Rantz: Seattle Schools document say math is oppressive, US government racist

Okay, so you belong to some "Scandinavian" school of 'racial supremacy'!

Nothing against whatever was being done by the "Scandinavians", including bathing. But I know about the actual civilizations of the ME, including the one that gave us several Persian empires which were each dominant or important powers in their time (collectively, for over a 1,000 years before the advent of Islam). And know it wasn't at all related to any "Scandinavian" heritage! The ones who looked the most like these "Scandinavians" were the "Scythians" and they were in fact regarded as barbarians by the Persians, by the Greeks and by the Romans as well! But the Scythians did indeed speak an "Iranian language", which is why they are counted among the "Iranian people" too.

 

I guess I stand corrected. I said school funding has been decreasing since the 1990s. You post since the 80s.
If it started with Reagan, 80s is correct.
But for anyone to complain about how we've fallen in stats when measured against the world, only has to look at the funding to provide education.
I am not sure why, but the RW seems to be against education.

If one wants a strong nation, education needs to be at or near the top of the list of things to fund.

 

A few quick, random, points:

1- I am not sure where the "blonde hair" and "blue yes" emanated from. While it exists to varying degrees among certain Iranians, that is not a feature that is prevalent enough for me to be focused on. Except I now the historical record shows the "Scythians" being described as such, while I don't know Iranian or non-Iranian source (i.e., Greek or Roman) which made much of a physical distinction between the Persians and their Greek or Roman enemies. (What I do know is that all these sources seemed quite fond and taken by the 'beauty' of Persian women, which they did write about. Same, incidentally, as Gobineau, who considered Persian women the most beautiful women in the world even though he considered us to have been only "originally" Aryan (his misappropriation of the term for Nordic) and clearly felt we were now a mixed race of 'rascals'

2- Your idea of what constitutes "white skin" and mine differ. If 'white supremacists" such as yourself would choose another adjective (e.g., "pink supremacists") I would frankly be happier. It runs against thousands of years of Iranian history for me to regard myself as something other than "white", although I am clearly not from the same heritage you prefer. (I have noticed many Iranians, particularly those who are perhaps darker in complexion and who live in the US, consider themselves POC, which suggests to me that the struggle for 're-definition' of what it means to be Iranian is gaining some ground. I guess you should be proud of that, since it is not mean task to make a people who have defined themselves one way throughout history, to suddenly find themselves accepting another definition

3- Natural selection and the evolutionary forces don't need advocates of 'racist supremacy' to force their views on others. The evolutionary processes will hopefully find a way to escape the force of those who are trying to stagnate evolution, simply because they are newcomers to the actual world of civilization and human achievement and have a desperate need to claim everything as their own.

4- In the meantime, please explain to me why your 'master race' from Denmark et al isn't performing up to par in academic competitions such as the Mathematics Olympiads I covered here? I never thought I will have to refute a theory of "Scandinavian supremacy" -- especially one which is forced to admit that even their language comes from the Iranian people. But since we are talking about math, lets compare Iran to your favorite Nordics! And this comparison will start to look embarrassing for the both of us if bring the East Asian (China, Korea Rep.) medal counts into the picture!

https://www.imo-official.org/results_country.aspx

Denmark: 1 Gold 6 Silver 33 Bronze 44 HM
I.R. Iran: 45 Gold 97 Silver 43 Bronze 4 HM
Norway: 2 Gold 14 Silver 35 Bronze 36 HM
Sweden: 7 Gold 31 Silver 79 Bronze 54 HM

Add up all the "Gold medals" from your Scandinavian master race, and it still doesn't come close to the number of Gold medals by Iran! In fact, even adding up together, you have barely 10 Gold medals compared to 45 Gold medals from Iranian students.

p.s.
Let me put it to you as simply as I can: history and how and why a certain civilization advance at different times, is a very complex subject. Only dull minds believe it can be simplified in racial terms!

 

I don't care if that 60% was spread over a century. Your math still doesn't compute.

 

Looks to me like the original article was pretty accurate. How does this course help students learn math?

 

Federal funding for education has always been a very small percentage of student dollars. It's at the state level in which funding is measured. It doesn't matter if your state is red or blue the money for education shrank considerably during the Obama era.

 

Yes and it should be that way.
That doesn't take away from the fact that education has been funded less and less.
And IMO, is a direct correlation to our standing in world on critical subjects.

If one wants a strong nation, the nation needs to have a strong education system.

 

Now now, you posted it was the RW (Republicans) that cut the funding.

Its everybody that cut funding.

 

Sorry. After the great recession, most states likely cut spending on education as well as most all other things.
Here's how states have fared since

https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-punishing-decade-for-school-funding

But I still say, a strong country needs strong education.

 

There is quite a discrepancy between the two. Both graphs are from the same source and basically the same time frame. However the CBPP uses data from Illinois State University in one graph and the National Center for Education Statistics in the other. Oh well, all I know is that America's youth is extremely ignorant these days.

 

I know several people who came from Iran. I am Swedish. There is a clear racial difference.

The standard history that children are taught tells us that civilization began in the Middle East and moved from there. Yet there were clearly thriving civilizations in China and in Northern Europe at the time civilization arose in the Middle East.


Scythians have nothing to do with Scandinavia. In fact the Mediterranean culture, of which Persia was and Iran is a part of, never even knew of Scandinavians until the Romans conquered England.

 

I absolutely agree. And so would anyone with eyes. What does that have to do with anything I said. Did you even read my post?

The oldest civilization started in the ME, in present day Iraq. Not too long after that, there were civilizations that emerged elsewhere. The longest continuous civilization, however, belongs to China.

Not sure, except the linguistic ties suggest otherwise.

This just shows that you have never read one line of actual history of anything relating to what we are discussing!! The most nonsensical claim that ever be made on this subject, as the Scythians were even better known to Iran than any other people in the world. Even our first emperor, Cyrus the Great, was killed by the Scythians and we had numerous wars and cross border issue with the Scythians long before there even was a Rome!!!! The Scythians are also described in detail in western sources predating Rome, including by Herodotus!
Honestly, go get a clue!

 

I've always thought it an odd thing. Especially when conservatives are repeatedly told they are smarter than liberals, yet conservatives seem to have adopted, as one of their pillars, the destruction of the public education system.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with a desire to keep people dumb enough to buy whatever the Republican Party is selling them.

Quite regularly I hear conservatives complaining about a friend who went off to college and became a liberal. They will claim that their friend was indoctrinated and all that silliness. But the fact of the matter is college is an eye opening experience. If one grows up conservative a d goes to college, they find out that a lot of their cherished beliefs were just that, beliefs, and not reality

 

I can’t resist but comment - if they are so smart, then why are they allowing religious lunatics to run their country?

 

Because, while I disagree with many things when it comes to our clerical class, they aren't at all the "religious lunatics" you assume them to be. And they best represented, at the time of the Iranian revolution, the class which was the least affected adversely by westernization and the threat it posed to the twin pillars of Iranian national identity. An identity which had resisted (while absorbing influences from all it contacted) being overtaken by all sorts of people: resisting becoming Hellenized and part of the Greco-Roman world after Alexander had conquered the Persian empire, throwing off that foreign yoke and leading Iran to be a coequal rival of Rome under the Sassanids and before them the Parthians. Resisted Arabization of Iran through the Persian Renaissance and later the adoption of the Shia faith. And which wanted to now resist "westernization" of Iran and Iran being a foreign controlled power, even if it was not then or now against genuine progress.

If you really wanted to understand them, this would be the right book for you to start your education. A book highly praised by all sorts of sources, with Foreign Affairs listing it as one of the top 75 books written in the 20th century, with effusive praise from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times as well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mantle-Prophet-Religion-Politics-Iran/dp/1851686169

 

Incidentally, I misread one aspect of the post I was responding to @ImNotOliver, thinking he was saying the "Scythians" (not Scandinavians) were unknown to Iran. My bad.

 

Again Scythians have nothing to do with Scandinavians.

Before telling me to get a clue, you should read up on Indo-European languages. Your knowledge on this subject seems rather short sighted.

 

I already mentioned in my earlier post: I had misread one aspect of what you said, thinking you were saying that the "Scythians" (not Scandinavians) were unknown to Iran et al. Otherwise, I certainly would not dispute that the "Scandinavians" weren't known to anyone at the time

As for Indo-European languages, their ties and connections to one another is well-established. I am certainly not disputing that at all. The issue, rather, is from where did these common linguistic traits originate? And it doesn't seem to from the "Scandinavians" you are referring to, given that even the people you are referring to as the original (Proto-Indo-Europeans) weren't Scandinavians! The closest languages to the proto-Indo European languages remain the Iranian languages. And while I have no reason to doubt that the "Scandinavian" element influenced genetic, biological and physical traits among peoples in Northern Europe (and left some of its influences elsewhere in Europe), that doesn't mean anything else. Even those "Scandinavian people" (other than the Finns, who speak a Mongoloid language) speak a language that is not native to their place of origin and came to them from some Iranian group, most likely the Scythians, who are also the most likely conduit for the earlier expansion of IE languages throughout Europe. Languages that existed and were spoken by also, not just by the Persians and Medes, but also the ancient Greeks before they too had any clue about the "Scandinavians".

 

Sweden, and all of Scandinavia was never invaded. Rather they did the raiding and invading. Groups like the Lombards and the Visigoths, overran Europe in the aftermath of the Roman empire. Russia is derived from the Scandinavians, called the Rus who over ran and then ruled over the Slavic that lived there. DNA studies show that Ashkenazi Jews were begun when a small group of Arabic men mated with
Lombard women.

The Scandinavians first came to the Middle East via Russian rivers to the Black Sea. They raided along the way, capturing Slavic people and their goods. They then traded these with the people who lived in what is now Turkey, and consequently the Mediterranean. It is said that the word slave is derived from these Slavic captives.

In the days before guns, when battles were fought hand to hand, the men from the north had a clear advantage. The average Northern European man stands at around 5'11". The average Mediterranean man, including Iranians stand at only 5'7". Plus the Swedes, had the best iron in the world from which to make their weapons.

Sweden was the first country to introduce universal education.

 

I think that you are putting too much emphasis on Iran. The Iranian language and the Germanic language are both derived from a people that was neither.

 

I have been hearing this argument for a long time, that the youth is less educated, more ignorant than older people.

A while back I had job as a verification engineer. Essentially I looked over the work of engineers and made evaluations as to their workability. Essentially quality control over engineering. Consistently, the younger engineers outperformed the older ones. I have read studies that claim the average IQ Increases with each generation. That an average child has an IQ 10 points higher than his/her grandparents. This was quite evident a couple of decades ago when they came out with remote controls.

It also has a lot to do with politics. I'm not sure why, but those who have fallen for the Republican line are mostly older, often less educated individuals. They then complain about the younger generation who sees what Republicanism is all about. Calling them less intelligent.

Fact of the matter though, is that most people aren't all that bright. Studies have shown that only around 15% are fully literate. Less than 5% have the wherewithal to become engineers.

 

A great deal of the intellectual class have migrated to the US.

 

I took trigonometry in 9th grade. Geometry the first semester, trigonometry the second. I had taken algebra in 7th and 8th grade. I wasn't the only one.

 

While an interesting take on history, the problem with it is that it basically skips over everything else we know before anyone knew about the "Scandinavians" tribes (Germanic tribes) much! And your narrative talks about much later events to somehow color entirely different issues from much more distant times.

Before I throw light on the actual history you need to know (unless you prefer your mythology, which is fine with me as long as it doesn't get violent, hateful etc), let me mention what we both seem to agree:

1- There is a "Scandinavian" genetic element within the "Nordic races". And Iranians aren't part of the "Nordic race".
2- I am sure these Scandinavian element had something to contribute to civilization, especially in more modern times, with the ascendancy of northern Europeans within Western civilizations and their contributions to the latest chapters in that civilization (especially from the 16th century onward).

That contribution, however, has to be balanced against a lot of negative traits encouraged by 'racist' ideologies which you unfortunately also parrot.

In summarizing the basic facts you also need to understand that linguistic ties do not mean 'genetic ties' but they do suggest which culture and people held dominion over another. Put simply, an African-American with genes that can be traced to people in Africa but who speaks only English and is cultured in the predominant culture in America isn't going to be genetically related to an "Anglo-American". But the fact that he/she speaks English shows which group at some point had the upper hand. If somehow, say 400 years from now, African Americans continue to speak English but takeover the predominant cultural positions in America, and begin calling "Anglo-Americans" names such as 'slave", that won't change where that language (English) originated from.

As for a scholarly account relating to these issues:

1- The Proto-Indo European languages did not originate in "Scandinavia". Nor did its speakers resemble the Scandinavians.
Going back to the Yamana people:

2- You have a basic confusion about genetics influences on modern physical traits as opposed to environmental, social, economic issues (including nutritional intake). People with largely the same genes have been growing in height with socio-economic development. That said, while modern day Iranians are a product of several different influences, the actual "Iranian" element still rather resembles these "Yamnaya people" (a strange term used by modern scholars to describe a people who are better described as "Aryans" or "Iranians" except for what racists to the term "Aryan" by ridiculous theories similar to your own theories and the quest by some to divorce this heritage from as much of history as they can).

3- Leaving aside environmental, nutritional and some genetic mixture with other groups, the "Iranian race" would itself be neither strictly Mediterranean (taller in genetic composition and with straight hair) nor "Nordic" (not blonde, nor as fair skinned).

In summary, there were two main things that Gobineau racists which started the whole "Aryan supremacy" theories got wrong: first, they misappropriated the term "Aryan" to mean Nordics, which isn't the case. As Gobineau and the Nuremberg laws in Germany both recognized, the term related to the people of Iran. However, chauvinism wanted to pretend that the ancient Iranians looked Nordic, when today we know what any realistic review of recorded history and Iranian mythology would have said otherwise. Second, they had this stupid idea that civilization rose and fell by the degree of 'mixture' of Aryan races with others, whereas even the Aryan race was never a pure race and all human beings (and human progress) is based on an evolutionary process that sees different influenced absorbed, less helpful ones naturally rejected, and there is nothing in either evolutionary theory or real history that requires "racial supremacists" to segregate people from one another in fear of what that process will produce!

I personally like the Iranian people to reclaim the true meaning of the term Aryan and recover their heritage from these racists, while protecting from those who want to erase their memory altogether.

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

 

Yes, Iran has a huge "brain drain", i.e. immigration of its educated classes to other countries.

But all of our medals in academic Olympiad are won by kids who were born, raised and schooled (at least at the time they won their medals since many of them later would immigrate, one of them the first woman to win the Mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize, namely Maryam Mirzakhani who was the first woman who won the Fields Award in Mathematics) in Iran. Which itself speaks volumes for those who imagine ridiculous things about Iran even under its "theocratic government".

Nor is this just in math: in other scientific Olympiads, including chemistry, physics, astronomy etc, Iranian kids out perform most people from other countries outside a few. Most of the few come from Russia, eastern Europe and east Asia (along with America, which has all sorts of immigrants including from all these other places).