Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Dead Eyes will never be a dust-buster

The Wall Street Journal printed a column today by one of its regular writers on how Obama Dead Eyes isn't dealing with "realism" on Iran, so I took it a step further in a letter to the editor below.

________________________
Bret Stephens’ skepticism of President Obama’s “realism” hits the nail on the head.
But to understand Mr. Obama’s Neville Chamberlain approach to dictators, we must dig further into morality and philosophy – and, hence, make a more biting judgment of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.

The Democrats and their president suffer from the moral relativism that the philosopher Ayn Rand correctly identified a half-century ago in American politics. This aversion to absolute right and wrong belies a philosophy of skepticism of human efficacy and hegemony that is the foundation of individual rights, thereby leading the Democrats to foster statism at home and subconsciously sympathize with its brethren, extreme statism, abroad. How can any rational American expect a president who commits grand larceny of citizens for “bailouts” or attempts the overthrow of laissez-faire in industry to be amendable to the desires of liberty-seeking citizens in Iran?

This skepticism of citizens’ fundamental rights leads to a crippled judgment of despots and to such inanities as “we are for democracy in Iran,” instead of an authoritative and decisive, “The Iranian leaders have shown themselves to be murderers and gross violators of individual rights.”

The U.S. has bombs gathering dust, and ilk like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are smirking with the knowledge that the dusty U.S. Democrats have no plans to learn and practice a philosophy of dust-busting absolutism.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Dead Eyes should use active tense for what he's doing to liberty

The Wall Street Journal's resident liberal columnist, Thomas Frank, penned his usual drivel today. The subject was how Obama Dead Eyes and his ilk should start using the active tense instead of the passive tense in marketing their fascist regulatory designs. So I jotted off the following letter to the WSJ.

___________________
If Thomas Frank were Rip Van Winkle, perhaps we could forgive him his statement that the recent financial disaster was “brought about in no small part by either the absence of federal regulation or the amazing indifference of the regulators.”

Must we really rehash for Mr. Frank the eloquent explanations in the Journal’s pages over the last year on how regulations fostered, promoted and demanded irrational exuberance on the part of lenders and others for years? That is the nature of regulating invisible hands. As we have seen for more than 100 years in America, regulations never stop bad people from being bad; they stop good people from being productive.

All that said, I must finally find myself agreeing with Mr. Frank on one point: President Obama and the rest of his ilk should begin using the active voice instead of the passive voice in promoting their regulatory mindsets. After all, such regulation actively abridges the right to liberty in business that our Founders desired almost without exception. If Mr. Obama wishes to destroy, he must remain active.

There are two reasons, however, why Mr. Obama (and anyone else, for that matter) uses the passive voice: It subconsciously reflects a sense of immorality and/or mental lassitude; or it attempts to smudge lipstick on unpalatable oppression. I will not pretend to know which best describes our current commander-in-chief.

Monday, June 22, 2009

My long column on eradicating "public schools" is printed

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution printed a long column by me on the need for eradicating "public education" and honoring children's free will. I mention home-schooling and unschooling in the column. The editors printed every single word of it without one change.

If you like the column and don't mind taking a few minutes to write a letter to the AJC at letters@ajc.com, I'd appreciate it -- because the "public education" lobby will no doubt be lobbing bombs at me. :)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Size doesn't matter when it comes to liberty

I had the following letter printed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and it was given top billing on the opinion page. It was my response to a long article in the WSJ stating that the current violations by our central government in D.C. could be alleviated or fixed by simply allowing states to secede and letting "regions" be autonomous, thereby allegedly catering to a more local populous.
_______________________
With "Divided We Stand" (Weekend Journal, June 13) the Journal again bravely broaches a subject that few, if any, other major publication have attempted. However, the two main points of Paul Starobin's article concerning self-determination and "size matters" are right and wrong, respectively. Yes, regions wish to govern themselves, free of a national government. No, this hasn't historically been precipitated primarily by overcentralization.

The primary cause of the downfall of republics is the betrayal of individual rights. In a true land of liberty, no region has cause for rational separation -- though some, such as the South, will find cause for irrational separation. When liberty is honored, the central government stays out of people's business, allowing them complete autonomy over their households and business. There is no cause for bloodless or bloody rebellion.

The beginnings of the betrayal in contemporary America lie in President Abraham Lincoln's many violations of rights during the Civil War, continuing with the "progressive" movement of the late 1800s and the follow-up garroting of the Constitution by the Sherman Antitrust Act, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the 16th Amendment, President Franklin Roosevelt's abhorrent New Deal, the abolition of the gold standard, the institution and expansion of "welfare" programs under President Lyndon Johnson, the aggrandizement of eminent domain by the feckless Supreme Court, the immense grand larceny of the current administration, a perennially corrupt Congress and much more.

If we were to grant Mr. Starobin the conceit of "size matters," then we must carry it to its logical conclusion: Every region would itself eventually be a "central government" with factions (regions) wishing to opt out ad infinitum, as we have seen countless times. The only solution to avoid this is a Constitution that clearly defines individual and property rights, ensuring that our relatives in Texas remain our compatriots.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Can you kill your children? "Well, that depends."

When first wading into the waters of unschooling as a parent, I made an assumption: I am about to make a lot of friends with parents who are unschoolers because they understand the importance of autonomy in youth and adults.

Gawd, was I mistaken! What I found instead was a sea of moral relativists almost without exception. Here is their paradigm: "There are no rules and there are no 'shoulds' and there is no right and wrong. Kids should be able to do ANYTHING they want because the old idea of dictating to kids was destructive." So, I guess, that's the rule, eh? No rules?

I've already been kicked off of a few unschooling and homeschooling Internet lists for saying such things as "you should outline rules for children" and "there are objective rules" and "there is objective right and wrong" and "'shoulds' are a necessary part of living."

And so I just got off the phone with a bright and unusually pleasant unschooling mom with whom I'm considering starting a Sudbury School in my area (the school is more of an unschool). We were talking about rules at the school. She made the comment that there shouldn't necessarily be rules. We got into a philosophical discussion about unschooling and parenting. She said she had no rules in her family.

So I asked if honesty was a rule. She said it's not a rule; it's more a "preference." So I asked if she said something to her son if he was lying, and she said she would try to find out why he was lying. I asked her why she tried. She paused and then laughed nervously and said, "Well, because we have a preference for the truth." (Unschoolers will travel to the ends of the Earth to avoid "rules" and "shoulds.") She then bragged about how she will talk with any parent about how they raise their kids and not judge them.

"So, is there any kind of parenting that is wrong," I asked. "No, she said." I said, "Can a parent beat a child?" She said, "I wouldn't, but some parents do." I said, "Can a parent kill a child?" She said, "Well, that depends on what their preference is."

???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Do you hear what you just said?" I asked. "Do you hear how far you've gone to hold onto your belief that nothing is wrong and that there are no rules?"

"We're different, David," she said. "You have your philosophy and I have mine."

Indeed. It reminds me of one of many such conversations with unschoolers (who are essentially hippies without the "high"). One noted unschooling leader in Georgia told me on a list that "we don't use 'shoulds' on our list." My response to her was, "You mean, we shouldn't have 'shoulds' on our list."

She did not like that, and neither did the rest of the simperers on that list. At the time, I was still learning what kind of black hole I'd jumped into. And, my friends, it is deep and labyrinthine.

I have very little contact with these nuts now -- many of whom are your garden-variety recyclers, greenies, anti-capitalists, etc. The men, in fact, are worse than the women. It took me just 6 days to kicked off an unschool list for dads. Believe it or not, I had been quite diplomatic in tone and understanding (stop laughing!). But these hippies have a nose for my type, so the weenie-daddies threw a snit and got back to knitting.

Ah, such is life in a confederacy of cowards.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

No, you can't have your diploma. Sit down!!

A high school student starts walking across the stage during graduation to get his diploma. Halfway across, he bows and waves to his mother, and he throws her a kiss.

When he gets to the superintendent of the school in middle stage, she reminds him that there was to be no "showboating" during the ceremonies. She tells him to sit down. He did not receive his diploma and still doesn't have it. He and his mother are furious.

Check out the video of what happened HERE. This is what you get from "public education": dictators who demand your obedience and then at their pleasure they summarily withdraw what you have spent 12 years in labor camp to receive.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Witty Brit "gets" children

Here's a great video by a Brit talking about the creativity of the young human mind and how it must be fostered -- and how public education suffocates it.

Thanks to Daniel for passing this along.

Take the children out of the boiling water! -- Part Deux

I've just been informed by the editors at the AJC that they will be printing my education piece I wrote yesterday (see below entry on blog). They asked me to add a couple of paragraphs on where I thought education should go if not with public schooling, so I added those graphs. The complete column is below. What's pretty impressive about the AJC's decision is that Ms. Downey is the one who got back to me on my column and, evidently, made the final decision on its approval -- even though she was the subject of my main barb.
_________________
Maureen Downey’s columns on education remind me of the fable of the boiled frog. If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out immediately. If you put a frog into a pot of cool water and then slowly heat the water to boiling, the frog eventually dies because the frog is unaware of the temperature change.

And so it goes with “public education” and “ADD” and the “unteachable” students that Downey refers to. The problem with children in public schools is not the children – it’s the public schools. It is an artificial and coercive environment in which young children are put when they don’t know any better that they shouldn’t be there. The water is cool.

Then the water slowly heats with absurd rules such as sitting in one’s chair and not making noise when that is what children do and how children explore the world. Then the child is told to pay attention to certain information when the child has no interest in that information at that time. Then the child is yelled at or mentally manipulated by guilt-based recrimination from teachers and parents. The water slowly heats.

When the water gets close to boiling later in elementary school or middle school, many of the potentially brightest and free-spirited children have almost completely tuned out in a natural rebellion against this artificial and needless education construct.

Their “attention deficit” is not a disease. It is man-made. It is made by public schooling. Who the heck wouldn’t have a deficit of attention when forced to do what one sees no benefit in doing because one has desires and values that are aimed elsewhere? The kids are not unteachable. They are in unteachable situations (classrooms). If you think they are unteachable, simply ask them to expand upon their favorite interests: computers, books, fishing, sports, games, artwork, play, music, math, animals, etc. You’ll see bright, expansive faces.

I remember as a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s my own “attention deficit” in school. I hated being there and being told when to learn, what to learn and how much to learn – and then being “examined” by testing from the very people who lorded over me every day, as if my mental contents were somehow their business. It’s like the concentration-camp guard telling me, “Show me how you’ve been a good boy today and know how to obey the rules.”

I made almost all A’s and B’s in school, but I did it with half my brain turned on and the other half contemplating a chess match with a friend after school or a tennis game or lemonade with a neighborhood girl or the amount of money I could make doing work in my neighborhood.

I had no attention deficit when it came to baseball or girls or dinosaurs or chess or Scrabble or certain books or making money mowing lawns. I even learned algebra before entering my 8th-grade algebra class when one of my best friends and I were curious as to what it was. We opened an encyclopedia, asked our parents a question or two and, voila, we understand the concept of the unknown variable. Everything in algebra was simply boring extrapolation after that, including the quadratic equation, which I have never used in my life and will never use in my life. Eighth-grade algebra was a waste of hundreds of hours of my life, and I knew it at the time. Yet I was ordered to be obedient and listen and take tests so that others besides me (parents and teachers) could make up their minds on whether my mental contents were satisfactory to them.

Let’s be honest about public schooling. It doesn’t take 12 years to learn the basics for a life of happiness. It takes a few months of dedicated, focused attention on certain subjects: reading, math. My home-schooled daughter (5½ years old) already knows how to add and subtract. She’ll know how to read within the next 6 months or so. She already understands the rudiments of evolution after several conversations she started, including her first question a year ago: “Where do squirrels come from?” She has a basic understanding of money and has learned to some degree what liberty means because she hears me complaining about taxation and other coercive government intrusions on individual rights; that also has led to conversations on history and government.

As a child, I had access to an encyclopedia. My daughter has Google and Wikipedia and an Internet library that makes the library at Alexandria look like a small, dusty, corner bookshelf in a non-reader’s home. Whatever I don’t know, she can turn to the Internet and we can learn together.

Public schooling is an antiquated institution. It really always has been. It is daycare with a blackboard. It is a concentration camp without the mental concentration. It is worse than a waste of time. It is a coercion against free will and free-spirited exploration.

It has been creating generations of The Unteachables. If you want to put an end to so-called ADD and the plethora of alphabet-soup acronyms that allegedly characterize many young children today, then put an end to so-called public education.

And then go one step farther. Besides taking the “public” (government) out of education, take the “parent” out of the choice of education. It is not the parent’s life. It is the child’s life – to choose what to learn, when to learn and what direction to go in life. By honoring the child’s free will, you will be helping to foster a sense of independence and tangible self-esteem – and, as a consequence, preempting teenage rebellion against years of parental commandments. All caring and nurturing parents will obviously still stand as guides and sensible aids when asked for assistance. Some people call this “unschooling.” So be it.

What this all means is a complete elimination of any and all government (public) involvement in the education of children, including charter schools or any kind of public funding for any educational establishment. Private schools, then, will proliferate, usually tailored to particular interests of children in art or gymnastics or math or English or foreign languages or history or mechanics or needlework or astronomy or finances or woodwork or writing or the thousands of other endeavors open to the burgeoning human mind. Teachers in these schools will have to be highly qualified and accountable. As often happened in the benevolent 19th century America, charities will step in to assist poor children who earnestly seek knowledge outside the home. And with greatly reduced property taxes, residents can use that money toward their children’s learning endeavors.

Let’s let children take back their ebullient lives. They will learn swiftly and happily, if we do. And we can be happy knowing that we are not the moral equivalents of concentration-camp guards.

Let’s take our children out of the boiling water now and watch them turn into productive, independent adults.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Take the children out of the boiling water!

The following column was sent to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today:

_______________________________
Maureen Downey’s columns in the AJC on education remind me of the fable of the boiled frog. If you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog will jump out immediately. If you put a frog into a pot of cool water and then slowly heat the water to boiling, the frog eventually dies because the frog is unaware of the temperature change.

And so it goes with “public education” and “ADD” and the “unteachable” students that Downey refers to. The problem with children in public schools is not the children – it’s the public schools. It is an artificial and coercive environment in which young children are put when they don’t know any better that they shouldn’t be there. The water is cool.

Then the water slowly heats with absurd rules such as sitting in one’s chair and not making noise when that is what children do and how children explore the world. Then the child is told to pay attention to certain information when the child has no interest in that information at that time. Then the child is yelled at or mentally manipulated by guilt-based recrimination from teachers and parents. The water slowly heats.

When the water gets close to boiling later in elementary school or middle school, many of the potentially brightest and free-spirited children have almost completely tuned out in a natural rebellion against this artificial and needless education construct.

Their “attention deficit” is not a disease. It is man-made. It is made by public schooling. Who the heck wouldn’t have a deficit of attention when forced to do what one sees no benefit in doing because one has desires and values that are aimed elsewhere? The kids are not unteachable. They are in unteachable situations (classrooms). If you think they are unteachable, simply ask them to expand upon their favorite interests: computers, books, fishing, sports, games, artwork, play, music, math, animals, etc. You’ll see bright, expansive faces.

I remember as a child of the ‘60s and ‘70s my own “attention deficit” in school. I hated being there and being told when to learn, what to learn and how much to learn – and then being “examined” by testing from the very people who lorded over me every day, as if my mental contents were somehow their business. It’s like the concentration-camp guard telling me, “Show me how you’ve been a good boy today and know how to obey the rules.”

I made almost all A’s and B’s in school, but I did it with half my brain turned on and the other half contemplating a chess match with a friend after school or a tennis game or lemonade with a neighborhood girl or the amount of money I could make doing work in my neighborhood.

I had no attention deficit when it came to baseball or girls or dinosaurs or chess or Scrabble or certain books or making money mowing lawns. I even learned algebra before entering my 8th-grade algebra class when one of my best friends and I were curious as to what it was. We opened an encyclopedia, asked our parents a question or two and, voila, we understand the concept of the unknown variable. Everything in algebra was simply boring extrapolation after that, including the quadratic equation, which I have never used in my life and will never use in my life.

Eighth-grade algebra was a waste of hundreds of hours of my life, and I knew it at the time. Yet I was ordered to be obedient and listen and take tests so that others besides me (parents and teachers) could make up their minds on whether my mental contents were satisfactory to them.

Let’s be honest about public schooling. It doesn’t take 12 years to learn the basics for a life of happiness. It takes a few months of dedicated, focused attention on certain subjects: reading, math. My home-schooled daughter (5½ years old) already knows how to add and subtract. She’ll know how to read within the next 6 months or so. She already understands the rudiments of evolution after several conversations she started, including her first question a year ago: “Where do squirrels come from?” She has a basic understanding of money and has learned to some degree what liberty means because she hears me complaining about taxation and other coercive government intrusions on individual rights; that also has led to conversations on history and government.

As a child, I had access to an encyclopedia. My daughter has Google and Wikipedia and an Internet library that makes the library at Alexandria look like a small, dusty, corner bookshelf in a non-reader’s home. Whatever I don’t know, she can turn to the Internet and we can learn together.

Public schooling is an antiquated institution. It really always has been. It is daycare with a blackboard. It is a concentration camp without the mental concentration. It is worse than a waste of time. It is a coercion against free will and free-spirited exploration.

It has been creating generations of The Unteachables. If you want to put an end to so-called ADD and the plethora of alphabet-soup acronyms that allegedly characterize many young children today, then start discussing putting an end to so-called public education.

Let’s let children take back their ebullient lives. They will learn swiftly and happily, if we do. And we can be happy knowing that we are not the moral equivalents of concentration-camp guards.

Let’s take our children out of the boiling water now and watch them turn into productive, independent adults.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

WWJD

What Would Jefferson Do?

Imagine, for a moment, Thomas Jefferson being transported to 2009. I know that is a well-worn cliche, but indulge me for a moment.

Imagine that the government told him his analog TV set must be discarded or he must pay to have it upgraded.

Imagine that the government told him that he must begin buying certain lightbulbs in 2014, whether he likes it or not.

Imagine that the government fined him for his tobacco production and smoking.

Imagine that he sees his president elect a woman for the Supreme Court who says that one's upbringing and emotional experiences should over-ride objective laws in one's interpretation of the Constitution.

Imagine that he sees his government take over the investiture, hiring, firing and salary-decision making at major companies.

Imagine that he sees the president cow-tow to the Moors and equivocate on the morality of the West and the barbarians.

Imagine that the government told him his wealth is to be confiscated and given to automobile companies and financial institutions and lazy people and sick people and old people and farmers and foreign countries.

Imagine that the government told him that he must purchase medical insurance whether he wants to or not.

The man who believes in rendering unto Caesar would have no problem with all of the above, but the venerable Jefferson would find his blood boiling and, I imagine, would have one primary thing to say before he grabbed his gun and headed for D.C.:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

It's time for blood.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Inspiring artist J.W. Waterhouse

While reading friend Daniel Wahl's blog, I was reminded of the great works of J.W. Waterhouse.

Check out his sublime and optimistic paintings when you get a chance. They will uplift your soul!

"I wish I was a male dog ... and Obama was a tree"

Great parody on Dead Eyes by unknown author.

"Obama is the shepherd I did not want. He leadeth me beside the still factories. He restoreth my faith in the Republican party. He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the bread line, I shall fear no hunger for his bailouts are with me. He has anointed my income with taxes, My expenses runneth over. Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life, And I will live in a mortgaged home forever. I am glad I am American, I am glad that I am free. But I wish I was a male dog ...And Obama was a tree."

Young couple meet, marry from Atlasphere

Many of you who read my blog are members of The Atlasphere, a semi-objectivist site with terrific columns and a dating service.

A young couple who met on the site recently got married. They look great.

Congratulations to them. I'm envious -- in a nice way, of course.