Colbert Embarrasses Texas GOP For Opposing Critical Thinking Skills
By Stephen D. Foster Jr.
Tuesday night’s ‘Word’ segment on The Colbert Report was hilarious to behold. Not too long ago, Texas Republicans adopted an education plank in their platform opposing critical thinking skills in school, and Colbert thoroughly embarrassed them for it.
Colbert observed that President Obama currently has a commanding lead among youth 43% to 26%. And pointed out that 63% of those born after 1981 support same-sex marriage.
“We conservatives are losing control of the youth, because the younglings don’t share our fundamental values… Thankfully, someone has finally found a way to bring our kids back into the conservative fold.”
Colbert then transitioned into the ‘Word’ segment and took aim at the Texas GOP.
“The minds of our young people are being poisoned by knowledge,” Colbert began.
“And the source of this toxic cerebral sludge is our schools. They fill our kid’s heads with dangerous concepts like evolution and PE. Happily, there is one bright spot in education, Texas, the large hadron collider of denying science. I have long praised the Texas Board of Education for their valiant work rewriting our nation’s history textbooks. But now, I believe they’ve got some stiff competition from the Texas GOP, who recently put a plank in their 2012 party platform regarding children’s education, that says, and I quote, ‘We oppose the teaching of critical thinking skills.’ Amen brother. For too long we have blindly accepted the idea of not blindly accepting ideas.”
Colbert then went on the blame Galileo and continued.
“For centuries we had a perfectly good explanation for the order of the universe. Bible says the sun goes around the Earth, making us the center of the universe. And you know what? Everyone was happy. But then numb nuts over here gets a telescope for Christmas, uses his critical thinking skills and suddenly the Earth goes around the sun, blah, blah, blah, and now we have lesbians… The Texas GOP is on to you, critical thinking skills. They know that you ‘have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs.’ And a good teacher’s job is to maintain whatever fixed beliefs a student has when they enter first grade. Frankly folks, I am embarrassed that we conservatives did not think of this sooner. We’re fighting a culture war here, people, and we’ve been thinking too small.”
Colbert went on to list the many liberal eras that conservatives have sought to discredit such as The New Deal, the JFK and LBJ presidencies, Woodrow Wilson progressivism and the like.
All of that, Colbert said, is just child’s play compared to the Texas GOP, who with just one plank of their platform have called for the repeal of the enlightenment.” Colbert dubbed the attempted repeal ‘the endarkenment.’ “And as if to illustrate what’s possible once you are freed of the shackles of critical thinking, recently the Texas GOP, when asked about this position explained that it was ‘an oversight’ and ‘should not have included the words ‘critical thinking skills.’”
Colbert, of course, saved his most biting and hilarious dialogue for last.
“Now when they were drafting the platform, somebody had to say ‘No critical thinking skills,’ somebody else had to type those words, and the Texas GOP had to approve those words. Do you really think that would have been possible if anyone had been thinking critically? But thank God no one was, and if they get their way, no one will be.”
Watch video: http://coupmedia.org/politics/texas-gop-outlaws-critical-thinking-1807
2013-04-12 18:35:07
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