Lies they teach you in HIstory class

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stompythebeast

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May 6, 2008
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its getting hot in here, woo. you people should just go argue on Wikipedia, at least you'll ruin some 6th graders history report by editing your "corrections" and get something out of these "discussions"
 

Nuke_em_05

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Mar 30, 2009
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Lie #1
Communism and Fascism are opposites. The truth is they are both totalitarian governments run by dictators who oppose individuality. In fact the Nazis were the National Socialist German Worker'S Party.

Mmm... Never heard this one. they aren't opposites, but they aren't the same. Fascism is where a single party asserts itself as the best and suppresses any criticism of itself or its members. Communisim is a kind-of pholosophy that there are no classes, no ownership, shared resources and labor. Just because a party names itself something doesn't really mean anything. It's the "People's Republic of China" and the "Free People of North Korea".

Lie #2
Europe was better under Stalin than Hitler. The fact is Stalin was responsible for more deaths in Europe than Hitler was.

Also never heard this one exactly. I heard that they both sucked pretty bad.

Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.

Never heard in a history class... Inflation isn't just determined by how much money is in circulation. If a country produces (EDIT) less (shouldn't write so late), but keeps the same amount of currency in circulation, there will be less (EDIT again) gross product per dollar, thus a lessened value per dollar. It does happen naturally, but yes, it can be mitigated. Floods happen naturally, and if you don't lay sand bags, they suck worse, but that doesn't make them less "natural".

Lie #4
The civil war was fought primarily over slavery. The fact is, although slavery was on issue,the main one was state's rights vs. Federal power. If the main focus was slavery than states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would have joined the South, they had slaves and were Northern states, and additionally the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply to them.

This I agree with, and I think it's pretty funny, actually. Yes, slavery was bad, yes, the "North" wanted to abolish it, yes, the "South" didn't. The main problem was that the South was under-represented or not given equal consideration. It was about legislation without representation. The slavery issue was a symptom of the cause. This is like how some people say that the revolutionary war was about tea taxes. It wasn't about tea taxes, it was about how the colonies had no say over the taxes imposed upon them. Taxation without representation. Really, the civil war is probably what would have happened if the colonies lost the revolutionary war.

The lie about the United States founded on Christianity, meh. I do agree with the point that Christians aren't the only people with morals. I think with the references in much of the founding fathers' literature, it's safe to assume that at least most of them were.

Related, separation of church and state. It does not mean that they should be completely removed one from the other, let alone always opposed. The point was to avoid a system where a church position came with a political postion, or vice-versa. Like the church of England King=Pope situation. It is so that a church figure cannot gain control of the government, or that a government figure can control a chruch (by virtue of the related positions). It doesn't mean that religious elements can't be observed in government.
 

Dirty Apple

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Apr 24, 2008
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-Pertaining to #1-
In my Poli Sci classes, I was always taught that Fascism was the extreme right end of the scale and that communism was the extreme left. As to totalitarianism vs. anarchism, ok, imagine an X/Y grid intead of a continuum. Lika so....


Anarchism
I
I
I
I
Communism ---------------------------- Fascism
I
I
I
I
Totalitarianism

In this model, totalitarianism isn't exclusive to either. In their purest forms, communism is only concerned with the needs of the whole, fascism, the rights of the individual. Anarchism is the complete absence of governmental control. While totalitarianism is a government that has complete control of every facet of life.

Be gentle, the burn cream I pre-applied is only good for one or two flammings.


(Crap, my home made graph didn't work. Either way, I think you people catch my drift.)
 

dwightsteel

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Feb 7, 2007
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magnuslion said:
TaborMallory said:
Christopher Columbus didn't fucking discover North America. He thought he was in the Indies south of Asia. The first people from Europe to discover North America were the Vikings.
More to the point, its kind of hard to "discover" a land that has an indigenous people. otherwise I would go and "discover" the Bahamas and claim them in the name of Liony-Goodness Land.
Technically speaking, he never landed in North America. He landed in nice, tropical spots that North America didn't even associate with till later. At best, it could be said he landed in Central and/or South America. That and he was an idiot, thief, and murdering asshole.
 

darthzack79

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Mar 31, 2008
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You must have had some terrible history courses...I already knew all of this stuff, in better wording, and it was taught to me correctly.
 

Nuke_em_05

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Mar 30, 2009
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Jenkins said:
TaborMallory said:
Christopher Columbus didn't discover North America. He thought he was in the Indies south of Asia. The first people from Europe to discover North America were the Vikings.
wrong. the first people to find north America were native Americans :) im nitpicking haha
Awesome. Technically, yes, Native Americans "found" North America first.

Erik the Red, and his kid, Leif Erikson, were, as far as I remember, the first to discover North America. Well, Greenland, Iceland, and Newfoundland (mmm... original naming).

Another "lie" they were Norse (i.e. Scandanavian). "Viking" is derived from the verb "to go on an expedition", and the noun only refers to the explorer/warriors themselves, not the whole race.
 

Snor

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Mar 17, 2009
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wow why the lies, we were told the facts of our own country and europe (we don't do USA, not enough history of importance there + not enough time after europe :p)
 

TaborMallory

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Jenkins said:
TaborMallory said:
Christopher Columbus didn't fucking discover North America. He thought he was in the Indies south of Asia. The first people from Europe to discover North America were the Vikings.

wrong.

the first people to find north America were native Americans :)

im nitpicking haha
magnuslion said:
More to the point, its kind of hard to "discover" a land that has an indigenous people. otherwise I would go and "discover" the Bahamas and claim them in the name of Liony-Goodness Land.
Nitpicking fail.
 
Jun 11, 2008
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PatientGrasshopper said:
I am trying to compile a list of lies or misinformation they teach you in History class. So far this doesn't even apply to current events which would make this list far more interesting. Do you have any you think you want to add or any rebuttals. Also note for those in other countries, this is written from an American perspective.
Lie #1
Communism and Fascism are opposites. The truth is they are both totalitarian governments run by dictators who oppose individuality. In fact the Nazis were the National Socialist German Worker'S Party.
Lie #2
Europe was better under Stalin than Hitler. The fact is Stalin was responsible for more deaths in Europe than Hitler was.
Lie #3
Inflation is a natural process of the Economy. The truth is inflation can be avoided or at the very least minimized if the Government didn't continue to over mint money and if we actually had money that was backed by something.
Lie #4
The civil war was fought primarily over slavery. The fact is, although slavery was on issue,the main one was state's rights vs. Federal power. If the main focus was slavery than states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri would have joined the South, they had slaves and were Northern states, and additionally the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply to them.
Ok this is kinda bad with out of context quoting but just to check your facts neither Stalin or ever "owned" they occupied certain parts of it for certain times but they never owned or ruled or governed over it.

Also Communism and Socialism are 2 completely different things that would be a lie some people are either taught or have come to believe.
 

PatientGrasshopper

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Nov 2, 2008
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Cheeze_Pavilion said:
Why would backing the money with something eliminate inflation? If the money is backed with gold, and a new gold mine opens up, the gold backing your money is less valuable because that gold can buy less other stuff. Simple supply and demand.

Also, as human industry builds new wealth, the old wealth is going to become less valuable. All assets are subject to inflation as long as human progress doesn't stop.

And why is a little inflation a bad thing in the first place? Inflation causes people to put their wealth to use, expanding the economy.
Yes, true but compared to ho it work no here the government print money at will in unlimited supply, gold i a limited resources and so any inflation would be far less than that caused by the indefinite printing of money.
Agayek said:
PatientGrasshopper said:
That did always confuse me yes. You see I think they were trying to combine two things that don't fit together very well. Anarchy in a pure sense is a society where there is no government whereas Communism has a government to enforce that everyone gets equal protions. Also as opposed to Communism, people have to work for what they get so no, in anarchy not everyone has the same because not everyone does the same work.
That's just it though, Communism, on paper, is Anarchy. Karl Marx's original vision was that the government, once the proletariat had risen up and seized the government, would evenly distribute the wealth and ownership of all public goods. At that point, the government would no longer be needed because people would share these public goods/wealth and a classless society would arise. This society would have no need for government, since everyone was cooperating fine.

In practice, however, that simply does not work. It goes against base human nature to assume that everyone will be altruistic, especially those with power, so a Communist revolution has never reached the point where the government can dissolve, which leaves us with the totalitarian state commonly seen.
I think that is a good point however, my original assertion was more about Communism and Fascism not being opposite. In practice they are very similar.
Robert0288 said:
Stalin killed everyone and anything he wanted. Massacare of 14,000 Polish army officers and Cadets in Katyn forest, Death marches to Sibera, Gulags, Mass internal purges, Cutting off food supplies to ukraine and watching a country tear itself to peaces.

All sorts of nasty things, though he was fighting the Nazi's so that made him a good guy....
I think you got it right there, he was fighting in the allies side so he was the good guy, but lest we forget,initially he made a deal with Hitler.
TheSunshineHobo said:
PatientGrasshopper said:
TheSunshineHobo said:
In a capitalist economy the rise and fall of the market Is inevitable. Any form of capitalism, be it demand-side, socialist, supply-side, or laize fair, it will rise and fall. governments can intervene to lessen the blow of a crash, but they cannot stop them. All economies feature some form of a rise and fall system. Canada uses welfare capitalism which is one step to the right of socialism and America uses a supply-side doctrine which is a little more right than Canada, as such Canada has more government intervention than the US does, but it still suffers from the effects of a capitalist economy.
That is just the thing, it is the government interference that got us into the problem in the first place. They think they can get us out of debt by printing more money. Now with the bailouts but that is a whole other matter. Also there was a time when our money was backed by gold but not any more meaning our money has no true value.
The Great Depression was caused by a lack of involvement, as was our current crisis. The gold standard was not the end all be all either. The gold standard limits the global economy drastically. If we were to go back to the gold standard the amount of money available globally would be less than the amount currently circulating in the US. It is true that governments couldn't simply print money when in a recession, but it also mean that governments can't stimulate the economy during a recession. If a country did get hit hard the government couldn't do anything about it. The gold standard relies on the price of gold. What if the price plummets? Sorry, your cash means nothing. The gold standard is just as weak as any other monetary system.
No, first of all, in about 1920 there was a crash and it was largely ignored and just let it be and it was eventually fixed on its own, then when the Great depression came,Hoover, followed by FDR tried to interfere and FDR's New Deal prolonged the depression. Also, the point about how if we went back to the gold standard it would be less than the money we have just goes to show how out of hand inflation has gotten.
Agayek said:
yonderTheGreat said:
Um... yet another wrong. The civil war happened because the Southern states seceded. This happened because they were opposed to Lincoln's views. Which of Lincoln's views were they most opposed to? Slavery. They feared he would end it. They feared his other views more, but slavery was #1.
No.

They seceded because they believed the federal government did not have the right to make that decision. If memory serves, it was actually a legal move in the Constitution. The states had reserved the right to secede from the Union if they so wished.

Did slavery play a major part in that? Of course. The slaveowners (which were a very surprisingly small amount of the population) did not want the government to dictate they can't own slaves and ruin their cheap labor. The rest, something like 90%+ of the population down there, fought because they didn't want people who had nothing to do with them to dictate their lives. Lincoln couldn't allow that to stand and so Fort Sumter went down and the Civil War began.
You are correct, initially when the US was formed the states joined on the condition that they could leave if they wanted. Then the Constitution was written and although it never explicitly stated that anymore, the 10th amendment says that anything not stated in the Constitution is up to the states, and since it is not prohibited it is up to the states to decide.
 

101194

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Broken Wings said:
American students are taught that the war of 1812 never happened. That is bullcrap, their whitehouse got burned down and they don't want to admit it.
American textbooks state that the war of 1812 happened, Teachers just leave that out.
 

101194

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Dirty Apple said:
-Pertaining to #1-
In my Poli Sci classes, I was always taught that Fascism was the extreme right end of the scale and that communism was the extreme left. As to totalitarianism vs. anarchism, ok, imagine an X/Y grid intead of a continuum. Lika so....

(Executive Facisim)
Authoritarian
I
I
I
(Pure Communisim) I (Pure Republic)
Collectivism ---------------------------- Neo-Liberalism
I
I
I
I
Anarcy
(Liberarian)

In this model, totalitarianism isn't exclusive to either. In their purest forms, communism is only concerned with the needs of the whole, fascism, the rights of the individual. Anarchism is the complete absence of governmental control. While totalitarianism is a government that has complete control of every facet of life.

Be gentle, the burn cream I pre-applied is only good for one or two flammings.


(Crap, my home made graph didn't work. Either way, I think you people catch my drift.)

Fixed it, Acually Communisim isn't really a Political location, Collectivism is pure Communisim, Facism isn't really a good Example, This is the Govermental political compass, You can see that the compass really shows the corlation between leaders and political posions, There are subsections and whatnot, But Basicly is not "Left and Right" Its more x/y as you put but it's a little different
 

DND Judgement

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Sep 30, 2008
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Richard the lionheart was a terrible king who spent most of his reign in prison or wasting so many lives failing to take jarusalem, his brother john however was a very good king and not a maniacal dictator obsessed with money...