Sorry Son, But This Will Make You A ...

Sorry Son, But This Will Make You A Man Republican

The Idaho Spokesman-Review reports:

Coeur d’Alene Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Idaho Senate’s Education Committee, introduced legislation Tuesday to require every Idaho high school student to read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and pass a test on it to graduate from high school.

When Sen. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, asked Goedde why he chose that particular book, Goedde said to laughter, “That book made my son a Republican.”

The opportunity here for Idaho jokes, Tea Party jokes, and jokes about things to shrug at is simply bewildering.

However, little is as offensive as is shoving broken ideas into open minds. Goedde's try at walking this back after being questioned about it is as clumsy as political theater gets. He wanted to force-feed junk food to hungry minds to advance a selfish and reality-challenged (read: Tea Party-approved) political agenda.

The Comments Section is worth a read on this one. Highlights include:

Reading about Goedde's silly bill, I'm reminded of John Rogers' oft-quoted remarks:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can see why "Atlas Shrugged" would appeal to adolescents.At it's core the novel is a justification for selfishness and a self-centered world view. Not hard to imagine teenagers would embrace such simplicity.
Hopefully teachers, like myself, provide context to augment the teaching of the novel that includes a biography of the author. They need to know she died of lung cancer after decades of methamphetamine abuse and cigarette smoking. She kept her husband as a cuckold, enjoying a extra-marital affair lasting, again, decades, with a bleary eyed young sycophant. In her waning years, riddled with cancer, she committed Medicare fraud using a servant's identity to obtain health care benefits she never contributed to and railed against.
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This proposal reeks of indoctrination. I thought the right was violently opposed to indoctrination...see the hysteria over President Obama addressing school children in his first term.