Miss South Carolina Teen USA explains herself

www.msnbc.msn.com ^ | 08/28/2007 | Mike Celizic

[Rte66]

Addendum to my post #85 - I just saw my umpteenth rerun of whatever her name is, the “U.S. American” from whatever state it is that she is from (if I had a map, I could guess) (oh, wait, I *do*).

I listened extra-carefully and finally did hear “maps” as being what some “U.S. Americans” don’t have, so I am now enlightened.

Also saw the 9-1-1 spoof of her - thumbs down. Hope there are better ones out there.

[LIConFem]

This is funny!!

[WesternCulture]

- Loved it, thanks for posting!!

I’m from Sweden, but I admit American women are even more impressive and intellectual than ours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgO6Ttn7rU

[Enchante]

60 million Americans can’t find our country on a map, but 20 million Mexicans have no trouble finding it on foot. Damn.

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Actually, I seriously question that “20%” figure, though I don’t doubt that many Americans are rather incompetent with world geography. The National Geographic survey I was able to find via Google had 94% identifying the USA on a map. No surprise that 6% are utter morons, but maybe not 20%.

Of course, when it comes to identifying a lot of other countries on a map then too many Americans do very badly. But I don’t think it’s true that there are so many who don’t even know where the USA is..... though there’s no doubt that between our dismal public education and the liberal “progressive” idea that no one should have to learn boring “facts” like geography, we’re not in very good shape.

[Rte66]

I’m thinking it’s very possible that many can’t identify the individual “states” of the US on a map, by their outlines. I’ve seen that phenomenon myself.

Texas and California are usually readily identifiable, plus whatever state the interviewee lives in, but beyond that, many don’t have a clue.

[WesternCulture]

I agree 20% sounds rather unlikely. I recently read that another poll had arrived at the result of 11% - and you have obviously found out that yet another one claiming the percentage to be 6%.

I guess it’s safe to say that at least 6% of every nation’s inhabitants are severely under-furnished in the brain department.

For instance, a Swede I talked to some years ago, who lived in a part of Europe where people are known to be especially well educated, namely Tuscany, Italy, had spoke to a middle aged woman there who had never heard of “Irlanda” - Italian for Ireland.

When I visited Florida in the 1990’s, I experienced that people of all sorts knew a surprising amount of facts about my country, Sweden. Remember, Sweden has only 9 million inhabitants. I’d say few Swedes know as much about US states of that size - like New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia - as average US Americans know about Sweden.

From what I can tell, Liberal ideas like “a good teacher is any kind of educator that can make children feel good about themselves” have done a lot of harm in the US.

This pedagogy is a splendid example of Liberal self-delusion. Liberals/Socialists and suchlike people are prone to believe that ANY kind of treatment of a “defenseless” individual (like a child) by any kind of authority (like a teacher) that results in the weaker individual feeling inferior in any way, equals oppression and is therefore a social evil and a violation of ‘human dignity’.

However, someone who truly believes in the idea that in EVERY human child, a ‘divine spark’ is found which no other creature on earth is in possession of, would claim that ANY KIND OF ‘EQUAL’ RIGHT TO EDUCATION MUST INVOLVE THE RIGHT OF EVERY MENTALLY HEALTHY CHILD TO BE TREATED AS AN INDIVIDUAL WHO IS ABLE OF SEEING AND UNDERSTANDING WHAT GENIUSES LIKE LEONARDO DA VINCI AND ALBERT EINSTEIN SAW AND UNDERSTOOD.

Children that are denied proper training of their mind because society believes that such traing might be experienced as 'psychologically strainful', will probably grow up to Liberals and Socialists ready and willing to accept any kind of political ideology delivered by any sort of putative authority that makes them 'feel good about' themselves. If a child never learns how to properly use his/her capacity for rational thought, we do not only deprive society from the full intellectual and production capacity of that person, we also deprive that individual from a the right of functioning as a free individual in a democratic society governed by free, politically equal subjects.

The solution to any kind of problem The US or any other nation might experience in this area is classical education:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education

http://www.foundationsacademy.org/about.htm

http://www.gbt.org/clasced.html

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/classed.html