#ideological indoctrination

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Brad Polumbo

Published: Jun 25, 2024

Republicans are very concerned about left-wing indoctrination in the public school system, and often for good reasons. Yet, it seems that some Republican leaders feel differently about ideological indoctrination in the classroom when they’re the ones doing it. 

In Louisiana, a recent law mandates the display of the Ten Commandments across all public educational institutions, from elementary schools to universities. The bill, championed by Republican Governor Jeff Landry, was signed into law at a private Catholic school. During the ceremony, Governor Landry declared, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”

This makes Louisiana the only state in the nation with such a mandate. Other red states haven’t ventured into this territory in recent years, perhaps because they know it’s blatantly unconstitutional. Nonetheless, Governor Landry appears undeterred, openly stating that “can’t wait to be sued.”

He may not have to wait very long.

A coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has already announced its intention to file suit, condemning the mandate as “unconstitutional religious coercion of students, who are legally required to attend school and are thus a captive audience for school-spons.ored religious messages.” The ACLU also added that the mandate “send[s] a chilling message to students and families who do not follow the state’s preferred version of the Ten Commandments that they do not belong, and are not welcome, in our public schools.”

This is not uncharted territory. The ACLU cited the 1980 Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham, where the court explicitly ruled that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the establishment of a formal state religion, prevents public schools from displaying the Ten Commandments. 

“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments,” the Supreme Court ruled in that case. “However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”

Governor Landry is surely aware of this precedent and simply does not care that this legislation will almost certainly be blocked in the courts. Nonetheless, it represents an opportunity for him to signal his cultural war bona fides—a move that, in any other context, Republicans might rightly describe as empty “virtue signaling.”

Regrettably, this isn’t just an isolated incident among Republicans in one conservative state. Louisiana’s initiative has garnered support from many of the most prominent figures in the modern GOP. One such figure is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who praised the legislation in an interview with Real America’s Voice. “This is something we need all throughout our nation,” she said. “I’m so proud of Governor Landry…. We need morals back in our nation, back in our schools, and if there’s anything we’re going to present in front of our children, it should be the word of God.”

This stance appears to be a mainstream view within the Republican Party, as the party’s leader, Donald Trump, also threw his support behind Louisiana’s efforts in a post on Truth Social: 

The Republicans’ embrace of this religious mandate in public schools is deeply hypocritical, contravening many principles they have previously claimed to stand for, and incredibly short-sighted. 

Firstly, they are proving to be fair-weather fans of the First Amendment. These same types regularly champion free speech when it comes to opposing government censorship or progressive attempts to crack down on “hate speech” (which now includes uttering basic biological truths), and they are absolutely right to do so. However, you cannot selectively support the First Amendment, endorsing free speech and freedom of religion clauses while actively violating the Establishment Clause. After all, if Republicans can disregard the parts they don’t like when it’s inconvenient, then progressives can too!

Secondly, Republicans are compromising their stated beliefs about the importance of parents’ rights and opposing “indoctrination” in schools. Now, they suddenly advocate for the government’s role in teaching children morality, instead of leaving this responsibility to parents or families.

Which is it? Consistent supporters of parents’ rights believe that it should be up to parents to teach their kids about morality, whether it concerns pronouns or prayer. 

There’s also the issue of misplaced priorities. Louisiana ranks 40th out of all 50 states in education. Meanwhile, 40 percent of 3rd graders cannot read at grade level, according to The Advocate. Yet, the governor prioritizes mandating posters of the Ten Commandments—and allocating tax dollars to defending it in court—that many students probably can’t even read.

Even many conservative Christians can see the issue here. As radio host Erick Erickson put it:

When the 3rd grade reading level is only 49 percent, I don’t see why the state wants to spend money on lawyers for a probably unconstitutional law making the Ten Commandments mandatory just to virtue signal a side in a culture war. Actually use conservative reforms to fix the schools instead of putting up posters half the 3rd grade cannot even read.

Perhaps the most common Republican rejoinder is that displaying the Ten Commandments is an educational initiative focused on historical context rather than a promotion of religion. But while there’s no disputing its historical significance, it’s not being presented as part of a broader course on religion that features a variety of religious and secular perspectives, which would be fine. Instead, beliefs from a particular religious tradition, the Judeo-Christian one, are being elevated and mandated to the deliberate exclusion of others. This selective approach is hardly subtle: Governor Landry purposefully signed the bill at a Catholic school and even referenced Moses! 

There’s no denying that the Ten Commandments are inherently religious, as they proscribe not only murder and adultery but also idolatry, taking the Lord’s name in vain, and working on the Sabbath. So, conservatives making this “history, not religion” argument are straining credulity. 

What’s more, further empowering government schools to promote a specific ideology to students will not end well for conservatives. It’s not exactly breaking news that the public education system is overwhelmingly staffed and run by people with increasingly left-leaning political and cultural views. Conservatives should be fighting to restore viewpoint neutrality in the public square—not further undermining it and thereby making it easier for woke ideologues to propagandize to everyone’s kids. 

It’s sad, but ultimately not surprising, to see so many Republicans proving to be inconsistent allies to true liberal values. At least those few genuine, principled defenders of the First Amendment now know who our allies are—and who they are not. 

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About the Author

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is an independent journalist, YouTuber, and co-founder of BASEDPolitics.

==

Moral consistency requires opposing both.

... Secularism means that no particular ideology is being forwarded and getting special treatment. Go have your belief. Believe what you want. Privately. You don’t get special treatment because you believe this with tons of conviction. Secularism means that your belief in your faith covers none of the distance to proving that it’s true. Conviction is not evidence of much of anything. Except conviction. -- James Lindsay

--

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”

Leviticus 25:44-46

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Who's going to tell him?

[amygdalae]

My archeology prof has gone on multiple tangents about how stupid gender reveal parties are ("they aren't gender reveal parties, they're sex reveal parties, and that's stupid) and spent a good chunk of a lecture going into how gender is a cultural/social construct and gender does not equal sex and neither gender nor sex are anywhere near as binary as western norms have us believe. And also she's beautiful. Just bragging

[gynandromorph]

maybe it's just the context that i have? i'm sure i've posted this before

even then???!?!?? there are people who still go to church after God kills their mother!!! there are people who still go to church after the pastor drops dead during the sermon because God decided it was HEART ATTACK TIME!!!!!! THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO START GOING TO CHURCH AGAIN AFTER GOD GIVES THEM STAGE 4 CANCER

SO I CAN'T EVEN SAY "NO ONE WOULD DO THAT" CLEARLY A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD DO THAT

[songforten]

me: jews who are antizionists are pushed out of jewish spaces this genius: uhm well you’re not part of jewish spaces? checkmate.

also “since Judaism and Zionism are so intertwined (see: ancient holidays, prayers, wedding traditions, sayings, genealogy, archeology, etc)” me when i fucking fell for it

[iwonderwh0]

Whether algorithmically created (like tiktok, youtube, instagram, etc) or manufactured manually (like tumblr or 4chan), the inescapable nature of online echo chambers and their consequences terrifies and depresses me

[loveerran]

In other news, it is ironic that a party who claims to be for limited government, reduced regulation and reduced regulatory costs, elimination of the Department of Education and a return to State and local controls, is specifically using the power of the federal government and Department of Education to impose new and costly regulations on K-12 schools in opposition to State and local controls.

Some might call that hypocrisy.

[exvangelicalrage]

You Will Be Free Indeed

5/22/23

There's thing thing christians sometimes do, called "testimonies." Most of my memories of testimonies involve dudes with tattoos getting up in front of the congregation and saying something like, "I spent the last ten years in prison, and while I was there, I found jesus!" And then all the people say, "praise be" or "amen" or some such nonsense. Then the dude expounds on his story about how he did all these terrible things, but when he was born again, he felt the chains of sin fall away from him and he became "free indeed." 

(Side note, "Free indeed" is evangelical rhetoric/gaslighting designed to counter the realization that religion actually binds you.)

These testimonies weren't always from dudes with tattoos. Technically, everybody had a testimony. The formula was this: 

All the bad stuff you did —> your encounter with jesus and/or being born again — > how it changed you — > freedom

For example, "I used to be selfish but then I became born again and gave all of my self to christ and now I am free!" 

Or, "I used to be bound by the shackles of lust! Then jesus cleansed me of my sins and I was born again. I no longer feel constrained by my sinful desires. It's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders!" 

Literally anything that counts as a "sin" works. Even if you were young, like I was, and hadn't experienced much in the way of deliberate sinfulness, you could simply swap out a specific sin with "sinful nature" or "sinful desires." 

"I was born sinful but then learned about jesus, accepted him into my heart, and now I know I don't have to give in to sin and am free in christ."

BAM: Testimony!

The proclamation of freedom at the end of a testimony has stuck with me.

There were tons of ways people described it, always very visceral and visual. Shackles breaking. A weight lifted from their shoulders. As if everything had been in darkness and now they could see the light. As if they had been limited or bound or contained in some way, but now they were released. Imprisoned, trapped, captive. And then freed.

I had this vision in my head of atheists walking around with a ball and chain hooked to each leg. With metaphorical backpacks that weighed hundreds of pounds making it impossible to keep their spines up straight. With black, slimy tendrils of sin licking around their bodies, pulling them into a quicksand of sin.

I could hardly imagine how non-christians slept at night. How did they not see the black cloud that followed them everywhere they went? Did they not imagine life could be better? 

Honestly, this intense visual is one of the reasons I stayed christian as long as I did. I didn't want to become like that. I didn't want life to be heavy. I didn't want to bear the weight of my sins—not when jesus had offered to do it for me. 

But eventually, the weight of my doubt grew heavier than the weight of my sins. After all, I'd spent my entire life trying to be as perfect as possible. Not to mention, jesus had supposedly cleansed me. 

So why did everything feel so heavy?

When I finally had the courage to Exit christianity, officially and for real, something crazy happened. You'll never believe it. 

I felt free.

It was like a metaphorical weight had been lifted. Like I'd been walking around with a ball and chain hooked to each leg—but now they were gone! Like I shed that metaphorical backpack that made it impossible for me to keep my spine straight. Like the black, slimy tendrils of christianity licking around my body and dragging me into the quicksand of religion had been utterly, irrevocably banished. 

The black cloud—gone! Only a blue sky above. 

Never had I ever imagined that life, existence, self could feel so light.

christians imagine that that sense of freedom comes from jesus. That the lightness comes from having your sins "forgiven." From choosing to live your life for god and walk on that dusty road to heaven, instead of the glittery road to hell.

But the truth is, that sense of freedom and lightness comes only in making the choice.  And which choice doesn't really matter. It's just that you made the right one for you.

It's about looking your own darkness in the face and saying, "No. I reject you."

Sometimes that darkness takes the form of the "sins" we've committed or the harm we've caused. Sometimes it's our guilt. Sometimes it might be mental illness. Or the trauma of past experiences. 

And sometimes, it's christianity.

[gothspell-blog]

Jesus was radical as fuck.

Jesus was a punk.

Jesus was an rabbi, occupied by an empire, ostracized by his own religion.

He was sinless, Gods son, and his ideas pissed off everyone in power because it liberated occupied peoples. 

Jesus or God does not expect us to be sinless. He does however hold us accountable to our sin and violation of others.

His ideas continue to piss off conservatives when confronted with this truth. We are warned many times of rich oligarchs, empires, and of the very system we struggle against… and yet most of you side with them- and your version of Christianity has de-radicalized you, or better yet driven you right wing- standing against the very things god tried to teach you to stand for!

If you’re a Christian reading this, it’s time to think for yourself instead of accepting what you’ve been told a Christian should be.

Absolutely no one should define that for you, and if you don’t experience a personal relationship with God, you’re a blind sheep, and you likely hold dangerous beliefs that threaten minorities- the very people Jesus was sent here by our creator to free.

Im writing a zine about this issue at the moment.

It’s not even a hot take that Jesus would be anti fascist. It’s just the truth.

Time to wake up otherwise you’re not my brethren and he does not know you!

We are witnessing the chaotic matérialisation of samsara,

God is shaking shit up because for centuries his creation has been colonized instead of cherished.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Margo Margan

Published: Jan 7, 2025

“The teacher’s weak “Congratulations!” Opening a blue envelope as she said “This doesn’t really matter…” Award-winning SAT scores I swore to hide. Eye rolls mocking me for wanting AP classes. Squalling protests over homework. Finding the book we read senior year in my middle school sister’s bookbag.”

This is a scene from Chapter 3 of my fiction piece IVY, where protagonist Seph Quark is told to hide his academic interests in favor of being something “different.”

The same scene happened to me with my ACT scores. I was told not to tell my friends I did well so they wouldn’t feel bad. I went to a private high school, one trying to correct the problems found in traditional education. We were told their curriculum was much better for our mental health.

I find it fitting that this piece is being published at The Coddling of the American Mind, as my high school’s curriculum is best described as “coddling us to death.”

The Coddling of My High School

Teachers employed a tactic they called “scaffolding,” which gives guidance so students wouldn’t be left to figure things out alone—for instance, using fill-in-the-blank worksheets in place of taking notes.

We were assigned 16 “senior exhibitions’ to prepare us for college (or as I like to call them, 16 actual homework assignments.) For instance, a test on “Calculations and Number Sense,” would include problems like, “Which number is in the hundreds place?”

Students could work on these homework assignments during regular classes, and we were also forced to attend summer school to make sure we finished them. Though it felt like we were being tested on things we should know in order to attend high school, our teachers told us, “Colleges want students who can challenge themselves. It’s not about being the smartest.”

No need for merit!

My art teacher taught us nothing. He offered three different electives — Comic Art, Drawing & Painting, and Bookbinding — but all were effectively a break period to do whatever we wanted, as long as we had some type of “art” for the school’s art show by the end of the year. We were told our teacher was missing qualifications, and the classes were named to look better on college applications.

My high school offered something called “spring mini-courses,” courses we paid for to study something special for a week. I signed up for a playwriting course, expecting something rigorous.

When we shared work for critique, I realized I wasted my money. We used something called “Liz Lerman style feedback.” As “all art is subjective,” our feedback was meant to help identify if the work met the artist’s intention. We were instructed to:

Say what stood out to us

Ask a question

Say what we wanted to see more of

How could “learning what others wanted to see more of,” help us identify flaws in our work?

What if the work met the artist’s intentions, but failed in execution?

Weren’t we here to learn?

Luckily, artists were shielded from facing potential discomfort. After all, hearing criticism could make someone give up art.

The Outside World is Deadly

While it may seem like we faced nothing difficult, this was not the case. My high school was sure to make us aware of society’s hard truths. Our curriculum had a social justice focus.

It began the first week of school.

We sat silently in the auditorium, as one by one, different identity groups were called to stand. While participation was optional, our principal told us we were “highly encouraged” to stand with our groups. I didn’t want to look selfish, so I did—even when I wanted to keep something private, like the disability I believed I had. (I was misdiagnosed with autism.)

I didn’t know these student’s names, but I knew which gender they had crushes on, and who had been diagnosed with mental disorders.

In fact, students were so happy to talk about challenging subjects that I knew which psychiatric medications everyone in my class was on.

In history class, we had a unit on social norms. We learned about influential sociologists, as well as a woman and a black man in the field. Our teachers made sure everyone felt “represented” so we would not become depressed.

Through this unit and others like it, we were shown footage from the darkest parts of American history. Riots against civil rights protestors? Yep. Stonewall Riots? Yep.

Pick a Historical U.S. Riot, I’ve seen every episode!

In English, we read books with themes of discrimination like Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. While my peers at other schools were reading To Kill a Mockingbird and practicing writing techniques, we were watching videos about Asian stereotypes and, yes, a documentary on the Stonewall Riots.

To Kill a Mockingbird was removed from our curriculum because the author was white.

Our school taught us to exercise critical thinking when analyzing texts. We learned that Shakespeare might be gay. We discussed if Nick from The Great Gatsby was gay.

Yes, Nick had a relationship with a woman, but she was the most masculine option he could choose. Yes, it was a book from the 1920s, but Fitzgerald, like Shakespeare before him, was definitely trying to slip some homosexuality into his work.

Yes, my teachers modeled the antics of middle school fanfiction authors who romanticize gays as supposedly being intellectually superior.

We were also sure to look for signs of prejudice in the texts. For instance, Giovanni’s Room was critiqued for lacking female representation. Sorry, Baldwin, not even your diversity credits could get you out of this one!

The Culture Spreads

It’s not a problem specific to only my high school. At the school where I interned for my gap year, these practices were not uniform, but they were starting to creep in among some of the staff.

For instance, I recall something from my leadership skills course — some of you may remember the class where my teacher asked if I was so quiet because my fellow student’s maleness made me uncomfortable.

We were shown something called an identity wheel (see above). The center circles are the “big ones,” as my teacher put it, the most important pieces of a person’s identity. Towards the outside are smaller, less important pieces.

We were asked to share what on the wheel we thought about the most. One of my classmates didn’t answer, saying it was “too personal.” I wish I had the courage he had.

Readers of IVY have told me that while Seph thinks about being gay a lot, it makes sense narratively and doesn’t feel preachy. Schools like mine and Seph’s pointed to a diagram and told us sexual orientation was the center of our personality. Whether it helps or hinders the narrative, it’s why I portray Seph thinking things like this: “…“being queer” was who I was meant to be. [...] I was coming out blazing or I was a deadbeat husk.”

The Aftermath

Did my school’s safety blanket of support prepare us to handle any challenges life threw at us? No.

My classmates snapped at the prick of a pin. When asked to read two chapters of Frankenstein— only ten pages—for a quiz the following day, the school was in an uproar. Students in this so-called “intensive” English class struggled so much, the teacher dropped the book in favor of reading a play adaptation. At least we learned Nick from Gatsby isn’t straight.

We were shown an inflated version of ugly truths. If we denied them, we were called cowards. But at the same time, the school babied us with frequent compliments. Instead of being taught to handle criticism, criticism was treated like a death sentence. We believed the world outside only contained bad apples—a mindset useful only for radical protesters.

Were we prepared for college? No.

A friend told me she hadn’t been challenged for so long she wasn’t even sure what she was capable of. She and nearly every person I knew from my school either had to transfer colleges or dropped out entirely. I can’t think of a single classmate of mine who actually graduated.

While many had mental health issues coming into my high school, I strongly believe the school made them worse. Moreover, the school drained the potential from many bright people who didn’t have mental health issues.

This scared me so much I canceled my own college plans. I was already dealing with a false diagnosis telling me I was going to barely get by. Seeing everyone I know fail made college seem hopeless.

A lot of artists say being judged for their craft gave them Imposter Syndrome. They try to counter this with “Don’t care what people think! All art has value!” mantras. But these statements never teach artists to accept reasonable critiques, and instead keep them reliant on validation.

Imposter syndrome? Try getting a scholarship-winning 4.0 you know you didn’t earn, and tell me you aren’t begging for criticism!

So, how did I not crumble like the rest?

Discipline. I could see through the facade, and decided to practice writing on my own. If it wasn’t for pushing myself with challenges like National Novel Writing Month, I probably wouldn’t have a shot at a job.

I tend to be hard on myself, but this comes from a place of not wanting to take compliments unless I know I’ve earned them. It’s not insecurity. It’s humility.

For instance, I used to write Warrior Cats fanfiction in notebooks during class. When people asked me what I was working on, I said, “Oh, just something dumb…”

My friends, teachers, everyone insisted “It’s not dumb!”

At first it might seem like they were just being polite. But no matter how much I insisted the piece was just a joke, the compliments never ceased… My notebook scribbles about shapeshifting anime cats were hailed as a masterpiece.

Sometimes, nobody will be there to put me in my place but me. But I’ve also had my share of negative feedback.

I’ve seen sexist comments. Homophobic comments. Angry liberal comments. They don’t stop me. I actually look forward to receiving these, like I’m earning battle scars.

And I need more training. So, go for it! Hit me with your best shot!

[tangledinourstrings]

minorities: *exist*

roblox players:

[superdiscochino]

Helping 12-year-old study for her history test the other night, they're doing European explorers, I'm reading names off flashcards, "Hernan Cortes" "Amerigo Vespucci" "Vasco de Gama," and every time she starts with "he discovered..." I make giant air quotes and exaggeratedly say "DISCOVERED" and every time she's like I KNOW I KNOW I GET IT!!!

[mummer]

re lrb a huge portion of the zionist propaganda i have personally seen posted like on facebook and insta and stuff is concentrated very specifically on denying the concept of the innocent palestinian civilian. mostly just trying to manufacturing consent for the death of children. videos will be like “look at these palestinian 6 year olds saying how much they hate jews the entire population has been sadly brainwashed irreparably nothing to be done.” or that Fucking golda meir quote thats like “maybe we’ll forgive The Arabs for killing our sons but it’ll be harder to forgive them for ~forcing us to kill their sons~”. or stuff about how they’re Forced to bomb hospitals and schools human shields etc. most entrenched zionists really are not hemming and hawwing about history most of the time… They dont care that they’re killing innocent people whatsoever like it doesnt convince them because they just dont care. They consider it utterly acceptable in their moral calculus. i dont even think most of the time it’s that they dont see palestinians as people, they might, they see them as people deserving of death

[beautifulscreaminglady]

white police and military bootlicker: par for course

non-white police and military bootlicker: Something Terrible Happened Here, Who's Paying You, or alternatively Blink If You Need Help

[dontlookforme00]

i feel like you should know that thanks to you i am now starting to develop a chonny jash obsession (i am here to thank you this music is very good and im liking it a lot)

I keep getting asks from my mutual about chonny jash I am SO fucking pleased with myself. YES. YES, STAR, JOIN US. YOU'RE WELCOME, NOW come scream about the music with me, I need to balance my lack of irl friends who know him (NONE of them)

The music is fucking great. Have this video essay, please

[to-thelakes]

regulus arcturus black is my roman empire

(jkr completely glossing over his importance is another reason i hate dislike her 🫶)

[immaculatasknight]

Servitors of empire