Unintended Consequences aren't confined to the "liberal agenda"

District 5 member of the State Board of Education, Ken Mercer, wants students in Texas schools to learn about the unintended consequences of the “Great Society” legislation passed during the Lyndon Johnson administration. Since neither he nor the rest of his cabal listed any I wonder what those unintended consequences were.

I also wonder why Mr. Mercer’s cabal aren’t concerned that Texas students aren’t required to learn of the unintended consequences of repealing many of the provisions of the Glass-Stegall Act which prevented the collapse of our banking system for nearly fifty years until politicians from both parties dismantled it. Since then we’ve had a string of financial debacles, first the Savings & Loan crisis then the hedge fund collapse and now the Great Recession of 2008.

What of the unintended consequences of deregulating other industries? After the collapse of Enron which destroyed the finances of many Texans you’d think the conservative mantra of deregulation would be worthy of discussion. Even Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, now admits that the market isn’t as good at self correction as he thought it was.

Ken Mercer and his cabal claim that they need to make such adjustments to correct for the liberal bias of the volunteer teachers who give their time to write our curriculum standards and the “expert” reviewers. Oddly, most of those reviewers were in fact appointed by none other than the ultra-conservatives; except of course Ken Mercer, who couldn’t be bothered to make any appointments.