Posted on 02/07/2013 6:13:54 AM PST by JoeProBono
BOISE, Idaho, - An Idaho Republican state senator who introduced a bill requiring high school students to read "Atlas Shrugged" said he doesn't plan to push for passage.
Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, introduced the bill Tuesday that would mandate students pass a test on Ayn Rand's 1957 best-seller, frequently cited by conservative politicians such as U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as inspiration for their politics.
When Republican Sen. Bob Nonini asked Goedde why he proposed making "Atlas Shrugged" required reading, Goedde got a laugh when he said, "That book made my son a Republican."
Goedde, however, said he doesn't plan to move the bill forward -- he just wanted to express his unhappiness with the State Board of Education for recent changes in graduation requirements, and a change in the way school principals are evaluated," The (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review reported.
"It was a shot over their bow just to let them know that there's another way to adopt high school graduation requirements," Goedde said.
Rand's book describes an America in which business leaders decide to stop working to protest higher taxes and government regulation.
"When I read 'Atlas Shrugged,' and it's been probably 30 years since I read it, but it certainly gives one a sense of personal responsibility," Goedde said.
For the record, Goedde said his son is not actually "a practicing Republican. But it certainly made him a conservative."
Smaller Government???? I do not like mandatory laws no matter who they come from. I think that if a kid wants to read that book then ensure it is on the Summer list or reading list and let them choose.
Wouldn't that be neat ?
I think the book is dumb and can’t stand that garbage.
More worthwhile is Witness by Whittaker Chambers
Did you read the book about when all the Bluegrass musicians went out on strike? It’s called “Atlas Scrugged”.
It is a good read (have read the book twice) but anymore there is a huge flaw in that Communist China is taking over from us.
Communist China.
Think about that. We are buying everything from Communists.
Wake up people.
You think the book is "dumb?" You "can't stand that garbage?"
What are you, five years old?
Both books have value but AS makes the original American way more entertaining.
This is not an issue of smaller government versus bigger government...and for the record, we already have mandatory reading lists...its called SCHOOL CURRICULUM - this is just a suggestion to add Atlas Shrugged to that list. No expansion of anything.
I have reservations about anyone who would call AS “garbage” - putting them in agreement on this issue with Obama. But moreover, why would it be mutually exclusive concepts to read both Rand and Chambers? I don’t think there’s a law we can only read one or the other? And they’re different books.
In today’s education monopoly, the good intention will just get twisted by teachers’ union.
Their minds had been poisoned, they don’t see any other way.
Ann Rand was not writing arguments based on facts but social science kind of garbage that I despise.
And while they are at it, have them read and study “The 5000 Year Leap.”
I’d settle for “A History of the American People” by Paul Johnson, instead the Howoard Zinn crap.
Let me help you out here with a concept: Rand was a fiction writer, and yet her stories are remarkably prescient. In other words, her "facts" didn't happen until decades later, which we call prophetic or prescient. She drew on her life under communism as an inspiration. Frankly, I don't think you've read her work, I am calling you out here for reading something "about" her work and using that as an excuse not to read it. Your "social science" garbage statement makse zero sense at all. And by the way, it's Ayn, not Ann.
The Chinese are “Communist in name only.”
“I think the book is dumb and can’t stand that garbage.
More worthwhile is Witness by Whittaker Chambers”
I read both books, don’t remember too much of “Witness” however, “Atlas Shrugged” sticks to my brain like no other book.
I disagree then.
The Chinese are very much Communist.
You never read Atlas Shrugged.
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