And another Republican says something stupid

Well apparently a Republican said something horrendously stupid. Again. An Alaskan running for State House has insinuated that we shouldn't educate disabled children.

When my friend sent me this article I put off writing something about it in hopes that I'd read a retraction and that no person running for an office  that wasn't President of the "Adolf Hitler Fanclub" would say something this moronic. I was wrong. Ladies and gents a real quote from candidate Mark Ewing.

“We are spending millions and millions of dollars educating children that have a hard time making their wheelchair move and, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to say, ‘no’ somewhere. We need to educate our children, but there are certain individuals that are just not going to benefit from an education."

http://www.frontiersman.com/news/gattis-and-ewing-square-off-in-senate-debate/article_478bca04-dd25-11e1-8601-001a4bcf887a.html

Really? So he seriously thinks we shouldn't educate disabled children?

Now to be honest I get where part of this comes from. Mainstreaming severely disabled kids for instance has been a failure for everyone involved. It uses a lot of teacher time for a kid is more often than not better served in a smaller setting. Plus it makes them feel stupid.

But to out and out say that we should not educate people with disabilities, whether or not said disabilities harm brain function, is flat out dumb (I'm being professional here).

Plus any savings to be had here would probably be offset in other areas. What would the kids without mental disabilities do? People who are blind, in wheelchairs and the like. They aren't going away. If they can't get an education earn a living what then? What about those who have things like dyslexia? Do we just kick them to the streets? I'm sure the local street gangs have use for them. So you can see why this cost cutting measure wouldn't cut anything.

Now I'm just going to ignore the fact that I've dealt with the whole "physically disabled means braindead" bit all my life because this has become a major issue in the Republican Party.

Now some might say he "misspoke" but Republicans have been doing that a lot lately and it is hurting them. Todd Akin (R-MO) is down 9 after that "legitimate rape" bit for instance. Who also claims to have misspoke. Strange how all this misspeaking is about people who are not in the demographics that vote straight Republican. Seriously though, if they want to remain viable as a party they need to understand something and quick:

They can only run against Obama once. He might help mitigate some of the stupid things they say but ticking off entire segments of the population by saying things like "If she got pregnant the rape wasn't legitimate" or "We shouldn't educate the disabled" is not a viable long term strategy. Once Obama is gone (be it next election or 2016) women will still exist. Disabled people will still exist. Parents of special needs children, will still exist. Rape victims and families of rape victims will still exist. And by some miracle Republicans get those people to vote for them because they like Obama and his people less, they might not be so lucky next time around. So if they have so much trouble with "misspeaking" it might be a good idea for them to stop using words.