Tennessee Repub Sen. Wants to End Higher Education, Breeds Liberals

Another day, another headline where one need ask: “Onion? Or Real?” This one damn well may qualify for that special category, “Both,” because I guarantee right now the Onion could run this story and people would laugh their asses off at the pride in stupidity.

Tennessee State Senator Kerry Roberts called for the abolition of higher education, because he says “it is a breeding ground” for liberal ideology.

Did you ever dream you would hear a Republican admit that the less education one receives, the more likely they are to be conservative Republicans?

Extending his logic, a subject taught in many institutions of higher learning, he is advocating for keeping people stupid because that “breeds” conservative Republicans. I did not say that – he did.

End of funny-ass head pounding regular “Post-Regan/Bush Republican party” tone.

Can you imagine the utter hatred that must be coursing through this person’s veins? This is terrifying.

He would rather have bridges and buildings designed and erected by people who got through high school shop class than live in a world with liberals. He would rather have his lung operated upon by someone who learned surgery online. Worst of all, he would rather have his children (and mine, by the way) taught by people who never had specialized training in how to teach children, lest it lead to liberalism.

This is the world that Senator Roberts would rather inhabit than one with liberals.

It is far far too much to ask him to sit back and wonder what it is about education that turns people away from conservatism.

There is nothing inherently stupid about conservatism as a philosophical/political principle. However, when one’s platform involves shoveling more and more money toward the upper 1% of society – and the GOP’s platform certainly does – it does help to have scared, uneducated, and reflexive people as one’s base.

Were that the only horrible thing about his rant.

If you listen to his rage-filled monologue at the link, you cannot help but note the racism he manages to infuse into the conversation. He disparages a mayor who disagrees with him about abortion. I have no problem with disagreement, none, abortion is a very difficult issue on which people can disagree. It is healthy. Yet in his disagreement, he invokes her race, which plays NO role at all in the abortion debate, or his issue, yet notice he finds a way to bring it up. Not accidental.

This is not representative of the entire Republican party, George Will would faint. Hell, George Conway would tweet about this, and I doubt Chief Justice John Roberts agrees. But they are representative of Republicans unafraid of reason, indeed they rely upon it. It IS representative of FAR too many mainstream Republicans in the age of Trump. I challenge any Republican to argue otherwise. This man has his own radio show, and has a place in the Tennessee state senate. Tell me this isn’t sweeping across mainstream Republican ideology.

In railing about doing away with higher education as a breeding ground for liberalism, he is attacking the people that teach at these institutions, blaming “them” for instilling the beliefs he sees as toxic to “his” country. Of course, people with more education, ones who prize teaching others over earning fortunes in the private sector, really do confuse Republicans like this man. But, why is the party of “family values” unable to instill values in their children such that their can handle hearing an opposite view and yet retain the conservative values with which they have been raised?

If conservatism is the better path, and Sen. Roberts sure seems to believe so, what is stopping him and his radio show from convincing people as a matter of “reason”? What is stopping him from “turning” these poor students being “taught” liberalism? Is he not free to convince young people that he is right, and the teachers are wrong?

Ha, it is education itself, the ability to reason, that threatens him. It does not threaten all Republicans, some rely upon reason to make their arguments. Not this guy. He wants to dictate to others, and that is just so much easier when the crowd is uneducated. So let me send a message to educated and sensitive Republicans out there because this guy isn’t going to listen to me. If you have an issue with what he is saying, it is on you, to “educate him.” Otherwise, you’re complicit, and admitting the same thing.

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Peace, y’all, even to this guy, because I don’t hate him, no matter how much he hates me. There is too much hate in the world as is, I don’t need to contribute to it.

Jason

[email protected], Twitter: @MiciakZoom