Ask Lemmy

That's less a lie and more 'teaching the ideal.' The problem isn't learning how the system is supposed to work. That's how you learn to be a mechanic. You learn how an engine is supposed to work so you can spot where it's gone wrong. The issue is more one of there are millions of people and they get 10 minutes on how it's supposed to work and then only 3 of them go into politics and learn how it actually works/doesn't work. Democracy requires more than a one week chapter on civics, once a year. We all have to be mechanics, or at least be prepared to try.

I think it can be fixed

I mean, good luck. The Principle-Agent Problem is a classic of sociology, particularly with respect to business. If you can solve it, there's a Nobel in Economics waiting for you.

Democracy is an attempt at aligning in the interests of the plurality principles with their government agencies. But there's obviously a whole lot of flaws with democracy generally speaking, even before you get into the particulars of the American system.

I do think that the Lockean Social Contract, as the foundation for any governmental system, is a more interesting and more well-thought-out concept to explore than the mythology surrounding the American three-branch system. Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent does an excellent job of breaking down how a public body can be turned against its own interests. Zinn's People's History gives a ton of insight into the underbelly of the American political beast and how people respond to industrial and state oppression. State and Revolution does an excellent job of describing the role of the state in society and how it can best be dismantled.

But the endless debate around whether US Government works as described or intended really loses the forest of social economy for the ideological tent post trees. Fetishization of the US system only contributes to its rot and our own downfall.

Those poor mayors.

I remember my first description of communism from a teacher in 5th grade.

"The government can force you to work in any field they decide. If they need dentists, they might just force you go to dentists school for 4 years. If after that, they decide they need plumbers, they will send you to plumber school and you will be a plumber. You don't get to choose. If you don't like it, they will send you to Siberia, which is a bad place."

Yeah they don't teach this in social studies and any school in America.

They actually teach what socialism is and what communism is. That's where I learned it.

And why I know the difference between the two and what the definitions are both of these things.

It's especially funny since dude never even touched USA, but USA is racist/genocidal enough to worship dude anyway.

Columbus was the first European to explore Cuban isles. Lief Erickson explored Newfoundland about 400 years before I believe.

Thanks to everyone pointing out that teaching racism was more expensive if it was in color. Thanks for missing the point.

Edit: There are color photos of the civil rights movements, but my middle school textbooks chose to only use the black and white ones of people getting shot with fire hoses and beaten with billy clubs. Every other page of this hard bound textbook had color pictures in it, so saying it would cost more is a straw man argument. Strange coincidence. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/20/fact-check-most-civil-rights-era-images-werent-made-color/3210472001/

Color photos were a thing, but they were significantly more expensive than black and white until around the 1970s. They were mostly saved for special occasions.

Plus, news papers didn't really do much full color until the 80s. Before the mid 50s it was basically just the comic pages that had color. It was the launch of USA Today in 82 that popularized the way newspapers use color today.

Photographers capturing events shoot a lot of film, and there was no compelling reason to shoot in color at the time.

It's almost certainly isn't a conspiracy to make students think it happened a long time ago.

I frequently wanted to kill myself, the idea work would be even worse than school really didnt help because school was absolutely awful. So it will only get worse isn't a great message.

"They won't take late work"