Alabama Republican State Senator Thinks Teacher Raises Go ‘Against the Bible’
Anymore, it’s monstrously difficult for sensible and rational people to live a normal and content life without some deranged, miserably uninformed right-wing republican crapping on the path to progress. Whether it’s those pesky gays wanting to be happy or adults wanting to get high, the nefarious trolls of the inane clown posse holding claim to religious authority simply will not allow you to be happy and content.
According to Republican Alabama state Senator, Shadrack McGill , the bible states that rasing teachers salaries will only lead to unqualified teachers. The Gospel according to Chris Christie, perhaps?
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Evidently God not only doesn’t want Barack Obama to be president or homosexuals to be eligible to fight commerce wars for the Military-Industrial-Complex, but feels that aspiring teachers only enter the profession on the account of all the bling that comes with the thankless and castigated profession.
“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach,” said McGill
I cannot officially weigh in on the biblical principle since America is supposed to be a secular society, but it’s safe to assume that when it comes to the Alabama legislature, the Peter Principle comes to mind.
“To go in and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK? And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity. If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance,” said McGill
While it’s hard to dispute such a flawless and reasoned argument, I’ll have to throw caution to the wind and say that McGill is categorically wrong. The amount of undue and unjustified rancor towards educators, devoted and passionate thinking people who willingly take mediocre salaries and deal with your sexting, ADHD, pain-pill distributing brats 8 hours a day in exchange for a generous pension, is insufferable and must stop. While I agree with the notion that everyone should make sacrifices during the prolonged economic recession, but I do not recall a first year teacher causing the financial system to collapse. Teacher pay, particularly merit pay, is certainly a debatable issue. However, once you start using the bible as a point of reference, you abandon all credibility as a human being. Curiously enough, McGill found absolutely no biblical grounds on which to not authorize a 67 percent pay increase for legislators in 2007, which increased annual salaries for the part-time legislators from $30,710 to $49,500.
Michael is a comedian/VO artist/Columnist extraordinaire, who co-wrote an award-nominated comedy, produces a chapter of Laughing Liberally, wrote for NY Times Laugh Lines, guest-blogged for Joe Biden, and writes a column for MSNBC.com affiliated Cagle Media. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and like NJ Laughing Liberally Lab. Seriously, follow him or he’ll send you a photo of Rush Limbaugh bending over in a thong.
3:48 pm
I have yet to see what verses this legislator can quote to justify this position, leaving aside that we shouldn’t rely on the Bible to guide public policy. Also, Joshua Mitchell III in the Facebook comments is not contributing to the discussion. All he has proven is that Democrats sometimes say things inartfully, or in some cases were meant as jokes, both of which we all do occasionally. The difference is this statement is a deliberate proposal about policy rather than a misstatement.
9:25 am
Hmmm. Judging by the clarity of thought and level of reasoning shown by this guy. One can only deduce he has never actually met a teacher, This is not likely to be true as he must have attended a school somewhere. Perhaps he was one of those students that sat in the back of the room picking his nose and gazing out the window.
1:22 am
To Second Amendment Democrat–I’m all for your idea. Go ahead. You can probably even pay some Professor of Languages to swear that it’s the correct translation, and start some real controversy.
But don’t stop there. Instead of “Republican”, try for the translation to read “Conservative”. You get a much better cross-section of the people who are the real problem in America, and most of them will be the ones holding the Bibles in the first place. Not that it will stop them, “judge not” certainly didn’t. And neither did “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Seriously, it’s hard to know where to start with idiocy like this. Crying comes to mind, but the Republican’ts aren’t moved by tears. Or any other symptom of human misery, for that matter. It’s people like this “Shadrack McGill” who help me understand why Republican’ts are so staunchly against abortion, though–any reasonable person listening to McGill’s blathering must have been thinking, somewhere in the back of their mind, that retroactive abortion might not be such a bad idea after all.
However, I believe that what I will say is this. Following Mr. McGill’s logic, anyone who devotes their life, or even a part of it, to politics must have a calling to it, and should not be compensated in any way lest unqualified persons be tempted to get up there and begin proposing inane legislation. In fact, I respect Mr. McGill sooooooo much that I believe he should be the first of an across-the-board (and country) wave of completely uncompensated politicians. No salaries, no public-funded health care, no pension, and no election campaign money–well, I suppose we can spring for gas money, strictly as commercial mileage.
I think we all owe Mr. McGill a hearty round of thanks–his epiphany may just help clear the deadwood out of our government!
God help us all.
1:45 am
“However, I believe that what I will say is this. Following Mr. McGill’s logic, anyone who devotes their life, or even a part of it, to politics must have a calling to it, and should not be compensated in any way lest unqualified persons be tempted to get up there and begin proposing inane legislation.”
I was actually about to make the opposite point when I read your comment. Politics has already attracted the unqualified (as evidenced by McGill), raising salaries can’t have a detrimental effect on the quality of legislators; we’ve already reached the pinnacle of unqualified, there are no worse people to be had.
10:18 pm
Well, that’s Alabama for you. “We don’t need no book lernin:”
10:02 pm
There apparently is a planet (probably called Foxforld) where it really is true that “the answers to all your questions are in this book.” So following this “logic”…
“Thou Shalt Not suffer a Republican to live.” OK, that’s a mistranslation. But not the first. King James changed “poisoner” to the female “witch”, and women were burned at the stake because of it.
If it worked once, hey, it’s worth a try…
6:32 pm
How can people who belong in mental institutions be elected to office? Absolutely amazing!