Six Dangerous Miseducation Lessons You Should Unlearn Immediately

by Todd Walker

Schools teach many things. These dangerous lessons may not be explicitly taught, but they are definitely ‘caught’ by every student – even parents. Good or bad depends which side of the desk you’re on.

As an insider, I’m giving you my top six most dangerous lessons that need to be destroyed before the coming chaos. Before sending me angry comments that this is just another teacher bash session, honestly explore the list with your school aged children or grandchildren at the dinner table. You may be convinced, if they’re allowed to talk freely. As I’ve said before many times, I work with some of the most dedicated, selfless, and knowledgable teachers who aren’t allowed to do the job they are passionate about – to teach.

Ready to be un-schooled? Warning: Unlearning these lessons carry a heavy price tag. But the freedom you discover is priceless.

A.) The Powers That Be knows what’s best for you. Questioning authority – or even worse – resisting TPTB will land you in the re-education compliance camp. Once labeled and drugged, your status and future path is set. Your child knows some of the system’s victims. Just ask.

B.) Learning only takes place in the classroom. Just ask TPTB. Students are taught inside the box. Some teachers encourage outside-the-box thinking. The problem with thinking outside the box is that students don’t have time to even explore the edges. Every minute of their day is planned and spoken for. Even after the last blaring dismissal bell screams, schooling follows them to their bedroom. Homework eats the remains of the day. Forget playing outside (some kids still do that, right?), stomping through mud to the creek to observe crawdads and tadpoles, or reading a book of her choosing for pleasure.

Discovery is replaced with memorizing facts from revisionist historians. We teachers correct ‘wrong thinking’. Constant correcting teaches the student to be dependent on us – the “experts”. Critical thinking dies.

C.) Going to college is your only hope of elevating your worth. TPTB plaster school walls with posters comparing different levels of ‘education’ with earning potential. Why all the one-size-fits-all college propaganda? Our rulers need more debt slaves.

Here’s my advice. If you’re in college now, drop out. If you’re 18, you probably have no idea what you want to do with your life. Don’t buy the lie that you’ll get left behind if you don’t go to college. College will not teach you real world skills. You learn that doing what interests you in the real world. College is pure theoretical. I’ve worked in different fields over my life and have found nothing beats the school of hard knocks. What I learned in college was that I had to perform to get a permission slip to teach kids. It’s a hoop I jumped through. Letters behind our names does NOT qualify us to teach your children.

Alternatives to college until you figure out what you want to do…

• Start a business. Become a producer.
• Travel. Save all your money – you’ve got a job, right – while living in your mom’s basement. Explore places you’ve always wanted to see. Pay attention to the local culture. Ask lots of questions. Take notes in your travel journal. Maybe even self-publish it.
• Volunteer. Not because someone says it’s the ‘right’ thing to do. Go help feed hungry people, build shelters, or work the local farmers market – for free. You’ve got low overhead living in your mom’s basement remember. This may not be your career path, but giving without expecting anything in return will expand your horizons, make you thankful, and even make connections for later life. It’s an antidote for self-absorbed navel-gazing.
• Self-educate. Take your education into your own hands. Figure it out. Teach yourself to play an instrument, write computer code, or draw.
• Work in a trade, find a skilled tradesman and become his/her apprentice. Contrary to what you’ve been told by your high school guidance counselor, you don’t start at the top – at least not in the real world.

D.) High Stakes Testing measures your future contributions to the collective. The dirty little secret about state standardized tests is that if your child ‘met the standard’ (passes a subject with a score of 800), little Susie only got 50% of the test questions right. And the parents breathe a sigh of relief and throw a pizza party for kids that score a 50. What kids learn is that vomiting facts and test taking skills are all answer-centered. Problem solving is not taught. It’s hard to when schooling institution’s accreditation (Federal and State money) is on the line. Right answers pay off for good students – the State gets especially giddy. Welcome to Answerland.

Kids in school seem to use a fairly consistent strategy…it is answer-centred rather than problem-centred…

— John Holt – from ‘How Children Fail‘

The ridiculous amount of energy, time, and money spent on High Stakes Testing has kids walking blindfolded into a train tunnel – with their parents cheering them on. These tests do not measure true value.

E.) We own you. Nothing about forced schooling teaches self-ownership. On the contrary, we (the State Collective) dictate what students need to learn, how to dress,  what to eat, when to talk, how to obey, how to think, and that you don’t own yourself. You have no right to privacy. We can search you and your possessions without cause anytime. You are under constant surveillance. Even that picture your first grader drew, or the app your high schooler created is fair game in one school district in Maryland. I’m sure this will be a catchy trend. The lesson: You belong to the State.

F.) Learning is separate from living. Some things in life should be dropped. Schooling is one of them. Compulsory schooling is a type of child abuse. Yes, I just went there. Every child that enters school at age 5 will have his or her creativity, curiosity, confidence, individualism, playfulness, independence, intuition, and self-reliance crushed under the school steamroller. It’s painful, but these poor lumps of clay have to be molded into what the State thinks they should be.

What passes for ‘education’ today promotes fear of making mistakes, fear of failing, constant pursuit of everybody-is-a-winner awards (Student of the Month bumper stickers and gold stars, for instance), and conforming to the collective. We group students according to age. They spend their most formative years never exposed to adults or other children outside their age bracket. They are now dependent on the one ‘expert’ standing in front of them to gain all the knowledge they need. Sure, we’ll invite an occasional guest into talk about their job in the real world. But that’s far enough. These commoners don’t possess the credentials to ‘teach’ kids – anything.

If you’re curious, here’s a list of people who quit being schooled and ended up doing something with their lives.

• William Faulkner – dropped out of high school
• Walt Disney – high school drop out
• Wilber and Orville Wright – never graduated. They tinkered with things.
• Richard Branson – Branson’s dyslexia caused him a great deal of trouble as a student, so when he was 16 he left school to go into business for himself.
• Thomas Edison – Dropped out of school to be taught at home – over 1,000 patents followed.
• Albert Einstein – Dropped out at age 15. He later went back to get a diploma so he could enter the university. He failed the entrance exam twice.
• Colonel Harland Sanders founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken dropped out of elementary school.

If you’ve attended, or you have children in public schools, the chances are very high you need to unlearn these dangerous lessons. Un-schooling your mind is your first step in becoming prepared.

I have hope and confidence in the human spirit. Once freed, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.

Feel free to share your miseducated lessons in the comments.

Follow me on Twitter for the latest on our journey to self-reliance, preparedness, and resilient living: @SurvivalSherpa

 

 

A Warning for Prepared Parents About Public Schooling

by Todd Walker

“I’m selling my baseball cards.”

English: The famous Honus Wagner T206 card, circa 1910. Français : La célèbre carte de baseball T206 Honus Wagner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If only I owned this card

Dirt Road Girl was shocked.  She’s witnessed me lugging storage boxes from attic to shop to moving trucks for years.  They were my “precious”.  They ranged from the 1970’s to 2002.

Can’t remember when the hologram cards came out, but I never really liked them much. I bet they would have looked cool in my bicycle spokes growing up.  A hologram is “an image of technically sophisticated refraction purporting to be a solid due to its 3-D appearance.”  Another definition is “a document falsely representing itself as an accurate metaphor.”

English: “Aleph 2 (8X10 in.)” Hologram by Eric Leiser (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What we have in American schools is a hologram of education.  If schools were one of those fancy hologram baseball cards, you could hold it up at the right angle and the light would reflect to make schools appear to be solid institutions of leaning.  Only the slightest twist of the wrist changes the image into a new look.  Kind of like schools today.

This sophisticated refraction we call education, at its roots, is nothing more than the machine of the State to maintain obedience, submission, and supremacy.  The State is concerned about the education of children to the extent that VBCs (victims by choice) of government schooling become useful servants to their government and industry. I’ll be tarred and feathered at the lunch table when I come off Christmas break.

The governing intellectual elite hoodwinked the commoner and forced their will at the expense of the individual.  Taxes on the citizens were levied to maintain public schools as a tool of government whose purpose was to create an atmosphere of respect for America’s institutions.  Government schools eventually became an essential institution for the new experiment called America.  If they couldn’t control the liberty-minded adults that helped forge this republic, Uncle Sugar decided to use the force of government to indoctrinate their children.  Feel the creepiness up your spine yet?

Aristotle said, “All who have meditated on the act of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”  The State is very concerned about your children.  Children belong to the State.  Parents are guardians to simply provide food, clothing and shelter similar to slave quarters of old.  Don’t believe me?  Try resisting.

Let’s stroll through one case of resisting law.

The idea of the judicial branch of our government balancing justice gives us warm-fuzzy feelings.  Reality, if you’re able to stomach it, paints another picture.  If you resist the State Compulsory Attendance Law on the basis it violates your natural rights as an individual to raise and educate your children in the way you see fit, you’ll be pursued and prosecuted – not for your beliefs, but for contempt of the law or court.  The State has little patience for  contumacious parents.  Just the threat of legal force to arrest is enough to bring compliance. If you’re a hard case and resist enough, the State will kill you.

The story of John Singer can be found here, and here.  Hidden at #1,909,423 on Amazon is “Death of an American: The killing of John Singer” by David Fleisher.  The ranking does not reflect the value of the story.

The Singer’s broke the “law” by refusing to subject their children to collectivist’s ideals and corrupting influence of State mandated schooling.  Charged by the State with “contempt of court” and “criminal neglect”, unsuccessful attempts were made to arrest the bandit Singer.  Singer defended himself from physical assault by the tax-feeders.  The State, hellbent on saving face, issued a “felony warrant” which allowed the hired-guns of the court to use any means necessary to bring fugitives to justice.  Deadly force is preferred.

The State’s death wish came true on the morning of January 18, 1979 when a jack-booted-thug of the State fired a blast of buckshot into the back of Singer, ending the “renegade’s” life.  The benevolent State was only interested in saving the “neglected” children.

A more recent story of State child snatchers illegally kidnapping a child who has been home schooled her entire life.   The mother won this round, but it ain’t over yet.  Child Protection Services and the State prosecutor were knocked down but not out.

Embarrassed, prosecutors are gearing up for another siege on the physically handicapped child and her family.  They used a SWAT team the first try.  Maybe they’ll just burn ’em out next time.

It’s not nice to flaunt individualism in the face of the State mafia.  “Family Court Judge Lynne Pierce told Assistant Attorney General Deborah Carley, who complained it appears the girl has never received anything other than homeschooling her entire life, she is not barred from pursuing criminal truancy charges if she feels the parents are flouting state law that required the education of children.”

How dare this mom.  She believes she has a right to make medical and educational decisions for her own child. This brave mom simply needs to be educated by past educrat elitists.

A big Hat Tip to my friend at Durable Faith for sharing this with me. Below are a few quotes taken  from Sheldon Richman’s book, Separating School & State: How To Liberate American Families.

Chapter 3: Why There Are Public Schools – Read the entire chapter here.

Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it. – Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence

As Horace Mann put it, “We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.”

For John Dewey, the mission of education was sacred: “The teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.”

William H. Seawell, professor of education at the University of Virginia, got caught in that position in 1981. He said, “Public schools promote civic rather than individual pursuits” and, “We must focus on creating citizens for the good of society.” But most startlingly, he said, “Each child belongs to the state.”

Any parent wishing to build preparedness, self-reliance, individualism, abstract thinking should take heed of the intended, but unspoken, consequences of government schooling. As John Taylor Gatto states, “the purpose of state schooling was not intellectual training but the conditioning of children “to obedience, subordination, and collective life.”

Proceed with caution my preparedness friends.

Recommended reading for prepared parents:

H/T to Durable: How Psychiatry & Modern Psychology Subvert Education, and Harm Children and Society

Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families. Book: In Separating School & State, Sheldon Richman effectively and comprehensively analyzes the failures of public schooling in America and explains the ideas and ideology behind the case for compulsory education.

Follow me on Twitter for the latest on our journey to self-reliance, preparedness, and resilient living: @SurvivalSherpa

 

Another Fine Reason To Homeschool Your Kids

Homeschooling your kids yet? No. Well here’s another great reason to get them out now – especially the boys!

Boys will be boys. They’ve been known to gnaw a slice of government school pizza into the shape of a gun and hold the lunchroom hostage. This poor second grader used a strawberry pastry to unleash a terrorist event in Maryland. 

I for one say outlaw pizza and pastries in schools. A smart business man or woman should invent a dough detector to be stationed at all school entrances. That’ll stop these mini-pastry shootings! We need more laws my friends… For the children.

School Offers Counseling for Students Troubled by Pastry-Gun Incident

by Kevin Underhill

As you know if you have been following this dramatic story unfolding in Brooklyn Park, Maryland, seven-year-old Josh Welch has been suspended for two days after he allegedly fashioned his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun.

Did I say “dramatic”? I meant “stupid.”

The elementary school that was the scene of Josh’s brutally harmless rampage sent students home Friday with a letter describing the incident as if it had actually been serious:

Dear Parents and Guardians:

I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one [was] harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.

* * *

As you are aware, the … Code of Student Conduct and appropriate consequences related to violations of the code are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook, which was sent home during the first week of school and can be found on our website, http://www.aacps.org….

If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

Pretty sure that if your children are “troubled” by another kid biting a pastry into something that looks sort of like a gun and waving said pastry around, you have already failed as a parent.

The two-day suspension indicates that the school considered this a “Level 3” violation, but exactly what part of the Code was in play is not clear. The letter suggests Josh disrupted the class, but the reference to “inappropriate gestures” involving food can only mean he was also charged with a pastry-based-weapons violation. The Code defines “other weapons” as:

Read the rest of the insanity here

Related articles

• 7-year-old suspended for alleged ‘pastry gun’ (myfox8.com)

What Constitutes a Weapon? – by a 15 Year Old Author

I received an email from Carl Watner who produces The Voluntaryrist newsletter. He has graciously agreed to allow me to reprint an article his 15-year-old son wrote ten years ago – way before our latest “lone gunman” shooting in Newtown. I’m not sure, but from the looks of his son’s writing ability, I’d bet he skipped out on the compulsory educational system know as public schooling.

Samson’s wild weapon of choice

You can view more of The Voluntarist and subscribe if you wish via mail at: Carl Watner, Box 275, Gramlnig SC 29348 or email at: voluntaryist@windstream.net

What Constitutes a Weapon?

By William Watner

What is a weapon? Does it have to be big? Sharp? Powerful? Does it have to be something you can grab? Something others can destroy? What is a weapon? A weapon can be grasped, but it also can bet ungraspable. Weapons are very useful when not used as weapons. A weapon is a tool. A sheath knife can be a very effective weapon in the hands of a trained user, and can also be used to clean deer. Almost all weapons have a double ‘existence’, guns particularly. Major Smith and the rest of the crew have been saying: your best survival tool is the one between your ears. I would like to add to that. Your best weapon is the one between your ears.

A weapon generally has the capability to destroy in some way. Therefore a baseball bat can be classified as a weapon. A golf club could be just as lethal. For that matter a cast iron tea kettle would be extremely effective at close range.

The Netherlands is a good example of where the seed of weapon confiscation has bloomed and blossomed, and where it ultimately leads. The Government of the Netherlands is asking for the voluntary turn-in of weapons (those that turn in guns don’t face risk of prosecution). This includes baseball bats, CO2 pistols, and alarm pistols (from the journal of the NRA, THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, Feb. 2001, p. 73). Where will they stop? Where can they stop? They really can’t coercively confiscate all sport items, or can they?

One of the most interesting weapons, and effective at the right time, is non-violent resistance. It is a weapon, but not a violent one. It takes more guts to stand firm than to fall back on your animal instinct to fight. It means not cooperating with what you think is wrong or evil. Which brings to mind another weapon, a very valuable weapon, one which can’t be taken away without your consent:

It is your spirit; the flame that burns within each and every one of us. This, along with your brain, constitutes the two weapons that nobody, even if they have complete power over your physical body, can steal or put out. “But can’t they kill me?”, you say. Yes, they can. But all that does is entomb your spirit in history and eternity forever. When you are dead, your spirit is even further beyond their grasp than before. Look at Jesus as an example for a spirit never caught, a flame that will never be stamped out.

As Jungle Jim said recently, there are entities in the world that are trying to dumb down our spirits and our brains. ‘They’ are trying to make our flames burn low. Instead of trying to draw up the lowest flame to the highest (which can only be done voluntarily, not coercively), ‘they’ try to beat the highest ones down to the lowest. They’ are trying to make our brains follow them, the State, unquestioningly,
and not even to think about morals or right or wrong.

So what does make a weapon? To make it short and sweet, I would say it is anything that can be used in any way against your enemy.

As the last word, my advice is: Use your body—your spirit–your brain—and whatever tools you have, to your best advantage, whatever your situation.
[This article originally appeared in THE HOMESTEADER
(No. 10, Spring 2002), published quarterly
by Major Michael Smith.]

The following boxed quote was included with William’s article:

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the minds of the oppressed.

—Steven Biko, South African Activist

How Government Schools Destroy Self-Reliance

by Todd Walker

I taught a kid one year that would get upset and start smashing his head against the institutional green walls. I was once guilty of this as well, figuratively. Banging your head against government walls will only give you a head ache and doesn’t even chip the paint. Schools in America are wildly successful in their mission. Before you stop reading, hear me out please. I base my statement on the founding principles of public (government) education. The truth, which slumbering Americans fail to realize, is that our system of forced schooling fosters dependence on the state. The confusion is intentional. Victims students are disoriented from their pre-schooled lives on their first day of schooling. Little Johnny is forced to give up interest led learning and replace it with the corrupting concept that learning only takes place by experts teaching him and 30 of his fellow captives. Some resist and hold true to their nature. We label and drug these non-conformists.

An Act of War

In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education wrote:

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.”

Reforming the system is impossible. It performs perfectly. The circling school drain sucks self-reliance and individualism down the sewer line.

Here’s how…

Tag and Track

There is no expectation of privacy in a surveillance state school. A Texas school district tracks its students every movement with microchips. Security cameras already blanket every move of students and faculty in the school house. Why track the herd with RFID chips? Follow the money. Attendance is tied to federal and state dollars to fatten the district coffers. Now government snoops can know whether your child is home playing hooky, boarding the bus, sitting on the toilet, or at that doctor’s appointment. Sadly, so can any pedophile or tech-savvy predator with a RFID reader. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. All in the name of keeping our children safe and secure.

At least they’re not implanting them … yet. Wouldn’t it be easier to just implant this device under Johnny’s skin? Don’t think for a minute that the-powers-that-be (collectivist control freaks) haven’t already contemplated it. Wearily similar to laboratory animals or livestock, students are conditioned for compliance. Made to be useful, but to whom?

The herd is conditioned to wear straightjackets built to restrict individuals for the good of the group. What if your son or granddaughter isn’t interested in algebra? Doesn’t matter. The collective knows what’s best for your children…and will force feed it to them – in 50 minute segments – on hard seats – while telling them how much they’ll need this in later life. If they’ve been taught the basics of how to read, write, and multiply, they can figure out how to cross that algebra bridge if they ever have to in real life. It’s not that difficult. The State just makes it look hard so only licensed teachers are qualified to dispense knowledge. This is only one dirty little secret in the educrat’s toolbox of lies. You have no choice but to play alone.

With a little digging you’ll also discover these myths promoted as fact…

• Passing a grade level equals education
• Life is supposed to be fair
• Learning can only takes place with State licensed teachers (arrogant monopoly)
• A diploma equals competence
• The government is here to help you
• Schools perform unconstitutional search and seizures to keep your children ‘safe’ (simple conditioning exercises for the real world)
• The pharmaceutical industry wants you healthy (mercury flu vaccines anyone?)
• Eating from the USDA Food Pyramid makes you strong, healthy, and fit
• You’re considered drug free in school if you’re popping ‘approved’ mood altering pills
• Reality TV and professional wrestling are real…and Elvis is alive!
• Individualism marks you as mentally ill
• The individual must be sacrificed for the good of the collective
• Thought I’d throw this one in for free since it’s election time… You vote matters

Resistance is futile. One contumacious student is feeling the Texas heat. “Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, said educators have ignored her pleas to respect her privacy and told her she cannot participate in school elections if she refuses to comply with the tracking program. Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that subjecting herself to constant monitoring through an RFID chip is like being branded with the ‘mark of the beast.'”

Shut up and take the mark! Quit criticizing our scheme. This is the fate of any individual in the collective’s grip.

Collective Sameness vs. Self-Reliant Individuals

Over two million families have made a logical choice to de-school their children. A few families are reading the handwriting on the institutional wall of forced educational tyranny. Our ancestors forged this country without compulsory pubic education. Somewhere on our amazing journey Americans gave our responsibility of educating our offspring to the statist gulags.

Taking responsibility for one’s learning or life is deemed irresponsible. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve heard fellow teachers, with scowled faces and rolled eyes, disparage parents who yank their students from the grip of institutional schooling to teach at home. At best, they’ll become a greeter at Wally world or ride on the back of a trash truck is the usual tone of their comments. On the other hand, I’ve also heard a few enlightened coworkers declare that their children will never attend public school. They’ve experienced the mind-numbing, creativity-killing, one-size-fits-all school setting first hand.

I work along side with some the best teachers around. I see the hard work, extra hours, and dedication in their attempts to educate. Many burn out and either leave teaching or just go through the motions to preserve some semblance of sanity. Like so many in our society, most teachers have mistakenly assumed it’s our job to educate children. The system isn’t set up to educate. It’s set up to take individuals through a meat grinder to produce homogenized humans useful to the ruling elites. As Nikita Khrushchev said,

“Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.”

Mr. Khrushchev, along with every other totalitarian dictator, placed a high value on indoctrinating young minds to create the cult of compliance.

That’s why individualism and self-reliance must be crushed for the collective to thrive. Resistance is futile!

Zero Tolerance Zone

Nanny state schools give us a glimpse into the mind of our elite rulers. Ideas are dangerous. Act on this ‘silly’ ideas of self-defense, self-ownership, healthy living, free speech, and liberty and the boot of tyranny soon stomps on your neck. Schools are no weapon zones (AKA – Victim Zones). School administrators across America must be told to never use common sense by TPTB (The Powers That Be). How else could one explain the enforcement of Zero Tolerance rules?

• A Tennessee elementary school boy was punished for waving a gun at his lunch table. No, not a real gun, wait for it…a deadly pizza gun! Administrators can’t have boys being boys. They’ve got to be melted and poured into the compliant mold. For his crime, he spent the next five days eating alone at the silent lunch table. If he chews another piece of dough into the shape of a gun and starts brandishing the pizza, he’ll get suspended. Whee, I know the parents and fellow students feel safe now!
• When did lunchroom ladies turn into the Food Gestapo? Recently, a 7th grader in California, wishing to eat something other than GMO laden lunches, brought a bottle of tea to drink with his home prepared lunch. One of the brown-shirts spotted it and alerted her superiors. They descended on the child and confiscated the contraband. The FDA label stated that the kombucha contains .5% alcohol and this violates the school Drug and Alcohol Policy. WHAT!? My fermenting homemade sauerkraut probably contains more alcohol than this stuff. Even the FDA says that it’s not an alcoholic beverage and is easily purchased by minors. Ignorance knows no bounds!
• Middle schoolers arrested for protesting dress code.
• Dropped cake leads to broken wrist and arrest of high school student and mother.

If a multitude is to be subjected to a plan, it must be militarized. If individuals are allowed a free choice, the plan is thrown into confusion. Bureaucracy, under an absolute ruler, or rulers, is necessary. – Dean Inge

The schooling scheme designed by intellectual elitist shapes individuals to be dependent on powerful others for all their wants and needs. Showing up to school is all that’s needed. With enough time and pressure, even the most self-reliant student is molded into passive objects.

Public schooling is so good, we’ve made it mandatory. Now, get on that yellow bus and be a good student (a useful consumer of collectivism).

What’s the solution? I don’t fool myself into thinking I have a solution for millions of individuals and their own self-interests. Don’t let politicians and bureaucrats fool you either. Families should do their own research, think for themselves, and come up with their own method of educating their children – and preparing for the uncertain future. Ask what’s best for you, the individual. Do you want your children to have critical thinking skills, voluntary associations, creativity, self-reliance, and self-ownership? These and much more are available to you if you search.

Class dismissed!

Keep Doing the Stuff of Self-Reliance,

Todd

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Five Reasons to Hate Alexander Hamilton

[SS Note: To get an even more in depth look at this statist Federalist, I recommend Hologram of Liberty.]

Source: GUERRILLAMERICA

By Partisan On August 19, 2012 · In Deep Thoughts

The more and more I read about Alexander Hamilton, the more and more I absolutely hate his understanding of the relationship between man and State, and the early American monetary system.  He easily was the most detrimental of all the founders to the health and long term survivability of our nation; and his ghost indeed still haunts us.

Here are five reasons why I wish he had never lived.

1. Alexander Hamilton was the original author of interventionist government programs, stimulus, and subsidies.

In France, England, and other parts of Europe, institutions exist supported by public contributions, which eminently promote agriculture and the arts; such institutions merit imitation by our government…

In matters of industry, human enterprise ought, doubtless, to be left free in the main; not fettered by too much regulation; but practical politicians know that it may be beneficially stimulated by prudent aids and encouragements on the part of the government. – Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton argued that the “general welfare clause” authorized the federal government to initiate interventionist programs aimed at providing general welfare, instead of merely promoting it (as the Constitution reads).  Hamilton was a proponent of subsidies to industry; and while I don’t blame him for wanting to encourage growth in the young, fragile American economy, I do disagree with his way of promoting it.

Hamilton’s idea was to indeed provide subsidies in manufacturing.  Jefferson, among many others, opposed this plan and argued that it would lead to favoritism.  In many ways, Hamilton’s ideas led to the Civil War as nineteenth century government policies favored the manufacturing base in the North over the agrarian South.

It’s as if Hamilton provides a platitude to the free market before saying it sucks.  I see what you’re saying, but you’re wrong.

2. Hamilton was a big government, progressive visionary.

In a 1787 speech during the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton proposed that presidents and senators should be elected for life terms.  In addition to a life term, the president would have been given an absolute veto.  Three years after the American colonists had defeated the British Empire and the king-for-life monarchy, he proposes to elect another king!

Hamilton was also the first to introduce the idea of implied powers by invoking the “necessary and proper clause”; that is, he defined Constitutional power not explicitly provided under its provisions.  In other words, Hamilton was the first to kill the US Constitution and allow it to be interpreted in ways detrimental to its intent.  Although Anti-Federalists were derided for their anti-federal views (fearing that the federal government would become a tyrannical behemoth), their worst nightmares were proved to come alive again and again, thanks in great part to Hamilton.

3. Hamilton was the father of the debt-fueled, centrally-controlled American economic and financial systems.

Hamilton’s first use of the “necessary and proper clause” was in defense to complaints over America’s first central bank, with which then-President George Washington agreed before signing into law the Bank Bill.  Hamilton had been appointed the Treasury Secretary in 1789; and in his first report to President Washington, Hamilton proposed that state debts incurred during the Revolution should be overtaken as federal debt, thereby relieving the states of that debt.  Congress approved his plan in 1790.

Hamilton also introduced targeted confiscatory taxation powers that we still see today.  Hamilton (who later started to organize the “Christian Constitutional Party”) levied taxes on farmers who sold grain whiskey, igniting the Whiskey Rebellion which started in 1791.  Some historians, including your author, believe that this was a deliberate tax to the ends of authoritarian government engaging in behavioral engineering.  Hamilton also taxed the large distillers at a lower rate, further infuriating poorer, seasonal distillers who were hit hardest as whiskey was a principle of their localized, rural economies.  The tax went uncollected and by 1792, Hamilton was openly calling for military intervention to collect the very unpopular tax.

Hamilton began publishing essays under the pseudonym Tully, calling for military action on those tax cheat farmers.  The Whiskey Rebellion became violent and resulted in deaths in only a handful of instances.  In 1794, a federal militia was sent to western Pennsylvania, where the rebellion was most popular, and the rebellion faded.  Many of the farmers fled; and of 24 that were indicted for high treason, only two were convicted.  They both were later pardoned by President Washington.  Even after this, the Whiskey Tax was difficult to collect; and oftentimes went uncollected altogether.

In separate matters, Hamilton’s first central bank paved the way for the fleecing of America we’ve seen since 1791 (except for a few brief periods of American history, namely when Andrew Jackson vetoed the charter of the Second Bank of the US in 1832).

Hamilton believed that government could steer the national economy and solve the nation’s monetary woes through tools of the central bank.  Jefferson and others argued that this was unconstitutional because it was; just as it is today, same as it ever was.

In 1795, he resigned from his post at the Treasury; and by 1799 he had been appointed a major general in the army to prepare for a war with France.  He wrote to his successor at the Treasury to draw a tax to fund the avoidable war; and argued that the US military should conquer Spanish territory if war with France should break out.

4. Thomas Jefferson hated him.

Good enough for reason number four.

5. Hamilton was the original Slick Willy.

Hamilton, married and while in office, had a three-year affair with a married woman; an event which, once made public, permanently tarnished his reputation.  It was one of the first, if not the first, sex scandal in national-level US political history.

The affair started when Mrs. Maria Reynolds, the wife of an acquaintance, had approached Hamilton and asked for money because she had presumably been poorly treated by her husband.  Hamilton, the original Slick Willy, fell for Maria’s temptation, and was later blackmailed by Mr. Reynolds who threatened to go to the press with the story.  Hamilton surprisingly continued to see Mrs. Reynolds to two years, and paid over $1000 to Mr. Reynolds to keep the story a secret.

In 1797, after a failed investigation to trap Hamilton in a separate corruption scandal, the sex scandal story came out in the press.  But if public knowledge of the affair wasn’t bad enough, Hamilton later wrote publicly, and rather salaciously:

I put a bank bill in my pocket and went to the house.  I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shown upstairs, at the head of which she met me and conducted me into a bedroom.  I took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her.  Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Have no doubt: Hamilton and his big government visions are the root cause of our problems today.

Register Your Business, Your Car, Your Gun, Your Child, Your Life, and Your … Garden?

by Karen De Coster

In the city ghettos, the police state has always resorted to giving away gift cards for athletic shoes – such as at Footlocker – in exchange for local folks turning in a gun. Then the media follows up by bragging about how many guns the program took in, without ever questioning how the program actually motivated poor people to commit crimes in order to steal a gun to turn it in and get some Air Jordans in return.

In addition to all of the gun grabs offering free prizes to criminals who steal them, there are the domestic terrorists known as ‘people with gardens.’ These are highly-suspicious folks who the government considers to be dangerous because they: (1) have a few unattended and mostly dead attempts at vegetable growing in the corner of their yard (2) grow some of their own food and actually eat it, as opposed to the subsidized-industrial staples (3) have a mega-organic, bountiful vegetable garden that sustains the family, or (4) complete the domestic terrorism profile by not only growing their own food, but then they commit the crime of preserving food long-term via the acts of canning, dehydration, fermentation, and other horrifying tactics that deny the superiority of the Monsanto-Cargill-General Mills-Tyson Foods-Archer Daniels Midland Complex.

There is a program in Utah that has an eerily similar hook to the athletic shoe scheme – register your garden and you can win a chintzy prize. The program is called the Utah Garden Challenge. You can win a prize for telling the government about your one potted tomato plant, or, god forbid, your large organic garden that borders on felonious survivalism. The Utah government wants to see how much food the people produce. The “challenge” is a data mining scam, and consequently, it is a registration disguised as a warm-and-fuzzy happy hour for good little folks who grow a cucumber and spin a hoe in the dirt every now and then.

See this YouTube; it’s legit.

Remember what happened recently in Utah, and that is described in this headline: “Lawmaker wants to criminalize enforcing federal food law.” How dare he! The heroic Senator Casey Anderson proposed this bill in response to the Fed’s totalitarian Food Safety Modernization Act that Herr Obama signed into law. According to the Tenth Amendment Center, the bill is described as clarifying:

the difference between intrastate and interstate commerce; the latter is a power delegated to the federal government, but states constitutionally retain the authority over intrastate commerce—items which are exchanged only within the state.

Do remember who the FBI considers to be suspicious (see here). And here’s a final thought on why this might occur in Utah: that state is the home of the Mormons, a group of people who embrace, practice, and teach long-term food storage, and they also embrace the entrepreneurial spirit in terms of selling their high-quality food to those domestic gardeners terrorists who like to stock up in the case of emergency (or a Shit Hits the Fan scenario). Thanks to Cathy Cuthbert for the tip.

Cold Hard Facts On Gun Bans: “The Cost Of Liberty Can Be Measured In the Loss of Life”

By Mac Slavo
August 3rd, 2012
SHTFplan.com

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.”

Thomas Jefferson

While anti-gun advocates put forth every argument under the sun for why you should not be able to own a “high capacity” magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, or that you shouldn’t be able to buy ammunition online, or that police should stop going to work until guns have been completely banned, the evidence for disarmament of law abiding citizens as a failed policy is overwhelming.

In Chicago, where guns have essentially been banned for personal defense, the murder of innocents has risen so sharply in recent months that Mayor Rahm Emanual has been left with no other option but to call on criminals to look to their morals and values to stop the carnage. Washington D.C., which bans the carrying of concealed weapons, has maintained one of the highest gun crime murder rates in the country for over three decades – since the legislation was passed in 1975. As the Washington Post notes, the disarming of local residents has been wholly ineffective noting that the “guns kept coming, and bodies kept falling.”

Read the rest here

13 Reasons Why State Educators Think I’m A Raving Lunatic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Todd Walker

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”
— Dresden James

The continued existence of the failed socialist experiment of Government schools proves the above quote.

In the circle of schooled ignorance spiraling down the toilet bowl, I’ve run across several reasons why tax-payer funded educrats hate me and other self-educated, DIY educators.  Here are a few of my “lunatic” ranting that would prevent me from rising in the ranks of the Government school factory if that was my goal, which it certainly is not:

A. The self-educated students threaten the government’s monopoly on education and control. Follow the money!

B. I don’t serve the good of the group/society.  Self-educated people tend to be very self-reliant.  They aren’t dependent on government handouts. I ask too many questions. This adds sand to the assembly line of ignorance.

C. Non-mass minded individuals are not easily manipulated. It takes too much energy and too many lies to convince liberty lovers to worship stupid State institutions.

D. DIY-educators reject blind obedience to state doctrine and embrace moral integrity and self-ownership. We take education into our own hands.

E. De-schooled students learn by exercising muscles like self-reliance, play, following their own interests, curiosity, passions, and thinking freely. The nature of Government schooling atrophies these vital muscles of learning.

F. Individuality is recognized by DIY educators.  Interest-Led learning is encouraged and not crushed by State run curriculum and standardized testing. Added bonus: No BELLS!

G. Un-schooled/home schooled students experience freedom from violence against individual rights. They surpass schooled students academically. If you’re a stat-head, check out our report card here. 15 year-old public schooled students scored below the average for advanced nations on math and science literacy.

H. DIY’ers have not forgotten the equation which should be taught in schools but is left out of the curriculum: Government = Force… and the threat of violence. As free individuals, we condemn the desire for power over other individuals.

I. Education Vigilantes recognize and embrace an individuals right to privacy. Big Sis cameras watch our every move in government schools – Except in front of the urinals…at least that’s what “they” tell us!

J. We recognize that no one, from the Department of Education, board of education, principal’s office, or even the most caring teacher, knows more about how YOU learn than YOU.  State-licensed “expert” teachers tell students what, how, when, why, and where to learn. Surely they know. They are the “experts” with the education degree(s).

K. Self-educators reject the State’s lip service to freedom and it’s crusade against ignorance. We recognize a Ponzi scheme when we see one. Institutional forced schooling is centralized control of the herd where the few control the many to create a cooperative, collective paradise. Government schooling is a social duty (a collectivist brain washing term) of all people for the sake of all people.

L. State-run schools promote the myth that the individual detracts from societal happiness. How can we have peace on earth and good will toward men with individualists in the mix? Individuals should melt into one societal glob. Education Vigilantes expose this myth at the expense of the Leviathan. Self-education can’t be controlled by the State.

M. The number one reason statist educrats hate me is: I refuse to be collectivized…being a self-reliant individualist infuriates them!

Feel free to add more reasons in the comment section.

Keep Doing the Stuff of Self-Reliance,

Todd

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Essential Principles for the Conservation of Liberty by Joel M. Skousen

I discovered Mr. Skousen’s work last year by reading “Strategic Relocation: North American Guide to Safe Places – 3rd edition“. He and his son, Andrew Skousen, offer a comprehensive guide to the safest places to relocate to in rough times. I highly recommend his work. I rate it 5-SS on my Indispensable Information Overload List of Links (IIOLOL)!

Below you’ll find the last section of a booklet from his website for your reading pleasure. I posted section 4: Self Defense and Revolution below. For the full booklet, Philosophy of Law & Government, click here.

WHY DO PEOPLE FAIL TO PRESERVE LIBERTY?

WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE SUCH A DIFFICULT TIME RECOGNIZING ITS LOSS?

In response to these difficult questions regarding the loss of liberty, I have felt compelled to author this booklet. All free men need to determine just what are the essential principles that are necessary to conserve and defend individual, family, and group liberty from the slow, cancerous destruction of socialist, collectivist, and totalitarian tendencies of man.

4:

SELF DEFENSE AND REVOLUTION

To DEFEND one’s person and property against any overt and imminent threat, and to use the minimum, appropriate force required, of the alternatives immediately available at hand, to eliminate such threat, when no immediate recourse is available to assistance or constitutional adjudication. This includes the right to defend oneself against the aggression of other persons acting unconstitutionally as a majority within a government with the intent to take assets without prior consent or otherwise deprive any person of these fundamental freedoms.

There are two inherent dangers involved in the fundamental right to self-defense. First, it must not be viewed as a total license to kill for small and petty reasons. But on the other hand, it must not be so restrictive that it forces a person to calculate a myriad of legal alternatives when he is under dangerous, threatening and uncertain circumstances.

As we discussed earlier, we join together to form governmental associations in order to enhance our capability to deter and prosecute crime, and to use large scale defensive military force when appropriate. We also place voluntary limits upon our own powers of self-defense, by deferring to the judicial process for prosecution rather than taking personal retribution and revenge. The only exception is when the threat is so imminent, dangerous, or uncertain that there is no safe opportunity to summon law enforcement officers. In such a case each person is free to rely on his fundamental right to defend himself.

Such self-defense should give every benefit of the doubt to the one who is being threatened–not the aggressor. This principle is specifically worded to not give the type of legalistic aid and comfort to criminals as is presently provided by the myriad of legal restrictions surrounding the use of “deadly force” by a citizen.

A homeowner who is threatened by physical force should be free to select the best weapon, of that which is immediately available, that HE or SHE determines is necessary to eliminate the threat. There are circumstances that may well even justify shooting a violent attacker as he is fleeing, under the very real presumption that he is likely to come back and try again. It also means that a person isn’t restricted from using fast and deadly force against an attacker simply because he cannot visibly see a weapon. In many circumstances, at dark and at night, the presence of an intruder who refuses to respond to your demands to identify himself or otherwise stop his approach warrants the use of deadly force, from as safe a distance as possible. The only weapon that is usually suitable under such criteria is a stand-off weapon, such as a handgun, which demonstrates one of the prime reasons why a citizen’s right to self-defense is severely handicapped if handguns are prohibited.

The last part of the statement expands the self-defense role from the individual threat to the more onerous threat of tyranny by improper government force, as is quite common even in our society. In essence, it defines the right of legitimate revolution against government tyranny.

Instead of reaching for a gun to go next door and rob people, when in need, people have been enticed to believe it is appropriate to “reach for their legislator” instead of the gun. The legislator, along with a majority of the other representatives, performs the violation or theft, but he does so in the name of the law and taxation. That is why social welfare laws are improper and a violation of the fundamental rights of ownership. Government asserts the power to do what the individual citizen does not have the right to do–take from the productive and give to those that claim a need. But government, like any other association of men, cannot possess greater rights than those forming the association. If individuals do not have the right to take money from another without a voluntary exchange, neither does government.

Government has the power to tax, but only under contractual circumstances where the citizens have agreed to pay for services they assign a government to perform. The power to tax should be nothing more than an extension of the individual power to contract. After receiving a contractual service, the individual can be forced to comply with the terms, meaning “pay up.” Unfortunately, we have many types of government taxes which are forced upon people who have never contracted for the service. This is improper. In fact the entire formation of a government without initial consent of all the governed is a violation of a major principle of liberty.

When sufficient violations of this nature occur, and when there is no further recourse to peaceful change, the people may well be justified in exercising their right to revolution. Usually this is only necessary when the majority of voters have begun to participate in the benefits of government theft, and refuse to repeal the improper laws, voluntarily. Only when an oppressed minority has lost, in whole or in part, its fundamental rights and there no longer remains any ability to gain redress for grievance by democratic means is it justified in disregarding the law (nullification), leaving the government (secession), resisting compliance by armed defense, and throwing the rascals out of power (by revolution).

Granted, this is a dangerous and unpleasant course, and as stated in the Declaration of Independence, should not be done for “light and transient causes.” Nevertheless, it must be universally taught and defended as the fundamental right that it is. (Such instruction of citizen’s rights should never be allowed to justify a mandatory government school system–only that it may be view as a mandatory prerequisite of understanding for each person applying for citizenship. Where and how he learns it is up to the individual, as is discussed in the area of contractual citizenship. The citizen contract is found at the end of the Constitution.