This is so like the similar evangelizing going on in the Air Farce Academy...
More loonies than zoomies...
Someone brought the Article I Section 6 idea up on another blog, and I let the commenter down gently by pointing out that Craig was charged with lewd conduct and pled out to disorderly conduct. Both are defined as crimes against the public order, which of course is the exception to Art I Sect 6.
What's important is to start teaching people the basics of their constitution.
As Sara said in either another thread or a post, she was SHOCKED that high school doesn't teach civics any more.
Frankly so am I. It explains however, part of how we're in the mess we're in now. Kids in their 20's and maybe even their 30's don't know anything more than "I'm just a bill, I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capital Hill."
That's nice and all, but it just don't hack it.
Thus, Constitution School. We're going to play this game more than once. If nothing else, it will be a searchable resource (especially once we get our search function up and running.)
Flying. H. Spaghetti. Monster.
These "Christian" zombies are like TERMITES in the government now. The next Democratic administration and Congress is going to have a LOT of fumigating to do. Of course, the Mighty Wurlitzer will pitch a bitch about it, so something will have to be done about the MW--anti-trust suits and restoring and expanding the Fairness Doctrine come to mind.
I used the quotation marks because while I don't follow my Savior perfectly by a long shot, I can tell their ideology has about as much to do with His teachings as the Mighty Wurlitzer [aka the Corporate Holodeck Media] has to do with actual journalism.
"Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over"--Frank Zappa, from "Heavenly Bank Account". 
I learned civics in 9th grade. Everyone had to take it. When was that changed? 
We should force-feed Peyote to the termites.
PS- When you drive through Colorado Springs (home of the Air Force Academy and Focus on the Family) on I-25, there is a billboard advertising Jesus. I kid you not.
highe schools teachin civics depenmds on teh state, in il we have civics as a graduation requiremnet...
"Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over"
I'm going to have to remember that one!
I learned civics in 9th grade. Everyone had to take it. When was that changed?
I had to as well, and this was in the early '80's. I wouldn't be surprised if this was changed under the benevolent reign of Pappy Bush. I'd be only slightly less surprised if this was changed during the Clinton Era.
Sara -
Do you know when/where/how this was changed?
Did it happen as part of Pappy Bush, Big Dog, No Child Left Behind, or is it just the local school boards slashing and burning? ...since roughly when and roughly where?
Thanks,
"To get on the field, the BOP has to meet strict scrutiny."
Jesse, that is soooooo 20th Century and pre-9/11
It started in the late 80s/early 90s, as far as I know. We're now at a point where the vast majority of Americans under the age of 30 have never taken a civics class.
The requirements are indeed state-by-state. Sometimes, elimninating a civic requirement was a state-level decision; but the impression I've gotten (and I've been nosing around on this for a couple years now) is that the decisions were mostly made at the district level, and often for "economic" reasons (though I don't doubt those Christian school boards didn't help this along).
In essence, civics is a casualty of the tax-cutting mania that's been afoot since Reagan. First they cut PE and art and music. They stopped funding the library, got rid of the busses, and went to a shorter day.
And when further cuts were needed, they had to cut "non-essential" classes -- the ones that aren't covered on the standardized tests. Which meant, usually, vocational ed, foreign languages...and civics. Yeah, it was against the state standards -- but unless the state puts up the money, their mandates really aren't enforceable. The schools were broke, and they didn't have much choice.
Sometimes, they made halfway measures. Civics got rolled into a few weeks of "government" tucked into an already overloaded US History curriculum. (Show of hands: who ever got past WWII by the end of the year? Uh huh. I thought so.) More often, the old two-semester requirement (in California, we had it in 8th grade and again in our senior year) got cut back to one; or it just went away entirely.
And they're not even tracking stats on this anymore. The last full survey on the status of civics ed was done in 1998.
It's a horrible situation with huge implications for the future of our democracy. Sometimes, I feel that half of what I do as a blogger is about teaching the younger generation important citizenship stuff they never learned in school.
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