The epitome of what's wrong with our world - Public Schools
Okay, I'm officially leaving the philosophical ponderings to the people who are better at it, and doing what I enjoy much more - politics.
Okay, the above title may make it seem like I'm completely demonizing the public school system, but examine the words I used. It's the epitome of, or the personification of, what's wrong with our world. Not the very center of the problem itself.
Anyway, on to the real post...
So, my main problems with the public school system are: A, it's a major part of government spending, which is waaaay out of whack, and B, it is not the government's role to educate.
Alright, A. Cold, hard evidence - I'm 17, earning $8 an hour as a cashier, and the government takes $1.50 out of my paycheck. Mathmatically, that's fifty cents short of 25%. One fourth. And I'm a minor. I don't care who you are, the fact is that this is disordered. I'm a person trying to make my way through the world as a Christian. And what happens? The government pockets nearly 25% of my work effort (and I'm 17) to use on big plans.
One of those plans is the Public School System, and I have to say that I can't stand that my wages are being used to fund it, for two reasons. First of all, I'm homeschooled, so I don't see why I have to pay for someone else's education. And secondly, if we have to significantly lower standards just so that a good chunk of the population can past tests, there is something wrong with the system. What is the government's answer? Throw more money at it. More of my $8 an hour to try desperately to fix something that can't work.
It can't work? Why not?
Okay, point B - the government has overstepped its bounds with the public school system. It is reaching into something it shouldn't go anywhere near. Let me break this down.
What is the purpose of the school? To educate, or to give knowledge to people. To help people to grow and become mature. To help people to become, in a word, excellent.
What is the purpose of the government? Not to be the machine which controls everyday life, but to be the oil which keeps the machine of every day life moving smoothly. It should almost be non-existent, I think. It should only exist for the special cases where something is wrong. It should not be the thing which both defines and makes everything right.
I'm sure most of you think I'm crazy at this point. The government should have no hand in helping people be excellent? I would emphatically say yes. Government should not concern itself with the excellence of the population. Hitler's regime was very much centered around the idea of eugenics and the superman, or an excellent population. I'm sure even the leftmost of the left would distance themselves from that prospect.
The fact is, the government and education shouldn't mix, not so much because it would be wrong, but because they are different spheres. The government's job is not to control people. It is to ensure that people don't kill each other. The school's job is to form, the government's job is to clean up what goes wrong. I'm sure you could say that the government is proactively doing its job by forming the child, but I would disagree. If the government is forming the child, without the parents' say.... Remember, America was founded on the principal of freedom of thought and religion. And yet we have the government spoon-feeding ideas to children, spoon-feeding them whatever certain people in power think. Honestly, if that's not scary, I don't know what is.
There's an old saying - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I agree, and then would add that if it is something that can't work no matter how much you try to fix it, the money is better spent elsewhere. And now we're back to economics. Government spending is out the window, and the nation is in debt. The only way that problem will be solved is to chuck things like this that can't work out the window.
But oh no, what ignorance will there be if kids aren't given a free education! People will be in the streets because they don't know enough to get a job. There are two problems with this theory. Firstly, there is no such thing as a free education. Like I said, almost 25% of my paycheck goes to the government, who fund this, and I don't even attend public school. The fact is, the education system is a huge spending outlet for the government. Again, like I said they try to fix the system that can't work by throwing money at it. If we cut both that spending and those taxes, the government would have less money that it needed to spend (much less!), and the taxpayers would have that much more money to spend both on their own education and on their day-to-day needs.
Secondly, since when was a college education necessary to make a living? Politicians both vilify the rich for succeeding, and then turn around and say that unless your child succeeds in exactly the same way, he is a failure. Labor jobs, like builing houses, making clothing, styling hair, car mechanics, and many others are all necessary and fulfilling. A hard day's work definitely never hurt anyone - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a higher percentage of working people than corporate people were holy. There's something about the parable of the sower which can only be understood by a farmer, and the miracle of the fish and loaves by the baker and the fisherman. There is nothing wrong with the ordinary.
And thus, I get back to the problem with society, of which the public school is the epitome. Every position of power is overstepping its bounds to opress the common man. The scientists, who study the natural world, attempts to tell us that the supernatural cannot exist. The woman attempts to define both femininity and masculinity. The government, the corporal power, attempts to control the spiritual and moral. I say let the American man live up to the founding fathers' dream - to not, by mandate, sit in a classroom being spoon-fed beliefs for twelve years, but to grow and think independently. To be the person God created him to be, without the interference of a government which oversteps its bounds to tell the common man what he should think. On the contrary, I bet Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams would say that it should be the common man who tells the government what to think, not the other way around.
~Ambrose
P.S. According to my mom, Ron Paul wants to can the education system. I think I'm beginning to like this guy...
Okay, the above title may make it seem like I'm completely demonizing the public school system, but examine the words I used. It's the epitome of, or the personification of, what's wrong with our world. Not the very center of the problem itself.
Anyway, on to the real post...
So, my main problems with the public school system are: A, it's a major part of government spending, which is waaaay out of whack, and B, it is not the government's role to educate.
Alright, A. Cold, hard evidence - I'm 17, earning $8 an hour as a cashier, and the government takes $1.50 out of my paycheck. Mathmatically, that's fifty cents short of 25%. One fourth. And I'm a minor. I don't care who you are, the fact is that this is disordered. I'm a person trying to make my way through the world as a Christian. And what happens? The government pockets nearly 25% of my work effort (and I'm 17) to use on big plans.
One of those plans is the Public School System, and I have to say that I can't stand that my wages are being used to fund it, for two reasons. First of all, I'm homeschooled, so I don't see why I have to pay for someone else's education. And secondly, if we have to significantly lower standards just so that a good chunk of the population can past tests, there is something wrong with the system. What is the government's answer? Throw more money at it. More of my $8 an hour to try desperately to fix something that can't work.
It can't work? Why not?
Okay, point B - the government has overstepped its bounds with the public school system. It is reaching into something it shouldn't go anywhere near. Let me break this down.
What is the purpose of the school? To educate, or to give knowledge to people. To help people to grow and become mature. To help people to become, in a word, excellent.
What is the purpose of the government? Not to be the machine which controls everyday life, but to be the oil which keeps the machine of every day life moving smoothly. It should almost be non-existent, I think. It should only exist for the special cases where something is wrong. It should not be the thing which both defines and makes everything right.
I'm sure most of you think I'm crazy at this point. The government should have no hand in helping people be excellent? I would emphatically say yes. Government should not concern itself with the excellence of the population. Hitler's regime was very much centered around the idea of eugenics and the superman, or an excellent population. I'm sure even the leftmost of the left would distance themselves from that prospect.
The fact is, the government and education shouldn't mix, not so much because it would be wrong, but because they are different spheres. The government's job is not to control people. It is to ensure that people don't kill each other. The school's job is to form, the government's job is to clean up what goes wrong. I'm sure you could say that the government is proactively doing its job by forming the child, but I would disagree. If the government is forming the child, without the parents' say.... Remember, America was founded on the principal of freedom of thought and religion. And yet we have the government spoon-feeding ideas to children, spoon-feeding them whatever certain people in power think. Honestly, if that's not scary, I don't know what is.
There's an old saying - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I agree, and then would add that if it is something that can't work no matter how much you try to fix it, the money is better spent elsewhere. And now we're back to economics. Government spending is out the window, and the nation is in debt. The only way that problem will be solved is to chuck things like this that can't work out the window.
But oh no, what ignorance will there be if kids aren't given a free education! People will be in the streets because they don't know enough to get a job. There are two problems with this theory. Firstly, there is no such thing as a free education. Like I said, almost 25% of my paycheck goes to the government, who fund this, and I don't even attend public school. The fact is, the education system is a huge spending outlet for the government. Again, like I said they try to fix the system that can't work by throwing money at it. If we cut both that spending and those taxes, the government would have less money that it needed to spend (much less!), and the taxpayers would have that much more money to spend both on their own education and on their day-to-day needs.
Secondly, since when was a college education necessary to make a living? Politicians both vilify the rich for succeeding, and then turn around and say that unless your child succeeds in exactly the same way, he is a failure. Labor jobs, like builing houses, making clothing, styling hair, car mechanics, and many others are all necessary and fulfilling. A hard day's work definitely never hurt anyone - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a higher percentage of working people than corporate people were holy. There's something about the parable of the sower which can only be understood by a farmer, and the miracle of the fish and loaves by the baker and the fisherman. There is nothing wrong with the ordinary.
And thus, I get back to the problem with society, of which the public school is the epitome. Every position of power is overstepping its bounds to opress the common man. The scientists, who study the natural world, attempts to tell us that the supernatural cannot exist. The woman attempts to define both femininity and masculinity. The government, the corporal power, attempts to control the spiritual and moral. I say let the American man live up to the founding fathers' dream - to not, by mandate, sit in a classroom being spoon-fed beliefs for twelve years, but to grow and think independently. To be the person God created him to be, without the interference of a government which oversteps its bounds to tell the common man what he should think. On the contrary, I bet Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams would say that it should be the common man who tells the government what to think, not the other way around.
~Ambrose
P.S. According to my mom, Ron Paul wants to can the education system. I think I'm beginning to like this guy...
Labels: Common Nonsense, Darkness be Gone, Musings, Ron Paul
posted by Ambrose at 2/24/2008 09:49:00 PM
6 Comments:
Hear, hear, lad!
I was going to make a post similar to this one, but you beat me to it....I just finished filling out one of those time-and-money-guzzling tax forms, myself...
Immortal Philosopher,
Obviously you are a brilliant and daring person to finally say something so brave and true, though there is a slight problem. I can see that you know the problems, but how to we fix them? All you've really gone into detail stating is what the actual problem is, and almost completely overlooked how to fix it. Is there any chance you could explain how the average citizen and the government should aid?
Oh, it's easy how the average citizen could aid. Vote for Ron Paul. Or did you mean besides that? 8^) Okay, I admit I just couldn't help dropping that comment but don't have anything actually better to say on the matter at the moment, but on the other hand a lot of the deal, our government being a republic (at least in theory, and if in practice it is anything worse that only makes matters harder, so...), is indeed going to be electing people who would do things about it.
Incidentally, Ambrose, the whole philosophy behind this post is not unlike Ron Paul's view of things, and that's why I've always liked him so much (even though at times he can at times take it to extremes at least in the case of the Federal government). ;^)
"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth..."
~Will Rodgers
Yea, because if you have a totally private run education system that may not cost a kings ransom, but your average car mechanic or Hair dresser can afford, but big daddy stock broker can, that’s going to create an equal and fair world, isn’t it?
You just sound bitter at some lost chances, so you’d rather America turn it’s back its children because your parents couldn’t afford a college education or something as preposterous.
Also do you think you would have been able to construct that lovely peace of critical prose without your state education?
Knowledge is power; don’t give it to the minority that can afford it.
http://deiflagellum.blogspot.com/2009/01/sorry-if-this-sounds-like-mr-shea.html
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