Confirmed: Common Core is What You Suspected it Might Be

The codification of political correctness in primary and secondary education: Former Pearson Exec Reveals Anti-American Agenda in Common Core

A former marketing executive for textbook publishing giant Pearson Education reveals the anti-American agenda behind Common Core and the Advanced Placement U.S. History framework in the third video of a series produced by Project Veritas and focused on the corporate cronyism behind the education reform known as Common Core.

Kim Koerber, a former Pearson executive who now works as a sales consultant for National Geographic – another Gates Foundation-funded Common Core publisher – tells the Project Veritas undercover journalist that “conservative voters are afraid of everything,” and proceeds to say why Common Core is important in her view.

A few quotes so you can get the flavor of the thing:

“The dead white guys did not create this country,” Koerber says. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.

“People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like,” she tells the journalist, who then asks her about the Second Amendment.

“But yet they don’t want to teach all of it,” she replies. “Damn the Second Amendment.”

Miss Kitty and Marshall Dillon

And that’s the problem. You’re getting pushback, because there’s a bunch of Republican people, conservatives that don’t like being told what to do by people they don’t agree with. For example, in AP U.S. History a long time ago, Texas wanted to have U.S. History books, right? Pearson made them. And it talked about the Wild West and how there were prostitutes, right. And Texas was really upset. They didn’t want to mention…I’m like…You’re too young to… Did you watch Gun Smoke? It was a TV show, and you had Marshall Dillon and Ms. Kitty was his friend. She owned a bar and she was a prostitute. They never mentioned it but that’s what she was. It’s like who was Ms. Kitty? Who were these people who went out and serviced these men that went out in the world? That was real. The Wild West was not a nice place. And our kids need to know that that’s what it was like, you know.

And now, for a change of pace, an epic rant by Ace:  The Thing That Unites The Conservative Movement Isn't Actually Conservatism

The writer of the above-linked piece uses the quote to explain Trumpism, which I guess is a sort of nationalism plus temperamental conservatism without much actual conservative thought or specific policies attached to it. That is, it's conservative-sounding impulses (occasionally) that frequently conflict with the actual settled conservative policy consensus.

I don't think Trump knows enough about conservatism to even know there is a consensus among the thought leaders on a whole range of topics.

This makes him simultaneously infuriating, embarrassing, and exhilarating. It's embarrassing he didn't even bother to pick up three or four easy-reader books that would have sketched the main parameters of conservative thought, and it's infuriating he repudiates it all so breezily.

But, for anyone who think the conservative thought class has itself gotten too hidebound and dogmatic, it's exhilarating to see it all shaken up and so many things considered Beyond Question suddenly subject to question.

By the way, I don't say that the things Beyond Question should be discarded. Most of them are probably considered Beyond Question for a good reason. *

I just don't know if the greater mass of the party has ever really engaged in thinking about these things. Maybe people need a new round of debate and explaining -- even if this seems like repetitive work to those who've already thought all this through.

On the greater point, I think the piece is right. "Conservatives" aren't all actually conservative. I'm considered a sort of "hard rightwing conservative firebrand" or something, but in fact I'm really a pissed off liberal who's angry that self-claimed "liberals" claim a string of propositions, most of which I agree with, and then proceeds to violate all of these claims without any compunctions at all, in order to gain political power and pay off political constituents.

So I'm not sure that there's really a "conservative line of thought" that really animates the right.

I've also thought, for a long time, that the left is pretty coherent in goals, if not in philosophy. They do not have consistent philosophical reasons for their demands, but all of their demands are perfectly consistent in this sense: All of their demands boil down to using government power to take money or freedom from those outside the coalition in order to redistribute those goods to those within the coalition.

It's like a gang of thieves: They all might have different philosophical justifications for their thievery, but they all agree that at the end of the day you're getting fucking robbed.
What we call the "conservative movement" is simply a reaction to that. I don't want to use the word "reactionary" because it's considered a bad word but I think it's reactionary in the sense that the left attacks and steals, and then all the people they're running roughshod over have to band together defensively to oppose them.

And I don't know our movement has any actual agreed-to philosophy behind it except that we all agree we would like to stop being attacked and robbed by the left.

And that's just a taste of it. Read the whole thing. In fact, read them both.

Wombat-socho has the mega "Rule Five Sunday: The Two Faces Of India" and "FMJRA 2.0: Jetpack Blues" ready at the Other McCain.