Why are so many Americans acting so stupid?

[dutch508]

ashredux (1,696 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216298573

Why are so many Americans acting so stupid?

“Half of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at the 8th-grade level.” -
(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)

That means that many can’t read above a 5th grade level.

The GOP’s lies to them and they believe Trump won and vaccines will kill them.

This is how we fall….uneducated people believe stupid things.

Who runs the Education system in the USA? It sure as hell ain't the conservatives...

Star Member GPV (71,029 posts)

2. Repubs designed this. They broke our schools for easy votes, and this just comes with the

territory. Essentially, imagine medieval peasants with iPhones. Pretty much sums things up.

 

True Blue American (14,623 posts)

3. Republicans gutted the Public School

Budgets to feed their friends private Schools that stole millions.

When you think of moderate John Kasich, that good Christian man, just remember he cut the Public Education budget so bad in his last budget his Republican Legislature put it back. Then he left the ECOT online school scandal to the tune od Millions.

https://ecotexposed.org/

DeWine promises to prosecute every election. Never does!

 

Star Member Wicked Blue (3,374 posts)

6. Reagan started it nt

Star Member lostnfound (15,001 posts)

10. Don't blame the schools, blame the culture: intellectually lazy and shallow thinking.

How many learn to read but never pick up a book after high school (or even college)?
My father born in 1906 dropped out after 9th grade but was a wise person and engaged reader.
In Texas I know many whose rigid knee-jerk thinking seems to never evolve, but others who know what is happening in the world Ms enjoy good books of all kinds.
Self-education is what is lacking, except now, it has been replaced by the illusion of self-education, as people consume inflammatory falsehoods spread by malicious actors. In
‘Building a Bridge to the 18th century” and other books, Neil Postman wrote about high literacy rates driving civic engagement in the first 200 years in the US and the effect that reading books had on the actual thought processes of American citizens. Civic discussions could be nuanced, logical, hard fought exercises, and attention span was better developed.

I like your “medieval peasants with iPhones” analogy.

However, the fact remains that the materials published and circulated back then indicate intense interest in the printed word. George Fisher wrote in his 1748 book The Instructor, “Tis to ye Press & Pen we Morals owe / All we believe & almost all we know.”

Patterns of literacy could also be inferred: more people could read in New England and the mid-Atlantic than in the South, and city-dwellers were more literate than those living in the countryside. Moreover, literacy rates in America were much higher than in most of Europe. The Foundation for Economic Education estimates that around 80% of men and 50% of women in New England were literate by 1776. These number quickly rose, and by the 1800s, only one in four Americans were illiterate.
https://readcenter.org/literacy-rates-improved-since-1776/

Star Member GPV (71,029 posts)

12. I'm a teacher. I don't blame the schools. I blame the Repubs for gutting public education.

 

The Jungle 1 (1,446 posts)

16. Repukes are fighting to make education worse.

The teachers in my PA school district were told by the school board they were not allowed to discuss 1/6.

 

[Texacon]

Yes, I’m so glad we conservatives are pushing important subjects in the classroom like, what it’s like to be transgender, how to determine what bathroom I should use today, why gender and sex are not the same thing, how whites are inherently evil, etc.

I can see how we’re destroying education …

KC

[SVPete]

True Blue American (14,623 posts)

3. Republicans gutted the Public School

Budgets to feed their friends private Schools that stole millions.

  Back when my family started homeschooling (the mid-late 1980s) , higher-end PS per-student $$ was $8K-$10K. Now it's in the $15K range. This chart, https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/spending-per-student-in-k-12-public-schools/ , puts the national average in 1980 at ~$2.1K and shows an almost un-reversed, uninterrupted rise through 2017 to ~ $12.25K (there was a plateau from 2009-2012, during Obama's first term and partly during Pelosi's first term as Speaker).

Of course, facts are trumped by Prog Narrative.

[ADsOutburst]

We're wondering the same thing:

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/01/two-elderly-white-karens-assault-a-black-man-in-elevator-over-a-mask-yell-black-lives-matter-video/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsWJShYqkDI

[SVPete]

The City of Baltimore hasn't had an R mayor since Nancy Pelosi's brother took office in 1967, 55 years ago. Baltimore public schools are a disaster area. A local Fox station has done a lot of investigation, https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/augusta-fells-failure-factory-project-baltimore-special , but at least one other network's station and several non-conservative news sources have also reported on the mess, https://wset.com/news/nation-world/calls-to-shut-down-baltimore-school-where-013-gpa-ranks-near-top-half-of-class , https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/baltimore-high-school-investigation/2021/09/05/69f8c7a6-0cee-11ec-aea1-42a8138f132a_story.html , https://thehill.com/opinion/education/350315-baltimores-failing-schools-are-a-tragedy-of-criminal-proportions .

Of course, facts are trumped by Prog Narrative.

[SVPete]

We're wondering the same thing:

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/01/two-elderly-white-karens-assault-a-black-man-in-elevator-over-a-mask-yell-black-lives-matter-video/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsWJShYqkDI

Elderly white Karens attacking a black man? What are their DU names?

[FunkyZero]

Why are so many Americans acting so stupid?

Because we "have incorrect views that we are expressing" ?
The soy-boy from the North said the words out loud and exposed every leftist on the globe

[I_B_Perky]

ashredux (1,696 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216298573

Why are so many Americans acting so stupid?

“Half of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at the 8th-grade level.” -
(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)

That means that many can’t read above a 5th grade level.

The GOP’s lies to them and they believe Trump won and vaccines will kill them.

This is how we fall….uneducated people believe stupid things.

I bet a good chunk of these idiots belong to one of these three groups: 
1. black
2. hispanic
3. athletes

And not a damned one are found in any GOP stronghold.  Dems and dummies like to point out that red states are stupid, poor, etc but fail to mention these red states have large cities that are mostly made up of the first two in the group and all vote dem.

[landofconfusion80]

We're wondering the same thing:

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/01/two-elderly-white-karens-assault-a-black-man-in-elevator-over-a-mask-yell-black-lives-matter-video/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsWJShYqkDI

Hilarious review on that on a recent timcast

[enslaved1]

Klaralven (7,329 posts)
4. Ethnicity and geographic distribution of low skilled adults doesn't seem to support that they're GOP

Adult Literacy in the United States

FIGURE 3. Percentage of low-skilled adults age 16 to 65, by nativity status and race/ethnicity: 2012 and 2014


U.S. Skills Map: State and County Indicators of Adult Literacy and Numeracy

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/

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Response to Klaralven (Reply #4)

Sat Jan 29, 2022, 08:40 AM

Star Member Scrivener7 (40,385 posts)
5. How do you read that as not supporting that it is the GOP? The most illiteracy in your source map

occurs in the reddest areas.

And are you seeing a spate of Democrats cutting educational funding that the rest of us have missed?

Or perhaps you are thinking the black and latino illiterate people enumerated in your source are the ones voting for TFG and ignoring science?

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Response to Scrivener7 (Reply #5)

Sat Jan 29, 2022, 09:12 AM

Klaralven (7,329 posts)
14. County level 2020 election results to compare with literacy distribution map

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Response to Klaralven (Reply #14)

Scrivener7 This message was self-deleted by its author.

Response to Klaralven (Reply #14)

Sat Jan 29, 2022, 09:24 AM

Star Member Scrivener7 (40,385 posts)
19. Again, what is your point? Are you seeing Democrats cutting funding to education?

Are you saying that the illiterate black and latino populations are the ones voting for TFG and ignoring science?

Clearly you are trying to imply something. Why are you not simply stating it? Share your wisdom, do.

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Response to Klaralven (Reply #14)

Sat Jan 29, 2022, 09:49 AM

True Blue American (14,635 posts)
23. If you look at that map the blue areas are where the better educated

Workers and jobs are.

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Response to Klaralven (Reply #14)

Sun Jan 30, 2022, 11:09 PM

radius777 (3,249 posts)
53. Dems are the party of densely populated

metropolitan areas, and you will naturally have immigrants, working class, inner city poor, etc in such areas who are struggling to get by.

But there's no excuse for people who have been here for generations choosing to be anti-science and anti-education as they are in many red areas.

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Response to Klaralven (Reply #4)

Sat Jan 29, 2022, 09:04 AM

Star Member PJMcK (17,086 posts)
13. Your map belies your point, I think (n/t)

A fun little exchange that comes so close to noting the effects of culture on how much people put into their education.  I get all kinds of kids who are being taught at home that school doesn't matter, for reasons that vary from student to student, and sometimes it's being taught directly, sometimes indirectly, also in various ways.  It's not exclusively or inclusively our minority students, but they do make up the majority who are hearing that there's no point to working hard in school or getting anything out of the education system.

Star Member Wicked Blue (3,388 posts)
6. Reagan started it nt

Personally, I put much of the blame at Bush 1's feet.  While I don't think the intent was to decimate the system, No Child Left Behind created our "teach them how to take tests so we can get Fed money" system that has left a couple of generations unable to do much more than guess A, B, C, or D.  There are many other factors, but from the Federal side, that's where the issues really kicked in, IMHO.