Tennessee teabaggers are growing tired of being corrected by their fifth-grade relatives every darn time they get a notion to holler some about how Thomas Jefferson was human history's inventor of freedom -- maybe it's time to LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD, HMMM KIDS? The state's tea party leadership made an indignant request to the state legislature demanding schools quit teaching children that the Founding Fathers owned slaves or killed Indians or made any mistakes whatsoever at any time, which they expressed with a statement notable firstly for its losing battle with grammar and syntax: “We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government.” It has sort of a drunk Yoda ring to it, no? "Compel to teach the truth the students we will!" And then it's pretty much downhill from there.
From the Commercial Appeal:
Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman during the news conference, said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.
“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” said Rounds, whose website identifies him as a Vietnam War veteran of the Air Force and FedEx retiree who became a lawyer in 1995.
This same human who thinks the Native American genocide was "made up" would probably also argue to you that Jesus's existence was a historical fact. Aren't people neat? [Commercial Appeal thanks to Wonkette operative "Matthew B."]
I know. I'm starting to lose my respect for Tennesseans, Tea Partiers, and racists, too. I still have some respect for FedEx. They make the trains run on time, you know.