Sam Post reiterates the importance of knowing your candidates and why it is important to GET OUT THE VOTE in Rowan County. Sam warns us, “it’s important that leaders deal with reality and not make false accusations. Commissioners need to work with the school board to determine funding needs for the school system, based on boring reality — not the latest Qanon crush.”
It’s a shame that Angie Spillman, a candidate for county commission, would say schools should stop teaching students to become Marxist.’ I don’t know if she’s making this up or repeating Qanon conspiracy theories, but this is an absurd statement.
This shows that she probably doesn’t know what Marxism is, and that her understanding of what’s being taught in schools is very limited.
Having positioned herself as the Trumpiest, Quiest candidate in a field of otherwise sober Republicans, she’s likely to win in Rowan County.
It’s been 18 years since I retired from the Rowan-Salisbury School System. I was an English teacher for 2 years and a Technology Facilitator for 22. I spent many hours in many different kinds of classrooms. I don’t ever remember anything happening that was remotely close to teaching students to become Marxists. In the time since I retired, I’ve had conversations with many teachers and students about many topics, and I’ve never heard a word about the schools teaching kids to be Marxists.
In fact, I’d argue that 99.99% of the schools in America teach the opposite of Marxism. When we ask children, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, we’re generally asking about a field of work. It’s not an ontological question. We don’t want to know if the child wants to be kind, generous, loving, or bold. We want to know how he or she plans to make a living as an adult. We’re looking to hear something about a job, career, business, or profession. Money is a factor. That’s capitalism. Even seniors, who appreciate socialist programs such as Social Security and Medicare, love capitalism. Americans love shopping, which capitalism makes available.
I don’t remember any real philosophy being taught in high school, but if there is a philosophy or economics course being taught in Rowan County that explores Marxism, I seriously doubt a teacher would teach his or her students to be Marxists in a society that values money as much as we do.
We’ve gotten numb about name calling and false accusations in politics. That’s too bad.
If Ms. Spillman were to gain a seat on the local commission, she would probably get some clicks by saying other stuff like that.
I’m guessing it comes from the Qanon pipeline or the Trump faction of the party — but they come up with some doozies and are likely to continue doing so.
Her Marxist comment and her unorthodox way of speaking about homeless people solidified her position, among five Republican candidates, as being the Trumpiest and Queyest of them all, which makes it very likely that she’ll win the primary and general election.
If your idea of comedy is a racist or anti-Semitic joke, then Marjorie Taylor Green would be highly entertaining, and scary. She uses her platform to promote Qanon conspiracy theories that demonize people or groups of people. While she’s lost her committee assignments, that doesn’t matter to her. What fascinates her is in getting attention for spouting what she’s read in the latest Qanon comic book — or wherever they get those stories. Her routine is borderline comedy, and she raises a lot of money with it.
But the story is the thing. Getting an audience for those wild, off-the-wall, stories. That’s the juice. But there’s always an end game that includes the dehumanization and criminalization of large groups of people. So it’s not funny. It’s dangerous. They are planting the seeds of hate, and these seeds often grown into genocides.
While these folks love the fun and shocking and clickable stories, the reality they face in the area of public policy is less entertaining and they could care less about dealing with it effectively.
The county commissioners are responsible for funding the school system, above what the state and federal governments provide. How much above determines how competitive Rowan is among other counties in the area.
We do not rank well. According to the US News and World Report Rankings, Rowan ranks below all five of our neighboring counties in 12th grade reading and math. That means Cabarrus, Iredell, Davie, Davidson, and Stanley all score higher than we do on these important measures.
What happened on January 6 should have been a wake up call for Americans, and the horrible war in Europe should certainly be one. The execution of both of these events were based on outlandish conspiracy theories. Many Americans have died because of conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines.
While it’s always fun to get lots of clicks, it’s important that leaders deal with reality and not make false accusations. Commissioners need to work with the school board to determine funding needs for the school system, based on boring reality — not the latest Qanon crush.
That said, given the world we currently live in, I predict she’ll get attention for saying crazy stuff, win the election, continue saying crazy stuff, and create a decent sized following that’s committed to nothing more than bringing attention to outlandish, destructive conspiracy theories.
Sam Post