This Fall, Florida Students Will Be Forced to Take "Anti-Communist" Classes

[Ranting Randy]

Source: truthout.org

Florida public schools will force students to take a Heritage Foundation-backed class on the “evils of communism.”

Beginning in the fall of 2026, all Florida middle and high school students will be required to take a yearly social studies class on the history of communism.




Read more: https://truthout.org/articles/this-fall-florida-students-will-be-forced-to-take-anti-communist-classes/

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Is this what freedumb looks like?

[Skittles]

1. the evils of CAPITALISM and AUTHORITARIANISM would be more relevant to them

[mwb970]

2. I have complete confidence that the kids will ignore all the crap they spew.

[Puppyjive]

3. The Heritage Foundation is communist

Project 2025 is a pretty good example of communism. Horrendous organization.

[ancianita]

5. You're joking, right? You think a neo-fascist org like the Heritage Foundation is communist? Seriously?

If so, you must not know what communism is.

Maybe read something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

[ancianita]

4. To be fair, though, Florida also requires that students pass a Florida Civic Literacy Exam (FCLE), which covers

the U.S. Constitution, founding documents, and landmark Supreme Court cases.

Students enrolled in a high school U.S. Government course must take the FCLE. Students must achieve a 60% or higher (48 out of 80 questions) to pass.

tudents entering a Florida College System or State University System institution in 2021-22 or later must pass the FCLE to meet the civic literacy competency requirement.

Passing the FCLE in high school fulfills the requirement, exempting them from retaking it in college.

The test includes questions on the U.S. Constitution, American democracy, and founding documents.

[Frasier Balzov]

7. Enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person.

They probably skip over the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution.

[ancianita]

8. I hear you, though the real problem at the time was to get the U.S. Constitution ratified by a majority of states.

Yes, there was compromise. That said...

The Constitution has not been perfect, but other nations' constitutions (roughly 100) are still modeled after ours. Countries that have adopted structures or principles from the U.S. Constitution include Japan, Chile, the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina, and many in Latin America.
Elements Adopted: Common elements inspired by the U.S. model include a written constitution, a presidential system, federalism, and the concept of judicial review.

Only recently have many used the Canadian Constitution as their model.

[Mysterian]

20. Too many compromises

That's why we're fucked now.

[ancianita]

23. Easy to say in 20-20 hindsight.

The U.S. Constitution's writers weren't perfect, but they 'constituted' the best version of a democratic republic in its day.

They also made it amendable to change, with new historical circumstances. I'd only agree that we're fucked now because we ourselves have not made the time to ratify new amendments. The last amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the 27th Amendment, was ratified on May 7, 1992. Originally proposed in 1789, it prohibits Congress from increasing or decreasing its salary until an election of Representatives has occurred.

After that amendment, nothing.
Not for lack of trying on women's part, though. The ERA languished for reasons mostly men know.

There are other problems with our current constitution that its writers knew about but decided against.
Most important to a nation is that its constitution hold that education be a fundamental constitutional right.
They knew that an educated citizenry was best for a democratic republic -- called a Jeffersonian democracy -- but the Constitution's writers and signers decided to turn education over to the states.
That's what we still have -- 50 different state systems, curricula, capital outlays, and varying taxes levied to pay for it, which makes for a wide 50-state variance of excellence in basic education, and worse, a public that doesn't value systematic education of its descendants. We didn't even have public education in the South until after the Civil War, when blacks in southern state legislatures pressed their states to establish public schools.

We're also fucked because many people who have the ability and desire to go into higher education can't even afford state university educations, nevermind the private universities like the Ivies, U of Chicago or Northwestern. So we're fucked with over 65% of our population undereducated, as in not having at least four years of college.

I've got a lot more to say, but suffice to say we've been fucked over by elites since the nation's funders founded it.

[Mysterian]

24. Electoral college and non-democratic allotment of senators

Two fundamental flaws that gave the super-wealthy the opportunity to destroy the country.

Hindsight? I'm so tired of the elementary bullshit, "They did the best they could, USA! USA!" ingrained into school kids. Some drafters at the time knew these flaws were potentially fatal. Our great "did the best they could" republic has become a barbaric warmonger nation and a grave danger to international peace.

Many nations without the assistance of the drafters of the U.S. constitution are stable, healthy, peaceful democracies. Tell me again how great they did drafting the framework for our republic. It will fall on deaf ears.

[ancianita]

25. All that, too, yes. I hear you on the rest.

We do look terrible before the world. But this barbaric warmonger govt is not the people of the nation, and they know that, which is why they're trying so hard to suppress the vote this year.

Regardless of how you think you knew the minds and prejudices of the drafters (they were deeply wary of corporations even then), our only alternative today as a people is to work with the best of us to get things righted for the 300,000,000 who've worked to make the nation as good as they did in the past.

I'm not trying to change your mind, just stating my opinion. We can't move forward and at the same time stare at the trainwreck.

[dpibel]

26. Amending the Constitution is about "taking the time"?

What does that even mean?

There's no time element to amending the Constitution. Merely supermajorities in Congress and among the states.

Yeah, the Constitutional is amendable. But it's nearly impossible once the country is deeply divided on cultural lines.

[ancianita]

30. You answered your own question. Yes, it takes time to ratify an amendment.

Of course the country looks divided, but the division is more like 70-30, the 30 being trumpcult living on world 2.0.

Doesn't at all mean that we should give up on amending the US Constitution. The young of the country have too much at stake for us to just give up on improving their rights and freedoms.

[dpibel]

32. Apparently you have missed the point.

Amending the Constitution simply is not a matter of "taking the time."

It is about creating sufficient consensus to meet the supermajority requirements.

And, as to things that might be changed by amendment--the Electoral College, the undemocratic nature of the Senate, Presidential powers, for instance--your 70/30 split has nothing to do with it. After all, 30% opposition among the states is enough to defeat an amendment, so you're kind of conceding the game right there. Even considering that the 30% is unevenly distributed, you need only look at the red/blue map to discover that there are more than enough solidly red states to defeat an amendment. And, for that matter, enough blue ones to do the same for any right-wing attempt at amendment.

I honestly can't imagine what you're saying when you say "we haven't taken the time" to amend the Constitution. It just isn't about time in any way, shape, or form.

It's about political will. And the fact that the framers of the Constitution made it wildly difficult to amend the damned thing.

(Just for funzies: The time between the proposal by Congress and the ratification by the states of the 26th Amendment was 100 days. Not exactly a vast stretch of time.)

And none of this has to do with "giving up on improving...rights and freedoms" for "the young." It has to do with the simple math: 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the states.

[ancianita]

33. Sure, some amendments got ratified quickly.

But this...?

your 70/30 split has nothing to do with it. After all, 30% opposition among the states is enough to defeat an amendment, so you're kind of conceding the game right there.

... Wrong.

This has nothing to do with the numbers required to ratify an amendment. It only takes a simple majority vote in each house of state legislatures. After that, three-fourths of the states (38 out of 50).

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. The Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Since the President does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process, the joint resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval.

Who's really missing the point here. Which isn't all about "time." Which is this: We have to make the effort needed to change the US Constitution. Period.

[dpibel]

34. LOL

Good luck with your analytics!

Obvs. no further comments necessary on either side.

[cmmngrnd]

10. FL public school grad -- 3/5 compromise not skipped over

That was along time ago, though!

You can find all the standards here. Standard SS.8.A.3.10: "Examine the course and consequences of the Constitutional Convention (e.g., New Jersey Plan, Virginia Plan, Great Compromise, Three-Fifths Compromise, compromises regarding taxation and slave trade, Electoral College, state vs. federal power, empowering a president). "

So 3/5 compromise is part of the current state standard.

[Frasier Balzov]

12. I admit my surprise and my error!

[cmmngrnd]

6. We had to take "Americansim vs Communism" in FL during the 70's

It was a BS course and taught like a BS course by coaches and other staff that had to have a class to teach. The text was old and had pictures of shiny new American factories and cars (this was before Japan kicked our butts) and grainy photos of scarf-wearing babushkas working in fields next to WW2 era tractors. It was classic Cold War propaganda. The fact that we were destroying the environment, or plundering third world resources abroad, or lynching black folk at home somehow never came up.

If you want to see what the course outcomes are supposed to be, go to the Florida Board of Education standards page, select Social Studies, then Grade 912, then History of Communism. The topics range from anodyne to clearly propaganda worthy of the cold war era.

The bottom line is this is yet another case of republicans solving problems that don't exist. They really don't know how to govern, because they don't want to govern. They want to rule. To govern you need to solve real problems. To rule you need to create boogeyman problems to justify the extra-constitutional powers you claim to need to protect the people from the boogeyman. The boogeyman in this case is "the resurgence of communist ideologies across the United States and throughout the world." Seriously! That's news to me, and probably to you, but you can read it here. And in solving this particular boogeyman, they get to re-tell the mythical story of a mythical American past where everything was wonderful.

Preaching to the choir: Don't take my criticism of America and the propaganda wrong. America has always had the best ideals, and I cherish those ideals. But we all know we've never lived up to those ideals, and certainly didn't during some mythic past. My criticisms in this post are for the America that is, with the hope that we can someday move to the America that could be.

[ancianita]

9. What a weird course title. It would be more accurately labeled Capitalism vs Communism, both being economic ideologies.

Thanks for your well stated post.

I'm with Biden, who repeatedly said that America is an idea.

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. Only those looking for conflict would take your post as such.

Unfortunately...

[The Blue Flower]

27. 1967 Orlando grad here

That was part of our required Civics course. We had to read "Masters of Deceit" by J. E. Hoover. What's funny to me is the tactics described for Communist takeovers of local governments are exactly what the Rs have done over the last 30 years.

[FakeNoose]

11. It might be useful if they teach it along with other systems like socialism, democracy, totalitarianism, and anarchy

You know, stuff that used to be taught in high school CIVICS classes.

[IbogaProject]

13. Hopefully it will be as sucessful as Abstince focused sex ed

It was easier to bad mouth socialism during the 1950s economic boom with broad increases in many family's standards of living. Now people might read Marx and get ideas. I studied economics and Marx had the problems identified well but I suspect his banking heir partner Eingels pushed in the "armed conflect is inevetible" part. Just an idea I have, which isn't researched beyond one semester of Marxian Economics.

[reACTIONary]

14. The syllabus definitely should include....

..... Duck and Cover. They could even incorporate that into PE.

[JohnnyRingo]

15. Textbook written by Joe McCarthy

With a forward penned by Ronald Reagan. ...and make sure the brats pay for them. This ain't a govt handout.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Almost fifty years ago, I had to take "Comparative Political Systems" to graduate high school in FL.

And yes, it compared Soviet Communism and American capitalism, in fairly unsophisticated ways.

I'm not sure how new these "new" requirements are, except it says "yearly" -- as in every student, every year ??

[cstanleytech]

17. It should be a comprehensive class on uncontrolled capitalism as well but it won't.

[samnsara]

19. i would deliberately fail

[rurallib]

21. makes me think of Religion class in my catholic high school

a source of skepticism and humor leading to a few days of unplanned vacation in my junior year.

[lark]

22. I wonder if it's the same class I had to take in FL in 1970?

I was getting my diploma through these accelerated courses, work at your own pace and you finish when you finish - which meant early for me! However, I was REQUIRED to attend the Americanism vs. Communism class. You could miss 1 class a week and as long as you passed the final, you passed. So I attended exactly the mandatory number of days, didn't pay any attention in class and still passed with an A. It was a total snooze and propaganda fest and waste of my time!

[Grins]

31. "Americanism???"

Was there a class in Britishism? Frenchism?

Years ago there existed the House Un-American Activities Committee. Someone asked if you could possibly imagine a “Un-British Activities Committee.” You can’t!

The point being - only Americans do this shit!

[lark]

37. This was during the Vietnam war, we were aware it was total bullshit.

Only a few of the rednecks wanted any classroom discussions, the rest of us just wanted to finish the book so we could get our grades and move on. There were tons of eyerolls!!

[Takket]

28. and people vote for rethugs because they are upset about "indoctination"

[Grins]

29. How about an anti-Fascist class; you could call it "Antifa!"

Or is that too close to home?

[Ranting Randy]

35. I like that, good title by the way

[retread]

36. One trick ponies.

https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/334182

[Ranting Randy]

38. Many years ago I took an economics class in Poland, before they broke free

Many years ago I took an economics class in Poland, before they broke free, before the fall of the Berlin wall. The teacher (also an instructor at one of the Ivy schools) who went on to become the principle architect of Poland's economic system that allowed them to claim their independence from the eastern block(heads). For the whole semester he argued that socialism was on top, capitalism next, then communism. We had long discussions that sometimes continued for awhile after class. We both seemed to enjoy our discussions about various issues with these 3 main economic theories. I used logic and facts to argue (quite convincingly I thought) that well-regulated capitalism was probably the economic system that had the most potential for intelligent growth, and to be fair for the largest number of it's citizens.

Even though I thought I had won the argument long ago, he never agreed! On the last day of class I asked him why if we agreed on the vast majority of the points I'd made he was still insisting that Socialism was still the superior system. He replied, I know on which side of my bread is the butter.

The HUGE problem with capitalism today is that it is NOT well-regulated. Money pollutes our elections masquerading as "free speech" (free speech that costs over a $ Billion each election cycle). Because of rulings from the Supremes like Shittythings Citizens United we have a bastardization of the golden rule to "those with the gold make the rules."

If enough people turn out to vote for good candidates, we can turn things around. If you can make calls, then make calls to support your the candidate of your choice. If you can distribute fliers, host election parties, do mailings, write checks, etc. please do something to elect those who will help create a better society.

If enough people do nothing, things will continue on without change.