Welcome to the nonprofits. For our final segment this week, we're looking at a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that is public education. Jimmy Junior tell us, what's the latest from the front lines.
Yeah, Well, Christian nationalism suggests that being American also means being Christian, and many supporters of this idea argue that the founders excuse me, the founders of this country believe the same thing, but that is inherent inherently false. They made no such claims, and they actively avoided the implementation
of any religious sect whatsoever. They had intricate discussions that resulted in unanimous agreement that determine the United States would be a country based solely on representative democracy, where people would have the right to self determination in their private lives, and that gave us the right to practice or not practice whatever creed we wish, along with the expectation that the government was going to uphold this social contract. So
what is happening in Louisiana and Oklahoma. We have lawmakers there in place who either don't know their history, or don't care to know it, or both, and they are using their position to assault the minds of children in order to secure a long term dependency on a population that is deprived of the education that they deserved. This article was in US News and written by Leah Qui and Joseph Axe from Reuters on August seventh.
Thank you, Jimmy, and I would like for you to expand At the end there you said what's happening in Louisiana and Oklahoma. I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on some specifics there, what's going on down there.
Yeah, So in Louisiana recently, some legislation was passed that schools or I don't know that it was quite legislation, but it was a school it's a school policy now that all schools will have to have the Ten Commandments displayed or all classes, all grade levels on at least an eleven x fourteen poster size paper in every classroom. Right, and so that in theory violates the establishment clause of
the United States Constitution. In Oklahoma, similar measures of being taken, although it's just that the Bible is being required to be taught to all grade levels, and so teachers are being expected to relate their lessons to something in the Bible. Somehow. You know, these are being argued against as violations of the Establishment Clause, which guarantees that no one religion will be supported or kind of propagated by the government. Right,
but that's not what's happening. And these are in public schools, so the government can't do that. But that's what's happening. And yeah, we're seeing challenges to these laws, but they are scheduled to take effect anyway.
You know, I would get fired so fast if that happened in my state. There's just no way, there's I'm not going to put that on my classroom. But anyway, so Eli, let's turn the camera back on humanity and let's take a journey into that deep dark of the human mind. I want you to help us to understand what does all of this tell us about us as humans and our nature and our psychology.
So it's this week has been a lot about like resistance to inclusion, and that seems to be with sort of fueling these pieces of legislation, especially in education. Conservatives really oppose like the woke or like the liberal idea in curricula that focuses on things like including all people regardless of like what they look like or how they
are like the people are people. And I think that I know it may not be the case, it seems this way to me that because there's a Republican majority in the Supreme Court right now, that some of these bad actors feel emboldened that they know what they're doing isn't right, but they feel like there's a chance they could get away with it. And it's like either they will or they won't. Like either they'll get away with it, or they'll be like, no, you can't do that anymore.
And they'll be like, well, I tried, but I think that it to.
Lose where they exactly they're not going to go backwards and you know, start going against that exactly.
And and I don't think the policymakers believe this, but I think and but I think that they think and they are right that enough people believe that the First Amendment was intended to protect the church from the government rather than vice versa, that all they have to do to like radicalize their followers is be like, oh, the government is overreaching by telling us we're not allowed to do this because they're not supposed to interfere with the church.
They're supposed to let us do whatever we want, and they're not letting us do that, so now they're overreaching, and it just sort of really highlights this like tribalist nature of humans that like's if it's if their other, whatever other is, and in this case, if they're not Christian, they're wrong and.
They just.
Because of that, they feel like the same rules don't apply.
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely dark. Aaron. You just want to put a little Jesus into the country. What's wrong with that?
A lot's wrong with that in my opinion, because the reason why religion and government need to be kept separate is because religion makes thoughts and beliefs a crime. And when you start to bring your religion into your government, it means your government is going to start to make thoughts and beliefs a crime. And the First Amendment very
explicitly prevents the government from doing that. You know, the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof Not only does it say you can't establish a religion, you can't stop people from exercising their religion. Right of bridging the freedom of
speech or of the press. Those are all things that can be kind of summed up that says that summed up as Congress shall not make thoughts and beliefs a crime, right, And so that's why we need to avoid mixing religion and government, so we can avoid making thoughts and beliefs of crime. And one thing I really wish the United States motto is currently in God we Trust, and I really wish that wasn't our motto. I really wish we
could we could for a law. For most of our history, the unofficial model was e plurubus unum right from from many one, and I really think we need to go back to that. But that's really the purpose of the Constitution and the government is to bring people together, and out of all these different people, different perspectives, different viewpoints,
make one. But when you mix, when you mix religion and government, it's not concerned with making from many one, it's concerned with making everybody the same right.
Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's jump over to ELI for a second. Here. I'm assuming that these changes will have a major impact on how teachers there teach. Is this going to derail our progress towards our goal of having well rounded learners? Or is that am I off track on that.
Oh, I think absolutely. This is something that I've talked about the last like three or four times I've been on the nonprofits and it's it's I have the same
side every time. Taking time away from teaching like real true things that are like evidence based and like an education curricula that have been approved by professional, knowledgeable, experienced educators, taking time away from that to teach like here's what the Bible says, and not backing any of those things up with like they're not It's just it's gonna there. I'm sorry, my words are getting all mixed up here.
They're not separating between what there is a good reason to believe and what we just think is true because we like it because it's in the Bible and that's what we were told when we were younger, and it's just not going to do anything to improve the education standings. Like Oklahoma we've already talked about several times on the show, is already near the bottom of the list in education and they're one of the states that are taking more
time away from that education to do it. And Jeff Landry even said, which is I believe the governor of Louisiana. Jeff Landry said that if the parents of non or non religious parents, if they don't want their children to look at ten to learn the Ten Commandments, then they can tell their children not to look at Ten Commandments posters. And I think that he's still just completely missing the point because hiding information from children isn't the way to
teach them like what is true and what's not. You teach them how to determine what's true and what's not. And he's still just missing that point. It's not, no, don't learn that that's wrong. Only learn what I show you. It's like, here's kind of like how we learn what's
true or not. And when I see educators are people that are making decisions about education that are supposed to be like that are in positions that educators are supposed to be in making such bad choices, it really my blood starts to boil.
Yeah, And there was a nice way that you put it. It reminds me of that saying. You know, if you if you give someone a fish, you feed them for a day, but if you teach them how to fish, then you feed them for life. And it's kind of
the same thing here. If we're undermining the way if we're undermining our approach to teaching children how to think, how, like you said, how to determine what's real and what's true, as opposed to giving them a list of things that are true, and you know, here's what you believe, here's what you don't believe, and then when you run across something new, then it might be difficult to figure out. And if you're told so, if you're if something is put on the wrong list, you have no way of
determining that as well. And so basically we're we're hamstringing ourselves right out of the gate. And it seems like a like the ultimate form of self destruction. And it's
very frustrating. And I know I have a biased opinion because I'm a teacher as well, but I'm also a parent, and I'm also a learner, and and uh you know, I want I want to live in a country where people know things and know how to do things and know how to solve problems and know how to and know how to take reality into consideration rather than just following, you know, the prescribed recipes, prescribed list, and so uh so thank you for that sharing that information.
And so I go ahead, ad real quick, sorry, I just want to get meant to add it was like you said, if you're like what comparison I made is if you have a scuba diver under the dock, hooking a fish onto your kid's line, making your kid think that he caught the fish, he's not learning how to fish, and then he's going to go back there when he's an adult and no, he's helping him under there, and he's not going to catch anything, and he's gonna ask no luck.
Yeah, yeah, Jimmy, let's jump over to you here. So the headline was how US public schools became a new religious battleground. So don't keep us waiting what's the answer.
This is not new. This is not new at all. Using children, attacking children and infecting them, taking advantage of their naivete if you will, to indoctrinate them is not new at all. The US public school system in certain states just happens to be the latest medium. But this is not anything that we have not seen before. Children remain the target of religious indoctrination and dogmatic thinking as they have throughout history. I mean that is how this
These religions are self perpetuating, if you will. I want to talk though, and I hope I've answered your question and forgive me for moving on, but I have to. I have to address the fact that these people are not only unprofessional in the way that and inconsistent really in the way that they treat the parents of these students. For example, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry says, well, just tell their children not to look at them. That's for parents
that don't agree. I mean, what a snarky, unprofessional and dismissive comment for the governor to make. Number one. But these people have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to history. The Republican Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrell says the Bible biblical teachings need to help correct the lack of order and discipline in schools and need to teach students what Moses stood for. Okay, let's talk
about what Moses stood for. Numbers thirty one eighteen. Moses commanded the Israelites to kill the boys and women who had sex with men and spare the virgin girls for themselves. The spoils of war were divided between Eliza and Levitical priesthood. Okay, so that's what Moses stood for. And now we have to put elementary age children in a classroom with a poster that tells them not to covet thy neighbor's wife and not to commit adultery. I mean, this is good
for a student who wants to study history. Absolutely not. There is no historical basis in the Bible for the American Constitution or the United States Constitution, in the American government, which they say doing this is important for children to understand the sources of the American government. As we've talked about already, the American government, the United States Constitution was actually formed in a way to where they rejected the
power of the Church. We came from hundreds of years, if not a thousand years of medieval structure where the Catholic Church was pervasive, they were destructive, and they were downright genocidal. And then we saw the same thing happening, maybe not to the same extent in the Anglican Church. And when people broke off and they formed the colonies, they said, you know what, we don't want that religious pressure. And that's how we have our constitution on government. So
let's get things straight. When it comes to teaching children the origins of the American government and the constitution. Who thank you.
No, No, I think that was a great point, and I'm glad you said it. It's because it's it's like it's like the word, you know, humanity wants to grow and develop and progress and become better and become smarter and become kinder and become more productive and safer in all of these things. And there's just these efforts to just stop that right there. They're saying, no, no, we don't we don't want you know, we don't want to change.
We want to go back to the way things used to be, which there's very few things from the past that are that are better than they are now. Absolutely, Aaron, let's jump over to you. What is really at stake here? What are we risking when we when we engage in this kind of decision making here really.
The future of our country, the future of liberty, the future of freedom. Because religion is dying. All the polls show it, all the study show people are becoming less religious. And the people in religions they know it, they can feel it, they can see it. I think at the heart, you know how a lot of religious people will say, oh you you you you secretly believe you just are angry at God, right, you secretly believe that God exists?
Ah, that's so annoying.
Well, I'm going to tell you something. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull the reverse trick. I'm gonna say, I think secretly religious people know it's full of shit, right, I think? And there and because you can go on YouTube and watch accurate.
Than they are, that's more accurate than they are.
Yeah, because you can go on YouTube and watch me these videos and suddenly you realize, oh wait, I'm an atheist, which is what happened to me. The YouTube algorithm recommended an ACA show to me, and I watched it, and like a month later of continue watching listening to the ACA, I was like, Oh, you know what, I have no good reason to believe what I believe. And I think
at the heart of people they are religious. I think they're just trying to cover up the fact that deep now they know there's no good reason to believe what they're believing, and so they're trying to force religion onto kids because because when you teach kids, you're indoctrinating kids, and so you have to be really careful what you teach them and how you teach them. And if you can slap the Ten Commandments up in school, you can teach them to believe in an authoritarian God who says
believe me or else you will go to hell. You will be punished, you will suffer, your family will suffer. Be what I want you to be. And so that's at the root of this battle is it's a battle for people say this the soul of our country, but really it is the future and perhaps the soul of our country. And even if you, even if we didn't have this problem with religion in filtrating schools like this in our country, our education system here needs a lot of help. We do not have the best education system
in this country, and honestly we should. This country should have the best education. I should have the best elementary, middle high schools, the best colleges in the world.
We certainly we don't have any excuses right than ourselves.
Not to have the best primary education in the world that we don't demonstrably objectively we do not. So even before this religion stuff came in, we needed help. The schools in the country need help. So we have a really big battle and to fight in this country.
Well said, Well said, why the panelists are hot tonight? Hot tonight? Okay, So I have a question for all of you. We've so Scotis recently, I guess it's not so recent now, but they tossed out the Lemon test right. They and that's from the nineteen seventy one Lemon v. Kurtzman decision, which basically it just aids in the maintenance
of the separation of church and government. It is becoming more and more obvious though, that they intend to reshape, or in fact are reshaping the interpretation of the American Constitution to incorporate this well Christianity. Let's be frank about it here. Does that make the issue of court reform all the more critical in the coming months and years or is there a less radical solution? And I'd like to hear from Eli first.
I think no, I think you're right. I think definitely core reform is probably where it's going to be. I
don't know if there is another. So it's like again like I'm not a policymaker, but if you look at that, like in twenty twenty three, I think it was the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State tracked ninety one cases across twenty nine states of laws similar to the Ten Commandments mandate in Louisiana, and I think forty some odd cases this year, forty nine bills no I apologize ninety one so far this year in twenty twenty four across twenty nited states, and forty nine bills
last year similar to the Ten Commandments mandate. And it is, like I said, because they feel like they're going to be able to get away with this in Scotus, and I think that you're I think you hit it on the money.
Having that it's kind of an opportunity, right, an opportunity that might not be there tomorrow. Jimmy, what are your things? Do you think is? Does this put the crosshairs onto court reform? Do we need? Is that something that is important now or more important than it was?
Yeah? The Supreme Court is the single greatest failure of the constitution in our nation's history. The Supreme Court was formed before the formation of political parties, so I don't think that our founders really had an idea of how perverse it would become.
These people were.
Given lifetime appointments so that they would not succumb to political motivations, and instead we are seeing exactly the opposite. They had no idea that they were going to be influenced by two major political parties that are tearing the country apart. And that's to be frank, that's what's happening. I mean, we have a division. We have a division that's based on bipartisan politics. Now, I'm going to remain objective by not saying whose fault one way or the
other it is. I'm just saying that party politics was not supposed to drive the ambitions of the Supreme Court, and it absolutely is. Therefore, it's the biggest failure of our constitution period. In my opinion, reform is definitely necessary. In fact, how effective is a constitution that's two hundred and fifty years old that was written by white land owning men that thought people who were not white land
owning men didn't have the same rights as them. What kind of things are in there that we really haven't uncovered, like we're uncovering now with the gross breakdown of the Supreme Court. I just wonder if it's time for a review. The scary thing is who the hell is going to review it nowadays, I would almost stay with the devil. I know them with the devil.
I don't know, right, Yeah, good point there. I'm gonna I'm going to Aaron. I want to get your opinion on that question on the Scotis issue as well. But before we do that, I want to throw out I have one last question that I want to ask everyone, and it can just be a one or two answer.
I'll just to give you a minute to think about it while Aaron's talking about the Supreme Court, But what advice would you give to a new teacher that's worried that the American education system is going to be gutted?
Here?
So think about that, And Aaron, could you chime in your thoughts about court reform? Is that a critical thing now or do we or is there other ways that we should be addressing this.
I think it's absolutely critical. You know, what Jimmy Junior said is totally right. There's a reason that the far right targeted the court, and they targeted the court, you know, starting fifty years ago, thirty forty, fifty years ago because it is the weakest and most susceptible to corruption. And they've succeeded. Right, there's no The Supreme Court has no enforceable code of ethics, right.
You know.
Pro public has published article after articles demonstrating how corrupt Clarence Thomas is and it's it's it's ridiculous. We had one party refused to appoint a nominated justice or even have hearings about a nominated justice in the last year of Obama's presidency, which was an absolute disgrace and a stain on the rule of law in this country. So yeah, I think the Court needs some serious reform. I'm not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV, so I don't even begin I can't begin to say what
the correct reforms are. But I've heard people talk about term limits. I've heard people talk about every president gets to nominate two justices. I've heard about enforceable code of ethics and things like that. But there there needs to be a serious, serious effort to reform and improve and make the Supreme Court less corruptible. Because today we're in the midst of a corrupt Supreme Court.
You would think that at the very least an enforceable code of ethics would be would be warranted for the highest court in the land, basically the final say yeah in this nation, and members don't have an enforceable quote of ethics. That seems like negligent on our part. Right there.
We have members of the Court that freaquent, that our buddy buddy with people who bring cases before the Court, who receive lavish gifts from from wealthy donors, and there's nothing we can there's what can we do about it. They're they're not not voted in, they're not voted out, they're not held accountable. Nobody's holding them to account. It's it's just it's a it's a travesty. It needs need some serious looking after.
I think we're all on the same page there. So we're so we had that last question that I want to ask, what advice would you give to a new teacher that's worried that the American education system is about to crash and burn? And we'll just go down the line. We'll go Eli and then Jimmy and then Aaron.
I don't know that I qualify to give advice to teachers about the education system, but I think that if it does get gutted, I would still like I don't think it would blame anybody who's like, I'm teaching this because I have to, and I will lose my income in my livelihood if I don't. I just hope it doesn't go that way, all.
Right, Jimmy, Yeah, I would say until that change comes, keep doing what you're doing. And I'm going to answer the rest of that, uh with the understanding that that teacher probably loves their job and loves these kids. When that change does come, test your boundaries smartly and see what you can do to still help these kids while having to teach them something that you're really not on board.
With, right, Okay, and Aaron, I guess you'll get the last word here.
I would just say, thank you, thank you for your service. We should be treating you better and paying you better. Keep up the good work. Keep teaching kids not necessarily what to think, but how to think, to think critically, and to think skeptically, because if you give up, then we're even in worse shape. So please keep doing what you're doing.
All right, Well said, and that wraps up a really strong week. I think I really enjoyed all the discussions we had this week. So I want to thank all three of the panelists for joining me tonight