The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Now I am scared. The NRA may be right. We have heard from several hunter friends they have had the same experience. Either the Department of Justice is a total joke or the government is building a database so they know where to go and pick up private citizens’ guns. — Maybe the NRA’s right to be paranoid
This is not an either/or question. There’s every reason to believe that the answer is “Both.”
Our kids have become cannon fodder for two rival ideologies battling to control America’s future.
In one camp are conservative Christians and their champion, the Texas State Board of Education; in the other are politically radical multiculturalists and their de facto champion, President Barack Obama. The two competing visions couldn’t be more different. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Unfortunately, whichever side wins — your kid ends up losing.
That’s because this war is for the power to dictate what our children are taught — and, by extension, how future generations of Americans will view the world. Long gone are the days when classrooms were for learning: now each side sees the public school system as a vast indoctrination camp in which future culture-warriors are trained. The problem is, two diametrically opposed philosophies are struggling for supremacy, and neither is willing to give an inch, so the end result is extremism, no matter which side temporarily comes out on top.
Both visions are grotesque and unacceptable — and yet they are currently the only two choices on the national menu. Which shall it be, sir: Brainwashing Fricassee, or a Fried Ignorance Sandwich?
Zombie – Ideological War Spells Doom for America’s Schoolkids
Homeschool if at all possible.
UPDATE: Read ALL FIVE PARTS of Zombie’s Überpost. I mean it. He’s done parts I and II. I await with bated breath the rest of this magnum opus.
From the comments to the announcement that the EPA has decided not to consider a ban of lead in ammunition:
I wonder how many Donk congresscritters were calling up the EPA and screaming “NOT NOW! NOT F*&KING NOW!” — Ragin’ Dave
I swung by my local used-book superstore, Bookman’s. As others have noticed, Pratchett doesn’t get traded in much. They had one hardcover of Going Postal. Period. So I went to Barnes & Noble and picked up Guards! Guards! and The Truth. I also picked up another book I knew nothing about, Craig Ferguson’s American On Purpose.
Here’s what sold me, from the preface:
One of the greatest moments in American sports history was provided by Bobby Thomson, the “Staten Island Scot.” Born in my hometown of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1923, he hit the shot heard round the world that won the Giants the National League pennant in 1951. Had Bobby stayed in Glasgow he would never have played baseball, he would never have faced the fearsome Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca in that championship game, and he would never have learned that if you can hit the ball three times out of ten you’ll make it to the Hall of Fame.
Today I watch my son at Little League games, his freckled Scottish face squinting in the California sunshine, the bat held high on his shoulder, waiting for the moment, and I rejoice that he loves this most American game. He will know from an early age that failure is not disgrace. It’s just a pitch that you missed, and you’d better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don’t.
I wish I’d known all this earlier. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.
“…Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don’t.”
And that right there is Quote of the MONTH.
This promises to be a most interesting book. Here’s the rest of the preface:
In order to write this book I reached into the darkness for my past and found to my surprise that most of it was still there, just as I had left it. Some of it, though, had grown and morphed into what now appears to be hideous and reprehensible selfishness. Some of it had crumbled into the ruins of former shame.
This is not journalism. This is just my story. There are bound to be some lies here, but I’ve been telling them so long they’ve become truth, my truth, as close as I can get to what really happened. I left some tales out because to tell them would be excessively cruel to people who probably don’t deserve it, and altered a few names for the same reason, but I believe I spared myself no blushes.
I didn’t flee a dictator or swim an ocean to be an American like some do. I just thought long and hard about it.
I looked at the evidence of my life and gratefully signed up.
Because I’m going to the USPSA match, and probably won’t be posting anything tomorrow, and I don’t want to post-date this particular bit of linkage. From Dr. Sanity:
Eleven score and four years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Today we live in an Animal Farm world where our elites in Congress consider themselves more equal than you or I; and the wealth created by the productive people in our society is regularly redistributed to those who produce nothing; or, it is wasted on the pet projects of those preening elites who are certain that they know what is best for for everyone. In short, we (and our children and their children) are slowly but inexorably being transformed into slaves of the State.
From Our Very Own Little Country of Horrors which I urge you to read in its (brief) entirety.
Then skip down and read Between Brains, which is longer, deeper, and more important.
I stopped at the local BBQ tonight (we needed a fix, y’see). The two Sweet Young Things were yammering with each other as they rang up my sale.
One allowed as how she was allergic to lots of things. She explained, “I just say I’m allergic to things I don’t like; cottage cheese, nuts, school …”
I couldn’t help myself.
“You don’t like school?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“Because NOW we have to actually DO the work.”
Oh shit.
“What school is that?”
“College.”
“What grade?”
“Junior.”
“What major?”
“Elementary education.”
Oh shit.
“Oh shit” indeed. That’s from reader DJ in the comments to this post.
It is no secret that classic liberalism, in the mold of FDR, JFK,and LBJ that reached its apotheosis in Hubert Humphrey, has long been consigned to the bone-yard. What has taken its place hates to be tarred with the brush of liberalism because, frankly, it isn’t. It prefers to be called “progressivism” even as “a sociopathic political and social recidivism” more accurately describes it. – Gerard Van der Leun, The Not-So-Great Generation and the Vision That Dare Not Speak Its Name, American Digest.
RTWT. Twice.
From the comments at Tam’s:
I tutor children from our public schools and I, too, had a high-school senior who didn’t know that the Sun is a star around which the Earth revolves, that the Moon is a planet that revolves around the Earth, or that light travels very fast. This student had memorized the multiplication tables in elementary school but didn’t know what multiplication “means.”
Another example was with a high-school senior taking an “AP Chemistry” class. This student wanted help understanding how to calculate the molarity of a solution. I kept working “backwards” through the “things one needs to know” in search of the student’s baseline competence. At one point I posed the question “If you have two five pound bags of sugar, how much sugar do you have?” The student responded, “Twenty-five pounds. You multiply don’t you?”Several years ago, I had a third grade student who needed help with arithmetic. This student was very bright but didn’t seem to be retaining much from her class at school. I made an appointment with the teacher to try to get more information about what and how my student was being taught.
At one point in the conversation I mentioned that my student didn’t seem confident in even basic facts like knowing the “multiplication table.” The teacher said, “Well, we’re not as concerned about their knowing the exact answer as how they feel about that answer.”
At this point, I knew I had found the root of this student’s problem. I thanked the teacher for taking time to meet with me and backed slowly out of the office.
Again, all of the students in these examples were very bright and had managed to be very successful in their classes. They were all eager students and found their way to me because they really wanted to learn. They all came from homes where their parents were present, loving, dedicated, and involved in their lives. In every case, their performance improved quickly once we put some of the basics in place. All graduated from college and are successful in their careers. The first is now an accountant, the second is a nurse, and the third is a psychiatrist. In short, the only thing preventing them from getting a high quality education was the Educational System itself. – “Larry”
I looked at Bobbi today at the fair and said “You know, it’d be a damn shame to live 80 years on a planet with elephants on it and die without ever having ridden one.“– Tam, in a comment to her own post What I Did on My Summer Staycation
Word.
And today’s Quote of the Day from Daphne’s brother Doug:
How could anyone with a functioning brain stem find celebrity whores so goddamn fascinating? Do these mindless plebes think those talentless stars even realize they exist as anything more than dollar signs filling up their fat bank accounts? The economy is in the shitter, there are few replacement jobs for normal people who want to work, need to work, the federal debt is out of control, we’re busy fighting two long wars, my people (he’s retired Airforce) are coming home in body bags or damaged beyond belief and shameful few of my fellow neighbors take the occasional minute to notice this awful, bloody fact, much less bow their heads in distressed prayer. Washington is so corrupt we might as well call it Goat Fucking Kabul and these mindless, well-heeled women are busy discussing Lady Gaga’s genetically mangled, fucked up crotch for a solid hour like it’s the Holy goddamn Grail.
Can I get an “AMEN!”?
And on that cheerful note, I’m going to bed.