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Post by eye2i2hear on Feb 21, 2007 23:13:18 GMT -5
For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly to fit the people for social life—to make them good citizens? And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this—a government ought to mold children into good citizens…. It must first form for itself a definite conception of a pattern citizen; and having done this, must elaborate such system of discipline as seems best calculated to produce citizens after that pattern. This system of discipline it is bound to enforce to the uttermost. For if it does otherwise, it allows men to become different from what in its judgment they should become, and therefore fails in that duty it is charged to fulfill.
-----------Herbert Spencer, late-nineteenth-century English philosopher
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Educational texts are necessarily selective, in subject matter, language, and point of view. Where teaching is conducted by private schools, there will be a considerable variation in different schools; the parents must judge what they want their children taught, by the curriculum offered…. Nowhere will there be any inducement to teach the "supremacy of the state as a compulsory philosophy." But every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later, whether as the divine right of kings, or the "will of the people" in "democracy." Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property, and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey.
A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.
--------------Isabel Paterson, twentieth-century American individualist writer
as quoted by Murray Rothbard, in For A New Liberty, Public and Compulsory Schooling - Mises.org |
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Post by lummox2 on Feb 22, 2007 7:07:29 GMT -5
Education is probably the finest example of how the statist mindset can utterly ruin the very best of intentions.
In every school there are teachers who do their utmost (i am sure) to teach the kids in their care. The problem is two fold from that point on -
1) They have accepted a system of coercion themselves at a very early age and see nothing wrong with it. Seeing nothing worng with is, they are happy to pass it on.
2) They have accepted the idea of "authority", that is that others can have "authority" over them. The reward for this is that they then get to have dominion over others in their turn. This attitude is acid, it eats everything it touches.
Like policemen, they are taught that "control" over a classroom is the ultimate aim and that losing control equals ineffective teaching. And it is inneffective teaching, when you are force feeding shite to the imprisoned and unwilling on a sunny day.
For what schools are really there to teach is a certain frame and mindset - to install ideas of hierarchy, permission seeking, leaning on whoever appears to be an "expert." Even the very brightest do not see the assumptions they have been given and subsequently take for granted.
It's pretty easy to work out. Accrding to it's own figures, state schools fail almost everyone. Even statists aren't that stupid, so the conclusion is obvious - the real aim of schooling is to mass produce failures.
As a reader here, you know all this already. It's still worth me typing out.
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Post by sagas4 on Feb 22, 2007 15:07:18 GMT -5
"a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right" ~ Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776.
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Post by eye2i2hear on May 8, 2007 14:56:58 GMT -5
a redux... talk about your bitter sweet... I got an email from my daughter regarding an "award" banquet notice she got from a teacher at the school of her first grade son; it read: The citizenship award (it was called Character Award when I was in school) is for the students in the class who show the teachers and others that they can follow the rules [/b], be considerate of others, be helpful and kind, be a good worker, and can show that they are responsible role models.[/color][/blockquote]  yupp, my bright little grandson is up for winning the award; chip off the ole block, as his dad's a former* city cop~  * [and "yes" thank karma at least it's "former"...] |
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Post by marc stevens on May 9, 2007 9:31:51 GMT -5
Does the "former" status have something to do with you eye2?
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Post by dentistsugardust on May 10, 2007 10:27:17 GMT -5
"a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right" ~ Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776. we've looked at blogs throughout the WWW and right in there is the problem with us. everybody forcing that they are half heartedly right. resulting in the demeaning of each other. it's as if they are celebrating a freedom that only frees their inner irresponsible child. constantly cutting each other up and like the human police officer who does the same to fellow humans. they seem to stake a satisfaction in this ill behavior. is the brainwash so deeply effective that we can cry for freedom and maintain balance with what we're seeking freedom from? you have to wonder, which part are we asleep. |
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Post by eye2i2hear on May 10, 2007 10:55:35 GMT -5
Does the "former" status have something to do with you eye2? thanx for asking, marc~ I like to hope my subtle influence(s) in some ways affected the change (but perhaps its more "genetic" influence through comments by my daughter-- the ole "chip off the ole block/the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree")  . But if anything, I honestly credit it that he's just a caring, thinking young man and as he commented, "the politics of it all just sux". He'd always been small town with it too; not big city/metro. I always felt he was sincere in his comments about getting into it to "help people" but finding it a hassle in and of itself. He has a laid back/phlegmatic temperament. He's also a big fan of firearms; enjoys hunting and shooting at the range; bought his wife/my daughter a "conceal" arm for her purse; bought his six year old son a junior .22 for his birthday (so he can teach him to shoot), etc. Comments he made along about how the politico system were about firearms also contributed to his distaste for it all. [a funny side-bar here: you've never seen such drooling, and a subsequent big grin from me, when I showed him my Bushmaster AR15-- the one I bought in anticipation of the y2k meltdown,  yada, yada, yada, thank you Alex Jones Inc...] We never really addressed it "head-on". Like most, they both battle the 12 year indoctriNation pubic2public State of mind, coupled with the typical "American Dream" = borrow&buy CULTure. [he battles the affluent alcoholic paternal issue as well] It was more comments sown here and there in our conversations and emails, as to my influence. (they don't live that close by) To be clear, too, just prior to his leaving "the force", he was the first person to respond to a suicide (within minutes of it happening) of a young man about his same age. He was shook by that pretty hard. thanx again for asking~ |
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Post by marc stevens on May 10, 2007 19:11:20 GMT -5
Cool, sometimes it's best not to address it head-on.
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yupp, my bright little grandson is up for winning the award; chip off the ole block, as his dad's a former* city cop~ 
*[and "yes" thank karma at least it's "former"...]
. 
yada, yada, yada, thank you Alex Jones Inc...]