Texas Board of Education Rewrites American History

H/T Jed Lewison at DKos

I rarely get completely gobsmacked by what I read of the wingnuts. I know they are insane. I know that they are hateful little people with no imagination, no love, no compassion and absolutely no sense of the 'big picture but the latest by the wingnuts controlling the Texas Board of Education is really at "WTF moment".  Read the next sentence and then close your eyes and contemplate the sheer insanity. The Texas Board of Education has elected to remove references to Thomas Jefferson from the state's social studies curriculum standards.

Think Progress:

The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

You can read the entire blog stream over at the Texas Freedom Network but here is the meat.

TFN:

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with “the writings of”) and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson’s ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don’t buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar’s problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.
9:40 – We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.
9:45 – Here’s the amendment Dunbar changed: “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.” Here’s Dunbar’s replacement standard, which passed: “explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.” Not only does Dunbar’s amendment completely change the thrust of the standard. It also appalling drops one of the most influential political philosophers in American history — Thomas Jefferson.
9:51 – Dunbar’s amendment striking Jefferson passed with the votes of the board’s far-right members and board member Geraldine “Tincy” Miller of Dallas.
9:56 – Here is what the Library of Congress says about Jefferson’s influence: “Recognized in Europe as the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson quickly became a focal point or lightning rod for revolutionaries in Europe and the Americas.” The Library of Congress notes, in particular, Jefferson’s influence on revolutionaries in France (including on the Declaration of the Rights of Man), other European nations, South America and Haiti.

I am basically speechless other than to say it is sad day in America when a handful of batshit crazy jumped by Jesus wingnuts can tell the children of America that they can't study the writings of one of Americas most important philosophers and the author of the Declaration of Independence. As Jed says. " The wingers are so far gone, so far off the deep end, so completely crazy...it's almost like the only thing left is...WTF?"