Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Poverty In The Black Community Is The Result of Culture Not Racism (AmericanThinker.com)

 

By Patricia L. Dickson

I have often been accused by friends (black, white and all others in between) of being too logical, to the point that I am inhibited from seeing other people’s point of view ( I am not sure if that is a compliment or insult). They say that I enter into discussions with the false assumption that others are just as logical and rational as I am. I have been told this so often that I have conceded that perhaps they are telling the truth (they know me well enough to make such claims). Because I have finally accepted the charge against me, I often consult friends on matters that I find perplexing.

A black female friend and I once discussed how our historically unemployed (lazy) relatives often claimed that we were rich simply because we had things that they did not. I said to her that surely they understood that we worked for everything that we have. Her response to me was that they did not understand how we acquired what we had. I told her that it was illogical for someone not to correlate money or possessions with work, and I refused to believe it. Well, a short time later, my friend’s comments proved true.

A female relative of mine came to live with me for a short time. One day when I came home from work, she asked me where everyone in the neighborhood was. She said that during the day, she would go outdoors looking for someone to talk to and no one was around. I told her that they were at work, and I asked her how she thought the neighbors could pay for their homes if they did not go to work (just as I was going to work every day). She looked at me with a confused look on her face. Up until that point (she was nearly sixty years old), she had lived in neighborhoods where everyone (including her) received some kind of government check and therefore did not work. She always had someone to shuck and jive with because everyone was at home all day long. She told me that she was bored living in my (middleclass working) neighborhood.

A male relative of mine once tried to play the guilt trip on me in order to get money from me by lamenting about how tired he was of being broke. He told me that I did not know how it felt to be broke because I have always had money. He was in his early fifties and had spent his entire adult life mostly unemployed and in and out of jail for petty crimes. I asked him: did he think that money grew on trees? I told him that I have worked all of my life for everything that I have. He walked away with his tail between his legs.

If poor blacks cannot correlate money and possessions with work, there is no wonder that they think that they are entitled to the same things as working people. Most liberal voters are immature and live in a fantasy world. They believe that everything that working people have fell from the sky, and they somehow were not around to catch some of it. Therefore, they believe that it is not fair that they do not have the same things. Is that why it is so easy for the race baiters to go into these communities and claim that the rich have stolen from them?

Many black conservatives have said that Republicans need to go into the black communities in order to win the black vote. However, my concern is with how our message of hard work will be received by individuals in these liberal bastions who have never witnessed anyone consistently going to work every day.  Liberals have inoculated these individuals against work and responsibility by continuously plying them with government handouts.

I once had a discussion with another black female friend about the unemployment history in the black inner city neighborhoods. I asked her why the blacks in these neighborhoods did not apply for jobs at the establishments that they frequent. She told me that the reason why they did not apply for jobs is that poor blacks do not think that the jobs are for them. I asked her what she meant by for them. She explained that poor blacks have been programmed to believe that jobs are only for white people and not for them, so therefore they do not apply.  I do not know how my friend came to that conclusion; however, it was not long before her statements also proved true.

A young black man was lamenting to me about the lack of job opportunities for black men in corporate America. He told me that although he had a college degree, he was unable to obtain employment. Assuming that he had been applying for jobs, I asked him where he had applied. He told me that he had not applied anywhere. I asked why had he not applied and he said that he did not fit the description that the employers were looking for. He went on to claim that society, through television and movies, portray white men in suits as successful executives, therefore, he concluded that he did not fit the description for corporate America. I will concede that there is some merit to the argument that television and movies portray white businesspersons in suits as successful; however I cannot logically understand why someone would not at least apply for jobs. If poor blacks really believe that jobs are not for them, who is it that taught them that?

Most of the things that individuals are taught comes from the culture in which they were raised, whether it be work ethic, habits, or beliefs. Growing up in the South, my parents could not afford to buy me designer clothes and shoes. After joining the military, I purchased my first pair of designer sneakers and wore them home on my first leave after boot camp and job training.  My older male cousin looked down at my sneakers and asked me what I was doing wearing them. He said that black people were not supposed to wear those type of shoes. It has been over 26 years since he made that statement and I remember it just like it was yesterday. He had been programmed by the culture that he was raised in to think that even if you have the money to purchase something, you were not supposed to have it. I often talk with successful blacks who think that they do not deserve what they have. One black male friend that lives in an affluent neighborhood told me that when he and his family are walking around in the town center, he feels that he is not supposed to be there.

Until the black community looks inward to solve its problems, nothing will change. Many problems in the black community are the result of a self-imposed inferiority complex. That is why it infuriates me so much to hear race baiters telling poor blacks that they are victims. The victim mindset causes complacency and impotence of action in an individual. One reason that the black community has regressed instead of progressed is due to the victim mindset that has caused cognitive blindness and mental paralysis. Blacks cannot continue to blame society for how blacks Americans are perceived.  The black community must examine its culture and its effect on the lives of the individuals in the black community.

Patricia blogs at Christian Commentary (http://patriciascornerblog.com), or contact the author at dicksonpat@sky.com. Follow me on twitter@Patrici5767099.

I have often been accused by friends (black, white and all others in between) of being too logical, to the point that I am inhibited from seeing other people’s point of view ( I am not sure if that is a compliment or insult). They say that I enter into discussions with the false assumption that others are just as logical and rational as I am. I have been told this so often that I have conceded that perhaps they are telling the truth (they know me well enough to make such claims). Because I have finally accepted the charge against me, I often consult friends on matters that I find perplexing.

A black female friend and I once discussed how our historically unemployed (lazy) relatives often claimed that we were rich simply because we had things that they did not. I said to her that surely they understood that we worked for everything that we have. Her response to me was that they did not understand how we acquired what we had. I told her that it was illogical for someone not to correlate money or possessions with work, and I refused to believe it. Well, a short time later, my friend’s comments proved true.

A female relative of mine came to live with me for a short time. One day when I came home from work, she asked me where everyone in the neighborhood was. She said that during the day, she would go outdoors looking for someone to talk to and no one was around. I told her that they were at work, and I asked her how she thought the neighbors could pay for their homes if they did not go to work (just as I was going to work every day). She looked at me with a confused look on her face. Up until that point (she was nearly sixty years old), she had lived in neighborhoods where everyone (including her) received some kind of government check and therefore did not work. She always had someone to shuck and jive with because everyone was at home all day long. She told me that she was bored living in my (middleclass working) neighborhood.

A male relative of mine once tried to play the guilt trip on me in order to get money from me by lamenting about how tired he was of being broke. He told me that I did not know how it felt to be broke because I have always had money. He was in his early fifties and had spent his entire adult life mostly unemployed and in and out of jail for petty crimes. I asked him: did he think that money grew on trees? I told him that I have worked all of my life for everything that I have. He walked away with his tail between his legs.

If poor blacks cannot correlate money and possessions with work, there is no wonder that they think that they are entitled to the same things as working people. Most liberal voters are immature and live in a fantasy world. They believe that everything that working people have fell from the sky, and they somehow were not around to catch some of it. Therefore, they believe that it is not fair that they do not have the same things. Is that why it is so easy for the race baiters to go into these communities and claim that the rich have stolen from them?

Many black conservatives have said that Republicans need to go into the black communities in order to win the black vote. However, my concern is with how our message of hard work will be received by individuals in these liberal bastions who have never witnessed anyone consistently going to work every day.  Liberals have inoculated these individuals against work and responsibility by continuously plying them with government handouts.

I once had a discussion with another black female friend about the unemployment history in the black inner city neighborhoods. I asked her why the blacks in these neighborhoods did not apply for jobs at the establishments that they frequent. She told me that the reason why they did not apply for jobs is that poor blacks do not think that the jobs are for them. I asked her what she meant by for them. She explained that poor blacks have been programmed to believe that jobs are only for white people and not for them, so therefore they do not apply.  I do not know how my friend came to that conclusion; however, it was not long before her statements also proved true.

A young black man was lamenting to me about the lack of job opportunities for black men in corporate America. He told me that although he had a college degree, he was unable to obtain employment. Assuming that he had been applying for jobs, I asked him where he had applied. He told me that he had not applied anywhere. I asked why had he not applied and he said that he did not fit the description that the employers were looking for. He went on to claim that society, through television and movies, portray white men in suits as successful executives, therefore, he concluded that he did not fit the description for corporate America. I will concede that there is some merit to the argument that television and movies portray white businesspersons in suits as successful; however I cannot logically understand why someone would not at least apply for jobs. If poor blacks really believe that jobs are not for them, who is it that taught them that?

Most of the things that individuals are taught comes from the culture in which they were raised, whether it be work ethic, habits, or beliefs. Growing up in the South, my parents could not afford to buy me designer clothes and shoes. After joining the military, I purchased my first pair of designer sneakers and wore them home on my first leave after boot camp and job training.  My older male cousin looked down at my sneakers and asked me what I was doing wearing them. He said that black people were not supposed to wear those type of shoes. It has been over 26 years since he made that statement and I remember it just like it was yesterday. He had been programmed by the culture that he was raised in to think that even if you have the money to purchase something, you were not supposed to have it. I often talk with successful blacks who think that they do not deserve what they have. One black male friend that lives in an affluent neighborhood told me that when he and his family are walking around in the town center, he feels that he is not supposed to be there.

Until the black community looks inward to solve its problems, nothing will change. Many problems in the black community are the result of a self-imposed inferiority complex. That is why it infuriates me so much to hear race baiters telling poor blacks that they are victims. The victim mindset causes complacency and impotence of action in an individual. One reason that the black community has regressed instead of progressed is due to the victim mindset that has caused cognitive blindness and mental paralysis. Blacks cannot continue to blame society for how blacks Americans are perceived.  The black community must examine its culture and its effect on the lives of the individuals in the black community.

Patricia blogs at Christian Commentary (http://patriciascornerblog.com), or contact the author at dicksonpat@sky.com. Follow me on twitter@Patrici5767099.

Monday, September 22, 2014

The US Ponzi Economy (ZeroHedge.com)

 

 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/21/2014 17:21 -0400

When the most persistent, most aggressive, and most sizeable actions of policymakers are those that discourage saving, promote debt-financed consumption, and encourage the diversion of scarce savings to yield-seeking financial speculation rather than productive investment, the backbone that supports a rising standard of living is broken.

...

Meanwhile, financial repression by the Federal Reserve has held interest rates at zero, discouraging savings while encouraging and enabling households to go more deeply into debt. Various forms of deficit-financed government assistance and unemployment compensation have also been used to make up the shortfall, allowing consumption, and by extension, corporate revenues and profits, to be sustained. As long-term economic prospects have deteriorated, the illusion of prosperity has been maintained through soaring indebtedness, coupled with yield-seeking speculation in risky assets that has repeatedly (albeit not always immediately) been followed by crashes throughout history

The U.S. Ponzi Economy is one where domestic workers are underemployed and consume beyond their means, household and government debt make up the shortfall, corporate profits expand to a record share of GDP as competitive pressures are reduced and cheap goods and labor are outsourced, corporations both accumulate the debt of other companies and issue new debt of their own, primarily to repurchase their own shares at escalating valuations, our trading partners (particularly China and Japan) become our largest creditors and accumulate trillions of dollars of claims that can effectively be traded for U.S. property and future output, Fed policy encourages the yield-seeking diversion of scarce savings toward speculation in risky securities, and as with every Ponzi scheme, everyone is happy as long as nobody seeks to be repaid.

Buybacks are not a return of capital to shareholders – they are partly a leveraged speculation on shareholder’s behalf, partly a strategy to enhance per-share earnings by reducing share count, and partly a way to reduce the dilution from stock-based compensation to corporate insiders. Moreover, repurchases move in tandem with corporate debt issuance, which is another way of saying that the history of stock buybacks is one of companies using debt to buy their stock at overvalued prices.

Keep in mind also that corporate share repurchases have no tendency to concentrate at points of depressed valuation, and but have instead been most aggressive at points that have historically represented severe overvaluation.

*  *  *

An important note on the equity markets

We’re observing a continued deterioration in market internals at extremely elevated valuations, much as we observed in July 2007 (see Market Internals Go Negative). Credit spreads have widened in recent weeks, breadth has deteriorated (resulting in weakness among the average stock despite marginal new highs in several major indices), and downside leadership is also increasing. As a small example that illustrates the larger point, despite the marginal new high in the S&P 500 last week, the NYSE showed more declines than advances, and nearly as many new 52-week lows as new 52-week highs. About half of all equities traded on the Nasdaq are already down 20% from their 52-week highs and below their 200-day averages. Small cap stocks have also weakened considerably relative to the S&P 500.

Indeed, though it’s not a signal that factors into our own measures of market internals (and we also wouldn’t put much weight on it in the absence of deterioration in our own measures), it’s interesting that Friday also produced a “Hindenburg” signal as a result of that lack of internal uniformity: both new highs and new lows exceeded 2.5% of issues traded, the S&P 500 was above its 10-week average, and breadth as measured by advance-decline line is deteriorating.

One can certainly wait for greater internal deterioration before raising concerns, but my impression is that this confirmation is likely to emerge in the form of a steep, abrupt initial decline (which we call an “air pocket”). That isn’t a forecast, but an observation based on prior instances of deteriorating uniformity following extended overvalued, overbought, overbullish periods. This time may be different. Needless to say, we aren’t counting on that.

The chart below shows the cumulative NYSE advance-decline line (red) versus the S&P 500.

While the divergence is not profound, similar and broader divergences are appearing across a wide range of asset classes and security types, and it’s the uniformity of those divergences – not simply the extent – that contains information that suggests that investor risk preferences are subtly shifting toward risk aversion.

h/t A.N.

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Friday, September 19, 2014

Which is worse? (Freerepublic.com)

To: Kaslin
NBA vs NFL
  • 36 have been accused of spousal abuse
  • 7 have been arrested for fraud
  • 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
  • 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
  • 3 have done time for assault
  • 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
  • 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
  • 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
  • 21 currently are defendants in lawsuits and
  • 84 have been arrested for drunk driving.
Can you guess which organization this is?
Is it the NBA or NFL?

highlight between here > Neither, it’s the 535 members of the United States Congress. < and here for the answer.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Educational 'Reforms' Are Crushing Our People (americanthinker.com)

 

By E. Jeffrey Ludwig

We see social engineering now at the center of all educational reform.  Whether at the local level or, as is now more and more the case, at the federal level (Race to the Top moneys to support Common Core), the meta-purpose is a new social engineering whereby the individual teacher, the individual student, or even the individual principal is moved away from center stage.

Systemic reorganization of educational institutions pretends to have as its highest goal "efficiency," where students move smoothly toward their goals without setbacks, failures, or unnerving attacks on their self-esteem.  A new meta-control by the master puppeteers of management infrastructure working alongside software curriculum creators is the basis for a new partnership.  The roles of individual actors within the schools – student, counselor, teacher, or even principal – become supporting cast, so to speak, for the overarching goals set by this partnership.

Even the widespread use of technology to provide the students with computers and new software to facilitate learning, while useful, merely creates an appearance of structure over a dumbing down and settling into mediocrity or worse: total contempt for and disintegration of learning and mental process for the vast majority of people.  The individual student does not have to think; rather, the program he or she is using takes him or her step-by-step, inexorably to the correct answer.  This serves the agenda of the master puppeteers mentioned above.  They will tighten their controls and the dependence of others who are struggling in the schools.

Controversy over implementation is superficial and tends to obscure the totalitarian impulse behind their machinations.  For example, Michael Bloomberg and William “Bill” de Blasio are successive mayors of New York City.  Both are statists.  Both believe that the government should organize most facets of human experience and suppress individualism in the schools and other segments of society.  Both want to dumb down the schools in the context of a gung-ho spirit of reform.  There is to be an illusion of progress and success despite an ongoing downgrading and dilution of educational achievement and motivation.

The weaknesses, failures, and ultimately the path of doom that we find in education has not been and cannot be remediated by the measures of so-called reform taken during the past twenty-five to forty years, of which Common Core(CCSS) is only the most recent.  Before Common Core, we had No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  Before that, we had outcomes-based programs combined with school-to-work paradigms.  All these schemes resulted in an unprecedented influx of federal money into state education systems.

Under Common Core, state and local control is compromised as never before.  Standardized testing across the curricula is establishing new standardized goals and norms for curricular content.  New teacher evaluation frameworks à la Danielson and others are being implemented nationwide, with an unsurprising similarity of criteria for determining teacher effectiveness.  Extending the length of the school day or the number of years the youth spend in school is standard in the national mantra of “reform.”

Common Core State Standards has followed No Child Left Behind as the central federal initiative in education.  But unlike NCLB, Common Core was not instated by legislation to be reviewed by our representatives with a response from the public, but as a fait accompli imposed on the public by a vast strategy implemented by government bureaucrats concentrated in the U.S. Dept. of Education, NGOs (that have a stake in consulting, providing curricula, and analyzing test composition and results), software developers of educational software, and educational book publishers (often participating in corporate conglomerates with the software developers).

Additionally, schools have become one-stop social agencies in many cases, with clinics to deal with mental and physical health problems, pregnancy and abortion counseling centers, and social and emotional learning (SEL) programs to teach more primitive personalities the meaning of the Golden Rule.  Thus, in loco parentis has given way to the reverse formula, where families are called upon to support the mission of the schools instead of schools supporting the mission of the family.

Disruptive behavior in the schools has increased exponentially during the past 30 years.  Testing is often an alternative to education rather than simply a part of the educational process – questions are created and scored in order to assure certain outcomes (i.e., percentages who will pass).  The teachers’ grade books have become publicly available (typically, all grades have to be published on the internet using programs like Skedula or Pupil Path), thereby undermining some of the teachers' authority and control.  Teachers have been reduced to being “facilitators.”  This is the new “f-word” to describe the essence of the teacher’s role.

The teacher as authority and the student knowing his or her place in the universe have been partially invalidated.  The teacher as friend, mentor, and big brother or sister is increasingly perceived as the most desirable interpersonal model.  A more reserved relatedness of teacher to student has given way to the “new informality" (a "give me five" mentality).  Grade inflation to gratify the endless demand for self-esteem-building is seen as encouragement rather than self-seeking deception.  Goals like making a living or rising to new standards of excellence are downgraded in favor of an enhanced "sense of self."

These many “meta-changes” are being embraced by the entire spectrum of political positions; both red and blue states have accepted the premises and goals of NCLB and CCSS, with only a few exceptions.  Yet I would propose that these reforms or “irreversible changes” are exercises in futility, and could possibly lead to the mental and physical enslavement of the population instead of leading to, as Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned, a thoughtful and responsible democratic citizenry.  Ultimately, the changes taking place in education have evolved from a leftist/statist/fascistic worldview – a totalitarian impulse.  The pre-eminence of systemic thinking as opposed to focus upon the individual student and teacher – i.e., the classroom – for reform and improvement tends in the direction of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  It seems a barren vision of a vast army of clones and drones satisfied with their ignorance and lockstep conformity.  Further, it betrays the federalism enshrined in the Tenth Amendment of our Constitution.  And it attempts to replace an ideal of individual freedom before a just God with the ideal of collective rights before an all-knowing government.

The public schools are making guinea pigs of our children.  It is amazing to this writer that the outcomes are not even worse than they are.  But the definite lines of hope for education are fading fast; an era of extreme educational decline is coming upon us unless we begin to retrench four decades of reform and get back to some basic ideas, principles, information, and goals that we have lost sight of.  Knowledge, rationality, and compassion based on Judeo-Christian values must be reaffirmed as the determinative values of education going forward.

Jeff Ludwig has taught at Harvard, Penn State, Juniata College, CUNY, and for 21 years in the New York Public High Schools.  His latest book, The Catastrophic Decline of America’s High Schools:  New York City Schools, A Case Study, will be out later this year or early 2015.

We see social engineering now at the center of all educational reform.  Whether at the local level or, as is now more and more the case, at the federal level (Race to the Top moneys to support Common Core), the meta-purpose is a new social engineering whereby the individual teacher, the individual student, or even the individual principal is moved away from center stage.

Systemic reorganization of educational institutions pretends to have as its highest goal "efficiency," where students move smoothly toward their goals without setbacks, failures, or unnerving attacks on their self-esteem.  A new meta-control by the master puppeteers of management infrastructure working alongside software curriculum creators is the basis for a new partnership.  The roles of individual actors within the schools – student, counselor, teacher, or even principal – become supporting cast, so to speak, for the overarching goals set by this partnership.

Even the widespread use of technology to provide the students with computers and new software to facilitate learning, while useful, merely creates an appearance of structure over a dumbing down and settling into mediocrity or worse: total contempt for and disintegration of learning and mental process for the vast majority of people.  The individual student does not have to think; rather, the program he or she is using takes him or her step-by-step, inexorably to the correct answer.  This serves the agenda of the master puppeteers mentioned above.  They will tighten their controls and the dependence of others who are struggling in the schools.

Controversy over implementation is superficial and tends to obscure the totalitarian impulse behind their machinations.  For example, Michael Bloomberg and William “Bill” de Blasio are successive mayors of New York City.  Both are statists.  Both believe that the government should organize most facets of human experience and suppress individualism in the schools and other segments of society.  Both want to dumb down the schools in the context of a gung-ho spirit of reform.  There is to be an illusion of progress and success despite an ongoing downgrading and dilution of educational achievement and motivation.

The weaknesses, failures, and ultimately the path of doom that we find in education has not been and cannot be remediated by the measures of so-called reform taken during the past twenty-five to forty years, of which Common Core(CCSS) is only the most recent.  Before Common Core, we had No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  Before that, we had outcomes-based programs combined with school-to-work paradigms.  All these schemes resulted in an unprecedented influx of federal money into state education systems.

Under Common Core, state and local control is compromised as never before.  Standardized testing across the curricula is establishing new standardized goals and norms for curricular content.  New teacher evaluation frameworks à la Danielson and others are being implemented nationwide, with an unsurprising similarity of criteria for determining teacher effectiveness.  Extending the length of the school day or the number of years the youth spend in school is standard in the national mantra of “reform.”

Common Core State Standards has followed No Child Left Behind as the central federal initiative in education.  But unlike NCLB, Common Core was not instated by legislation to be reviewed by our representatives with a response from the public, but as a fait accompli imposed on the public by a vast strategy implemented by government bureaucrats concentrated in the U.S. Dept. of Education, NGOs (that have a stake in consulting, providing curricula, and analyzing test composition and results), software developers of educational software, and educational book publishers (often participating in corporate conglomerates with the software developers).

Additionally, schools have become one-stop social agencies in many cases, with clinics to deal with mental and physical health problems, pregnancy and abortion counseling centers, and social and emotional learning (SEL) programs to teach more primitive personalities the meaning of the Golden Rule.  Thus, in loco parentis has given way to the reverse formula, where families are called upon to support the mission of the schools instead of schools supporting the mission of the family.

Disruptive behavior in the schools has increased exponentially during the past 30 years.  Testing is often an alternative to education rather than simply a part of the educational process – questions are created and scored in order to assure certain outcomes (i.e., percentages who will pass).  The teachers’ grade books have become publicly available (typically, all grades have to be published on the internet using programs like Skedula or Pupil Path), thereby undermining some of the teachers' authority and control.  Teachers have been reduced to being “facilitators.”  This is the new “f-word” to describe the essence of the teacher’s role.

The teacher as authority and the student knowing his or her place in the universe have been partially invalidated.  The teacher as friend, mentor, and big brother or sister is increasingly perceived as the most desirable interpersonal model.  A more reserved relatedness of teacher to student has given way to the “new informality" (a "give me five" mentality).  Grade inflation to gratify the endless demand for self-esteem-building is seen as encouragement rather than self-seeking deception.  Goals like making a living or rising to new standards of excellence are downgraded in favor of an enhanced "sense of self."

These many “meta-changes” are being embraced by the entire spectrum of political positions; both red and blue states have accepted the premises and goals of NCLB and CCSS, with only a few exceptions.  Yet I would propose that these reforms or “irreversible changes” are exercises in futility, and could possibly lead to the mental and physical enslavement of the population instead of leading to, as Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned, a thoughtful and responsible democratic citizenry.  Ultimately, the changes taking place in education have evolved from a leftist/statist/fascistic worldview – a totalitarian impulse.  The pre-eminence of systemic thinking as opposed to focus upon the individual student and teacher – i.e., the classroom – for reform and improvement tends in the direction of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  It seems a barren vision of a vast army of clones and drones satisfied with their ignorance and lockstep conformity.  Further, it betrays the federalism enshrined in the Tenth Amendment of our Constitution.  And it attempts to replace an ideal of individual freedom before a just God with the ideal of collective rights before an all-knowing government.

The public schools are making guinea pigs of our children.  It is amazing to this writer that the outcomes are not even worse than they are.  But the definite lines of hope for education are fading fast; an era of extreme educational decline is coming upon us unless we begin to retrench four decades of reform and get back to some basic ideas, principles, information, and goals that we have lost sight of.  Knowledge, rationality, and compassion based on Judeo-Christian values must be reaffirmed as the determinative values of education going forward.

Jeff Ludwig has taught at Harvard, Penn State, Juniata College, CUNY, and for 21 years in the New York Public High Schools.  His latest book, The Catastrophic Decline of America’s High Schools:  New York City Schools, A Case Study, will be out later this year or early 2015.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

11 Ways You Know You Live In A Country Run By Idiots


Zero Hedge ^ | 9/92014 | Tyler Durden

Posted on ‎9‎/‎9‎/‎2014‎ ‎4‎:‎36‎:‎19‎ ‎PM by VA Voter

1. If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally, you live in a country run by idiots.

2. If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion, you live in a country run by idiots.

3. If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor or check out a library book, but not to vote on who runs the government, you live in a country run by idiots.

4. If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy leaders in Egypt, you live in a country run by idiots.

5. If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat, you live in a country run by idiots.

6. If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched, you live in a country run by idiots.

7. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more, you live in a country run by idiots.

8. If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of grade school for saying his teacher’s “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, you live in a country run by idiots.

9. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing and free cell phones, you live in a country run by idiots.

10. If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working, with 99 weeks of unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can’t find work, you live in a country run by idiots.

11. If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government, you live in a country run by idiots.