Posted on 10/08/2007 6:51:12 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
About 159 years ago someone named Karl Marx sat down to put his dream to words; his dream of a communist state that was to become a worker's paradise. Somehow it didn't work out all that well, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of effort. Tens of millions of people died in Russia, China and elsewhere to show what an incredibly bad idea Marx had.
It's ironic to me that the countries who suffered under the rule of Marx' worker's paradise have largely rejected so many of the tenants set forth in his Communist Manifesto, while the one country that held communism at bay for over 70 years and eventually destroyed it still embraces many of those ideas.
We've gone through this before, but once again (hey, there might be new Nuze readers!) let me tell you of just two of the essential elements of a communist society as set forth in Marx's work:
1. A progressive graduated income tax.
2. Government education of the children.
Countries across Europe, especially former communist countries, are moving from a progressive income tax to either consumption taxes or a flat tax. Ever heard of the Irish Miracle? And across Europe more and more people are being allowed the freedom to choose where their children shall be educated. They choose the school, the tax money follows. And yes, more and more this is including private schools.
I want you to focus your attention for a moment on a quote by C.S. Lewis that someone sent to me over the weekend. Read it .. perhaps a few times .. and then try to tell me with a straight face that C.S. Lewis, who took the eternal celestial dirt nap 44 years ago, wasn't talking about government education in 21st Century America:
"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Children who are fit to proceed may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's [of the same age] attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when 'I'm as good as you' has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers -- or should I say nurses? -- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men." C. S. Lewis
Now don't you want to go back and read that again? I guess I read it 20 times over the weekend ... just amazed at how well a man who has been dead for so long has perfectly nailed our current system of government education and what it is doing to our children. And referring to government school teachers as nurses? Brilliant! Absolutely effing brilliant! (Excuse me, I got carried away there for a bit.)
This country is in trouble. No, I'm not talking about the threat from outside – the biggest element of which would be Islamic radicalism. I'm talking about the threat from inside. The men who marched in bare feet wrapped in rags over frozen ground in 1776 – leaving a trail of blood for the British to follow – would scarcely recognize us. They put their lives on the line for independence, far too many of us strive for dependence. They embraced freedom. We embrace security. The men of 1776 were extraordinary. We reject the extraordinary for the mundane.
Our schools are turning out perfect little government subjects who have been taught that, somehow, it is bad to excel, but virtuous to simply fit in.
Do you think the men and women of just two generations ago could ever imagine a school system where children aren't allowed to play tag because it involves chasing and unwanted touching? Of course you don't want to be touched! That makes you "it!"
How about a school system that won't honor a valedictorian because other students might feel slighted or left out? Read again that sentence from C.S. Lewis where he says that the "nurses" are "far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching."
We have schools now that grade with shapes instead of letters. "What did you get on your math test today dear?" "I got a square, mom!" In some schools teachers won't use a red pen to grade papers because red denotes errors or a bad grade, and they don't want the precious little students to get upset.
All you have to do is look around you to see what a miserable failure our government schools are. A huge percentage of entering freshmen at state colleges and universities have to enroll in remedial courses in order to bring them up to college speed. In Georgia we have students who, thanks to rampant grade inflation, graduate from their high schools with better than a B average who can't handle freshman-level courses in college without first going through a remedial program.
Our kids are being taught by the worst of the worst in their government schools. Check out the education school at most major universities. The freshmen who chose to pursue a degree in education come from the lowest level of the entering class; and those who go on to pursue a graduate degree in education come from the lowest ranks of their undergraduate class. This is how you get teachers sending home report cards that read "Johnny are learning to spell good." If we don't do something to break the grip of these government schools, and the teacher's unions that run them, we are going to lose this entire country to mediocrity. We are going to continue to churn out generations of mind-numbed government subjects who can readily identify the faces of the current pop culture, but who couldn't tell the vice-president from the speaker of the house if their iPods depended on it.
The answer is competition. We need school choice. If you want to continue with taxing the stuffing out of the people to pay for education, fine. Just let the money follow the children, as they do in much of Europe. Let the parent investigate the choices and then make a decision as to where their child will go to school, public or private. Then send the money chasing after the child. Only competition will drive these schools to strive for excellence. The security of government mandated attendance will only foster laziness and complacency.
Several weeks ago Hillary the Hideous loudly proclaimed that "privatization isn't the answer to anything." As I said at the time, this means that Hillary Rodham must think that government is the answer to everything ... including education. The teacher's unions heard her loud and clear. Last week the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary. No surprise. Look for the National Education Association to fall in line.
If we are to save our Republic we must create a generation or two of independent-thinking young adults who value freedom over security and who know the truth of what it was that made this country great. We will never get this from our government schools. Putting it bluntly, government schools and the teacher's unions that control them, and our politicians, are killing this country.
Bingo!
The main hope of our country right now for future leaders is the current crop of home schoolers.
Parents, it is past time to get your children out of government schools.
mark
The same red pen also writes the "A+". Red is an "equal opportunity" color.
And that is precisely why home-schoolers will be in Her Henious’ crosshairs: look for a HRC admininstration to attempt to marginalize and eventually criminalize parents who home-school their kids.
Great article. This should be copied and posted every place you can. I don’t think that most kids today, of High School age, would have made it in the schools I went to in the late 50’s.
They wouldn’t have been expected to make it today is the problem in the thought exercise you describe. The beautiful thing about standards is that people will meet them! Kids too - esp. kids.
Parents, it is past time to get your children out of government schools.
I agree with that. I also believe that the next group of standout leaders for America are being trained right now in the Middle East.
The same red pen also writes the "A+".
GASP!!!! That's even worse -- red show up brightly -- the "F" scoring morons in the class will most certainly see it and go jump out the window!!!!
Oh, the humuiliation of it all!!!!!
Why don't you send an email to Neal to that effectat:
http://boortz.com/cgi-bin/mail.cgi?id=boortz
I know he will appreciate it.
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