A Moratorium on Reason
Well, they lied to us, and we believed them. Shame on them, and shame on us.
I’ve got a lot to say, but I’ll forbear for now.
Personally, I’m going to keep fighting for parents’ choice in education, although I don’t really know in what capacity. I hope you’re as angry as I am so that you will too. As a whole, we didn’t fight hard enough; but next time we’ll know better. We owe it to our children not to give up.
I’ll leave you for now with a selection of quotes, mostly from Conner’s blog.
“…A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do.”
– James R. Otteson, professor of philosophy. - The Independent Review, Spring 2000, “Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling”
“If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.”
– Milton Friedman - Economist. Awarded 1976 Nobel Prize in economics.
“By preventing a free market in education, a handful of social engineers, backed by the industries that profit from compulsory schooling … has ensured that most of our children will not have an education, even though they may be thoroughly schooled.”
– John Taylor Gatto, Source: Dumbing Us Down, p. 85
“In this matter of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by government to instruct others, without charge…In creating a monopoly of education, the government must answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus been deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes are shattered whose fault is it? We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say we are opposed to any education.”
– Frederic Bastiat, The Law , 1850
“Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
“This is the seductive lure of socialism.”
– Frederic Bastiat, Source: The Law, p. 25
“I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property from one man and giving it to another who knows not how to take care of it… I do not believe in allowing my charities to go through the hands of robbers who pocket nine-tenths themselves and give one tenth to the poor… Would I encourage free schools by taxation? No!”
– Brigham Young, Source: Journal of Discourses Vol. 18, p. 357
“The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.”
– Karl Marx - Father of Communism (1848)
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Tags: Choice in Education, Choice in Education, Competition, Free Market, Freedom, Freedom in Education, Government Monopolies, Informed Voters, Politics, Private School, Public Education, Schools, Secularism, Socialism, Tyranny, Voting, Voucher Debates, Vouchers
November 7th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I recently had an interesting discussion with a public school teacher. She was expressing her concern that teachers actually have little say in their union anymore as the NEA has essentially taken over. She also indicated he frustration to hear the UEA spokesperson being quoted for “what Utah teachers” think about things. She indicated that a large number of teachers disagree with the UEA on many issues. Of course, you never hear about that from the media.
I felt bad as she explained the problems that she had in the Jordan school district getting her leaning disabled child help and the district simply refused to provide - despite laws to the contrary. As she explained how the system is set up to inhibit children’s ability to access resource programs, it made me greatful that my children do not have those problems and that, if necessary, I can afford to find an alternative.
If we required receipients on welfare or those receiving worker’s compensation, etc., to shop at a government run store - most people would be outraged. Why are our children less imporant?
November 7th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I voted against vouchers. Not because I don’t support privatization of education, but because I believe they can do (and _should_ do) much better than Referendum 1. A lot of the people I know who voted against the referendum did so for the same reason. We haven’t taken leave of our senses, and I thought that the campaigning (for and against) was rather silly and relied more on FUD/counter-FUD than on actual reason and economics. With the intellectual capability present in our state, we can do better.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Thanks for your comment, Alex.
Out of curiosity, what would you have liked to see in the bill that you didn’t?