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[wobbly]

Here we'd be taught that as part of a different subject. I can't remember which so I'm guessing Geography or Australian History. It's similar to how you'd learn how to do your income tax or about banking in Mathematics. Just a few classes in another subject.

[Hanslanda]

Civics for me was a very... plain class. Teachers here can and do get fired for pushing politics on kids, so the class stuck mostly to the strict facts of how government works. Constitution, three branches, process of making a law, that sort of stuff. I do specifically remember the only time parties even came up was at the question of a kid and the teacher was very careful to basically just state how parties work as blocs of people who tend to work together and that there were two major parties and an assortment of minor parties. Refused to answer what party he belonged to. It was a very easy class as well. Tought by one of the football coaches.

This, in the Bible Belt to boot. They were super careful not to teeter either way.

[RedKing]

Nah, there is the real possibility of severely drastic measures happening.  It'll just be directed toward someone other then themselves.
Of course, it'll most likely make things much worse before it gets better.  Bonus points for corporations'people' profiting off that.

Politicians: Hmm....too much population, you say?
"New Congressional Report Supports Nuking Africa to Combat Climate Change"

[misko27]

How is it more horrifying than the government itself? Better to see the horror than to ignore it. Gaze into the abyss or you will be forced to repeat it, or something like that.

I have always known Americans to be fiercely protective of liberty,

Public education is actually one of the things that America has been doing longer than most. An educated populace is a requirement for democracy. We're not necessarily very good at it, mind, but back when only the few were educated, America tried all.

It's why everyone's seen that "I'm just a Bill" video. Here it is for your foreigners.

[Folly]

It seems clear that efforts to resolve Climate Change are not going to be made voluntarily on the scale that is needed. The only viable option for saving the world from a very real threat may be a military purge of all factions that continue contributing to the problem at unacceptable levels. Could Global Warming finally start WWIII? And if it did, which side would we be on?

[Shazbot]

It seems clear that efforts to resolve Climate Change are not going to be made voluntarily on the scale that is needed. The only viable option for saving the world from a very real threat may be a military purge of all factions that continue contributing to the problem at unacceptable levels. Could Global Warming finally start WWIII? And if it did, which side would we be on?

So global warming is your justification for fascism? The Greens would lose, anyway. Jet aircraft don't work on soybeans and solar power.

[RedKing]

but back when only the few were educated, America tried all.

If you "all" you mean "affluent white sons of landowners and merchants", only later including women, people of color, people who spoke another language, etc.

I mean, I agree with your basic premise that we've been doing the public education thing for a long time (there were sporadic instances in the colonial period), but we didn't have national basic public education until the 1870s, and what we established was based heavily on the Prussian Volksschule system, already established from the 1840s. Germans have us beat by at least 30 years.

Wasn't until the early 20th century that public education was compulsory, and even then only through elementary school. Compulsory education through age 16 wasn't a thing until the 1960s, and the South lagged far behind other regions in requiring compulsory education (which makes some sense -- farmers want their kids plowing fields, not larning a bunch of gobbledygook like numbers and litterashure. The Good Book is good enough, and they'll larn the rest of it at the end of a switch)


@Folly: Good luck with that. Unless you have a formula for eco-friendly smart bombs and organic jet fuel, the militaries of the world are part of those factions you're talking about. I get what you're driving at, an "Alliance of the Earth" vs. "the Axis of Carbon" situation, but I just don't see how that possibly works given that militaries need heavy industry to support them, and the biggest polluters on the planet also tend to have some of the biggest militaries. You'd be more likely to see a series of civil wars in those pollution-heavy nations.

[Folly]

Melania Trump admits that she only started her anti-bullying campaign because she believes she is the most bullied person in the world.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yep. It all makes sense now. *sigh*

[smjjames]

I'd say facepalm because it comes off as rather pretentious, like 'oh woe is me!'

[misko27]

I mean, I agree with your basic premise that we've been doing the public education thing for a long time (there were sporadic instances in the colonial period), but we didn't have national basic public education until the 1870s, and what we established was based heavily on the Prussian Volksschule system, already established from the 1840s. Germans have us beat by at least 30 years.

If it's national public education, than we still don't have any. 

My primary point is that the liberty that Loud Whispers says Americans love so much contains public education of its citizenry as a basic underlying premise. It's very true that various groups were excluded from that, but they were also excluded from the American conception of liberty in general, so that's not so much an education fault in particular so much as a fault/limitation in American liberty itself.

[Cathar]

The victim card as a social currency : right wing edition.

My humble opinion is that when the totality of the political spectrum spends its time crying hot tears and competing against each other to decide who is the worse off and the most under attack, and when a strongman appears and says "enough of that shit", people see that with relief.

Amusing that two years is the time it took to go from "build the wall, lock her up, MAGA" to "pls no bully "

[smjjames]

Trump ain't that strongman though, and strongmen/women don't tend to be the type to go 'ENOUGH! Let us cooperate bipartisanally.', they tend to be 'My way or the highway!'.

Such a 'strongman/woman', or rather, a politician with strong political clout on both sides that could say 'enough of that shit!' and actually make it work doesn't seem to exist. Democrats aren't eager to cooperate with Republicans right now and as Flake said, there just isn't any currency for reaching across the aisle.

Maybe in 2024 though, who knows.

[Reelya]

Someone on another forum linked these survey results, i'll clip out the relevant findings:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.
...
Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness.
...
Three quarters of African Americans oppose political correctness. This means that they are only four percentage points less likely than whites, and only five percentage points less likely than the average, to believe that political correctness is a problem.
...
If age and race do not predict support for political correctness, what does? Income and education.

While 83 percent of respondents who make less than $50,000 dislike political correctness, just 70 percent of those who make more than $100,000 are skeptical about it. And while 87 percent who have never attended college think that political correctness has grown to be a problem, only 66 percent of those with a postgraduate degree share that sentiment.
...
Compared with the rest of the (nationally representative) polling sample, progressive activists are much more likely to be rich, highly educated—and white. They are nearly twice as likely as the average to make more than $100,000 a year. They are nearly three times as likely to have a postgraduate degree. And while 12 percent of the overall sample in the study is African American, only 3 percent of progressive activists are. With the exception of the small tribe of devoted conservatives, progressive activists are the most racially homogeneous group in the country.
...
politically engaged, highly educated, left-leaning Americans—the kinds of people, in other words, who are in charge of universities, edit the nation’s most important newspapers and magazines, and advise Democratic political candidates on their campaigns.

"Indeed, while 80 percent of Americans believe that political correctness has become a problem in the country, even more, 82 percent, believe that hate speech is also a problem".

So, in other words almost the entire country despises both political extremes. Also, the extreme liberals tended to be rich white folks, almost as homogenous as the hardcore conservatives. Basically affluent smug pricks who don't really have skin in the game but think they know what's best for everyone else. The problem is that the head in the clouds liberals described in this survey are the same wealthy ones that have great influence over the Democratic party. Those people being so out of touch with 80% of the country is probably a big part of why someone like Trump could get elected. Jusy relying on the Republicans to be worse isn't a good strategy.

[smjjames]

Don't the extreme conservatives also tend to be the ones with the money and education? I mean, conservatives cry about liberal elites, which is more or less accurate, but theres also the conservative elite.

I'm just saying that the conservatives are more alike to liberals than they think because the elite tend to be the same educated and wealthy on both sides. I'm not neccesarily saying they're hypocritical, just that hey, maybe they should look in the mirror at their own elietes.

[Descan]

I dislike polls that use the word itself rather than the idea that the word stands for because people may be for every single thing that hate speech and/or political correctness stand for (and, eh? that'd be an... INTERESTING person :v) but have a knee-jerk response to the actual terms themselves.

That's literally the same thing I think every time you bring up "People like feminist ideals but don't call themselves feminist!" 'Feminism' is still a fairly vilified word, and it's not beyond the realm of thought that people don't call themselves feminist because of what they knee-jerk respond to, rather than anything actually to do with feminism. Or hate speech. Or political correctness.