Timothy Birdnow

Here is an interesting essay arguing against improved security in public schools. While I have argued for armed teachers and for greater armed security in schools - including a neighborhood watch of armed, trained, vetted volunteers - John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute makes a good case in opposition.

From the Whitehead essay:

"Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms."

[...]
"Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police "involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

[...]

"How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?"

[...]

"As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if you want a nation of criminals, treat the citizenry like criminals.

If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons."

End excerpts.

He's right, and the ever increasing militarization of police along with the growing fascism in the Progressive movement - which means in the schools, which have become their citadels - means our children are incresingly desensitized to authoritarianism and control on the one hand, even while being taught not to control their own behavior or even their own thoughts or emotions on the other. The hallmark of modern liberalism is that you have no free will and thus whatever you feel is inherently good, and reality is what you believe it to be. This is a recipe for utter disaster.

As I've said before, liberals seek to sever man from any moral or spiritual restrictions, to remove the bonds of self governing and instead impose legal guardrails through force. You are free to act as crazy or as wreckless as you wish provided you don't go outside of the lines drawn for you. Conservatvies, on the other hand, believe in limited governemnt, limited use of law (which is the use of force acquiesced to by the lawmakers) BUT demand self control and restraint by the individual. Man is to govern himself. Children are in schools not so much to learn facts (and they aren't learning any in public schools) but to learn how to govern themselves. But modern schools are doing just the opposite, teaching children that they are animals, ruled by their passions and primal urges, without free will and with no eternnal consequences. That is why we have become so balkanized; you are a member of a given group which self-identifies. You are not a person who engages in gay sex, for instance, you are a GAY PERSON; it is your very identity and anyone who tells you you shouldn't be having sex with another of your own sex is attacking your very core. That there is zero science to back up the concept that people are born that way is irrelevant; it has become a matter of faith, a shibboleth that cannot be contradicted and so you cannot escape your fate as a gay person if you question your sexuality.

Neat trick; you have no escape from your fate because they tell you so.

That said, we do need to take steps to keep the children safe, and that requires stricter discipline. Schools have little to no discipline because of political correctness; any action taken against bad behavior is unjustifiable because nobody can know the reality of anotherperson, according to liberal moral relativism. Without being able to establish obvious examples of right and wrong (as comes from Natural Law and our Judeo-Christian heritage) we cannot give clear cut guidance to kids, and they then act according to their animal and barbaric nature. Worse, we impose a new morality which is at odds with Natural Law and Christian beliefs. It is a crime to call a boy in a dress He but it is fine to hit teachers or scream foul words.

What we really need is less public schooling. More private schools, more home schooling, less Teacher's Union education. And we need to change the culture in the public schools, which means we need to re-evaluate how we hire teachers. Obviously, the edccation major in colleges manages to promote idiots with no common sense and no moral compass. That has to change.

Case in point; many schools happily encouraged their students to ditch class to attend these marches and rallys to promote gun control. Now, why should they do that? These kids are supposed to be in school learning things, not becoming activists. The priorities are backward.

I agree we must not militarize the schools, but we likewise can't do nothing. Let's get the Federal government out of education, shall we.

That's ultimately where the blaem lies.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:44 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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