There are at least three ‘false’ truths in America. There is the liberal/progressive truth, the conservative truth, and a moderate truth and then there are the politically incorrect but true facts many ignore for fear of being criticized by one or more of the politically correct mobs.
To define these mobs, we pin them with terms such as liberal/progressive or conservative and even these terms may be broken into smaller mobs such as hard-core liberals and conservatives. As for moderates, they seem to be spread all over the political spectrum.
For example, in August 2011, Gallup reported, “41% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.”
In addition, hard-right Republicans outnumbered hard-left Democrats two to one.
If you are curious which way the majority leans on a number of hot-button issues such as abortion, Gallup reported May 2011 that 49% of Americans are “pro-choice” while 45% are “pro-life”.
However, “pro-life” is politically correct to conservatives while “pro-choice” is politically correct to liberals but only 21% of Americans are considered liberal.
It appears few moderates support “pro-life” but when it comes to handguns, on October 26, 2011 Gallup reported, “A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States…,” which tells us that when it comes to handguns most moderates support the conservative politically correct agenda on this hot-button issue.
However, when it comes to public education, the issue gets confusing. Gallup reported in August 2010 that, “Americans continue to believe their local schools are performing well, but the nation’s schools are performing poorly. More than three-quarters of public school parents [77%, which has to include at least 20% of the conservatives] give their child’s school an “A” or “B,” while 18% of all Americans grade the nation’s public schools that well.”
In other words, almost 80% of American parents [including almost half of all conservatives] believe the public school his or her child attends performs well but all other schools in the nation suck unless you are the parent of a child at one of those other public schools.
This is the opposite of the “grass is greener on the other side of the hill” attitude and more a belief that the grass is dead and failing where I never visit.
In addition, looking closer, we discover 67% of respondents say the amount of money spent on a public school student’s education affects the quality of his or her education “a great deal” or “quite a lot”, while 34% [Note—this probably represents the audience that regularly listens to conservative talk radio] respond that to earn an “A”, the public schools have to improve the quality of teaching.
How can that be when almost 80% of parents are satisfied with the public school [which would include the teachers] his or her child attends?
Improving the quality of teachers to solve so-called public school problems tends to be a conservative politically correct belief while spending more money on public schools leans toward the liberal/progressive aisle—another switch for most moderates and some conservatives.
After learning the confusing facts of public opinion in the United States, we hear from Robert Weissberg writing for “the American Thinker”, who complains of Yet One More Doomed Education Reform, a post that smashes many politically correct toes of all types.
Continued on October 28, 2011 in Blind, Deaf and Dumber to the facts and doomed to fail – Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 