Freedom to Learn Truth?
Or Teachers Union Propaganda?
It is ironic that Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet "Common Sense" probably saved the American Revolution from defeat in 1776, might have with the same quill and ink planted the seeds of the American Revolution's defeat in the Twenty-first Century. So beloved and influential was the Revolution's firebrand pamphleteer that citizens of the new country probably were willing to suspend common sense when they heard him advocating public education, by which he meant widespread education paid for by taxing the public. Unfortunately, neither Thomas Paine nor the American public in the 1700s were able to see the true nature of public "education."
In the first place, they couldn't see the immorality of public funding of education. Would you go door to door in your neighborhood, point a gun to each neighbor's head and demand money so you could send your children to school? No? Then why would you be willing to hide behind politicians who point the gun for you by legislating mandatory taxes?
"But it's not the same. Politicians don't really point guns." Oh, yeah? Try taking a stand that you don't want your hard-earned money confiscated for such purposes, and therefore you are not going to pay taxes. The sheriff will attempt to arrest you, and if you resist arrest you will be shot.
Secondly, it helps to ask why Karl Marx included in his Communist Manifesto as one of his 10 measures to bring about communist rule the so-called "free" education of children. Karl Marx knew what Thomas Paine did not, that "education" operated by governments has nothing to do with free inquiry and search for truth, and everything to do with obviously (or not so obviously) spinning all possible facts and circumstances to serve the purposes of rulers.
The only Presidential candidate today who has dared question the holy sacredness of public education is Republican Ron Paul. He points out that political funding demands political control, and political control means education is removed from the marketplace of free ideas and free inquiry. Such an "education" is not really education at all, but as much propaganda as can be passed off as education. Its purpose is to indoctrinate and create a sort of societal collective judgment that the world view of the ruling elite is not to be questioned as the only right and good world view.
The libertarian preparation device, A Course in Miracles, shows us how insane is such a process:
Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom, and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of "good" and "bad" judgment, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter. There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is "good" judgment to one is "bad" judgment to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing "good" judgment at one time and "bad" judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time the student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about them, and the teacher himself may well be inconsistent in what he believes. "Good" judgment, in these terms, does not mean anything. No more does "bad."
Available free online:
Course in Political Miracles
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