re: #263 CuriousLurker

I taught high school geography for over 25 years, but I am not surprised that millions of Americans don’t know there’s a state of GA in the U.S. and a nation named GA on the other side of the world. I taught in a small “conservative” town in Middle GA. One day I mentioned something about Lativa and Estonia. Several of my students swore there were no countries anywhere in the world with these names, so I Googled it on my computer and showed the nations to them. They were very surprised. This showed me that many kids don’t know certain things because their parents don’t know them. I recalled teaching a unit in civics on the three branches of government, making the point that the constitution grants only Congress the power of the purse. One of my students, who admitted he and his dad listened to Rush Limbaugh everyday, came up to me one day after class and told me that even though he knew it was in the constitution, he still believed that President Obama was able to spend taxpayers’ monies whenever he chose to. I had made the specific point that any tax monies spent in the U.S. must be approved by Congress, but it made little difference to this kid. He probably still believes that this president is spending tax monies like a drunk spends money buying more drinks at a bar. This is the kind of sh*t we, as sane voters in the U.S., are having to deal with—-a situation in which some voters’ beliefs trump facts and reality.