The Tyranny of the Administrative State

"The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered." — Thomas Jefferson (1781)

As we watch a string of scandals detonate across the Obama Administration, we should all be able to agree that the abuse of government power to punish political opposition is hideously wrong. Sometimes we struggle to define the precise boundaries of “corruption,” as a growing government extends its power into the private sector, and the daily conduct of its business becomes inherently corrupt. Special interests swarm around the Leviathan State like remora fish around a shark. Everyone is either getting punished or subsidized by the government. Political connections become the most valuable economic resource. (If only President Obama’s cronies in the “green energy” racket had been given half the scrutiny this Administration directed at Tea Party groups, imagine how much money taxpayers would have saved!)

The ruling class reaches the apex of its power when it no longer has to tax and spend money to promote its agenda, or even deploy coercive regulations that could be traced back to particular administrators; instead, the ruling class need only express its desires, and those eager to curry favor will scramble to obey. For an example, watch the unfolding scandal around Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ efforts to squeeze money out of the industries she regulates.

But even in that thick stew of corruption — as competition under the impartial rule of law is replaced by a struggle to win the zero-sum affections of the State — we can easily see that government itself is the greatest “special interest” of all. When politicians and bureaucrats abuse power to protect themselves, we should recoil in disgust. There are right and wrong ways for politicians to win support, but there is no “good” way for them to punish opposition. I don’t think that even Woodrow Wilson, the father of today’s administrative state, would have gone this far. Although his alter ego Col. House advocated the powerful administrative state in his book “Phillip Dru, Administrator.”

This disgust grows particularly acute when the Internal Revenue Service is corrupted. We are obliged to place a great deal of faith in the IRS. The agency carries an extraordinary burden of public trust.

Our tax system is no simple matter of computing a flat percentage against easily documented income. Both individuals and corporations must submit an enormous amount of information to the IRS, so their compliance with the State’s agenda can be measured. The tax code is an instrument of control, not just a method of gathering revenue. If that’s all it was, it would be much less intrusive, and the IRS would be much smaller. This is one of the main reasons for Congress to throw out our current system of collecting taxes under the 16^th Amendment and institute either a fair tax or a flat tax. (I favor the flat tax as it would virtually eliminate the IRS and it’s thousands of employees).

The government distributes a great deal of favor through the current tax code. Behaving in the “right” way earns various deductions and credits. Excessive success and “incorrect” investment is punished. In order for this system to function, the behavior of citizens and their corporations must be carefully monitored. Failure to comply with this surveillance brings unfortunate consequences (unless the offender has powerful political connections, of course.)

As the tax code grows, and exerts greater levels of control, the volume of information Americans must place into Internal Revenue’s trust necessarily grows. It can’t work any other way. Every activity with tax ramifications must be monitored. Very few activities are without tax ramifications now. ObamaCare is one prominent example of a bill that makes vast new segments of American life the business of the IRS, at both the individual and corporate level.

The IRS must fulfill this trust with the highest level of fidelity, respecting the privacy of every American. Whatever moral legitimacy Big Government retains depends upon this utterly. The IRS is a socialist’s favorite agency, nourishing the State with blood drawn from the unruly private sector, while simultaneously imposing the economic preferences of wise and benevolent government. It brings in revenue to fund the State, and it controls private behavior. It must conduct itself as the sacred temple of socialism, in which the sanctity of the tax confessional is absolute.

Otherwise, a system that has already been criticized as tyranny becomes completely indistinguishable from it. The IRS is not meant to serve as an opposition research team for the ruling Party. Its power is not meant to stifle discourse. No one should believe that more fervently than a sincere liberal. No one should have less tolerance for the corruption of that sacred encounter between citizens and their rulers, in which the property of individuals is transformed into sustenance for the divine general will of The People.

Liberals believe with all their hearts that every citizen should have a voice in shaping the general will, do they not? They measure “freedom” not by independence from the government, but rather by the ability to influence its course. Everyone is allowed to speak, then an election settles our differences, and everyone is expected to obey the winners. If the government is able to use its power to suppress that noble democratic process — especially the singular power of the IRS — what are we left with, except the mere tyranny that liberals claim to oppose?

To be honest, our gigantic central government already has many other resources for influencing the electoral process. It has many resources for purchasing votes and intimidating dissent. The ideal of a leviathan government that humbly serves The People is the absurd primal delusion of the modern Left. Let us begin with the absolutely unacceptable sin of corrupting the IRS, work our way back through every agency, and see how many Americans we can set free from that delusion. It’s what our Founders believed in 1776 when they laid out their list of grievances to King George in the Deceleration of Independence. They wanted to live free from the abuses of a tyrannical government — something many of us want today.

In his commencement remarks to graduates sparsely convened in the Ohio State University football stadium in Columbus last weekend, Barack Hussein Obama offered the following observations and advice:

"Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted. We don't think the government is the source of all our problems we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process."

Clearly, Obama's absurd and overtly partisan assertions were aimed at young constituents whom he hopes embody the future of his Socialist Democratic Party. After all, an effective speechmaker knows his audience, and Obama knows that most of these youthful citizens are indoctrinated in government institutions since they were weaned.

Indeed, the socialist protagonist, Karl Marx, wrote, "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." Marx's disciple, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, concurred: "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."

From the days of Woodrow Wilson to those of Barack Obama, and encompassing all the "progressives" in between, taxpayer-funded academic institutions have been the breeding ground for generations of socialists. For most leftists, the crucial years that cemented their worldview were the ones they spent in our nation's colleges and universities.

Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are accused of setting the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon, attended the University of Massachusetts. Maybe they hated our nation before college, but if you want lessons on hating America, college attendance might be a good start. Let's look at it.

Walter Williams writes in Townhall.com about hating America:

"We need to think very, very clearly about who the enemy is. The enemy is the United States of America and everyone who supports it." That's taught to University of Hawaii students by Professor Haunani-Kay Trask. Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and the U.N. Human Rights Council's Palestine monitor, explained the Boston bombings by saying, "The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world." Professor Falk has also stated that President George W. Bush ordered the destruction of the twin towers.

University of Southern California professor Darry Sragow preaches hate to his students in his regulation of elections and political finance class, recently telling them that Republicans are stupid, racist losers and that they are angry old white people. A few years ago, Rod Swanson, a UCLA economics professor, told his class, "The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world." Penn State University professor Matt Jordan compared supporters of the voter ID laws to the Ku Klux Klan. Professor Sharon Sweet, an algebra teacher at Brevard Community College, told her students to sign a pledge that read, "I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket." Fortunately, the college's trustees fired her.

University of Rhode Island history professor Erik Loomis tweeted, "I want (National Rifle Association executive vice president) Wayne LaPierre's head on a stick." He asked, "Can (we) define NRA membership as dues contributing to a terrorist organization?" Here's a sample of how Professor Loomis frequently expresses himself: "Motherf---ing f---heads f---ing f---." Then there's Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman, who explained our national problems by saying, "But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions." Professor Seidman worked for The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. When he was sworn in as an officer of the court, I wonder what constitution he swore to uphold and defend.

Parents don't have to wait for college admission for their youngsters to receive America-hating lessons. Scott Compton, an English teacher at Chapin High School in Chapin, S.C., was put on administrative leave after he allegedly threw an American flag on the floor and stomped on it in front of his students. He has chosen to resign.

An Advanced Placement world geography teacher at Lumberton High School in Texas encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing and instructed them to refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as "freedom fighters." They were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as genocide. John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, told Fox News that the teacher did absolutely nothing wrong.

In McAllen, Texas, teachers tried to force a teenager to sing the Mexican national anthem and recite Mexico's pledge of allegiance. The teen refused, saying it was against her beliefs as an American. She was thrown out of the class and given a failing grade for that day's assignment. Her father has filed a lawsuit on behalf of his daughter against the McAllen Independent School District.

Investor's Business Daily ran a story that shows student indoctrination is official union policy: "A New Low From The California Federation Of Teachers: Urine Indoctrination" (12/5/12). The union's website has a cartoon narrated by leftist Hollywood actor Ed Asner. In tones used when reading to children, Asner says: "(Rich people) love their money more than anything in the whole world. Over time, rich people decided they weren't rich enough, so they came up with ways to get richer." The cartoon finishes its class warfare message by graphically depicting "the rich" urinating on the poor.

These people running our education system are destroying the minds and values of our young people, and we allow them to do it.”

These examples are but a few of the thousands that occur every year in our K-12 and higher education systems. Unless you can afford a religious-based private school or home school you child will be subjected to this indoctrination on a daily basis as they are prepared for citizenship in the utopian society of the progressive left.

As for higher education you will have to search for colleges and universities such as Hillsdale College and Liberty University if you do not want to become a drone of the tyrannical, progressive state. Once these drones are matriculated many of them enter the world of academia to propagate more drones or enter government services where they can bask in the comfort of the good life afforded by civil service.

Todd Starnes of Fox News.com has provided us with a list the top 100 universities that have selected liberal graduation speakers:

“When it comes to selecting a commencement speaker, the nation’s top 100 universities lean decidedly left, according to a new survey by the Young America’s Foundation.

Of the top 100 universities listed by U.S. News and World Report, 62 have selected liberal commencement speakers and only 17 selected conservatives. The YAF said the political affiliations of the remaining speakers was unclear.

“It goes to show you how administrators are unwilling to reach out and provide an alternative viewpoint,” YAF’s Adam Tragone told Fox News. “There’s a plethora – a deluge of liberals compared to conservatives on this year’s list.”

The YAF’s 20th annual Commencement Speakers Survey shows a who’s-who of liberals invited to impart words of wisdom to college graduates – from Oprah Winfrey at Harvard University to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the University of California – Davis.

Speakers at the top 10 schools include:

1. Harvard University – Oprah Winfrey
2. Princeton University – Ben Bernanke
3. Yale University – Cory Booker
4. Columbia University – Lee C. Bollinger
5. University of Chicago – Abbie J. Smith
6. MIT – Drew Houston
7. Stanford University – Michael Bloomberg
8. Duke University – Melinda Gates

Among the handful of conservatives to get speaking invites were Ga. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

“It’s like one last dose of liberalism given by the academia community to the students before they go off and begin their careers,” Tragone told Fox News. “It fulfills the stereotype that most Americans think academia is full of liberal ideology and conservatives are put to the wayside.”

…

“Liberal media representatives will also be plentiful. Four employees of The New York Times will deliver remarks – along with representatives from NPR, PBS and CNN.

Tragone said it’s disheartening that the nation’s universities seem to ignore conservative voices.

“The message it sends to conservative students is to be wary and always at attention of liberal bias that exists in academia,” he said.

YAF’s Ron Robinson pointed out that it’s a clear example of liberal indoctrination.

“As tuition and student loan debt grow at historic rates, what are students getting for their money?” he asked. “An education from leftist professors that—combined with the Obama administration’s policies—has left 53 percent of recent grads unemployed or underemployed. These commencement speakers are just the icing on higher education’s indoctrination cake.”

Obama claimed, "Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner."

I'm not sure what incessant voices those might be — certainly not those of our Founders — because a growing number of college graduates can't name but a few if any. And they're certainly not the voices of a majority of government schoolteachers and professors, who are little more than useful idiots in the service of socialism.

Obama might be talking about the handful of courageous young American Patriots on campuses across the nation — those who stand in the face of peer and professorial ridicule in order to speak in defense of Liberty. Or maybe he's referring to that rarest of creatures, the conservative professor whose lone voice extols the virtues of Liberty amid the academic statism desert.

Or perhaps the voices Obama alludes to are those of the current generation of grassroots Patriots, who gave rise to the Tea Party movement a couple of years back. They fortunately "gummed up the works" in the 2010 midterm elections when they sent more than 70 Democrats packing and replaced them with grassroots conservatives to retake the House of Representatives. That provided a gauntlet to Obama's socialist agenda, one that notably crushed the crown jewel of that agenda last month — his so-called "assault weapons" ban (known in our humble shop as the defensive weapons ban.)

Obama continued, "You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted."

Well, not quite. It is Obama and his statist cadres who believe that "we, the people" can't be trusted, and thus he has perpetually campaigned since 2006 to implement his plan of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Obama's objective is to reject the voices of those who support Liberty and the Rule of Law over the rule of men, the terminus of which is always tyranny. As Lord Acton famously wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Finally, Obama said, "We don't think the government is the source of all our problems we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together."

This is just a heap of unadulterated double-speak.

First, in regard to "the source of our problems," I remind you of the inimitable words of Ronald Reagan, which are truer today than when he spoke them in 1981: "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." As his colleague Margaret Thatcher once said, "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. They then start to nationalize everything and control everything by other means."

Second, we are not a "democracy," but a Constitutional Republic. Of course, a "community organizer" wouldn't know the difference, but someone who bills himself a "constitutional scholar" should!

Third, "it's not about what America can do for us"? This is clearly some kind of cheap JFK knockoff. John Kennedy, of course, said, "Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." But Obama has built his constituent voter blocs on the exact opposite theme, "Ask not what you can do for your country — ask what your country can do for you."

And, when Obama says, "it's about what can be done by us, together," he's not talking about equal partners, but about government dominion over people. This is in keeping with the socialist theme trumpeted at the grand opening of his 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina: "Government is the only thing we all belong to!"

To summarize, here is the shorter catechism of Obama's message to graduates of The Ohio State University, and, of course, to college graduates everywhere: "Government is great, Government is good, and you should thank us for your food. By its hands we all are fed, government provides our daily bread."

As long as we have tyrannical and unfettered government agencies such as the IRS, Department of Justice, The EPA, Homeland Security with its TSA, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education with their political appointees and life-long bureaucrats we have but little chance of remaining a republic as envisioned by our founders. Congress seems to be no match for this leviathan of masterminds and statist.

As long as the American People are more concerned with the bread and circuses being offered by our entertainment industry, the horrible left-wing bias of our public education system, and the shallow and biased reporting of the fourth estate there is little chance of any sustained pressure to change or reverse 100 years of progressivism.

However, on a more positive note as the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius is claimed to have said: “the longest journey begins with the first step.” Perhaps we have taken a first step with the uncovering of the tyrannical abuses of the IRS. Let us hope so.

Oh, and one more closing comment of the mentality of our noble leader Barack Obama and his disrespect for our military. As Confucius stated: “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Evidently the Marines have Obama’s back, but does he have their back?

The Justice Department vs. Home Schooling

“Equal laws protecting equal rights; the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.” — James Madison, letter to Jacob de la Motta — 1820.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants with criminal records were released earlier this year as the Obama administration prepared for budget cuts, according to newly released data that challenged claims the program involved "low-risk" individuals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released the figures to two top senators, after a three-month delay and under the threat of congressional subpoenas.

A Fox News report states:

“Of the 2,226 detainees that were released in February, the department revealed, "622 have been identified as having some type of criminal conviction."

A statement from Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., who received the stats, said 32 of them had multiple felony convictions. The department then "re-apprehended" 24 of those, the senators said, after realizing the "seriousness" of their crimes.

McCain called for those responsible to be punished.

"ICE's reprehensible actions put Arizona at risk by setting free into our communities hundreds of detainees who were guilty of criminal offenses," he said. "The ICE officials responsible for this must face disciplinary action and must take all actions necessary to ensure that this never happens again."

At the time, ICE officials defended the decision as one made in order to stay within budget -- as a prior budget resolution expired and the sequester was set to kick in.”

I cite the above example to illustrate the duplicity of our government and the statist who are in power.

The Romeike family has for years been battling for the right to educate their children as they see fit. On Tuesday, May 14^th the United States government has denied their request.

Originally from Germany Uwe and Hannelore Romeike wanted to homeschool their six children, but it is against the law in Germany. They faced threats of legal action from the government and crippling fines before choosing to immigrate to the United States in 2010, seeking political asylum. They are devout Catholics who emigrated from Germany in 2008 to home school their six children in Tennessee. As Uwe Romeike told Fox News, it is illegal to do that in Germany.

U.S. Immigration Judge Lawrence Burman granted the Romeike’s request, but it was overturned in 2012 by the Board of Immigration Appeals, after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement challenged the decision.

On Tuesday, in the words of the Home School Defense League Association, which has represented the family: “The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family.”

The parents could face jail time if forced to return home and the German government could take their children..

The ruling essentially states that “the Romeikes have not shown that Germany’s enforcement of its general school-attendance law amounts to persecution against them, whether on grounds of religion or membership in a recognized social group.”

The compulsory attendance laws — and related punishments if violated — apply to everyone, and therefore this isn’t a case of persecution, they say.

“The United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment, even treatment that our laws do not allow,” the ruling explains.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike decided to homeschool their children because of concerns that the German public school system taught bad values and approved of witchcraft. Faced with fines, imprisonment, and the loss of custody of their children in the only European country where homeschooling is banned outright, the family fled to the United States in 2008. On January 26, 2010, an immigration judge granted the Romeikes asylum. The immigration judge held that the Romeike’s were “members of a particular social group” and concluded that they would face persecution for their religious beliefs should they be returned to Germany.

On May 4, 2012, the Board of Immigration Appeals overruled the immigration judge and denied the Romeikes asylum. The Board of Immigration Appeals needed to answer these questions: (1) Have the Romeikes suffered persecution? (2) If they did suffer persecution, was it because of their religion? (3) Alternatively, if they did suffer persecution, was it because of their membership in a particular social group? The Board of Immigration Appeals answered no to all these questions. First, it wasn’t persecution because the anti-homeschooling law was one of general application (not meant to target a specific group, but rather something that applied evenly across the board). Next, because there were secular reasons for the compulsory attendance law, even if it had been deemed persecution it wouldn’t have been persecution suffered because of their religion. Finally, the Board of Immigration Appeals found that German homeschoolers are not a particular social group within the meaning of the act. To be a social group, there must be “social visibility” and “particularity.” Homeschoolers are simply too “amorphous” to constitute a social group eligible for protection under the asylum law.

The Home School Legal Defense Association will represent them. It sees their denial of asylum as a fundamental threat to freedom. "In this particular case there is an equivalency between human rights standards and our constitutional rights. If our government takes the position that home-schooling is not a human right for the Romeike case to give them the basis of asylum, then it may not be a constitutional right for them as well," said Michael Farris of the HSLDA.

Immigration experts differ as to whether the Romeike's situation meets the criteria for asylum here.

David Abraham, a professor at the University of Miami Law School, said: "Germany, a democratic country, has chosen not to permit home schooling as one of the options. Germans have a chance to change that through their legislature. In the meantime, it doesn't exist and it is not persecution."

But Thomas Dupree, a Bush administration Justice Department lawyer disagrees. "The administration has a wide variety of options at their disposal that range from granting asylum to deferring any kind of action to remove these people," he said.

A petition on the White House website to grant the family permanent legal status has garnered over 100,000 signatures -- a threshold that typically triggers comment from the administration. A recording on that website tells visitors, "If a petition gets enough signatures White House staff will review it, ensure it's sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response."

Home-schoolers in Germany face not just fines, but the potential removal of children from their parents' custody. That is a level of punishment the Romeikes say rises to persecution.

“We believe the Sixth Circuit is wrong and we will appeal their decision,” said Michael Farris, HSLDA Founder and Chairman. “America has room for this family and we will do everything we can to help them.”

The court said that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment. Although the court acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution recognizes the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children, it refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously and philosophically motivated homeschoolers in Germany amounts to persecution within our laws on asylum.

“While we will continue to fight in the courts over the issue of whether our law requires the Administration to give this family asylum, there is no doubt of the ability of the Obama Administration to use its discretion to immediately grant this family permanent asylum. We urge the Administration to do so at once,” Farris added.

“If our Administration is willing to explore a policy of leniency for millions of immigrants, it is simply inexplicable why they cannot find room for one homeschooling family from Germany,” Farris continued.

“Germany continues to persecute homeschoolers,” said Mike Donnelly, HSLDA Director of International Affairs. “The court ignored mountains of evidence that homeschoolers are harshly fined and that custody of their children is gravely threatened—something most people would call persecution. This is what the Romeikes will suffer if they are sent back to Germany.”

Recent changes in immigration enforcement policy are also at issue.

In 2011 the Obama administration initiated a new policy called "prosecutorial discretion" that gives the government broad power to pursue only high-priority cases. The policy was designed to give Department of Homeland Security the power to decide which deportation proceedings it wishes to pursue.

According to a March 13, 2013 report by ABC News:

“This case would probably fall under one of those cases that should be a low priority because you have a family that is fleeing based on their own beliefs," McKanders said. "They of course do not have a criminal background so it should be one of those cases where they are not spending a lot of resources, but it's not."

"The attorney general has the authority at any point in time to grant the family asylum," said Donnelly, who added that he hopes that's eventually what happens in this case. "These folks should be allowed to stay, they meet the standard."

The Justice Department declined to comment to ABC News. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said it is its policy not to comment on pending litigation in federal court.

Donnelly and Home School Legal Defense Association leader Michael Farris have petitioned the White House to allow the Romeike family to remain in the country.

"Every state in the United States of America recognizes the right to homeschool, and the U.S. has the world's largest and most vibrant homeschool community," read the formal petition on the White House website.”

Todd Starnes writes in Townhall.com:

“Uwe, a classically-trained pianist, relocated their brood to a four-acre farm in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains in eastern Tennessee. And with the help of a generous community, the family adjusted to their new home - complete with chickens, ducks and a dog named Julie.

“We are very happy here to be able to freely follow our conscience and to home school our children,” he told Fox News. “Where we live in Tennessee is very much like where we lived in Germany.”

Uwe said he was extremely disappointed that their petition to seek asylum was appealed by the Obama administration.

“If we go back to Germany we know that we would be prosecuted and it is very likely the Social Services authorities would take our children from us,” he said.

Uwe said German schools were teaching children to disrespect authority figures and used graphic words to describe sexual relations. He said the state believed children must be “socialized.”

“The German schools teach against our Christian values,” he said. “Our children know that we home school following our convictions and that we are in God’s hands. They understand that we are doing this for their best – and they love the life we are living in America on our small farm.”

Daniel, the oldest son, said he and his siblings have adjusted to their new home -- learning English and meeting other teenagers -- and of course -- the freedom to home school.

"I can learn a lot from my parents, much more than I could learn from school," he said.”

Eleven million people are going to be allowed to stay freely – but this one family is going to be shipped back to Germany to be persecuted,” “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

This is another example of the duplicity of the Obama administration. They (the statist in control) will ignore our current immigration laws and allow thousands of illegal immigrants from south of the border to remain in he United States and even allow their offspring the full benefits of not only a public education, but entrance to college at reduced tuition rates. Obama has ordered ICE to show a blind eye to the entrance of more and more illegal immigrants with the hope of amnesty and eventual voters for the Democratic Party. On the other hand Obama’s justice department will throw their full resources against one family of educated and productive people whose main crime is that they want to home school their children.

On the one hand our government is allowing thousands of illegals a pass while on the other hand focusing on one Tennessee family that was originally granted asylum by an immigration judge and then deciding to make an example of them. Perhaps the real issue here is the statists’ contempt for home schooling. The lesson to learned from the Romeike's story is if you're coming to America as a Christian refugee, go to Mexico first, and then cross the border illegally. Liberals will welcome you with open arms. If this is not an example duplicity than I don’t know what is?

Here are two videos that are worth watching for additional commentary on home schooling and the Romeike’s story.

Political Correctness Gone Amok

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.” John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law — 1765

Last Friday I had the honor to attend the Honors and High Honors awards at my granddaughter’s elementary school. These honors are given to students who achieve exceptional academic excellence in the advanced classes. For Honors a student must attain 80% in their advanced classes and for High Honors its 90%. My granddaughter received the High Honors award for her 4^th grade work in this past trimester.

The awards ceremonies were hosted by the principal and attended by the 3^rd and 4^th grade classes along with parents who were able to attend the afternoon event. The awards were given by grade and category with each group being called by name and given the award in front of the assembled audience. Once they received their awards they proceeded to the stage where they sat for applause and photographs.

It was a very fulfilling experience for the students, teachers, and parents. For those who did not receive awards it was worthwhile to see what hard work and study could achieve. Reward of excellence is a positive things as it honors those who have worked diligently during the school year and demonstrates to others the recognition that will befall students who follow their lead.

My granddaughter’s elementary school is part of a more conservative and traditional school district in Riverside County, California. The district and county also sponsor National History where students from the 4^th grade to seniors in high school are encouraged to participate with projects on history. Their projects range from posters and 3D displays to documentary films and web sites. Both of my granddaughters participated and advanced to the county level with my 4^th grader advancing to the state level.

In recent years, there’s been an odd cultural trend emerging. As parents seek to shield their children from negativity, there’s been a major push in some school districts to rid schools and youth groups of competitive spirit — all in the name of inclusiveness and protecting kids’ emotions.

Considering this ongoing dynamic — one that tends to anger parents who believe in the rewards associated with hard work and dedication — Forward-thinking principle David Fabrizio of Ipswich Middle School finds himself in hot water for taking the “progressive” ethos to its absurd extremes: he canceled Honors Night because it makes the kids who didn’t earn honors feel bad.

Rather than inviting only those students who have outperformed their peers, the Daily Mail reports that Fabrizio has reorganized the event, called “Honors Night,” and is ensuring that every individual in the school can take part.

In an e-mail announcement to parents, Fabrizio purportedly said that the decision was made in an effort to avoid “devastating” those individuals who did not perform well and were, thus, not invited to the traditional awards event. Parents purportedly shared this note with Fox affiliate WFXT-TV.

“The Honors Night, which can be a great sense of pride for the recipients’ families, can also be devastating to a child who has worked extremely hard in a difficult class but who, despite growth, has not been able to maintain a high grade point average,” Fabrizio wrote to parents.

According to WFXT-TV, the principal’s decision was also predicated upon the fact that academic success is also tied to the support that students get at home. And since not every student gets the same level of academic and emotional support from parents, there’s potential inequality. In other words Fabrizio wanted to bring down the top performers to the level of mediocrity in the name of “fairness.”

Some have expressed surprise that he would come to this conclusion, because he comes from a coaching background and ostensibly “believes competitive environments are healthy and necessary.” Those who find this difficult to reconcile with canceling Honors Night clearly haven’t checked out the everybody-gets-a-trophy-just-for-showing-up rules under which “competitive” school sports now operate.

So if the level of support students receive at home is a crucial factor in their success, doesn’t canceling Honors Night remove a potent incentive to parents to provide that support? Won’t all students be inspired to work harder by the possibility of winning recognition as an honors recipient? Discard such icy logic, because we move now through the land of warm feelings and academic mediocrity, where the really important thing is to teach kids that nobody is responsible for their own success or failure. Winners cheat. Honors students get unfair amounts of support from their high-quality parents, so there’s no reason to celebrate any “achievement” on their part, especially if it makes less accomplished students feel bad.

Another recent horror story from the world of academia found teachers in Wisconsin suffering “racially charged” indoctrination into the evils of “white privilege.” Bullet points dispensed by this program included:

• In this country the institutional system supports the dominance of white people.
• More frequently than not, white people take advantage of privileges generated by a racist society.
• We are given a false sense of superiority, a belief that we should be in control and in authority, and that people of color should be maids, servants, and gardeners and do the less valued work of our society.
• There appears to be a national trend that can be attributed [to] the conservative agenda that currently exist[s] with former closet racist[s] leaving the closet and entering the light to write policies that support covert and overt racism that impact[s] students of color.

Your tax dollars at work, parents of Wisconsin! (And tax serfs across the fruited plane, since this program reportedly got federal money.)

Look past the racial grievance mongering, and efforts by useless educrats to siphon money away from real education into their bank accounts, and you’ve got another burst of essentially the same transmission that middle-school principal in Ipswich is sending. No one succeeds on their own, and no one is responsible for their own failures. The game is hopelessly rigged against you, in countless ways.

It’s not a long journey from these premises to the conclusion that only benevolent government authority can bring any semblance of “fairness” into our wildebeest lives, shielding us from the predatory forces that stalk the shadows around daily life. Virtue and equality must be imposed. High achievers cheated somehow — they enjoyed the benefits of racist privilege, or they exploited the surplus value of labor to make demon profit, or they “stole” their riches from “the people” by taking disproportionate advantage of our lovely public infrastructure.

The trick is to sell lots of people on the essential belief that powerful forces they can never overcome on their own have placed them at a permanent disadvantage, from which only the Anointed Ones can rescue them. That sale is easier to make if achievement is treated as fundamentally illegitimate, and you can’t do that while simultaneously celebrating achievement.

It is no wonder that there is approximately 47 percent of the American electorate who have been politically correctly called “Low Information Voters” (LIVs). The idiot liberals in this country have surreptitiously taken over the entire education system and in doing so; have dumbed us down to the level of some third world nation in Africa or Central America. The dumbing down is apparent in this failed school in Massachusetts, where the failed Principal continues to concentrate on NOT upsetting the poor students who will someday join the ranks of the LIVs.

By failing to recognize excellence, this “educator” has elevated the status of those students who are guaranteed to fail in life. This is what we silent majority Americans have to overcome lest we face an infinite number of bozos on the political horizon, like the empty-suited, dooby-smoking Choom-boy that occupies the White House.

If people like Fabrizio have their way, they will create a mediocre society in which there is no reward for success and achievement — no incentive to do better.

Note to Fabrizio: the real world doesn’t work that way. And you are not preparing your students for real life by pretending that it does.

Why is America losing its competitive advantage? Why don’t youngsters want to earn anything anymore? It’s because people like Fabrizio are more concerned about protecting their feelings than aspiring them to greatness. I am reminded of the scene in the 1984 film Amadeus — a fictionalized account of the life of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the scene a visitor is wheeling the Italian composer and jealous competitor of Mozart Antonio Salieri (played by F Murray Abraham) through the halls of the insane asylum where he has been confined after attempting suicide. As he passes through the he is waving his hands and paying at the various inmates while paying homage to mediocrity.

If you reward mediocrity you will receive more mediocrity. If you reward had work and excellence you will receive more hard work and excellence. Life is not fair.

If you have a few minutes watch the video clip from Amadeus where Salieri has composed a rather pedestrian march for the emperor and seems pleased with his efforts until Mozart improvises on the piece and creates an excellent piece of music.

How the Federal Government Hijacked Education – Part 3

“Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” — Frederic Bastiat

In the first part of this essay on government intervention in education I covered the vision of our Founding Fathers for learning and liberty. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 demonstrated not only the vision of our Founders, but their actions toward supporting learning at the local, municipal and state level. In this part I will move forward to the 19^th century and the beginning of the progressive takeover of education in the United States.

In the second part I explained how the progressives in government and academia began to push for more and more intrusion by the central government into our educational system.

In this third part I will show how a 184 pound object orbiting the earth and going beep, beep, beep, influenced our education system more than Madison, Washington, and Jefferson and even Dickson and Barnard would have never seemed possible.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first human contrivance to escape the Earth's atmosphere. Its engines were powerful enough to thrust a 36-pound satellite into orbit. Unbeknownst to its designers, it would have a similar effect on the American education system. In the Soviet mastery of rocket science, our federal government discovered lessons in administration. It did not turn to meet the challenge through the defense power, which is its own under the Constitution and was the obvious response. Rather it used the situation as a lever to manage education.

The "National Defense Student Loan Fund" — contrived in response to the launching of Sputnik-was a system of subsidized loans to students. The federal taxpayer would supply 90 percent and colleges 10 percent. The colleges would be responsible for collections and would be at risk for its 10 percent. The title of the law is, of course, an attempt to find justification for it under the defense power given to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. (Today we have the "National Direct Student Loan Program." We become progressively less squeamish about constitutional justification.)

(The federal government began guaranteeing student loans provided by banks and non-profit lenders in 1965, creating the program that is now called the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. The first federal student loans, however, provided under the National Defense Education Act of 1958, were direct loans capitalized with U.S. Treasury funds. Today we have advanced to the Federal Direct Student Loan Program as part of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. To view a brief history of the federal student loan program click here.)

When the central government entered the education system with vigor under the authority of National Defense Student Loan Fund many people thought this was a good idea. After all didn’t we want to pass the Russians in the space race? To do this we believed we needed more engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and other related technical experts. To accomplish this desire the central government initiated the NDSLF. Progressives and conservatives alike thought this was a worthwhile expenditure of federal direct taxes. It’s Constitutionality could be validated under the defense enumerations in Article I, Section 8, although when reading these 19 enumerated powers it is quite a stretch to find the authority unless you take a broad view of section 19 — the “necessary and proper” clause. No matter how you strain to find justification a can of worms had been opened that has grown beyond belief.

Finally after years of congressional overreach in spending federal fund for education — something Andrew Dickson White could not foresee the Department of Education was founded in 1979 under the Carter Administration. Henry Barnard’s Office of Education had finally grown into a full-fledged cabinet level department with spending, regulatory, and coercive policing powers. The primary functions of the Department of Education are to "establish policy for, administer and coordinate most federal assistance to education, collect data on US schools, and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.”

Today The Department of Education operates a wide range of subsidy programs for elementary and secondary schools. The aid and all the related federal regulations have not generally lifted academic achievement. The department also provides subsidies to higher education through student loans and grants. Unfortunately, that aid has fueled inflation in college tuition and is subject to widespread abuse.

The department spent about $98 billion in 2012, or $830 for every U.S. household. It employs 4,300 workers and operates 153 different subsidy programs. Was this the vision of Madison, Washington, Jefferson, or even Andrew Dickson White? I think not. For a timeline on how federal government spending for education has progressed from the Northwest Ordinance to today click here. You will see that with each passing year it became more acceptable to ignore the Constitution and provide the central government with more and more power and money to control education in the United States. Every step along the path from 1787 to 2009 seemed like a good idea at the time. But as with all good ideas each successive one became more intrusive on our liberty and property and always with the mantra for the children as the rallying cry.

Today we hear of Big Pharma and Big Corporations, but we don’t hear too much about Big Education. Big Education has become and industry onto itself employing millions and spending into the trillions. It is supported by the vested interests of academia, politicians, and unions in a symbiotic relationship. Academia wants larger grants, more expensive facilities, and larger subsidized student enrollments to support more tenured professors and their grandiose schemes.

Teachers unions spend millions of dollars in dues collected from their members to support politicians who will spend more and more dollars on education so they can elevate the compensation and tenure of their members at the expense of the taxpayer while claiming they are for the children.

Local school districts fearful of asking their local taxpayers for increases in property taxes to pay for federally mandated programs and misguided expansion programs look to the central government for federal dollars — dollars that come with coercive mandates for curriculums that require more expenditures — curriculums such as the teaching LGBT history and social mores that the local citizens object too. This is far cry from what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they passed the Northwest Ordinance or 1787 and the Land Ordinance of 1785.

With this symbiotic closed loop of Big Education we have no more engineers or mathematicians that were envisioned when the first Sputnik was rocketed into orbit. In fact test scores have been dropping and the high school dropout rates have been climbing among Blacks and Hispanics. For all of the federal money spent on education our society knows less about the organic laws of the nation and the liberty they promote than the farmer of 1787.

Many subsidized and unqualified college students — students who are admitted due to mandated racial, gender, or ethnic quotas drop out after one or two years. Those who do go on take frivolous courses that lead towards degrees like women’s studies and Black history that will provide them with little or no skills to enter the workforce. As long as the college receives the federally guaranteed loan money they care little what happens to the students. It’s the student that is burdened with repayment — if they ever do — for years to come.

At the beginning of the 20^th century influential progressives like Theodore Roosevelt, John Dewey, Herbert Coley, and Woodrow Wilson began to initiate a total takeover of education in the United States. While the progressive politicians used the power of the federal purse in total disregard of the Constitution the academics like Dewy began changing what is to be taught in our schools and universities with total disdain for the Northwest Ordinance.

Influential academics, like Dewy, began listening to the Marxist philosophies being espoused by the “Frankfurt School”. Philosophies based on the teaching of Karl Marx and other socialist. Associated in part with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main the leading members of the Frankfurt School developed the theories of “critical thinking”. While critical thinking may be useful in some professions it is the antithesis of the beliefs of our Founders as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Today some of the precepts of the Frankfurt School have migrated in to our K-12 system at the middle school level where children are being indoctrinated in political correctness and class envy while learning virtually nothing of our organic laws.

Several years ago at the Field Museum in Chicago, there was an exhibit of the possessions and life of Qianlong, the greatest of the Chinese Emperors. The exhibit told a glorious tale. Qianlong was very rich, and he wielded great power after his father conquered China.

The exhibit was at some pains to say what a just ruler the man was. He loved his people. He was energetic and caring in their service. In one place the exhibit materials made the point that the glories of a great national China, as exemplified by the benevolent Qianlong, have been restored to China today. Of course the people who rule that great national China today had to give permission for the exhibit to visit Chicago. Likely they had some influence over what the exhibit said. That would explain some things about it.

A mural in the exhibit shows the Great Emperor visiting a town. The entire population of the town is ranged before him. He is being carried in an ornate chair by hefty men. All the townspeople are on their knees.

That is the meaning of mandarinism. One need only look in the Encyclopedia Britannica to see that not quite everything was rosy and fine during the rule of Qianlong in China. Nor is everything fine there today. China was, and still is, ruled by mandarinism. That is one reason why the exhibit was not candid about the evils that came under the regime of Qianlong.

The Founders of our nation did not intend to establish mandarinism. That is why they taught that responsibility and authority ought to go together. That is why they did not give the federal government power to manage education. It was too important for that. For the sake of education, and for the sake of freedom, the federal government should get out of it.

Powers and interests are so arranged today that it seems hopeless that any good can be done. The modern research university has replaced the liberal arts college as the standard bearer in education. It is entrenched, immovable, almost almighty. Its force is enrolled nearly exclusively on one side of the political spectrum. Politicians bask in its favor or quail before its frown. Bureaucrats work with it hand in hand.

Perhaps the time has passed when politicians of either party should seek to regulate this behemoth. The answer may be less rather than more involvement. It may be time, or long past time, for us to demonstrate what we are by another great act of delegation, another great episode in which the most powerful make treasures available to individuals in their multitude, to husband and direct as seems best to them. In the Northwest Ordinance, the precious resource of Western lands was sold outright to ordinary folk, without condition. The boldest and most persistent people in the world had crossed the ocean and braved a wilderness to secure land. The government owned the land. It gave it up.

In the Homestead Act, the government did the same thing, but this time it did not charge a fee. Once again a wonderful asset was given away. It was not given to barons and earls. It was not given to friends of those in power. There was no chance for bureaucrats to say who got what. There was one grand act of disposition, the same for one and all.

In 1959 the germ of an idea passed Congress, but it was vetoed in the White House by President Eisenhower. The idea was that ordinary folk could give their money to colleges instead of to the government. The great asset that government holds today, greater even than its vast holdings of land, is the enormous claim it holds upon the wealth and income of the American people. There is no good reason why the people cannot give that money away themselves. Some way should be found.

Of course the powers of modern education will object to this. They will say that this is easy for private colleges such as Hillsdale College to recommend. We have found a way to survive without money from the taxpayer. The answer to that is-yes, with great difficulty they have. What one can do, so can another.

These powers will also say that education is so very important, that people must be taxed to pay for it even if they do not want to be. That is a despotic argument, the kind of thing to which our brightest intellectuals are too much given these days.

These powers will say finally that we do not care enough about education. As Frederick Bastiat said so many years ago:

“Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

The answer to that is that people do care about it just as the Founders of America did. It is vital to all that is good and true. Therefore it ought not to be left in the hands of people who believe in neither good nor truth. It is too important for that. Let ordinary people decide, place by place and family by family, what is to be done.

This argument cannot be won until it is started. After it is started and it will continue for a long time. It face many challenges from the entrenched statist and progressive politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and unions that have a vested interest in the present system of using direct taxes to fund our massive k-12 and higher education system.

A Bright Light in Public Education

“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” — Edmund Burke

This past weekend I had a surprising and pleasant experience attending the awards presentation for the Riverside Unified School District’s History Day. RSUD’s History Day is where students in the district’s K-12 schools submit a history project in one of several formats. It could be a presentation board, a documentary film, a web site, or a reenactment. Each project, however, must be accompanied by a paper written by the student.

National History Day provides an exciting way for students to study and learn about historical issues, ideas, peoples, and events. Started as a single day's contest at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, History Day soon became more than just a day. The first national contest took place in 1980, and the program now operates in forty-eight states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Department of Defense schools. Each year an estimated 500,000 students nation-wide take part in History Day contest events. During its history, millions of students have participated and have gone on to careers in business, law, medicine, teaching, and countless other disciplines where they put into practice the skills and knowledge gained during their History Day experience.

During the 2012-2013 school year, History Day invited students to research topics related to the theme, Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, and Events. As is the case each year, the theme is broad enough to encourage investigations of topics ranging from local to world history, and from ancient times to the recent past. To understand the historical importance of their topic, students have asked questions about time, place, and context; cause and effect; change over time, and; impact and significance. They have considered not only when and where events happened but also why they occurred, what factors contributed to their development, and what impact they had on broader history. In other words, History Day entries go far beyond mere description to include an analysis of information and conclusions about how the topic influenced and was influenced by other people, ideas, and events.

The projects are judged by a panel of judges comprised of teachers from the district, professors from the local college, or qualified volunteers. The judges are not allows to judge projects from the schools they represent. The projects are evaluated with 20% going towards the quality of the presentation and 80% towards the content and research effort of the student. Each student submitting a project is required to appear before a panel to give an oral presentation on their project and then answer questions from the panel of judges.

The judges are looking for the students understanding of the project and what the project corresponds to the theme for the year. They want to know how and why they choose their project, how the project fit the theme, how they did their research, and what the influence the project had on the world or the United States. They are also looking for projects where the parents might have had too much input. The projects are supposed to represent the work effort of the student, not the parent or a teacher.

The students are permitted to pick any event in history as long as it fits the theme. There are no restrictions or influence from the schools or districts. It’s totally up to the student to choose a project, research it, write a paper, and prepare their presentation.

There are three levels of history project submissions: Elementary school level — students in grades 4 and 5. These students are required to submit projects on presentation boards only. The next level is for middle school students in grades 6-8. This group is permitted to present their projects on presentation boards, documentary films, or web sites. The third group is for high school students, grades 9-12 who may use any format including reenactments.

The three winners from each level and category advance to the county level where they compete against other school districts in the county and those winners then move on to the state level. The winners of the state level the advance to the national level in Washington, D.C. There are monetary awards for the winners at each level ranging from $100 dollars at the county level to $10,000 dollars at the national level.

Some of the projects representing this year’s theme were:

• The D-Day Invasion
• Gettysburg
• The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings
• Mosquitos versus the Panama Canal
• Brown vs. Board of Education
• Women’s Suffrage
• The Discovery of DNA
• The 1848 Irish Potato Famine and the Effect on Immigration
• The Battle of Stalingrad
• The Tet Offensive
• Henry Ford, a Turning Point in the Industrial Revolution
• The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
• The Attack on Pearl Harbor
• The Bolshevik Revolution
• The Battle of Tsushima
• The Transcontinental Railroad
• The Treaty of Versailles
• The Internet Revolution

Yes, there were quite a few repetitive projects devoted to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This was expected by me as our K-12 public school curriculum, as formed by the NEA, focus on this as the beginning of American History. But, surprising, there were many other diverse topics where the student moved away from the NEA progressive curriculum. To my disappointment, however, there was only one student project that addressed the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, or the Constitution as a turning point. Perhaps there will be a few at the County level.

Both of my granddaughters were participants and winners. My youngest granddaughter’s project was entitled “The California Gold Rush and The Remaking of America.” She is a 4^th grader and this was her first attempt at entering a History Day project following her older sister, a two-time winner. Her thesis was that “the California Gold Rush caused rapid population growth and led to California becoming a state very quickly. This led to the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, and also resulted in further division between slave and non-slave states, which led to the Civil War and the remaking of America.” Not bad for a 4^th grader. No, her father did not pick the topic, but I am sure he assisted her with the text and graphics. The judges gave her high marks on the placement of the text and graphics on the board and the ease of reading.

My youngest granddaughter Helin with her history project presentation board

My eldest granddaughter, an 8^th grader and experienced History Day participant and winner took another path. She prepared a video documentary on the passage of the 16th Amendment — the Income Tax — and the progressive views of Woodrow Wilson. She did do the research on her own, although her father gave her a book by Ron Paul on the morality of the corrosive income tax. In talking with my granddaughter she told me it was difficult to fine positive views on the progressive income tax. This is a very difficult subject for an 8^th grader to tackle. She did a great job in preparing her documentary video, and the judges were impressed to the point of awarding her first place in her category and grade level. Perhaps I have a granddaughter in training to be a Libertarian.

Aylin and Helin posing with their blue ribbons

My prejudice not withstanding I thought the National History Day program was a proper exercise in our public education system. Today there are too many young people and adults who have graduated from our K-12 public school system and even our universities that have no basic knowledge of our national history. Too many believe history began yesterday or even those that do some knowledge of our history are ignorant of the cause and effects of those events. This is due to the way history is taught in many of our schools. We have teachers that are either incompetent to teach history or teach according to their agenda — usually progressive leftwing. They prefer to indoctrinate students in history rather than allow the student to research and learn from primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. This takes time and effort on the part of the teacher something many of them are unwilling to give.

The RSUD History Day Program is a bit on sunshine on a dreary K-12 public education system. Those students who participated will remember their experience for the rest of their lives and hopefully will have learned how to separate the wheat from the shaft when it comes to learning history in their future scholastic endeavors.

Next year’s theme will Rights and Responsibilities. I can barely wait to see what the students will focus on.

The Wishful Thinking of the Anti-Gun Crowd

“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands.” — Thomas Jefferson, Draft Constitution for the State of Virginia — 1776

Most people not raised in the presence of firearms demonstrate possess a fear of guns and are uncomfortable in their presence. In all my years of discussing the ownership of firearms with people (mostly liberals) I have found this to be the case.

As a teenager I owned my first gun, a .22 caliber bolt action Remington rifle. I used the rifle for target and varmint shooting. I was pretty good with targets, but did not have that much luck with the varmints. I soon graduated to a 12 gauge shotgun for hunting and was instructed in its use by neighbor, a WWII navy veteran. Eventually I was trained in the use of .306 caliber repeating rifle, revolvers, and semi-automatic hand guns. I learned the power of the gun and the responsibility gun ownership placed on the owner. I was never afraid to handle a firearm.

On the other hand I know and have known numerous people who do not own a firearm of any class and have never handled one. They have an unnatural fear of firearms as my father did of driving an automobile until he moved to California and had no choice but to learn to drive and purchased his first vehicle. Their first argument against the ownership of a firearm is; “why do we need a gun for home protection, that’s what the police are for.” Most of these folks believe guns should be limited to the military and law enforcement.

In a conversation with a deputy sheriff of the county I live in a few years ago at a neighborhood watch meeting about the ownership of a firearm for personal defense here is what he had to say; “the police will rarely, if not never, be able to get to your home in time to prevent a crime. I cannot tell you to go out and buy a gun to protect your home and family, but I have several personal defense guns in my house.” This law enforcement officer was right on target. By the time the police arrive the damage is already done and they become investigators not crime stoppers.

I have two German shepherds at home and a sign on the gate to my side yard stating “Beware of Dog” with a picture of a mean German shepherd. Sometimes I wonder it a sign in front lawn had a picture of a gun with the words “This is a gun zone.” While the dogs a very good and give ample and loud warnings of people at the door I don’t know if they could handle an intruder with malevolent intent.

To the anti-gun crowd, including educators, guns are evil most of them seem to feel. The guns of the police they'd summon to their aid are bad too. The make believe guns boys play cowboy with are bad too, even the gun a second grader might pencil in when drawing a picture of an "army man" is evil. It's a key tenet of their wishful thinking.

And a very strange brand of wishful thinking it is. Instead of hoping for something to come their way, they're wishing for nothing to happen. Its symbol might be a monkey with it hands over its eyes because it's principal doctrine is that if you can't see any evil, refuse to see any evil, then it doesn't exist. Of course it's only a variation of the old notion that if you don't look a lion in the eye he won't charge. But it's what these people believe. Which is why schools run by similar believers once prohibited any discussion of 9/11, any videotapes, photographs or indeed any reference to it at all. Again if you don't see evil or don't learn about it, talk it out, try to learn the lessons it teaches you, then it doesn't exist, and won't have any power over you.

Without any evidence at all that they're right, indeed in the face of any number of horrible examples proving them wrong, they cling to this belief. Because on some level they believe they want to convince themselves that they're "better than that", better than Virginia Tech, better than Columbine, better than those awful images of people jumping from the twin towers. That they're different somehow — they’re special.

But educators should know something about history. This is an old story and has its roots in a tragedy every bit as compelling as Sandy Hook School. It is the story of Lindisfarne.

An island connected to northern England's coast by a tidal causeway. A holy place, in fact its name today is Holy Island and 1219 years ago (793) it was Christendom's most prominent experiment with what we today would call a Gun Free School Zone. But what happened there should have proved for all time that covering one's eyes, pretending that demons don't exist, that you're somehow "better than that", is worse than futile. Criminally worse.

Lindisfarne was a monastery, renowned for its non-violence, dedicated to learning, to the idea that in the tumult of the early Middle Ages, man could, should be, was "better than that." Gloriously "better than that." And for a while people believed along with them in this "right message" and endowed Lindisfarne with riches, sang its praises in ten thousand churches.

Its ruins today are still a beacon atop a spire of high rock, surmounted by sheer stone walls, far above the everyday concerns of this world.

But they are ruins because one dark in the eighth century Lindisfarne's rock and walls were scaled by Vikings holding their swords in their mouths. Demons out of the northern seas who chased the unarmed monks from room to room in the monastery, butchering them for sport, sacking their golden altar and trampling their precious books underfoot. An event which shook Christendom to its core.

Why did it happen? Quite simply because the killers were drawn by the defenselessness of the place, by Lindisfarne's "right message", by the fact that Lindisfarne abjured violence and trusted as school administrators trust today, in never looking the lion in the eye. Above all by the fact that Lindisfarne would not suffer the presence of armed men who might defend it.

Today most of us don't even remember that there once was such a place. Even though we keep repeating the same mistake it made. We don't remember what we should have learned then; that weakness will, sooner or later, summon horror as Adam Lanza was summoned to Sandy Hook School.

Killers always look for targets of easy access and no apparent means of defense. This tactic goes back hundreds of years. Adam Lanza chose the one target where he had the best chance of not encountering armed citizens, a gun-free school zone. Just as the Vikings didn't choose to assault one of the many fortified castles with armed men elsewhere on the coast but instead chose Lindisfarne. Just as Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold didn't choose a gun show to assault, a rodeo, a police station but instead chose Columbine.

I'm not certain what the solution is. No one wants schools to become armed camps with sandbagged revetments, passwords and barbed wire. Besides the evil one is a liar painted with many tongues and so the monsters who wish to kill children often adopt other techniques. Walter Seifert in Cologne Germany constructed a flame thrower he put to use through an elementary school's windows burning to death eight students, two teachers and horribly maiming many others. You have the three men who buried an entire school bus load of children in California. You have poisoners, knife wielding maniacs, stranglers, bombers, kidnappers and pedophile killers. And Timothy McVeigh used a rented Ryder truck and fertilizer to take 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injured more than 680 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Should we ban Ryder trucks and fertilizer?

Instead it strikes me that any solution has to be rooted in natural affinity. The relationship of parent to child, neighbor to neighbor, grandparent to grandchild. Not in the fatuous belief that stone hearted killers will obey the resolutions of school boards, the acts of Congress or indeed do anything but laugh at any amount of wishful thinking.

Considering this point one might recall that at Columbine there were no such bonds which could gather and stop Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Nor was one considered necessary. Instead there were only rules grounded in a lot of wishful thinking — rules which Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold ignored. So despite a surplus of bravery among individual teachers and students and the presence of an armed sheriff's deputy on duty, who heard the first shots and didn't run towards them as he would have if they were his children, 13 people died.

And there was the school principal clueless about the murderers, who couldn't recall Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold student walking the halls in black trench coats in the days prior to the killings and threatening other students. We can believe his testimony or not but one thing we know for sure is that he wasn't looking for any lions to stare down. Finally there were the despicable parents of Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold who ignored or were oblivious to the collection of weapons and their bizarre behavior. Mothers and fathers in authority over their children who simply wished nothing bad would happen.

And so the concept of a gun free school zone established by authority turned out to be as much of a joke at Columbine as it was the other day in Newtown, Connecticut or at the Century 16 Multiplex movie theater in Aurora, Colorado where 12 were killed and 58 injured — the only theater of 7 in the area that was a gun free zone. This is the same idea that was shown to be a farce at Lindisfarne 1219 years ago.

Now I understand that public education today is a determinedly feminine institution. But they have tremendous leeway under the law and so one thing school administrators and teachers might consider doing is admit the fact that they have no more idea on how to physically defend children than they do about how to build a space shuttle with their second grade paper doll scissors. But among the parents of their pupils are many men who do have that experience and training. There are former or current police officers, soldiers and Marines. There are people who've been shot at and who've shot. People who have had to winkle armed men out of a closed room and take them down — men who will deter evil by their presence.

So for once why can't some hapless school administrator call them in? Ask them what they would do to keep these children safe and then heed what they say. Perhaps take note of what the Harrold Independent School District, in Texas does. It encourages teachers to concealed bring guns to work after they are trained and certified in their use.

In the City of Man people want there to be a reason for everything. People should have a logical reason for any significant thing they do. Life should make sense. Humans so strongly feel the desire for ratiocination to triumph over chaos and that Charles Williams once remarked that “Hell is (the) indefinite.” No matter how bad a tragedy occurs, we try to find a reason or a purpose behind it.

People reach for the easy explanation first. If Lanza didn’t have a gun then he never could have killed innocent children. Let’s immediately ban the guns. We could do a better job of securing the grounds of our schools. Let’s make every place that has children a gun-free zone. The world would be a better place if something that simplistic could succeed.

Yet making murder weapons illegal does very little to deter murderers. Some argue that it makes them even bolder and more sadistic. Adam Lanza, Brenda Spencer, Seung-Hui Cho and the Columbine High School shooters all had the added advantage of no armed resistance as they went on their insane rampages. Cho succeeded in buying handguns despite his diagnosed mental health problems because he simply lied on the background check.

We can’t stop people from getting anything they strongly or desperately want. These things could be guns, drugs, or even the coerced services of child prostitutes. Criminals will always find a way to provide it for a price. We can’t prevent Adam Lanza from getting a weapon even if Dick’s Sporting Goods follows Federal law to the letter and turns down Mr. Lanza’s legal tender 72 hours before he commits his atrocities using another set of guns. We are not going to end child pornography or sexual exploitation, win the War on Drugs or prevent the next mass shooting by focusing on any of these things.

We are going to have to realize that society rife with single-parent families, a tendency to completely desensitize people to violence and understate the sacred value of life, and where people think “I don’t like Mondays” is actually a funny piece of social commentary. It is not a safe place to raise our children.

The anti-gun crowds of educators, intellectuals, and politicians all have agenda-driven arguments for their distain of firearms. Because they do not recognize the existence of evil, due to their secular philosophies, they believe guns are the root cause of the violence in our society. In fact it has been proven that as gun ownership increases crimes against law abiding citizens decreases. (See John Lott’s 2010 book More Guns, Less Crime.) In fact 1927, according to the FBI, had the largest number of mass shootings in the history of the nation.

Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.

I heard a radio interview with Mr. Lott after the Newtown shooting, and he confirmed that nothing has changed to alter his findings. He noted that the Aurora shooter, who killed twelve people earlier this year, had a choice of seven movie theaters that were showing the Batman movie he was obsessed with. All were within a 20-minute drive of his home. The Cinemark Theater the killer ultimately chose wasn’t the closest, but it was the only one that posted signs saying it banned concealed handguns carried by law-abiding individuals. All of the other theaters allowed the approximately 4 percent of Colorado adults who have a concealed-handgun permit to enter with their weapons.

“Disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks,” Lott said. “A couple hundred people were in the Cinemark Theater when the killer arrived. There is an extremely high probability that one or more of them would have had a legal concealed handgun with him if they had not been banned.”

Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

There is no evidence that private holders of concealed-carry permits (which are either easy to obtain or not even required in more than 40 states) are any more irresponsible with firearms than the police. According to a 2005 to 2007 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Bowling Green State University, police nationwide were convicted of firearms violations at least at a 0.002 percent annual rate. That’s about the same rate as holders of carry permits in the states with “shall issue” laws.

Despite all of this evidence, the magical thinking behind gun-free zones is unlikely to be questioned in the wake of the Newtown killings. Having such zones gives people a false sense of security, and woe to the politician or business owner who now suggests that a “gun-free zone” revert back to what critics would characterize as “a wild, wild West” status. Indeed, shortly after the Cinemark attack in Colorado, the manager of the nearby Northfield Theaters changed its policy and began banning concealed handguns.

In all of the fevered commentary over the Newtown killings, you will hear little discussion of the fact that we may be making our families and neighbors less safe by expanding the places where guns aren’t allowed. But that is precisely what we may be doing. Both criminals and the criminally insane have shown time and time again that those laws are the least of the problems they face as they carry out their evil deeds

We live in an age of moral relativism that, having no foundation on which to stand, is rapidly descending into nihilism — the absence of morality or any justification for it. I'm going to leave the shooter's intentions alone for the time, as I'm sure those will be discussed at length for weeks.

I'm talking about nihilism not just in the shooter, but in the broader culture that attempts to understand these horrific events without a moral reference point. In the aftermath, we attempt to get more and more legalistic, bureaucratic, and technocratic to solve problems that can't be legislated away.

These events are products of sick, evil people in an increasingly sick culture that has no stomach for "outdated" concepts like absolute right and wrong. We believe if we could just pass enough well-worded laws, we could eliminate this behavior from society. We treat these tragedies as outputs, thinking that we can just tinker with the inputs enough to get our desired results. This is the basic believe of the progressive masterminds.

For God's sake, the bodies were still warm and we were already talking about piles upon piles of statistics, as if the problem of violent gun crime could be solved mathematically with some study or Congressional inquiry. I'm afraid that, absent the presence of morality in our discussions of these murders, we have no tools to solve the underlying problems except legalism and policy making by the intellectual masterminds. People will keep fixating on the problems with guns because we've become woefully inadequate at talking about problems inherent in humanity.

It always amuses me in a pitying way when I hear people retreat even further into nihilism after an event like this by making that old appeal to the "Argument of Evil" which asks, "If there truly is a good god, why does he allow such evil deeds?" As if the very presence of evil invalidates the possibility or under-pinning for good!

Forgive my frustration, but what right do we have to even speak about evil in our society? We are so immersed in violence, greed, sex, instant gratification, and materialism that we've lost all sense of what evil even looks like. To know evil, you must first know good. And while we work ourselves into a righteous huff over "evil" for 2% of the year when these disgusting acts occur, for the other 98% we desperately try to rebel against all forms of conventional morality - that cramps our style, doesn't it?

A child one minute before passing through the birth canal can have a pair of surgical scissors put through his or her brain without society batting an eye. A fully formed, breathing, crying, desperate, helpless baby who is the result of a botched abortion has no entitlement to life in parts of this "enlightened" Western world. And we talk about "evil"?

Government officials pass guns to cartels to slaughter civilians, and we get to talk about "evil"?

It is all so sad. But the bullet ridden bodies of those little angels and angelic teachers in Newtown should show us that wishful thinking won't work, has never worked and will never work. If it did, we'd only have to wish those children back.