From time to time I visit The Daily Whackjob. Although the crowd is diverse, the debates are generally mannerly. So ideas get exchanged instead of barbs.
One of the more recent posts was a subject that interests me, The Abstinence Issue, and the debate was well underway. So I decided to read the comments; there were already twenty-three of them. What I noticed, to my chagrin, is no one attacked the basic assumptions behind sex education and abstinence education programs. Why does the government need to decide these issues? Why do we need government in the business of education?
Back in July of 2006, Vivian J. Paige wrote a post that reminded us that America is an evolving experiment (here). Whether you believe in strictly interpreting constitution or not, we must change and adapt. Paige quotes Thomas Jefferson:
Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstance, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Each generation must reexamine what it is doing and why. Each generation must ask whether what it is doing is accord with the beliefs it honors.
Much is made of how the Founding Fathers permitted the institution of slavery to continue. Many look back on the Founders with disdain. For example, the news article Paige referenced included this excerpt.
The real American question of our times is how our country in a little over 200 years sank from the great hope to the most backward democracy in the West. The U.S. offers the worst health care program, one of the worst public school systems and the worst benefits for workers. The margin between rich and poor has been growing precipitously while it has been decreasing in Europe. Among the great democracies, we use military might less cautiously, show less respect for international law and are the stumbling block in international environmental cooperation. Few informed people look to the United States anymore for progressive ideas.
We ought to do something. Instead, we keep worrying about the vision of a bunch of sexist, slave-owning 18th century white men in wigs and breeches. Even in the 18th century, the Founding Fathers were not the most enlightened thinkers available. They were the ones whose ideas prevailed. Those who favored independence but were not in favor of war are not called Founding Fathers. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania — with whom John Adams bitterly fought in the Constitutional Congress of 1776 because Dickinson did not believe it was necessary to engage in bloody warfare in order to achieve independence — is not a Founding Father. You could speak out against slavery and still be a Founding Father, as long as you did not insist on its abolition, as many did who aren’t in the pantheon. (from here)
The Founders, it would seem, were not sufficiently forward looking. Yet it seems to me that the people who most often say such things, self-styled progressives, would take us backwards. Instead of promoting freedom as the Founders did, these progressives would instruct us on how we should think.
Open your eyes and look at our schools with new eyes. When our Constitution became the accepted law of the land, what we call public schools did not exist. Public schools are a new invention, and each year public schools become better institutions for commanding orthodox thinking.
As the written word has become more commonplace and its role in our society more important, the education of the masses has also become more important. Unfortunately, with relatively little debate, we have let the government take over the role of educator. Why?
Why do we assume the government is the best educator of children? Why not a diversity of private schools? Why not parental choice? When so many have so little trust in the politicians who lead us, why should we expect parents to trust politicians to decide how their children should be educated?
Most of the affairs of our society are conducted by private entities and regulated by government bureaucrats. Doesn’t this division of responsibility prevent obvious conflicts of interest? When we do not have to, why would we want to combine the role of service provider with regulator?
When the poor cannot afford the things they need from the private market, government provides subsidies such as food stamps and housing vouchers. Instead of subsidizing education for the poor, why does our government need to own and operate schools? The poor seem to get by perfectly well with private grocery stores. How does the government ownership of schools improve the lot of the poor? Why does the middle class need government schools?
Why do we have a system that pressures parents to adopt your idea, my idea, somebody else’s idea, or some silly conglomeration of everybody’s ideas about education? Why not let parents decide?
Don’t we all want a free country where each of us has the freedom to make our own choices? Then why should our almighty rulers decide for us how we educate our children?
