Your Money & Your Children

by Tammy Drennan

There are two things you have that the government wants: your money and your children.

There are other people who also want your money and your children – and they use the government to get them.

As you well know, the government has endless big and little ways to part you from your money, but the excuse is always the same – it’s all for the good of society. Oh, they know most of it is really for other reasons. They know that all the good they pretend to be doing society is just that – pretend. But they have to give some excuse for taking your money, and that’s a good one – one that’s hard to argue with without sounding mean and stingy or anti-social.

The government has one main way of parting you from your children – state schools. The excuse is the same as with your money – it’s for the good of society. By instilling in children a state-approved package of knowledge and values and protecting them from their parents, society will be improved. They know it’s all a farce – that what happens in schools has little to do with education or protection and a lot to do with money and power. But object and you sound like a fanatic – afraid of knowledge and afraid the state will find out you swatted Junior on the tail-end for tormenting his sister or prevented your teenager from expressing herself with a Madonna costume.

We know the government wastes our money. We know it uses our money to fund morally objectionable causes, economically unsound policies, governments that hate us, pet projects of the powerful, the list could go on forever.

We know state schools fail to educate a vast number of children, even by their own low standards. We know that children are abused in public schools – physically, emotionally, morally and intellectually – every day of the school year, all across the nation.

We know that the government and state schools will do anything to get our money and our children – lie, cheat, steal, lie about their lies and cheating and stealing.

We know that the people who use and work with government to take what is ours will help with the lying, cheating and stealing.

You may find the battle to keep what is yours wearisome, and that is understandable. So if you must compromise – compromise your money, not your children.

Never compromise your children. No matter how hard it is to protect them, do it. No matter how many years you must fight, fight. No matter how many sacrifices you must make, make them.

Your children are worth everything.

Chesterton on Reformers

by Tammy Drennan

Leave it up to G. K. Chesterton to get to the heart of the matter. The problem, by Chesterton’s definition, with reform movements boils down to the fact that most reformers are pessimists – they believe everything is bad, life unjust, people fairly helpless to better their lot.

Only the man who is shocked at injustice, who finds it an unnatural state of affairs, has any hope of seeing it actually remedied and not simply managed. The man who expects injustice also expects more of it – always more of it; he may find it unfair and he may fight it, but he does not expect it to truly diminish.

The successful reformer believes in the good and is surprised at the bad, does not expect the bad, finds the bad shocking beyond reasonable belief – so shocking that the initial reaction is to laugh and think that surely someone will recognize and right the absurd situation immediately.

It’s not that he doesn’t know evil exists or that men can be weak; he simply believes that men can be expected to choose good and right – and that is what he expects, which is why his sensibilities are affronted when men choose what’s wrong instead. He believes in the ability and the desire of people to do the right thing and aims to shore them up to that end. He believes in freedom because he believes in goodness. He expects that free men will strive to be great men and will fuel one another toward greater ends.

The unsuccessful reformer expects the bad and is so shocked at the good that he cannot – will not — believe it. He believes men are eternally unequal, that some are less capable of rising to greatness, that some are inferior, and that fairness can come only with leveling the playing field and subordinating all to a depressing common denominator. He does not believe in freedom because he does not believe in goodness (though he may vehemently profess otherwise). He believes that men left free will sink to the behavior of devils and will goad all toward the same behavior.

The optimist reformer believes in the individual’s capacity and desire to make something great of himself – and his right to do so.

The pessimist reformer believes in the individual’s inadequacy and smallness and need to be sheltered and protected — by force, if necessary.

Note that Chesterton does not deny the need for reform. Man is not perfect. Man is not all goodness, but neither is he all badness. The optimist sees the potential for humanity in its goodness. The pessimist sees only the badness and the need for improvement, but holds no hope for true change – only for management; and management means the suppression of freedom.

Improving the human lot is hard work no matter how we go about it. But it is impossible work when we rob people of their self-reliance and self-determination, when we define their lives for them and proceed to impose restrictions on them based on our definitions, when we expect failure and plan from that view.

But when we find failure the surprise, when we expect success and greatness, when we respect equality and deem all men as capable as ourselves, that is when we begin to see the future brighten.

Here it is in Chesterton’s memorable words:

“The optimist is a better reformer than the pessimist; and the man who believes life to be excellent is the man who alters it most. It seems a paradox, yet the reason of it is very plain. The pessimist can be enraged at evil. But only the optimist can be surprised at it. From the reformer is required a simplicity of surprise. He must have the faculty of a violent and virgin astonishment. It is not enough that he should think injustice distressing; he must think injustice absurd, an anomaly in existence, a matter less for tears than for shattering laughter. On the other hand, the pessimists at the end of [19th] century could hardly curse even the blackest thing, for they could hardly see it against its black and eternal background. Nothing was bad because everything was bad. Life in prison was infamous – like life everywhere else….”

“One of the actual and certain consequences of the idea that all men are equal is immediately to produce very great men. I would say superior men, only that the hero thinks of himself as great, but not as superior…. There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

“The spirit of the early century produced great men, because it believed that men were great. It made strong men by encouraging weak men…. And by encouraging the greatness in everybody, it naturally encouraged superlative greatness in some. Superiority came out of the high rapture of equality.”

From Charles Dickens: A Critical Study by G. K. Chesterton (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1913 edition, pp 6-9)

The Guts to Keep Our Liberty

by Tammy Drennan

“Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.”

- From The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal

Doris Lessing is a controversial figure, and I’m not endorsing anything about her or her writing or thinking – I don’t even know enough to comment intelligently on her.

But – I do want to consider the above quote by her.

It’s a discouraging sentiment, but as Ms. Lessing points out, if we fail to face the truth, we’re pretty much doomed. Avoiding truth rarely bodes well – for individuals or nations.

So, do very few people really care about freedom? Do very few have the guts to actually be free rather than just feel good talking about freedom?

86% of American school-age children attend state schools. Of the 14% who do not, many of their parents are more than ready to accept state payment for tuition in one form or another. Most conservative organizations support state education. Most Christians and their churches support state education. This is the truth.

State education is the antithesis of freedom. Free people are not intellectually prepped for life by their government. In a free country, the government does not dictate or even predict the future then fashion the citizens to fit it. That’s how they do it in dictatorships. That’s how Hitler and Stalin and Mao did it. That’s how dozens of tyrannies and wanna-be tyrannies do it today.

All governments are wanna-be tyrannies. That’s the truth. It takes citizens with a lot of guts, an incredible amount of intestinal fortitude, to resist the many ways the state bullies and lures people into submission.

Public schooling has been a goldmine for our wanna-be tyranny. At one time, there were a lot of people in our country with the guts to walk on their own two feet, to face the hard work of being free, to conduct life as if the state were an annoying gnat buzzing around their heads. That’s how we ended up with a free country.

Are there enough gutsy people now to keep our country free? There’s only one way to be sure. Those who still have the nerve to act on their liberty must pass that nerve on to their children, spread it to their neighbors, challenge even their legislators to have a backbone.

And as a barometer of how we’re doing, we can watch the degree to which the state continues to rear our children. Few indicators will give us a truer reading of our future. Will we continue to live in a free society – or will we succumb to the thousands, even millions, of wanna-be tyrants who grace the halls of our capitol buildings and “our” schools?

The state has the guts to demand our liberty from us. Do we have the guts to hang onto it?

A Future Teacher Speaks Out

by Tammy Drennan

My Sunday paper this week featured an interesting letter from one of America’s future teachers.* The young man is an education major working toward a career in public schooling.

He doesn’t say where he gets his information or how he formed his opinions, but he’s pretty clear about what he thinks: to wit, the budget for public schooling has been reduced because of the war, and “keeping the public uneducated is the primary tools (sic) of fascists who have worked within the confines of democracy.” His solution is to “get the hawks out of office and give some CPR to public education immediately!”

Of course, our letter writer is mistaken about funding for schools. Spending continues to increase at phenomenal rates. Between the war years of 2001 and 2005, federal spending on elementary and secondary public schooling increased by 11 billion dollars.

On the CPR front, literally millions of people are wearing themselves out trying to resuscitate public schools. The patient is not responding very well, to say the least. We might even suspect that the patient is undermining our efforts by holding his breath while we pump his chest.

And the fascists who don’t want people to be educated? Here are some thoughts from those fascists Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey, as reported in the article “Textbook America” by Walter Karp (Harper’s Magazine, May 1980):

Excerpts:

As Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton, sternly advised the Federation of High School Teachers: “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” Since there was no way to stop “the masses” from entering high school, the only way to meet the crisis, in short, was to prevent them from learning anything liberating when they got there. Instead, the educational leaders said, the new secondary schools should offer vocational training in particular and something called industrial education in general. This, the influential Douglas Commission said in 1905, was a “new idea” in education. and in truth it was.

…Dewey’s most important contribution was his conviction that democracy has little to do with politics and government. Democracy, according to Dewey, was “primarily a mode of associated living,” which for most Americans chiefly meant working together in factories. Having stripped democracy of its political character, Dewey and his colleagues, who prided themselves on their “realism,” went on to redefine it as “industrial cooperation.”

The new “realistic” definition of democracy even stripped public education of its theoretical republican objective, which was, as Jefferson had said, to teach future citizens “how to judge for themselves what will secure or endanger their freedom.” Such knowledge was unlikely to enhance, and might well impair, “industrial cooperation.” The new object of “democratic” education, Dewey said, was to teach every child “to perceive the essential interdependence of an industrial society.” Thus instructed, the future citizen (i.e., factory worker) would develop what Dewey called “a socialized disposition.”

The resuscitation efforts will continue, of course, and many young and impressionable young people will throw their lives into that effort rather than into the solution, because they’ve grown up in public schools and gone to colleges where they’ve learned absurd things, such as: public schools made democracy possible; our liberty is protected by public education; and public schooling leads to social harmony, less crime and more morality (okay, that last one isn’t even a goal anymore).

And a solution that a young, idealistic wanna-be teacher might pursue?  How about starting a neighborhood school or tutoring service in some inner city? It wouldn’t pay much, but lots of people work a day job and pursue good on the side.

If you happen upon this, Mr. Ramsay, may I direct you to an excellent book by a former teacher and winner of teaching awards, John Taylor Gatto: You can read it free here (though I recommend buying it and applying pen and highlighter).

*Chattanooga Times Free Press, March 9, 2008, Letter by Thomas Carsten Ramsay

Candidates on Education

by Tammy Drennan

There’s nothing too surprising about what the top three presidential candidates promise on the education front, but I suppose we should pay a little attention.

They all think they can do what they can’t. They all think the government can do what it can’t – and shouldn’t. But here’s a breakdown, starting with Barak Obama, because his web site came up fastest on my dial-up connection.

Please excuse the slightly sarcastic edge in my voice, but it all gets a little wearisome sometimes.

Barak Obama

Senator Obama’s plan is possibly the most aggressive. He’d like to see the state take over children from birth. Here’s what his site says:

Zero to Five Plan: Obama’s comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, Obama’s plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state “zero to five” efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.

Apparently, since the state has done such a good job of educating and rearing children to this point, Mr. Obama feels it’s time to get the little ones running around (and wiggling in their cradles) outside its grasping clutch. I’d wax even more sarcastic, but the thought of tiny babies lined up in state cribs just about breaks my heart – aren’t there enough of them already? If you’re a parent and reading this, please don’t ever give your baby to the state.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has ideas similar to Mr. Obama’s, but she wants the state to come into our homes. We already know from Sen. Clinton’s Village book that the village that should be helping rear children is the government.

Here’s a bit from Mrs. Clinton’s web site:

Hillary knows that parents are our children’s first teachers, and the early years have a tremendous impact on their lives. That is why she will invest heavily in proven strategies to get all children ready for school, including:

• Nurse home visitation programs to help new parents develop parenting skills.
• Quality child care and Head Start.
• Pre-kindergarten for all four-year olds.

Parents, if you need help, turn to people who can be trusted and who love your babies. That wouldn’t be the state.

John McCain

John McCain’s “improve education” bit is smooth – really, one of the best-worded arguments for vouchers/choice that I’ve seen, rhetorically, anyway.

Here’s a little excerpt:

John McCain will fight for the ability of all students to have access to all schools of demonstrated excellence, including their own homes.

All schools of demonstrated excellence. Hmm. 

I can tell you what a school of excellence is, because almost all the schools in my area have won that distinction. I know, because there are signs all over the streets letting citizens know. It’s true that the graduates of these schools are only semi-literate. Can you imagine their condition if they went to a school of non-excellence? The federal government’s definition of excellence would surely be no better than any state’s.

But there’s one more problem. Even home schools would, apparently, qualify for funds under Sen. McCain – assuming they met those high government standards, those standards that money would make the norm.

Mr. McCain’s program would, in many ways, be worse than Obama’s or Hillary’s. At least under their programs no one is bribing private and home schools to fashion themselves after state schools.

All rhetoric aside, all promises aside, it should be apparent by now that the answer to excellence in education is the motivation and innovation that comes from totally free people exercising their liberty and their responsibilities.

The sad levels of family dysfunction in our society have been instigated and exacerbated by the state long enough. Public schooling is, of course, just one of the problems; the state works hard to undermine families in other ways, too.

Since the state has no intention of getting out of schooling and family life, it is up to families and the people who believe in family to extricate society from the state. There is plenty of work for everyone who cares, but the work must be done without coercion.

It’s a big job – much too big and too important to leave to the state and its entanglements with political and special interests and its deceitful and empty promises.

It’s our job, not Uncle Sam’s. They’re our children, not Uncle Sam’s. It’s our society, not Uncle Sam’s. The only way we’re going to get the job back, though, is to wrestle Uncle Sam and all his handlers for it. But remember – Freedom is a Big Muscle.