Ron Paul Retires

Politics in the United States is a mess.  Normally I would limit it to 'federal politics', but local politics is a disaster as well.  The Good Ole Boys are running all of the local districts into the ground.  At the federal level, a titan has retired.  Ron Paul is retiring from Congress.  Here is his farewell speech.  I recommend you listen to it all, as it harkens back to how politicians in the US used to speak.  We hear about eloquence when it comes to Obama, but he is not in Ron Paul's class when it comes to rhetoric.  Ron Paul was one of the seminal forces that changed how I think.  I was an establishment thinker until my mid thirties; Ron Paul and Peter Schiff were responsible for the paradigm shift in my personal philosophy.  I learned more about economics and government from Ron Paul than I did in high school and college, and I went to good schools.

The man is right, and the message is clear.  No welfare, no warfare, just liberty and following the Constitution.  Now that Mr. Paul is unshackled by the constraints of Congress, the word is that he'll dedicate his time to teaching young people.  I think he'll be extremely successful.

The Library

There was an interesting blog post on the LRC blog this morning.  Here's a key quote: "I chose three books from the meager selection of science books and proceeded to checkout. The clerk scanned my library card and told me he would have to confiscate it. It was no longer valid. He told me that to get a new card that I would have to bring in a utility bill postmarked in the last thirty days and a state approved picture ID. Remember I have had a library card continuously for over 55 years. I have lived in the same house in this town for 32 years, and I have checked out more than 10,000 books from this library in my lifetime, without incident. I was the former chairman of Friends of the Library. To no avail. I was informed that Homeland Security requires these new rules. It is interesting to me that the library, which removed all the old pockets which showed previous borrowers and which might help a patron find another person of common interests, and which removed these supposedly in the name of privacy, now requires a scannable ID from a continuous user of over 55 years."

There are two fundamental concepts in this quote.  The first is that the process of bureaucratization dehumanizes people.  Here is an old man who has lived in the same Rust Belt town for decades, and he has to 'prove' who he is.  This is not a natural state for human interaction.  The bureaucrat cannot think outside the box - he must follow the protocol on the paper and must not deviate from the plan.  The second is that these orders come from 'Homeland Security'.   The name of that bureaucracy should give an historically literate reader pause.  Also, what do library habits have to do with 'security'?  Here you have the justification for information gathering regarding American citizens under the Bill of Rights in the name of 'security'.  This is not freedom.

Here's Benjamin Franklin: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The post also lamented about the poor state of the science section in the library.  The NY Times bestseller section was well kept, as were the DVD's and the audiobooks.  "I was shocked by the lack of periodicals, but I thought that, perhaps, it was because of the prevalence of the internet, and they were no longer needed. I was more shocked when I found that all of the old first editions which I had read as a child and the old bound magazines going back to the 1870s were no longer there. They had been in the library for over 100 years. It is a grand old Carnegie library built in 1905. I was told by a librarian that they discarded them because they wanted the shelves to look better with only new books. Of course, the old classics were no longer there in a new form either, be they science or literature."

This is how bureaucracy dumbs down a people.  The only block to this is a populace, an electorate, a people who are independent thinkers, logically sound and critical of authority.  This old man shows my premise that the older, more rigorous schools were superior, and the citizens they produced recognized it when their freedoms were infringed upon.  I'm not so sure we recognize this today.  Go here for the old periodicals.  I recommend the Mencken articles in the American Mercury.

Here's your right to privacy - it's also known as the 4th amendment.  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  Think about this when you hear a pundit or a politician talking about a "living constitution".  They are not your ally.

Here's the rulebook.  It's a pretty good one to follow.

Election 2012

Maybe it should be called sElection 2012.  I wrote in Ron Paul's name.  It basically means my vote not only didn't count - it was probably erased in the voting machine - the same machine that 'counted' my vote.  I have no idea what it counted, if it got it right, if the vote was changed - there was no receipt or record of anything.  The screen did say 'thank you for voting' when it was done reading my sheet.  Why am I not confident in our future?  I remember during the W Bush years how the Establishment Left was infuriated (justifiably) by the electronic voting idea.  The makers of the machines, the lack of receipts, the ability to steal elections - these were huge issues.  When Bush Was President.  Not any longer.

Many other things are no longer issues amongst the Establishment Left.  War, for instance.  The Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace is raging hotter than ever.  Now, in addition to stalwarts Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military is involved in Libya, Yemen and soon to be (if not already) Syria.  Mentioning these things on Facebook is of course taboo - it means you're on the 'bad' side of things and, well, a horrible person.  As the propaganda gets stupider and stupider, the Herd falls for the same tricks that worked 100 years ago.  Adam Curtis' documentary "A Century of the Self" explains the bamboozlement of the people to whip up frenzy about WWI.  We see the same Bernays style propaganda working now.  I posted this on FB: "It's interesting to see the justifications for voting for a person who has increased the illegal wars, ramped up the drug war that tosses brown people in jail at absurd rates, has done nothing to curb the police surveillance state and totally caters to the Big Banks and the FED. There sure are lots of opinions and feelings out there, but not much reasoning, facts or logic. Both candidates are trash, stop voting for the Master Who Will Whip You Less."

After posting that it was suggested that I move out of the country.  Someone also suggested that perhaps I didn't understand how things worked, and that war and the police state are things about which to not worry, because the police and the President work for me.  The ability to justify the cognitive dissonance is spectacular.  Things that were repellent to the Establishment Democrats and Liberals from 2001 - 2009 are now justified using statements about their feelings, or sound byte style defenses.  The people who got compulsory Prussian style schooling into the United States during the 1800's did so so they could inculcate the people into the religion of The State.  They have succeeded spectacularly.

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

Dialogue With a Journalist

Russ Baker, on his site whowhatwhy.com, ran an article on the dirty tricks being used by the Romney campaign to defeat Pres. Obama.  Mr. Baker is a rare breed these days - a journalist without fear.  His book, Family of Secrets, is a masterpiece of history, current affairs and government malfeasance.  The chapters on the JFK assassination are thoroughly researched and some of the most groundbreaking material on the topic this past decade.  I found it odd on the day I visited his site, the seemingly partisan slant to the Organized Establishment Left.  I noted this and our dialogue went as follows.

Me: Coming here the last two days is disappointing. I can read about how Mitt's advisors have no clue about foreign policy, how he cheated during the debates, and how a video might be able to dive bomb Obama's chances. 
This, combined with the absurd stance on guns, seen in the "Oakland Paradox" article, does not sound like a site dedicated to dispassionate journalism. What's Obama's foreign policy? Blow people up with drones? Augment the 'war' in Afghanistan? It seems like the leftist roots are hard to shed. The 'Obama good, Mitt bad' meme is tired, as is its converse. You mean there'll be a 'difference' if Obama is elected, as opposed to Mitt? Please walk me through the Obama vs. W differences because I don't see them.
Family of Secrets is a towering masterpiece - odd that this site has devolved into partisan team play. The Rockwell interviews with you got me here in the first place - I'm not sure I'll stick around.

Russ Baker: You sound like you're looking for a place that confirms how right you are about your pre-existing beliefs. That being the case, you probably will not want to stick around.

This site is a journalistic one--we research, we think, we come to conclusions. It is full of tough reports about Obama. You'd have to be willfully blind not to see that. But, we're not interested in creating false equivalencies, because that's not journalism.

There are many similarities between Obama and Romney, as noted repeatedly here, principally on foreign policy and finance, but also many differences--which we've reported on here. For one thing, many of Obama's domestic appointments, his approach to the basic mission of departments like EPA, the kinds of court appointments that appeal to him--he's strikingly different. He also has a very different attitude toward income equality, consumer protection, and other areas. Just ask Romney. Generalizing about there being no difference at all would not not be non-partisanship. It would be journalistic malpractice.

Me: Thank you for your reply - you have integrity and this sets you apart. You, however artfully, dodge the issue of the appearance of the site. My point was how slanted things seemed to be here. It is criticism. I am not looking to justify how "right" I am - I am simply trying to provide criticism that could possibly help. It wasn't until I started doing my own research and backing away from the Mainstream Opinion Creators (FoS was a large part of this as I was a "conservative" at the time) that I realized how wrong I had been most of my life.

I think you show the slant about which I spoke with this: "He also has a very different attitude toward income equality, consumer protection, and other areas. Just ask Romney." First of all - "approach" and "attitude" are superficial to the core. I am not swayed by that low level rhetoric. Income equality? Is that a goal? Should the gov't have a role in making incomes equal? That is as repellent as Romney trying to further line the Eastern Banking Establishment's pockets - which seems to be his main purpose. Consumer protection? Where? The FDA is run primarily by Monsanto - one of the most rapacious corporations on the planet. The SEC and the Obama justice department have gone after none of the big banks. Zero bankers are in jail. And you know what? People don't need an Overlord seeing to it that incomes are 'more equal' or that they are 'protected'. Folks are capable enough. We are people, not domesticated animals. What they need is a forceful 4th estate populated by people like you and Chris Hedges to hold their feet to the fire.

Thank you as always for the forum.

Notice how Mr. Baker replied to my comment in a serious and professional matter.  I disagree with him.  I think he has a bias, and it bothers me that this shows on his site.  However, it is his site, which he runs well as it is current and provides a forum for discussion.  Find sources of information on the web that have people with integrity and allow dissent and discussion.  The web is the greatest information superhighway in the history of the human race, and you should do your research and reading at the highest level possible.  Find out the Russ Bakers and Chris Hedges of the world, and get what you can out of their experiences - even if you disagree with some of their philosophies.  As a libertarian / anarchist type, Baker and Hedges are too trusting of government for my taste, but their journalistic skills are beyond reproach, and burgeoning journalists should check them out.

Here is Russ Baker - eliminating inconsistencies and using reasoning to counterpoint his book vs. former Pres. Bush's book:

Their Plan is Working

My plan, however, is not. I have a few tenets that I've used for the past 5 years or so.  They're usually effective.  Through literature, I try to show students that for the past few centuries, there has been a faction quite interested in keeping them sick, stupid, broke and afraid.  This of course invites the label of conspiracy theorist, a label I gladly accept.  This is unique among teachers, opens up many discussions, and we're off and running.  I prove my case in many ways.  Plato's Allegory of the Cave is pure apologia for the State, Poe vicariously kills off his freemason 'father' in "The Cask of Amontillado", the lawyer becomes otherworldly bright in his cell in Chekhov's "The Bet"...  We have a lot of fun.  Writers throughout time have been warning us to be on the lookout for sinister forces, all the while telling us to read voraciously.  "Have some intellectual self-defense", "understand reason and logic", "reading provides and anti virus program for your brain" - say all the classic authors from the grave.

This approach has worked well, with all of my classes.  The good classes cover a lot of ground with me.  We invariably cover a lot of historical ground - literary analysis demands it.  Current affairs comes into play, as the literature and the history echo the events of the old days.  As stories reflect wealth and greed (see Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?"), we'll discuss economics, money, gold and silver.  The less stellar classes get caught up in the conspiracy discussions and we're able to approach literary material from that angle.  Intellectually, everyone gets a turn.

Not this year.  This year the forces of the dark side have won.  I have an inability to reach but a small fraction of the groups.  The instant gratification corporate media and social media have destroyed attention spans.  Students openly feel that nothing should ever be 'boring' to them and are offended if they aren't entertained.  The ability to listen and concentrate is gone, as is the ability to use discretion and prioritize.  What bothers me the most is the fact that everyone is happy about their lot.  There is no urgency, no awareness of the danger that comes with being intellectually misguided.  The incessant student conversations are cheap, silly and false.  This current group wants to be yelled at and TOLD what to do.  This is maddening.  As a libertarian I find force repellent, but it's almost as if this cohort craves it to be used on them.  There is no intellectual curiosity, and when I have tried to spark it - I'm told that what we're talking about is 'boring'.  The progenitors of compulsory public schooling were open and blatant about their plan. They intended to indoctrinate and inculcate obedience and docility in the masses.  If this year is any guide, they've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

"I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man." - - Frederick Douglass

" We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." - - Woodrow Wilson

The Writing Revolution - article review

The Atlantic had an article called "The Writing Revolution" last month.  It is noteworthy in that it promotes a classical method to teaching writing, and eschews the modern methods of the past 30 years, which have produced nothing except students who cannot write.  My neighbor showed me this article, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a publication like The Atlantic pin the blame on the methods of writing instruction in schools.  Modern public schools are usually beyond reproach.  The 'criticism' that one usually sees is tepid - tinker around the edges type stuff that is meaningless and impossible to implement.  After all, the public schools are bastions of good feeling, hard working teachers, and the students, but for a few minor tweaks,  would be scholars in the lyceum mold.

SLOGANEERING
The article analyzes New Dorp High School, a middling high school on Staten Island, in NY City, that recognized a problem, and was determined to actually fix it.  The article mentions some admirable teachers and administrators, particularly the principal, who were willing to fix what was broken, and not just say the right things and 'hope' that they would get better.  The article begins with a student, Monica, who was a decent student, but who had no idea how to write.  Here was a high schooler who could not form a well done paragraph, let alone connect ideas for an essay.  How does a teenager get that far and not know how to connect ideas in writing?  The teachers realized that the crux of the problem was that Monica (and others) had no idea how to use conjunctions.  This paragraph tells the sordid tale:  "But the truth is, the problems affecting New Dorp students are common to a large subset of students nationally. Fifty years ago, elementary-school teachers taught the general rules of spelling and the structure of sentences. Later instruction focused on building solid paragraphs into full-blown essays. Some kids mastered it, but many did not. About 25 years ago, in an effort to enliven instruction and get more kids writing, schools of education began promoting a different approach. The popular thinking was that writing should be “caught, not taught,” explains Steven Graham, a professor of education instruction at Arizona State University. Roughly, it was supposed to work like this: Give students interesting creative-writing assignments; put that writing in a fun, social context in which kids share their work. Kids, the theory goes, will “catch” what they need in order to be successful writers. Formal lessons in grammar, sentence structure, and essay-writing took a back seat to creative expression."  (bold and italics mine)

Imagine any part of a child's life other than school.  Would you accept a mentor, coach, guide - a leader of any kind - saying that the child will "catch" the skill and incorporate it into their lives?  I think most of us would dismiss it as charlatanry and immediately fire the person who promotes the 'catch' strategy. Look carefully at the motivation: "In an effort to enliven instruction and get more kids writing".  Now look at the cure: "Give students interesting creative-writing assignments: put that in a fun social context in which kids share their work.  Students will "catch" what they need in order to become successful writers".  Look at the results.  Monica is asked to write a paper on Alexander the Great.  She came up with six borderline coherent sentences and was unable to continue.

The article goes on to talk about other 'feel good' methods of writing instruction - peer editing, journal writing, personal narrative, poetry...  None of these things involve grammar instruction or any type of drill activity.  They are all 'fun'.  Peer editing is what I call 'lazy teaching'.  Having peers, who are no more knowledgeable about writing than you, editing and commenting on your work, is useless.  What can they contribute?  It does lessen a teacher's workload, however.

TEACHER EDUCATION
“At teachers college, you read a lot of theory, like Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but don’t learn how to teach writing,” said Fran Simmons. How could the staff backfill the absent foundational skills their students needed in order to learn to write? "

This small anecdote in the article is hugely important.  Freire went into the jungles of the Amazon, and wrote socialist and communist friendly pap about how his work with them proved the merits of his leftist worldview.  While he was right about the innate power, skill and ability to learn of the average person, he used this platform to push a political agenda.  The colleges of education picked this up (along with the fraudulent Jonathan Kozol) and used it to dumb down teachers and students.  Aspiring teachers get a lot of theory, about politics it turns out, and not instruction on how to teach children how to write.  My experience was similar.  I was introduced to Freire's work in graduate school, while getting my MS in Instructional Technology.

If one wants to express complex thoughts in writing, he must get formal (and not always fun) writing instruction.  This was talked about in the article, and it reinforced my study of the Trivium, as rhetoric, the third leg of the Trivium, instructs how one might share, via speaking or writing, complex ideas.  Yet more evidence that multiple choice exams are useless.  They were abandoned by the Elite universities over one hundred years ago.  This is not a coincidence.

THE CLASSICAL FIX
Here is the author on the Hochman Program - a program that would "not be unfamiliar to nuns who taught in Catholic schools circa 1950": "Children do not have to “catch” a single thing. They are explicitly taught how to turn ideas into simple sentences, and how to construct complex sentences from simple ones by supplying the answer to three prompts—but,because, and so. They are instructed on how to use appositive clauses to vary the way their sentences begin. Later on, they are taught how to recognize sentence fragments, how to pull the main idea from a paragraph, and how to form a main idea on their own. It is, at least initially, a rigid, unswerving formula. “I prefer recipe,” Hochman says, “but formula? Yes! Okay!”

What I put in bold letters has been almost totally abandoned in the garden variety public schools today. Grammar instruction - appositive clauses (!) - as part of a formula for formal instruction?  I was taught in the Colleges of Education that this is no longer done as it is no longer necessary and it is so boring that who could do it anyway?  The experience shown at New Dorp HS by the teachers willing to adjust and the principal  to subsume her ego and try something new shows that the old classical ways weren't broken, and the politically correct feel good approach has been an abject failure.

A litmus test for the efficacy and usefulness of a program is now to look at the Education Establishment's reaction to it.  If it dislikes the approach, adopt it.  If it loves the approach - abandon it.  Here is the response to this successful paradigm shift by Lucy Calkins, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College: "While (Calkins) welcomes a bigger dose of expository writing in schools, she says lockstep instruction won’t accelerate learning. “Kids need to see their work reach other readers … They need to have choices in the questions they write about, and a way to find their voice.”

So despite the evidence in the article, and the evidence in the nation as a whole, the evidence at your local public school - Prof. Calkins says lockstep instruction "won't accelerate learning".  My track coach in high school told me in the late 1980's that Teachers College had done more to ruin education in the United States than any other institution.  Now I can see why.

Debate About Nothing

My Facebook 'wall' (it is now called 'home) is filled with posts about tonight's presidential debate.  The Establishment Liberals are putting up posts about how wonderful the "Democratic Liberal" side of things are and how wonderful their government programs are, while the Establishment Conservatives are putting up posts about how horrid government is and how awful our current President is.  It reminds me of a sporting contest, how people cheer for their team, and whatever their team does, well, that's OK.  On a side note, Yankee fans are the worst offenders in this arena.  Big money, steroids, arrogance and fan disconnect are terrible, but when an Yankee does it, nothing to see here, move along...

The political discourse seems to be cut from the same cloth.  The "Teams" are gearing up for their guy to debate the other, and they will both announce that their guy was the winner.  Both sides seem immune to fact.  The more H.L. Mencken I read the more I agree with his term 'booboisie' - the term he used to describe the uninformed and incurious mass herd of sheeple.  What are these debates about?  If you listen, they aren't about anything at all.  There is tinkering around the edges.  Should we tax the masses at 36% or 39%?  Should we use the unconstitutional powers of the Patriot Act or the NDAA?  Which of the 5 major banks should get more billions of taxpayer funds?  How long should the unconstitutional wars continue?

These are all the wrong questions.  "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers".  This Thomas Pynchon quote is perfect because the questions in the 'debates' are all wrong, and they serve no interests but those of the State, and those connected to the State.  I used to buy into these flawed lines of 'reasoning'.  I was a person of the Left for a long time.  As I saw the policies of the Establishment Liberals collapsing around me, I reflexively figured the 'other side' was the answer.  I wasn't even close.  There was a third way.  The non aggression credo of the libertarians and the economic freedom of the Austrian School economists is exactly what made sense to me.  The timing was perfect, as I was, unknowingly at the time, searching for a philosophy based in logic, non aggression, freedom and common sense.

I use the terms Establishment Liberals and Conservatives because they shill for the established powers.  I am currently conversing (on FB) with a woman who professes extreme levels of support for our President.  The fact that he has simply repeated the policies of the previous president is meaningless.  When I mention the most basic things - the continuation of the wars, the wretched alliance with the Big Banks and the FED with the top echelon of government, the cronyism, the violations of privacy - I was dismissed as a peddler of "BS" and called a 'conservative'.  This is indicative of the state of affairs today.  Establishment Liberals agree with whatever the Democrats do.  We're seeing this now.  We have had a repeat of all of the previous administration's policies and wars, but the former protesters are now 'for' the policy.  The Establishment Conservatives decry the aggressive advance and onslaught of Big Gov't, but the previous 'conservative' administration expanded gov't at an alarming rate.  Then it was OK with these people of course.  This is not logical and it defies common sense.

I remember being told that "common sense isn't so common" by one of my graduate school professors. I wasn't sure what he meant at the time.  I'm sure now.

War under the other guy - bad.  War under this guy - good.