
Personal responsibility for inspecting the safety of a restaurant before you dine there, personal responsbility for making sure the banker doesn’t run out the back door with the money you just deposited, personal responsibility for blowing back the toxic cloud drifting in from your neighbor’s meth lab…Utopia!
sharculese:
February 6th, 2013 at 5:21 pm
If this is true then the high school teacher who assigned me Brighton Rock has some explaining to do.
Crackity Jones:
February 6th, 2013 at 6:17 pm
“Joking”? Ah yes. My favorite backpedal though is the “satire” defense. These people are so cute.
ChrisTS:
February 6th, 2013 at 6:42 pm
But aside from all the preaching, it is full of extra-marital sex. And Dabney is not a cookie-baking, child-rearing, decent woman.
Maybe that’s why he decided it would have to be just a joke.
cpinva:
February 6th, 2013 at 8:37 pm
thank goodness, i was beginning to think i was the only one who made this mistake.
“That was my reaction when I read it at 14.”
in my defense, i was very into sci-fi at the time (bradbury, heinlein, etc), and thought that’s what it was. it was the most god awful piece of dreck ever to cheapen the stacks in a library. it gave new meaning to turgid, and less to prose. i forced myself to finish it, because i felt like, once i started a book, i should finish it. masochism deserves no prize.
cpinva:
February 6th, 2013 at 8:42 pm
if they actually could identify satire, they might even fool one or two people. sadly, no.
marc sobel:
February 7th, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Since apparently this is the Internet site for proposing new Internet Traditions, I think devising the test would be an excellent exercise. There are a number of alternative formats:
1) True False
2) Multiple choice
3) Fill in the blank
4) No Multiple choice
5) Essay
or since it would be online
6) First Person Shooter
My first suggested question would be
Dagney Taggart is:
a) An ethical actor by Objectivist standards
b) Hot
c) A role model for red blooded American adolescent males of all ages.
d) Nothing like the bitches we have to deal with in real life
e) All of the above